Re: Water Magic
Vicious Love:
Global Haze: Now I’m curious. What would you consider a fair bonus for the 50-point global? A +2 morale bonus? Something else? Enquiring minds want to know!
Astral vs. Water: I certainly agree with you on this. Astral thematically is the dominant path and that needs to be protected. But I would like to see a sea nation that can successfully stray from the Astral/Water combination.
Acid Spells: I was wondering if something like that might be the case. Just thought I’d raise the question. If the effects would be as significant as you say, then these should probably be left alone. You do tempt me to go back and play with those spells some more, though.
MP Question: Your thoughts mirror mine. I was hoping to get some concrete numbers to promote a rational discussion of the point. Exchanging opinions is interesting, but at some point data is needed to anchor things.
Deccan:
Doh! Yes, it is blood slaves, not astral gems. My bad. Thanks for the catch.
The extreme effects of the Curse of Atlantis spell stem from the nature of the event itself. It sinks a whole province. The game effects flow from the basic event. Would you have the PD continue to operate after the province is underwater? Ergo, the PD is reduced to 0. The event caused by the spell is supposed to be a more extreme disaster than those created by current spells—and the caster should be paying accordingly.
Let’s look at your notes:
Best Province Disaster:
Spell: CoA vs. Black Death
Path: W7 vs. D5
Gems: 150 vs. 15
Death 80% vs. 50% population loss
Unrest:200% vs.9%
Afflict 1-4 vs. --
Are you getting 10 times the punch from CoA? Not in terms of population death, though maybe in unrest, which repairs itself much faster than population.
Best Army Destroyer: No worse than invading the sea under Thetis’s Blessing and having it dispelled out from underneath you. But there’s certainly room in the nerf toolbox to soften that 100% loss of airbreathers. See below.
Best Unrest Spell: Looks to me like the unrest effects, as written previously, bite the sea player a lot harder than the land player. However, the peripheral unrests could certainly go away—I’m sure they would be somewhat tricky to code—I can’t think of any similar effect in Dominions 2.
-I must admit that in doing the 200% unrest, I was thinking about taking the province economically offline for 6-8 months, and not comparing the unrest effects of other spells (I am just beginning a new analysis of the spell tables and I estimate about two weeks before it’s bashed enough into shape to really use—and I wanted to get this thread started sooner rather than later).
-Actually, the 20% population left after the sinking is not remnants of the original population; it’s the initial repopulation of the new sea province by aquatic inhabitants. So a case could be made for dropping the unrest result completely. Seems reasonable to me.
Temple/Lab: Seems irrelevant to me—if the sea player takes it, the temple is razed anyway, and the loss of the lab is an equal disadvantage to both contenders.
Special Thanks: Your post did drive home one important fact to me. I neglected to say that the target province becomes independent. I should have.
-It was never the intention for this spell to give the land player a cheap, trashed sea province. It was intended to scorch the earth (so to speak) before the sea player moved in.
-There are certainly many ways to drive a province independent (and most of them cost about 25 gems), and none of them trash the target province the way this spell does. That trashing is part of the price of casting this spell. What’s left is no real prize, and that's intentional.
-As a side note, this spell also has a political cost in MP. It paints a nice target on the sea player who uses the capability in the face of significant opposition. It’s likely to put the user at the bottom of a big dogpile made of everyone else. And that should not be discounted.
TWEAKS & REVISIONS
Curse of Atlantis: Ritual. Alteration 9. Paths: W8. Cost: 150 Water gems.
One of the great ancient forbidden incantations, this spell reclaims a coastal or island province for the sea. The target province permanently sinks into the ocean amidst a great cataclysm. The spell is risky to cast, and much less likely to succeed in areas under hostile dominion. It can be cast only from an underwater laboratory.
[Design notes: The target province becomes a sea province, permanently. The spell’s chance of success is 90% - 10% per point of hostile dominion. Since the curse causes the whole province to sink from below, domes do not affect or stop it. The following effects apply:
- 80% of the population dies.
- Provincial structures other than Fortresses are destroyed.
- Provincial defense is set to 0 and the province becomes independent. The converted province is permanently marked with a blue magic effect marker (i.e., a dome marker) to indicate its sunken status.
-Corpse count is reduced to 0 and Growth scale is reset to +3.
-All units in the province have a 20% chance to be killed outright (+/- 2%/Luck scale) in the cataclysm. Death counts as a single fatal hit with respect to luck items (which function normally).
-Surviving air breathers without water breathing or flight have a 50% chance to be killed by the inundation (+/-3%/Luck scale). Death counts as a single fatal hit with respect to luck items (which function normally).
-All survivors automatically rout as if defeated in battle.
-The caster is automatically feebleminded and has 3 chances at 30% for additional afflictions.]
I really like the feedback on this spell so far.
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