Idle mage time
 

I had a thought on this: How about a new spell "Forge Gem". Everyone gets it from the start, it only requires 1 level in the path to cast it. There is a version for each gem type. The spell creates one magical gem of the specified type.

In effect this trades one turn of mage time for one gem, something that seems ok to me. If it's too powerful make it a probability based on the paths the mage has.

Re: Idle mage time
 

So a newt, which costs 90 gold, and is sacred, and thus has 3 upkeep, can make a F gem each month, which alchemizes for 15g? Keeping in mind, of course, that alchemy is generally considered one of the WORST things you can do with gems.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Sounds overpowered honestly.

Maybe make it cost 10 gems to make 11, but even there is still is ultimately overpowered.

Now if you sacrificed the mage for a gem or two it might be balanced.

Re: Idle mage time
 

I suspect that by the time you might want to do the gem forging, you'd probably still rather have the gem than the gold.

OTOH, I guess you could set up a serious alchemy farm with fire nations if this was implemented.

OTOOH, doing that in the early game would leave you a long way behind on research.

OTOOOH, the ramp-up could be scary by mid-game.

Maybe if the spells were a high research level... and maybe if they cost 10 gems to make 11... (edit: ninja'd!:D)


I think it's potentially overpowered in the early game (and if it wasn't overpowered, you'd just research instead), and in fact in the late game - imagine if all of Pythium's or BL's S1 researchers could magically turn into clams at the player's whim!

Re: Idle mage time
 

I don't know. Seems like you'd be turning every crappy indy mage you can find into a clam of pearls/fever fetish/blood stone for whatever path they have, with the initial investment of a lab in any province that has indy mages. Sure there is gold upkeep but it still seems like it'd not be much of a good idea for balance?

Re: Idle mage time
 

I really don’t see the need for it at all - I dislike clams//bloodstones as it is, I think gem scarcity is a good thing; it keeps more focus on troops/mages.

Why would you ever have an idle mage until you've completed all research paths? The only time a mage is ever idle is if in an army and not moving for a turn, with no point in site searching. I don't think that's a situation that requires a mechanic to remove.

Re: Idle mage time
 

If you arranged this you might as well remove magic sites from the game altogether.

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Why not have it, but have it require 3 in the specific path?

I had always wondered, I mean your events say something like "The summer heat has been distilled into rubies by a young mage", things like this in the always made me feel there ought to be some way to make gems.

If the path requirements are higher, then the opportunity cost to make the gems ramps up immensely, and most indies would be incapable (mostly only a nation's best mages could do it). I see it more as a way to augment your income when you are very unlucky with sites, or to get into a path that you have no national income (and just need to generate some to start searching with).

Re: Idle mage time
 

No, I think it would totally screw up the game. The game is not meant for it to be easy to forge one's own gems.

Re: Idle mage time
 

You guys know Dominions is largely inspired by Ars Magica right? The one thing not included is vis (magic gem) creation.

If it worked like it does in Ars Magica, a magician could create magical gems just by spending time at it, and distilling magic into physical objects. Something like 1 gem / magician level in the strongest path.

As things are it would probably mess up the balance of the game totally.

Re: Idle mage time
 

If it's too powerful make it a percentage chance.

What I was looking at was once your research is done you have a lot of mages that are nearly useless, I was looking at something for them to do.

Re: Idle mage time
 

You can use them in battle, you know.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Hell once your research is done you should have gems falling out your *** anyway.

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Might be fun to have a few more Pretender chassis that are gem-producers, or can turn into gem-producers, though. Especially for some of the gems that don't have forgeable item-makers, like bloodstones, clams, or fever fetishes. I can't think of any Pretenders that make Death gems, currently. for instance-but I might be forgetting something.

Re: Idle mage time
 

There's a bit of that in CB1.3 right now. And some pretenders that used to get one or two get more. Here's the gods that were changed:

Mother of Rivers
Monolith
Oracle
Fountain of Blood
Lord of Rebirth
Son of the Sun
Lord of Plenty
Mother of Lions

Re: Idle mage time
 

Do any get death-gems? I always seem to run short on those.

Re: Idle mage time
 

In CBM, Lord of Rebirth gets death gem. Also the famous artifact The Sickle Whose Corp is Pain can reliably produce 10-30 death gems per turn if you use it right.

Re: Idle mage time
 

It always seems to me that death sites are the easiest to find. It's just that death summons and spells are so good that there is a lot of use for them! And the global Well of Misery, while prolific, is the hardest to achieve.

I really like the gem balance as is, any significant change would upset the game.

Re: Idle mage time
 

I made one death-gem-making pretender a while ago.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...light=amethist

Re: Idle mage time
 

No, I don't "know" that; in fact, this is the first time I've ever heard the two games mentioned together.

Ars Magica is obscure enough that I wouldn't be surprised if nobody at Illwinter has ever heard of it.

Re: Idle mage time
 

You mean, you wouldn't be surprised if neither of them have heard of it? :p

Anyway, I may be missing something, but considering that the term "Vis" is used to refer to magic gems in that game, and there are a couple of references to "Vis" buried in Dominions, I would not be surprised if there was some influence.

But, that's like pulling up the first game to ever mention "mana", and drawing a correlation to a newer game that uses mana - that is to say, it's a basic similarity, and doesn't necessarily extrapolate very deeply onto the game and gameplay.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Well, Ars Magica is referenced in the intro to the manual, so I guess they did draw some inspiration from it.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Gregstrom:

Like totally base magic system on Ars Magica? :)

Re: Idle mage time
 

That's interesting. Sadly I never played Ars Magica, though.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Ars Magica is one of the best RPGs out there. Especially for fans of Dominions, since it also draws on real world history and folklore.

The more familiarity you have with Ars Magica, the more the similarities between the two become apparent. It's definitely not 100% by any means, but there are some strong similarities.

Re: Idle mage time
 

Put away those sarcastic quotation marks. If I was making a guess, I would have phrased it as a guess. I know the game has AM inspiration since Kristoffer told me so.

Isn't it referred to in the manual too?

Re: Idle mage time
 

The manual does mention Ars Magic as one source of inspiration, so "partly inspired" is defensible. "Largely inspired by Ars Magica" as a justification for adding in the Ars Magica feature of mage-created gems is pushing it; it seems clear to me that gems as natural resource (vs. artificial resource a la electricity) is a deliberate feature of the Dominions magic system.

-Max

Re: Idle mage time
 

You should read a bit more about Ars Magica.


In Ars Magica, groups of mages gathered in Covenants usually located near sites of magical power. The magical resources, called Vim, were differentiated by the path they belonged to: there was Ignem(fire) Vim, Herbam (plant) Vim etc. Vim could also be found or extracted from magically powerful entities, such as dragons, or antlers of an exceptionally large, white elk, etc.
Vim could be used to create magical items, in rituals to create more powerful and/or permanent effects, or to temporarily boost the casting mage.

In Ars Magica, mages have skills they can use to cast spells. A mage skilled in Creo (create) and Ignem (fire) could light up fires and create ribbons of fire to burn his enemies, but unless he knew Perdo (destroy) he couldn't extinguish flames and unless he knew Imaginem (images, illusions) he couldn't create an illusionary fire. He could try any of these effects spontaneously, but it is quite ineffective unless he had researched a formulaic spell for the spesific effect. These researched spells could be shared between mages of the same convenant, but everyone tends to have his or her own host of personal spells.

The verb-noun pairs that formed spells were chosen from these. The nouns match pretty well into Dominions paths.

Techniques (verbs): Creo (create), Perdo (destroy), Muto (change, transform), Rego (command, control, manipulate), Intellego (perceive, understand)


Forms (nouns):
* Animal: animal bodies and minds as well as animal products
* Herbam: plants and plant products (wood etc)
--> Nature

* Auram: air (weather is Auram or Aquam, depending; think Storm and Rain in Dominions)
* Imaginem: Illusions
--> Air

* Aquam: water and liquids
* Ignem: Fire
* Terram: Earth. Included Ice in editions that would have inspired Dominions, so that was changed.
--> other elements

* Mentem: human intelligence, ghosts
* Vim: Pure magic, banishing magical creatures
--> Astral

* Corpus: human body, including healing
-- no direct comparison; Death in Dominions is more D&D-ish necromancy combined with life drain



Also, there's no mana in Ars Magica. Mages can cast as long as they don't get too tired. The easiest spells can be cast without any fatigue, but more complex spells fatigue the mage when they are completed.

Oh, and there are auras that affect areas. Areas under Magic or Fey are easier to cast in, areas under Dominion (near and especially in churches, cathedrals and basically anywhere where lots of christians gather together, like big cities) were harder to cast in, and areas under Infernal influence could be dangerous in some way I don't remember any more.

Re: Idle mage time
 

No, because I tend to think of Illwinter as three people, even though I know that KO's brother technically isn't an employee.

I completely forgot about that passing reference to AM in the intro of the manual.