Ritual bonus from magic sites

[Baalz]

I don't know, it could still be useful in two scenarios. One, if you're casting a global that (for whatever reason) you don't expect to be dispelled (you're fighting someone with no astral mages). Secondly, if you're casting a global you expect to cast, have it dispelled, then cast it again...perhaps several times. For example, lets say I'm gonna cast Astral Corruption (that's the name for that blood global that hoses most other rituals, right?). Since that's gonna piss off every non-blood nation its gonna be a high target for dispelling, but fortunately I've got the blood magic site that reduces the cost by 60%. So, now when I cast it I can use the minimum number of blood slaves and get the 60% discount. When it's dispelled, my adversary has no idea how many blood slaves I put into it so he'll presumably pump a decent amount of extra pearls into the dispell, but guess what? The turn after its dispelled it's right back up (60% off! ). Repeat this a couple times, then put up a pumped up global enchantment at the point you've depleted your enemies pearls by leveraging your 60% discount. His next dispell will probably be a weak one, since you've been draining his gems faster than yours so even if he pumps up the dispell you should have the edge (unless he's just got a whole lot more gems than you do)

[Amhazair]

Manuk said:
I like the most the construction bonus. if you get the bonus=20 site, an ulmish smith and a dwarven hammer it's 75% discount. I had that.

And then cast Forge of the ancients for maximum goodness.

[Hellboy]

Manuk said:
it´s not useless. you get the discount at the base cost. and in the enchantment tree you will find death "summons" and discounts come handy.

Info if I don't remeber wrong is in the manual with the exact dispel formula.

I like the most the construction bonus. if you get the bonus=20 site, an ulmish smith and a dwarven hammer it's 75% discount. I had that.

Did you read my post? I said, "useless ... for global spells". Baalz has the right idea and provides 2 specific examples of uses for global spells, but those are rather specific scenarios I would say.

My point is that this is a bug, and it is serious enough to fix.

[Kalin]

Terrel, it's only bad because you think of it like this:

extra gems = [Gems spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))] x 1.2

In this case, every gem you spend you are suppose to get 20% as bonus. However, if you think of it as this:

extra gems = [Gems Spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))]

Then all you are losing is 20% of the original cost of the spell, which is pretty much nothing in the final stages of the game, as you have pointed out, since extra gems is what really determine if you get the slot (or dispel).

Now, you might argue that a site is SUPPOSE to give that advantage, but then I would have to disagree. I mean, is a site really suppose to give you 200+ free gems (if you are into the thousands for that slot)? Wouldn't that make the site plain overpowered?


So if you're saying we should fix it and add that 20% to the free gems, then I have to respectfully disagree (due to insane imbalances). But if you're saying we should fix it so that it discounts properly, then I agree, but as I pointed out earlier, it's really not THAT bad of a problem.

[Hellboy]

Kalin said:
Terrel, it's only bad because you think of it like this:

extra gems = [Gems spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))] x 1.2
...

Exactly right.

Now, you might argue that a site is SUPPOSE to give that advantage, but then I would have to disagree. I mean, is a site really suppose to give you 200+ free gems (if you are into the thousands for that slot)? Wouldn't that make the site plain overpowered?

So if you're saying we should fix it and add that 20% to the free gems, then I have to respectfully disagree (due to insane imbalances). But if you're saying we should fix it so that it discounts properly, then I agree, but as I pointed out earlier, it's really not THAT bad of a problem.

This is in fact what I am arguing. It is also true that I really don't have enough experience in this game to make any strong argument one way or the other on game balance.

However, I have played many strategy games over the years and on thing I can say with confidence is that the very fact that it is "not THAT bad of a problem" also means that these sites are not very significant strategically (at least not in the end game).

My argument is mainly motivated by the sense that the game would be more interesting and more fun if the were strategically significant (or better yet important). In fact, I do believe that the construction, conjuration and most of all that famously unbalanced blood site are strategically quite important from the time they are discovered through the end game. (Come to think of it, I have a hard time seeing why my suggested formula for extra gems is unbalancing, when my formula is quite consistent with the way non-global spell bonus sites already work.)

Anyhow, just my thoughts on the question. Like I said, I really don't know enough to opine on balance questions, though (obviously) I do have my opinion on what makes a game fun.

[Micah]

Well, the most common site I've had experience with of this type is the steel ovens, which are great, and certainly have a lot of value...however, they require a LOT of mage turns to really shine, and while items are very very good I don't think any of them will singlehandedly win you the game.

Globals, on the other hand, take a single turn to cast (channeling hundreds of gems in a single turn), and are an order of magnitude greater in effect than item forging. Utterdark is basically an "I win" button for some nations, and anyone in a vaguely competitive position that gets off Gift of Nature's Bounty or Fata Morgana is gaining a HUGE advantage...all from a single mage in a single turn.

Globals are just too damn good to get a blanket discount on extra gems. I think Ballz has a great idea with the decoy casting before throwing up the real spell, and I DO think that not having to exceed the original cost to get credit for extra gems would be a good thing, but tweaking it to count extra gems as 120%+ is NOT a good idea IMO.

[Ygorl]

These sites are tremendously useful, almost always. True, they only help with globals that you're throwing up at low cost (but that's not that crazy a situation... In many competitive games, people don't have huge piles of gems just sitting around) but they also help with all other rituals. Finding one of these sites can change your game more than pretty much anything else; only sites that give you amazing things to recruit (wizards, etc.) can compete. Even spells that aren't very compelling ordinarily suddenly become a bargain when they're 40% discounted...

[Aleph]

Ignorant aside - Utterdark is "I win" for LA Ermor. Anyone else?

[Micah]

Alright, maybe an autowin only applies to LE Ermor, but the following will sure get a lot of mileage out of Utterdark:

Dreamlands would probably do pretty well with it, all the real troops have darkvision 50 or 100, they have freespawns, and by the time they can get it off their population's gonna be pretty beat up anyhow, so the income reduction hurts a lot less.

Agartha: darkvision and solid death summons to avoid the income hit (they also have a great incentive to take death scales, so again, later game the income hit will kill the income gap between them and growth players). EA agartha at least also benefits a heck of a lot from halving enemy defense skills, and tends to be heavy on sacred troops, so upkeep hurts less.

Any blood nation will similarly have darksighted demons and a mediocre economy, and I don't think blood hunts are impacted by the utterdark.

Any nation with reanimation.

Other nations will have more problems with the income hit, but if they know they'll be casting it they'll have the advantage of having a gold reserve, and can leverage the darkness to help their troops out:

Yomi/Lanka and Shinuyama: More darksight.

Aquatic nations in general tend to have darkvision, and even if they don't I'd take a 5 attack wave warrior against a 10 defense van over a 10 attack wave warrior against a 20 defense van any day, and archers pose much less of a threat...again, when you suck already you're a lot better off if everyone else sucks too.

Plus there are the random attacks on enemy territories that occur, which is never a bad thing. I think that's a pretty significant list of nations that can get some use from the spell though.

[Baalz]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think that the magic site discount for globals would be useful in most situations, so long as you're aware of how the mechanics work. I haven't really played that many MP games that progressed that far yet, but it seems like you've either got a global that's unlikely to be dispelled (it's not that threatening, there aren't enemy astral mages, there is a MORE threatening global, etc) or (more likely) one you're pretty sure is gonna get hit as soon as the opposition has a chance. In either case, if you've got a site bonus it's a good idea to cast it with the minimum cost for the reason I outline above....the enemy has no idea how many gems you put in (or probably even that you have a site bonus). Either your global is dispelled, or it's not, but in either case you're getting an advantage from the site.

Really, the only situation I see where the site wouldn't make much of a difference is if you're trying to compete for control of a global with somebody else by casting the biggest version of it. When you're competing with a dispell, you've always got a big advantage...as long as you understand the mechanics.

I guess if you've got enough gems that saving 50% of 50 gems is insignificant then it wouldn't be much of an advantage (even after several times), but it does seem like in that situation allowing your 500 gems to count as 1000 would be quite a bit too powerful. Of course, EVEN then the game is to get your opponent to cast a 1000 pearl dispell on your 25 gem enchantment, so cast it often at the cheapest price, then every now and then cast it at 100 gems so a minimal dispell won't work. How many pearls will he throw in then? If you've got so many gems, the site makes it more feasible to spam the global and your opponent never knows how many gems he needs to use to dispell...