Water Magic

[Oelfwine]

I would love to see changes to terrain from turn to turn graphically represented. Perhaps there is some way to make this a game option to give players with fast connections (or SP games) the ability to see some gee-whiz effects, while letting players with slower connections play as well. Think of it as just another graphics setting (albeit a complicated one).

[Evil Dave]

Arralen said:

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

I've wanted those for a long time. I can see perfectly good ways of doing them.

Nature: province-wide healing spells prevent folks from dying -- if births and deaths were balanced before, now there's growth
Astral: mass luck means fewer accidents, etc
Air: something like "village wind ride", moves population from one province to another

For water, I could see something that provides perfect irrigation to farms or or healing springs, or...

[RedRover]

To All: This post has a significant new tweak. Please base comments on latest incarnation. Oh, and there are spells in this list other than Curse of Atlantis, if you want to go there.

Turin: Thanks for your Posts. You are right. At the stage the game would be when this spell is available, it should go through a weak enemy dominion. Not sure I completely follow your formula, though. But perhaps a revised formula should be considered (see next).

PvK: I agree with you that in most cases, a spell should work as advertised. I also consider a 10% failure chance to be acceptable if the spell description says that casting the spell is “risky.” A failure chance under 5% is not significant enough to warrant the description “risky,” unless something else is going on. It’s quite possible that the current dominion-based percentage swings are too linear and too extreme to serve this spell well.

My alteration would be to use the following tweak:

Success = 92% – (enemy dominion + enemy dominion cubed).

The results would be:

Pos/ neutral dominion: 92%
Enemy dominion 1: 90%
Enemy dominion 2: 83%
Enemy dominion 3: 62%
Enemy dominion 4: 24%
Enemy dominion 5+ Fails

Arralen: I sympathize, but having an obvious nuke to work toward does spark interest.

I agree that something should be done about province growth, and in particular the replacement of population lost to events and magic.

I am not convinced that spells are the proper medium to try this. If this approach was taken, the obvious choice is Nature magic, not Water magic, which is why I didn’t do anything on it for this thread.

Growth/Death: But going off-topic for a moment, I’d favor starting with the Growth/Death scale and the way the campaign world models population dynamics.
--First, maybe peg 0-population growth to Death 3, and scale positive population growth up from that.
--Second, revamp the world model to have higher birth rates at lower populations, tapering off to maybe an average (scale 0) annual growth of 5% at the 30,000 mark.
--Third, put in a default multiplier to apply for maybe a year after a major population loss. The multiplier’s value would increase as a function of population loss (the greater the loss, the higher the multiplier).
--Fourth, give players a tool (maybe an order) to shift population around the map.
--Then, see if there is still a problem.

Magical Means: Evil Dave covered a lot of these. (I like the “wind ride” idea, maybe Earth could conjure some deranged Earth gnomes to do essentially the same thing for that magic school!). The big problem I see with using magic is the near impossibility of being fair and balanced for everyone.

Back to topic…

Kristopher O: I know that graphics is a challenge, but if this whips into shape properly it’s not going to not going to happen more than a few times in a game, so a spell marker should be sufficient.

Power is mutable, and there are still tools left in the nerf-bag. Are we getting closer? What would it take to get into range? Care to play professor to this open class on spell design?

For example, how feasible/welcome are the minor Luck-based tweaks to broad effects as proposed occasionally in this spell thread?

Deccan: Thanks for giving me a chance in this thread to look at something and say: “Now that’s too powerful!” lol

Vicious Love: As always, I appreciate your comments. Another tweak to Global Haze, below.

TWEAKS & REVISIONS

This time, changes are rendered in italic, as usual, but salient features are also rendered in blue.

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 sea 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: This target province becomes a sea province, permanently. The spell’s chance of success is 92% - (enemy dominion + enemy dominion cubed). The following effects apply:
-Domes do not affect or stop this spell (the land sinks from below)
-The spell always has a minimum 5% chance of failure, and always fails against enemy dominion 5+.
- 80% of the population dies. (This represents the migration into the province of aquatics equal to 20% of the original population.)
- 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 living creatures without water breathing or flight have a 40% 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).
(Note: This means army losses of roughly 50% if you have no flyers and no water breathers. Misfortune 3 scale losses would be about 65%.)
-All survivors automatically rout as if defeated in battle.
-The caster is automatically feebleminded and has 3 chances at 30% for additional afflictions.]

Global Haze: Global. Evocation 6. Paths: W5. Cost: 40 Water gems.
A great cooling haze rises from the oceans. It blankets the world in continuous monsoon rains, which creates poor visibility and muddy ground throughout the world. The haze also can reverse the effects of the Second Sun global spell (Evocation 8)—the spell energies drain each other, mutually destroying both global effects.

[Design notes: Monsoon Rains has all the effects of the Rain spell, plus the following:
-Normal Rain penalties are increased to 150% of that spell’s level.
-Effective encumbrance for non-amphibian or non-flying units is increased by x1.5.
-Precision modifier for units is –4.[Consider -50% precision reduction and 25% of missiles discarded. This is a cut-down Version of the Storm spell]
-Action points for all units are halved.
-The Lance bonus is negated and Trample damage is halved.
-Aquatic/amphibian creatures are +1 morale, non-amphibian/aquatic creatures are –1 morale.]

[The above will undoubtedly have to be tweaked some more, since I’ve never been able to find out exactly what the Rain spell does. Anybody know?]

Everyone Else: Thanks!

[Zen]

Rain = Double Fatigue for Fire Path Spells, removes the "Heat" Special Ability Trait on units during combat (I.E. No AOE around the Heat units that combusts and gives fatigue).

[RedRover]

Thanks, Zen!

[WraithLord]

Kristoffer O said:
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 a bit of OT but I also miss that great feature.
I think maybe if you didn't add the map to the turn file but instead add some kind of data struct that represents which pixels should change (thin matrix for example) and then have the game engine of the clients apply those change to the map, then bringing that feature back might be feasible.

just my two cents.

[Kristoffer O]

It would not be feasible with painted maps of dom2. Only on pixel maps (and the trn files would still be quite large). Since we abandoned pixel maps in dom2 it is not going to happen in dom3. Other cool features will be added instead

[WraithLord]

Kristoffer O said:
It would not be feasible with painted maps of dom2. Only on pixel maps (and the trn files would still be quite large). Since we abandoned pixel maps in dom2 it is not going to happen in dom3. Other cool features will be added instead

I can hardly bear the waiting without this insidious teasing

[Oelfwine]

What cool features are you referring to?

(maybe he'll slip...)

[Sandman]

Here's a selection of water spells I devised a while ago. I'm quite proud of them, because they're simple and straightforward, whilst still being reasonably thematic.

Discipline

Grants friendly units in a square +4 defence. Basically a water variant of protection. A costly 'mass discipline' could be available as well. This could a rather powerful spell, so an associated pay-off (like protection's fire vulnerability) may be in order. It's a mind spell, so it won't affect mindless units.

Weakness

Enemy units become weaker as their muscles soften and their joints sieze up. Reduces strength by 4 points. Magic resistance negates. Available in single square, small area and large area variants.

Memory Focus

This enchantment opens and nourishes the casters mind. His memory becomes as clear and malleable as water itself. The caster gains greatly increased experience points from each battle, perhaps triple or quadruple. There could also be an expensive army-affecting Version of this spell, or even a ritual which grants this ability to all your units everywhere in the world. The ritual spell would be a very nice research booster as well.

Amnesia

The opposite of memory focus, this spell clouds the memories of enemy units. When hit, their experience is washed away and a unit of battle-hardened veterans becomes as inexperienced as raw recruits - but with several battles worth of afflictions. Magic resistance negates, probably. There could also be a ritual spell which causes experience to wash away across the whole world; except for your soldiers. Soon, you'd own the hall of fame.

As well as these memory affecting spells, there could also be water items with related effects. An item that grants permanent memory focus, and a sword that drains enemy experience, for example. That'd be quite a combination...

Summon Sirens

I'd envisage sirens as a sort of aquatic combination of hama dryads and wailing ladies. Aquatic, awe, ethereal (maybe), steal strength and an area affecting siren song which could have all sorts of interesting effects. They can be summoned anywhere. It's similar to sea nymphs, but I reckon sirens are cooler.

Sea Witch's Coven

Summons a sea witch and her coven of twelve sirens. The sea witch has powers of water and death, and her song is especially powerful. When in a water province, she can summon lost sailors to her cause. The lost sailors are poor amphibians, but still have some fighting skills.