Banned Spells
 

I couldn't find it anywhere as a separate mod, so I extracted it from Kingmaker mod. Credit goes to Xietor for that :) It is quite common to get that spells banned in bigger MP games.

It is very simple mod that simply disables Utterdark, Arcan Nexus, Astral Corruption and Burden of Time.


bannedspells.dm and bannedspells.tga in .zip file, in attachment

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

Would you mind uploading this to the LlamaServer Zeldor? That'd be really handy.

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

Already did it :) Even before posting it here, so didn't give a link for download, ups.

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

Thanks. I will add it to my server also.

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

I must confess lack of experience with these "bigger MP games", and am wondering why each of these spells are commonly banned? And I notice that Wish (commonly banned in Dominions 2?) isn't in this list?

On an unrelated note, I'll probably ban Wish in my mods when there's powerful summons that should cost more than 100 astral pearls... *sigh*... if only "Armageddon" and some other 'sub-spells' could still be preserved,

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

Arcane Nexus - if there are many players it can bring huge amount of S gems even on first turn, so even if it gets dispelled immediately, it's a great investment [hundreds of S gems a turn!]

Utterdark - killer of non-undead nations, unless someone has gold piled up for upkeep, he loses 90-100% of his normal armies [not commanders], also Darkness in every prov gives hude advantage to very few nations

Burden of Time - annihilates all human nations within few turns, they simply lose most [if not all] of their commanders due to old age

Astral Corruption - it costs just blood slaves, which are easy to get, and pretty much disables effective forging and spellcasting for non-blood nations

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

I am familiar with these spells in a Single Player setting. I see why Arcane Nexus can be a profitable gamble even before it is dispelled, but are the others just so inherently broken? Can't their costs simply be modified? It is not feasible to dispel them like any other magic?

What about diplomatic effects? Could the non-undead nations reasonably gang up to attack the caster of Utterdark? Was it a lost cause before Utterdark was cast, simply hastening the way for fate?

And, are thse spells more of a problem than eg, "Wish"?

Re: [mod] Banned Spells
 

They do their harm before anyone can really react. And big games mean huge amounts of gems flying around, so you can put insane amounts into some game-ending globals. And games are meant to be won on battlefield, not by pouring all gems into one global :) [Astral Corruption is probably smallest problem here and Burden of Time bigest].

Re: Banned Spells
 

Zeldor's mod is great and useful.

But Ive never been all that sure about "commonly banned" spells, equipment, nations, tactics, etc. Every so often I check and I cant really find any basis for such statements. The closest you can come to an agreement on what should not be in a game would be the CBM mod which changes many things (altho I dont think the spells Zeldor feels should be banned are in it).

The most used mod seems to be Worthy Heroes which I dont think changes any of those things.

There was a fairly commonly used mod called Kitchen Sink which did ban the 4 spells that Zeldor banned, and also made some changes to the Clams, Fever Fetish, and Bloodstone.

Re: Banned Spells
 

I think we may have some disagreement about word "commonly banned" here. I said that they are commonly banned in large games, and large games count for maybe 5% of total games. I am banning them in my game for 24 players, I agree that maybe fixing costs etc could be better, especially for Astral Corruption. Generally it is just instant fix to a bigger issue of some potencially game-breaking tactics [mostly ones that target part of nations, usually bigger one, and cannot be resisted by any means, while that nations don't have a similar way to retaliate].

Re: Banned Spells
 

Just going to chime in, since I like to do so. :p

The banning, in my observation, certainly only tends to happen at a threshhold of 20+ players. Kingmaker was a tremendous example, I was trying to explain to my roommate that if cast at the appropriate time, an Arcane Nexus could theoretically garner ~1000 pearls by the time it is dispelled, so then if recast with 999 will become almost effectively undispellable, and if it IS pulling in ~500 pearls per turn, for example, then that is an absolutely staggering amount of power, that destabilizes the entire game. Ultimately I believe in the potential for destabilization, but since there is only one avenue to achieve that level of power, it is blatantly unfair to everyone who didn't take an S9 pretender.

I do think it would be best if Armageddon were disallowed as well. Unfortunately, it's anonymous, so it has to be on the honor system, or Wish removed entirely, which is a tough paradox because many nations have little access to SCs, and especially in a larger game, the uniques (elemental royalty, etc etc) will be gobbled up fast, so you really are left with Tartarians, and wished Seraphs/Chayots/etc. So removing Wish would not only interfere with the full benefit of even taking an S9 pretender, but would also lead to crippling some nations' late game strategies.

Re: Banned Spells
 

You just have to be fast - go get artifacts, elemental royalty, tartarians and add some blood unique summons to that :)

But yeah, I guess no one assumed someone will wish for Armageddon. And pretty much everyone capable of casting it denied doing so :)

Re: Banned Spells
 

yea the only nation that burden of time really helps that i can see if LA Ermor. If Ermor can get Utterdark And Burden of time up the game is over or it will end very fast unless someone can dispel it.

Re: Banned Spells
 

I'm still fairly new to this game, I think all is fair in love and war. I'm getting destroyed by letting other players have these spells. That being said, I hope to do these things in the future to others. So I don't believe in banning spells at all. I will look at the capabilities of others and form coalitions against them accordingly. Afraid of Utterdark? Kill Ermor. Heck everyone in a game will agree to this. Except Ermor of course. Its called "kick the leader" in the many parlor games I play. :D

PS. Except when Ermore is my ally.:D

Re: Banned Spells
 

I think that there are a few other nations that, if not exactly benefiting, would at least have fewer problems with BoT. Atlantis for instance has pretty long lived commanders, and LA has native D magic. Human nations though have definite issues.

Re: Banned Spells
 

It might be interesting to summon a bunch of dai oni and cast it with jomon... all your sorcerors will die, but they're primarily researchers anyway. Plus dai oni are long-lived and regenerate bodies. And are demons so they can see in the dark. I wouldn't suggest doing it while ermor was alive though.

Re: Banned Spells
 

I guess Pangaea would be okay since their soldiers can heal afflictions and regenerate.

Re: Banned Spells
 

JimMorrison: Now that we have access to the Unique mod tag, there's an opportunity to create a bunch of unique SC chassis, and add them in as very high level SCs. We've already had a thread about new late-game SCs that could be added, so there's definitely some ideas there.

Maybe that thread could be resurrected?

That could then replace Wish, with the added benefit of allowing such SCs to pop up under every path, not just Astral.

Re: Banned Spells
 

We could already do unique monsters using copystats.

Re: Banned Spells
 

You could, but it's nicer to just have the tag.

Re: Banned Spells
 

Actually, if a bunch of decent SC chassis were opened up to the different schools, it would have some very wide reaching effects -

-More diversity beyond Tartarians, Seraphs, and Royalty

-Less reliance on Astral (and Death) for late game

-The ability to deactivate Wish entirely for large games

-More versatility and usability of major blesses - all paths could have some SC access


I think they shouldn't all be unique, though. Maybe the really awesome ones could be unique, but the slightly weaker picks could be multi-cast. Can we make multiple uniques to cast from one spell? Like the 6 Arch Devils and 5 Ice Devils? Having some sort of limit that is higher than 1, could be ideal. Just thinking if 30 nations survive to the "late game", it would be nice if they all had a reasonable chance at something they could make use of in the SC role, or at least access to affordable thugs of some kind - something on a similar level of power as the Bane Lord or Gargoyle that can come to good use.

Re: Banned Spells
 

If I could make a small suggestion Zeldor about these banned spells.

Instead of banning them, replace them?

So for example utterdark, boT really do benefit a handful of nations. So to compensate, change the level of utter dark and change the spell effect - so perhaps it becomes a cloud of darkness lasting 3 rounds on the battlefield.

Perhaps Burden of Time could be changed to to a BE - with a decay all units effect.....

Re: Banned Spells
 

I like the spell 'Utterdark' too, and some of my mod Nations anticipate it. I'd personally rather see it kept. Maybe it could be an effect that lasted perhaps 3 turns duration, but that would have to be cast over and over to maintain, draining death gems and mage time?

Re: Banned Spells
 

I think that changing the spell would change the purpose of the mod.
At the moment its a quick and easy way to take a spell from an MP game. But if it modifies the spells then people would have to agree with the modifications. I think that would be more in the area of a discussion for the CBM mod.

Re: Banned Spells
 

You're probably right about that, Gandalf.

JimMorrison: How about 12 unique SC chassis based on the Zodiac? They could all be powerful Astral mages, with lesser power in their elemental signs, and possess etherialness and greater strength in darkness (to help against Utterdark). In addition, they could have Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter strength, to represent their yearly trek across the heavens. Admittedly, it doesn't get away from astral magic, but they could be astral + elemental summons, which would help, and it would atleast get away from Seraphs, Tarts, and Royalty.

Re: Banned Spells
 

Seems like many of these spells become unbalanced for large games. Perhaps if in a future version of Dominions 3, certain world-effect spells like Utterdark cost gems in proportion to the size of the world (number of provinces)...