Water Magic

[Turin]

Well with my formula it would have 100% chance of success in your dominion3 provinces. If you want to have it "kill" a capital or research center deep in the enemys homeland you have to pay for the risks. Plus it would make for very interesting sneaky dominion spreading strategys.

[RedRover]

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.

[Arralen]

Another way to ruin a province, this time using water gems. That's really what the game needs, as there are way too few ways to do that.

What about creating some water spells that actually build up a province (s population) ?

On the other hand I must agree that your suggestion has a way better chance to acutally find it's way into the game. Seemingly the developers are just to fond of weapons of mass destruction [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img]

[PrinzMegaherz]

Curse of Atlantis should be depending on your dominion. Each point of your dominion raises the chance of the spell working by 10 percent, e.g. dominion 9 means 90 percent chance of success.
But of course, there should be an earth spell working in the opposite direction

[Ironhawk]

RedRover said:
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.

I thought acid spells were kind of moot until I began playing Tien Chi. Celestial Masters of all themes are practically designed to cast Acid Bolt - a really great and accessible artillery spell. With a water bracelets or a lucky W3 master, you can cast acid rain, which is also quite powerful.

[NTJedi]

RedRover said:
NTJedi: Thanks for your input.

-Have you ever been in a multiplayer game where a sea nation amassed 2,000 Water gems?
-What is the highest Water gem total you have seen amassed by a sea nation in a multiplayer game?

(BTW: Anyone should feel free to jump in on these questions. Practical benchmarks are important.)

If the developers added such an overpowering spell which sinks an entire province into water while ignoring domes then yes the cost would be set accordingly. The spell can instantly destroy entire armies, multiple SC's, pretender, temple and lab. Also imagine the power of pushing the altitude of an entire mountain where its actually below sealevel and then covered underwater without altering water levels elsewhere... 2000 water gems is accurate.
Practical spells get practical benchmarks.

[Vicious Love]

RedRover said:
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!

Well, lessee. The so-called "secondary effect" has to be worthwhile in it's own right. The whole "dispels Second Sun" thing is irrelevant, as it's either the dispel, or the global, effectively two entirely different spells with the same research and path requirements. I mean, I suppose there is SOME weight to the fact that a fire nation would have to dispel this or replace it with one of their own globals in order to avoid wasting a casting of Second Sun, but methinks that's nowhere near just cause to cast a sub-par global spell.

The Eyes of God is one research level lower than this, and costs 50 gems. Despite the Achilles' Heel, methinks it's still far superior to +2 morale and a bit of reinvigoration. I mean, keep in mind this will only affect amphibious and aquatic troops.

There are some pretty awesome aquatic troops out there, but a water nation shouldn't need to resort to a global to dominate the oceans. As for amphibians, there're a bunch of assorted SCs* and ubermonsters(Doom horrors, vastnesses, and other not-all-that-marine beings which happen to be able to enter the water), and the water nations' national troops, which range from pretty hardcore, but not in a way that'd be enhanced by this spell(Illithids), to pitiful and unworthy of the expenditure of 50 gems(Everything else. Except meteorite guards and ubershamblers, I guess).

Also at research level 5, you've got Gift of Health, which only costs 40 gems, and is one of the most desirable globals in the game. Mind you, it is one of nature's chief selling points, and so should be more powerful than most spells of that cost and research level, but there's simply no comparing a measly morale boost to the HP-boosting, affliction-healing goodness that is GoH.

On top of that, you've got Dark Skies, which, much like this spell, is only useful in those stages in which armies are more important than mages and SCs. Has anyone ever actually cast this spell?

If I had to make this sort of spell competitive, I would either
A) Make it give all friendly aquatics unbreakable(But not mindless) morale. This wouldn't really affect SCs, and half of R'lyeh's troops are already mindless, but I suppose it would be a boon to Atlantis, if they actually have any use for those troops of theirs by the time you can cast this. Not that this is remotely thematic, but that's what happens when you try to justify a 50 gem price tag on making the world a slightly damper place.
B) Have all battles(Or perhaps all battles in friendly dominion, to keep this from totally crippling fire as a battlefield path for a mere 50 gems) be affected by rain, mist, or some combination thereof. Maybe give aquatics and amphibians a bit of fire resistance, to boot.
C) Throw in a bit of protection, magic resistance, and maybe a miniscule amount of affliction-preventing regeneration.
D) Some combination of the above.

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.

I don't think Oceania'll have astral.

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.

Yea, verily.

I dig the various incarnations of Curse of Atlantis, by the way. Considering the disadvantages, 150 gems might be more than a bit overpriced. On most maps, it'll take more than one casting to actually reach a player's capitol, and it takes no more than a bit of luck and a few domes(At lower research levels than this monstrosity) to make an oceanic adversary waste two Water Queens' worth in gems.

* Methinks this spell should not affect undead and lifeless, by the way. Nor "poor amphibians", since they're usually swampdwellers or magical constructs, rather than marine beings.
Then again, most proper amphibians have next to nothing to do with the ocean, and really should not benefit from a glorified ocean breeze. Not sure whether horrors are amphibians, or poor amphibians, but I'm sure there are plenty of similar cases out there.

[Kristoffer O]

The curse of atlantis spell is unlikely to appear in dom3. Not because it is a bad idea, but because it would probably be too powerful. Also because it wouldn't be possible to graphically represent it on the map the way it should be.

When we worked on dominions 1 we intended to have spells that would change the map. The pixelated maps of dom1 changed with temperature and growth. Initially we intended spells to change the map as well. Mountain ranges, forests etc. We also intended the atlantian dominion to flood coastal provinces by slowly replacing pixels into blue ones. The problem with this (one of them) was that the trn files would become huge as they would have to include changes to the maps.

This is actually the part I miss the most from dom1. The changing terrain. On the other hand there were not many effects of terrains on the game.

[Vicious Love]

Whoops, didn't realize this thing ignores domes. That changes things.
Still, Lure of the Deep, Flames from the Sky, and Murdering Winter all have comparable army-killing potential(In proportion to their costs, I mean), and the dominion penalty is enough to protect the capitols of those players not already doomed by dominionsnuff.
I suppose some sort of troop-saving strategic autorout might be in order, but methinks 100% certain elimination of all non-amphibians is the least you could ask for, considering this spell's prohibitive cost and likelihood of failing in high enemy dominion, or even low friendly dominion.
If one's SCs aren't already amphibians, one could always waste one of their misc slots(Or a body slot), or just make a point of avoiding coastal provinces. Since I've seen Lure of the Deep take out pretenders and 22 MR SCs, this is hardly an order of magnitude above and beyond existing deterrents.

[deccan]

After thinking about for a while, I find that I would feel better about "Curse of Atlantis" if it were a kind of ultra-powerful global that has a small chance every turn of causing a random coastal province in the world to be submerged, though strong dominion would help protect against it. Now that would be a declaration of war against land nations. Hmm...