Wishlist: Why magic paths are like mod Nations.

[HoneyBadger]

I don't hold any pretentions of how lucid this particular ramble will be, but I reserve the right to edit it, if it confounds and/or confuses too many people. It's been a REALLY long day...

Anyway, as it is, we have over a dozen high quality mod Nations, plus 60 or so vanilla Nations, which is a lot. But we only have 8 separate magic paths, which is not so many, since those 8 paths determine a great many things, and in many ways, make those 75+ Nations a lot more similar than they really need to be. Same spells, same bless choices, same Pretenders, same magic sites, same gems. etc ad tedium.

Since making my own mods, and playing the game for a while now, I've noticed that their are a whole lot of things about the 8 paths that resemble a typical mod Nation. In other words, if I were to make a new path, I'd think about the same basic things (or atleast, in the same basic way), as I do when considering how to make a mod.

Here are some of the things I'd hypothetically think about, if I were to design a brand new magic path:

The spells, themselves, ofcourse. This is equivalent to designing units for a Nation. More powerful spells go at higher level and cost more gems. Pretty straightforward, and there's enough options within just the spell abilities we currently have. I'm guessing that the devs would give us more tools for spell-creation over time, as they have for unit-creation. Summons, globals, combat spells, etc. We ofcourse already have the ability to create National spells, so this isn't as big of a deal as it may seem.

The bless. Even confined to a direct extrapolation of the current blesses in the game, there's an enormous amount of variables to play with. I won't go into detail in this post, but there's obviously a lot. Some Nations are stronger in the early game, while others are stronger in the late game. This synergises with blesses, where some paths have strong blesses, but relatively simplistic (if powerful) spells, while the strongest paths have the weakest blesses, atleast in theory. Balancing a bless is ofcourse very important, but we already have the ability to mod in sacred units, so we're atleast in the ballpark.

The gems. New gem types means designing new sites, new forged items, new generic and National summons, and the choice between allowing alchemization into gold or not. Each new path would get a new gem type, and it's possible that some gem types could actually be Nation-specific, found only in that Nation's capital. Imagine what that might do to diplomacy. Along with this, new gem types may or may not be alchemizeable from Astral Pearls--ala Blood Slaves. Options might be added, allowing gems to come from different places than just magic sites. Blood converts from population, so maybe some other gems convert from population, or corpses, or gold (reverse alchemy), or temples, etc. Again, we've already got the ability to mod in magic sites. Modding new gem types isn't that much of a leap.

Pretenders. Although it may not be obvious, this is the heart and soul of a magic path. Who uses what type of magic? What do they represent, and what Nations are they represented by? Limiting or denying the path on existing or new Pretenders limits access to that path, since no current Nations will have it (unless modded in), so that's also a choice. But every Pretender would still have theoretical access to any path allowed in a given game, and thus, you could never completely isolate a type of magic from any Nation. When we create mod Nations, we have to think hard about what that Nation *is*. What they look like, how they operate, the strategies at their easy disposal, and what's harder for them to do. The character of a Nation and the character of a magic path aren't so terribly distant concepts. They both share a basic elemental identity. "This is Fire" isn't so different from "This is Abysia". When you think of Abysia, you think of fire, and vice-versa.

Finally: How is the new path going to work? Will it be fun? How much will it add to the game? How does it affect the balance? What visual and sound effects will it's spells have? Which Nations embrace it, and which don't want anything to do with it?
This is a little different from creating a Nation, but at it's heart, it's about design. Making your creation special, different, and most importantly--making it play well with others.

The thing about adding magic paths into the game, the argument that I've always gotten, is that it would involve creating all kinds of new spells, throwing the balance out of whack, etc. It's always been "too much work" to put a new path, or several, into the game. But we do it all the time with new Nations. We add units, we work the balance out, we fit and integrate them into the game in ways that add to the gaming experience. Ofcourse, not everyone likes them, but not everyone has to use them. Not everyone would have to use brand new Paths, either. But I think it's time we (and the Devs) consider the possibility of having that option.

Having the choice and the tools to add new paths to the game, modding them in *as options*, by the community, wouldn't force anyone to use them, but would alleviate most of the doubts and arguments against them. And it would almost certainly help make the game itself more interesting, the Nations more diverse, and benefit overall strategy.

We already have the ability to add new sites. Being able to add new blesses, new gem types, new spell types, new forged items, even whole new schools, is the logical next step, and I think a very important step towards helping Dom3 achieve it's full, magnificent, potential.

Ofcourse, it's a lot to ask, too, but I think it would benefit Johan and Kristoffer (once their share of work was done), to allow us to develope new magical paths, and to also more robustly mod the ones already in the game. It's part of our job, as the community, to balance things out in the game. To help organize, to spot bugs and troubled areas, to identify, correct, and exploit the unforseen, and to explore the unknown. Being able to do that with magic paths would allow us to cast new light on the entire game, on every single Nation, old and new. To see it in brand new ways--and I have to believe that that's something the Devs are interested in.