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UncleJJ

First Lieutenant
6 Badges
May 2, 2012
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As many players has suggested this game suffers from relatively slow spell casting, typically 1 spell per turn. For a game called Warlock: Master of the Arcane this is a bit of a pity. We get 1 spell to cast and 50 units to move in the late game and as some have facetiously suggested the game could be renamed Warlock: Master of the Armies :eek:hmy:

In MoM, which is my toughstone for this sort of game, a player could often cast 3 or 4 small spells in the late game once their spell casting ability had been built up to 200 mana per turn (and that was always a high priority in MoM for me). I would like to have that sort of balance between units and spells in this game as well. Magic needs to play a much bigger part in the game. We have far too many spells and too little chance to cast them with 1 per turn, Agile mind just doesn't give a big enough boost and it's too late and too difficult to cast if you're at war (getting counterspelled repeatedly)

Here is an idea I posted in another thread, and I would like people to comment on the suggestion. It would be nice if Alexey could post if this is even possible or if something like this is part of their plans. :)

With the amount of mana they stockpile I think the AI would put the player under much more pressure, militarily and economically, if it could cast more of its spells per turn. Rather than simply increasing their ability to cast spells faster (and getting a load of the same spells) I suggest they can cast (or be in the middle of casting) one of each 4 spell categories.

So each turn they can cast or be casting all of these if they have the mana :

1 a Bane / attack spell (fireball, weakness, firestorm ...)
2 a Heal / Blessing (heal, frost weapon, elemental resistance ... )
3 a summon spell (ghost wolves, earth elemental...)
4 a spell in the Others category (counterspell, teleportation, greater dispel ...)

Of course the player would also have this multiple spell casting as well and this would make magic a much bigger part of the game, and it would be worth increasing mana production in the middle game. By spreading out the AI's spell casting into all 4 categories we should get much more interesting variety of spells every turn. The diplomacy screen would need to be changed to display the 4 spells each of the the AIs might be in the process of casting.

This sort of multiple spell casting might enable the AIs (with their plentiful mana supplies) to deal with the player's super perked up (over powered :p) units that feature in the late game and make it too easy.

Would this change make the game more of a magical battle between spell casting Great Mages rather then warlords that cast a spell or two per turn?
 
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You'd need far more "UI" for that, making the game more fiddly.
Instead of one casting time dial, you'd need 4, plus the organisation of the spells.

I prefer KISS, simply modifying the casting time. =)

The way I would do it is to have a city building that gives you a 10% casting time reduction... with diminishing returns.
Buildings are always a valuable resource so it would be an important decision.

Total reduction in % = SQR ( Number.of.buildings + 0.12 ) * 9.45

At one building that means 10%,
5: 21.4 %
10: 30 %
15: 36.7 %

It's a simple formula that can be scaled anyway you like.
You will need a hard cap somewhere but only at some silly number like 75 of such buildings, which equals an 80% reduction.
 
Why spend 4 points on the Archmage perk when it only speeds spell-casting by 20% ?!

For example, if a spell costs 1 turn to cast, the Archmage perk reduces it to 0.8 turn : what can you additionally cast with only a 0.2-turn capability remaining?

Also, certain spells (such as summoning ghost wolves) must take 2 turns, while summoning imps only takes 1 turn.

I only tried the Archmage perk once and was so unimpressed by its benefits that I never took it again.

I suppose that the perk reduces the Unity-spell casting by 20%, but other than that, I fail to see why a player would select the Archmage perk.

My non-expert opinion about the perk is linked to this thread's topic because it illustrates that we cannot cast many spells per turn -- even if we are Archmages.
 
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You'd need far more "UI" for that, making the game more fiddly.
Instead of one casting time dial, you'd need 4, plus the organisation of the spells.
I don't see that as a serious issue if the game is improved as I think it would be. There needs to be a bigger emphasis on spell casting. It is disproportionate to research 50 spells but only be able to cast 1 per turn.


I prefer KISS, simply modifying the casting time. =)
I don't think that is appropriate in a strategy game where I spent 90% of the time moving my units, 9% of my time attending to cities and recruiting units, but only about 1% of the time casting spells. Remember what the game is called, we're supposedly Master of the Arcane :blink: That's not the feeling I get playing the game.

The way I would do it is to have a city building that gives you a 10% casting time reduction... with diminishing returns.
Buildings are always a valuable resource so it would be an important decision.

Total reduction in % = SQR ( Number.of.buildings + 0.12 ) * 9.45

At one building that means 10%,
5: 21.4 %
10: 30 %
15: 36.7 %

It's a simple formula that can be scaled anyway you like.
You will need a hard cap somewhere but only at some silly number like 75 of such buildings, which equals an 80% reduction.

The big problem with simply increasing the spell casting speed, without also spreading out the way spells are cast, is that the player or AI (if it's ever programmed to play this way) could simply spam direct damage spells. How many Firestorms can your troops take in a turn? or if the AI casts 4 Incinerates onto your favourite perked up units how long would they survive?

How much fun would that be? Not a lot! And I guess that is why we have the current system, the developers found that the game became trivially easy if the player could cast 4 spells per turn but the AI was restricted and didn't target the players units in the same way. The player just blasts his way to victory. And if the multiple AIs targeted the player's units that same way with multiple damage spells that would make the game unplayable for humans (as soon as the AI mana bonusses kicked in at higher levels)

I guess that is why the developers have decided on this particular spell casting rate, to contain the damage dealing spells to reasonable proportions.

What I have carefully suggested avoids this problem, by insisting that the multiple spells are of different types, so we get a chance to see the rich depth of the magic in the game without being blown to smithereens by multiple damage spells every turn.

JJ
 
The big problem with simply increasing the spell casting speed, without also spreading out the way spells are cast, is that the player or AI (if it's ever programmed to play this way) could simply spam direct damage spells. How many Firestorms can your troops take in a turn? or if the AI casts 4 Incinerates onto your favourite perked up units how long would they survive?... I guess that is why the developers have decided on this particular spell casting rate, to contain the damage dealing spells to reasonable proportions.
JJ

You aren't the first person to make this suggestion. But you have fleshed it out better than any other posts I've seen! :)

The game already organizes spells by type to an extent- divine, blessings, attack, summons, other. Instead of having a global spell pool, why not have 4 or 5 smaller pools, each usable once a turn? It does, as noted, keep the various spell types down to 1 or 2 casts a turn. Useful for balance and preventing attack spells from wiping out everything. It is common to end up with piles of mana by the end game. With a change like this, mana would be much more desirable throughout. Using portal worlds to supercharge you mana supplies would also be more valuable.

Potentially having ten spell casts a turn seems like a lot, but we are managing 20+ units at the endgame already. And mana to sustain that level of casting would be hard to acquire, I think.

As for UI issues, a panel like the current research screen would work. Each prong represents a different type of castable spell. For counter-spelling the AI, add 4/5 circles under the enemy mage picture where now there is just one. There is a lot of space available in the diplomacy screen as is, anyway.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea, and hope Ino-Co does decide to increase the number of spells castable per turn in some fashion.
 
Not sure if that's good idea. Right now spells are good thing for planning. An there are a lot of strategic features like breaking long enemy spells. Also, having more spells requires different mana balance, etc.

I'd rather spend time on other things (like AI, multiplayer or fixing known exploits), than on this questionable change.
 
I don't think they would add one from each category, but there may be a way to nearly get there.

Casting time available is 4x current. (or 2x current plus bonuses from buildings)

When you cast a spell - its time is increased for
each spell of the same category in the last 4 you cast.
each time you cast the same spell in the last 4 you cast.

In the spell list the colour of the casting time circle could indicate the increase - so red = base, orange = 1 worse, yellow = 2 worse, green = 3, blue = 4, indigo = 5, violet = 6+.
 
2 spells per turn with the archmage perk and agile mind. Woo hoo! Paltry. I can burn up maybe 300 of the 7,000 + mana I have that turn. End game, I can acutally gain more mana per turn than I can burn in casting. I understand some of why mana is gathered in such huge amounts in the end game (unity is 5k to cast). However, the OP has a great idea of categorizing the spells into types and allowing 1 of each type to be cast per round. As an alternative, maybe you could cast 2 from the same group, and forego the other 2 instead (like you really need to do 2 heals this round, forfeiting your other 2 spell casts).

There was a similar discussion a couple threads ago about limited casting and buffing new units. Late game, you can build a new unit and when it pops, spend tons of gold to upgrade it to max the same turn it's created (if you have the gold). But buffing it with spells will take you 4-6 rounds, even if you have agile mind, as most of the buffs you cast are only 1 per round. The alternate system outlined above would let you cast 2 buff spells in a round, getting your units front line ready quicker, at the expense of not being able to cast other spells that turn. I think this kind of system is a must for this game. Otherwise, what is the point of having 7,000 mana at the end of the game that you can't use? I don't think any kind of tweaking of the mana gain would be necessary. At some point, especially early game, you'd be very low or out of mana from casting so many spells, meaning you would have to prioritize what you really need that round, keeping the strategy aspect of casting intact. It would just offer you more options. As it is now, the OP it very correct in his assesment of the time spent in casting spells - it's minimal. Again, for emphasis, why would you spend all that time researching 50 some spells to only be able to cast 1 per round?

We definately NEED to have a system like this implemented into the game to make spell casting worthwhile. Otherwise, just remove it and let the units fight it out unbuffed. Wouldn't that be a challenge.
 
I have suggestions on Magic tweak here : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?610358-Tweaking-Magic-System

To short the long post :

  1. Vary the casting time per spells; there should be spells with low casting time (lesser healing), moderate (healing), high casting time (ressurection).
  2. Stackable Agile Mind with diminishing effect on each cast.
  3. Not stackable Agile Mind, but more spells that will reduce casting time (essentially "lesser" Agile Mind, Agile Mind and "greater" Agile Mind.

I think those suggestions are easier to implement than creating separate counter for each spell types.

To prevent Firestorm spams from obliterating your army, you can cast Elemental Shield on them; or better, a Global Enchantment that automatically gives a Great Mage's units Basic/Advanced/Expert elemental resistance. This will force enemy Great Mages to dispel your enchantment first; and which enchantment to dispel, which direct damage will be casted, etc, it will add another strategic layer to the game.
 
I have suggestions on Magic tweak here : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?610358-Tweaking-Magic-System

To short the long post :

  1. Vary the casting time per spells; there should be spells with low casting time (lesser healing), moderate (healing), high casting time (ressurection).
  2. Stackable Agile Mind with diminishing effect on each cast.
  3. Not stackable Agile Mind, but more spells that will reduce casting time (essentially "lesser" Agile Mind, Agile Mind and "greater" Agile Mind.

I think those suggestions are easier to implement than creating separate counter for each spell types.

To prevent Firestorm spams from obliterating your army, you can cast Elemental Shield on them; or better, a Global Enchantment that automatically gives a Great Mage's units Basic/Advanced/Expert elemental resistance. This will force enemy Great Mages to dispel your enchantment first; and which enchantment to dispel, which direct damage will be casted, etc, it will add another strategic layer to the game.

As I understand it agile mind is already stackable and has diminishing returns.
Another way to alter casting it to have technologies you can research - these are like spells but you don't case them. These could be "Elemental lore" reduces the time to case elemental damage spells and becomes researchable if once you have researched half the elemental damage spells. There would also be death lore, life lore for healing spells, and so on.
Alternatively just reduce the casting time based on the percentage of spells of that type you know - so if you have researched 75% of the elemental spells your casting time is either 100%- 50%*75% (=62.5) or 100%/175% (=57%)
 
Imagine the following: Chess, a very interesting game. Now give both players the ability to block one of their opponents pieces per turn.., ok.. still an interesting game, but as you increase the number of pieces you can block, the game just gets more and more boring, because both players will just end up blocking every piece that could create any threats.

Warlock MotA (in my opinion) is such an interesting game, because of the limited spell usage, which means that players have to plan carefully, when to use spells, or when to prepare spells for the next turn. Allowing players to cast more spells per turn would also remove a lot of strategy from the game.

I have mainly used freezing-spells against powerful monsters/dragons/ogres that spawned in an undefended area. And btw, Im pretty sure the game would get very boring if you could cast many spells per turn because of the (in that case) way overpowered teleport-spell (although I havent been able to use it, or there's just something broken in the game). Unit positioning would not matter in that case, units could just sit around in your cities, then you spread 3-4 scouting units out to explore the map, and everytime they find monsters/cities/capitals/portals you just teleport in a bunch of units, clear everything up and teleport them right back into the base later. You would not have to care much about undefended territory, careful planning where to expand next, you just apply the same behaviour over and over again (sounds interesting, huh?).
 
I disagree with the OP, one spell each turn keeps the game balanced.

If you could cast more that would be too much especially in multiplayer
(this is not age of wonders where you can only cast spells around your tower, here you can be pretty lethal, do you realize that?)

What I would like instead is a magic system more similar to AOW, where even if you are casting a big spell which takes many turns you can still cast a small spell without having to suspend the other (but just delay it a bit). As it is now the computer always tries to go for the unity spell which I will eventually stop one turn before it goes into effect, so it just ends up not using magic anymore, trying to cast a spell he will never actually manage to cast. Silly. And it's not that the AI wouldn't need help!!!
 
It might work to shorten the cast time some but make the spells cost more mana. Early game would make spellcasting difficult (a good reason to take the mana vault perk), but it would certainly help to reduce that huge surplus of mana that has accumulated come end game. Unless of course, we can trade in that extra 15k mana we have for cash! What a waste.
 
You aren't the first person to make this suggestion. But you have fleshed it out better than any other posts I've seen! :)
Thanks :)
The game already organizes spells by type to an extent- divine, blessings, attack, summons, other. Instead of having a global spell pool, why not have 4 or 5 smaller pools, each usable once a turn? It does, as noted, keep the various spell types down to 1 or 2 casts a turn. Useful for balance and preventing attack spells from wiping out everything. It is common to end up with piles of mana by the end game. With a change like this, mana would be much more desirable throughout. Using portal worlds to supercharge you mana supplies would also be more valuable.

Potentially having ten spell casts a turn seems like a lot, but we are managing 20+ units at the endgame already. And mana to sustain that level of casting would be hard to acquire, I think.

As for UI issues, a panel like the current research screen would work. Each prong represents a different type of castable spell. For counter-spelling the AI, add 4/5 circles under the enemy mage picture where now there is just one. There is a lot of space available in the diplomacy screen as is, anyway.
That is essentially what I'm suggesting for the player. I am not too hung up on the exact categories and if this system works well the developers could move spells around or have more or less categories. The essential point is to be able to cast spells of different types in parallel, rather than simply speeding up a serial casting system as that is easier to abuse.

This will greatly improve the player's experience of the magical side of the game. But think what this will do for the AI great mages in the late game, when we get all the complaints about their passivity and lack of resistance. At present they often seem to get stuck in a weird mode where they are at war, desperately fighting to defend their cities and at the same time are casting Prosperity or Mana Spring on yet another city. They lack the ability to cast damage spells consistently or to use effective summons like Earth Elementals that could sway the battle. With this system applied to AIs in the late game they will be able to do all those things in moderation and present a much more formidable challenge to the human attacker. They have very large stockpiles of mana (I've seen 24,000 mana and 21 gold on the diplomacy screen :eek: ) A human would soon be mana limited casting 4 spells / turn (needs about 300 mana / turn) but the AI could carry on for a long time.

It would also get round the problem of the AI casting the Unity spell and effectively stopping its spell casting, with this proposal they could be casting spells in the 3 other categories, damage spells, summons and other.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea, and hope Ino-Co does decide to increase the number of spells castable per turn in some fashion.

Let's hope so, your support is appreciated. We desperately need something like this to improve the sense of a great magical battle between mages. I remember in MoM that we could be casting a big spell, say 6 turns creating an expensive artifact at 200 mana per turn, and yet also be able to cast battle spells in any battles that needed the support of the great mage as long as there was enough mana to spare. Those battle spells could be used on our own turn when we started the battles or during the AI's turn when they attacked our stacks. We won't be able to do that quite, with the different time dependent casting system, but it would be good to get back to that sense of excitement and tension in battles and the feeling that the great mage's spells can make a difference.
ks :)

2 spells per turn with the archmage perk and agile mind. Woo hoo! Paltry. I can burn up maybe 300 of the 7,000 + mana I have that turn. End game, I can acutally gain more mana per turn than I can burn in casting. I understand some of why mana is gathered in such huge amounts in the end game (unity is 5k to cast). However, the OP has a great idea of categorizing the spells into types and allowing 1 of each type to be cast per round. As an alternative, maybe you could cast 2 from the same group, and forego the other 2 instead (like you really need to do 2 heals this round, forfeiting your other 2 spell casts).

There was a similar discussion a couple threads ago about limited casting and buffing new units. Late game, you can build a new unit and when it pops, spend tons of gold to upgrade it to max the same turn it's created (if you have the gold). But buffing it with spells will take you 4-6 rounds, even if you have agile mind, as most of the buffs you cast are only 1 per round. The alternate system outlined above would let you cast 2 buff spells in a round, getting your units front line ready quicker, at the expense of not being able to cast other spells that turn. I think this kind of system is a must for this game. Otherwise, what is the point of having 7,000 mana at the end of the game that you can't use? I don't think any kind of tweaking of the mana gain would be necessary. At some point, especially early game, you'd be very low or out of mana from casting so many spells, meaning you would have to prioritize what you really need that round, keeping the strategy aspect of casting intact. It would just offer you more options. As it is now, the OP it very correct in his assesment of the time spent in casting spells - it's minimal. Again, for emphasis, why would you spend all that time researching 50 some spells to only be able to cast 1 per round?
Great points, I agree with all of them and especially what you emphasise at the end. Why do we have to put so much effort into researching so many spells just to cast one or two of them per turn. It's disproportionate. Meanwhile we can spend 5000 gold in that same turn perking and upgrading several units. It should be the other way around, magic should be instant in using stored mana and gold (paying workers to make things) should take time and be limited.

We definately NEED to have a system like this implemented into the game to make spell casting worthwhile. Otherwise, just remove it and let the units fight it out unbuffed. Wouldn't that be a challenge.

We are in complete agreement :)
 
Complicated suggestion considering you could jsut change the casting speed of spells. Agile mind and archmage trait stacked will allow 2 spells per turn.
No it is not the same thing at all. What I'm suggesting is a parallel casting system where the player and AIs are all restricted to casting several different types of spells in at the same time. What you and several other people are suggesting is an increased casting rate in a serial casting system. That is open to terrible abuse and I guess is why we don't have it.

It seems inconceivable to me that the developers have not considered increasing the spell casting rate, I am sure they have. Ask yourself, why haven't they done that? Why do we have the spell casting rate we have now? They know players like to cast lots of spells ...

Why not have a slider to increase cast speed at the cost of higher spell costs and the other way around. That way i could use more turns in the beginning and more mana later on.
This could work to a limited extent, it would depend on how speed versus cost relationship was set up. Do you have any suggestions for how that might work?

Incidentally, I do like the idea of cheaper spells in the early game when mana is short and before the AI gets into its counterspell mode. There is no reason why at least part of this idea could not be combined with what I am suggesting for parallel casting on an indiviual spell by spell basis, casting some types faster and others cheaper. ;)
 
I think that anything that needs multiple casting progress indicators won't be done - too much change to the UI, plus all the complication of which spells will count against which limit and how you make that clear to the player. There is also the problem that it is the same spell that counters all these so if a GM has 3 spells being cast you can only counter one of them.


One option would be to get rid of casting time and replace it with casting slots.
Some slots would be specific to a group others would be general. No more that a third of general slots could be used on any group - or general slots needs to be very rare. More complicated spells could take multiple slots, but you have to have them - no carry over.
If you have multiple slots of a type you can cast multiple spells from that group - but you can never cast the same spell twice in the same turn.

The UI would loose the casting time indicator. On the spell casting interface there would be indicators showing how many slots of each type you have / can use. These would also act as filters to show only spells of that group - ideally these would be independent, so you can show only death and elemental spells not just only death or only elemental.
Once you have used all your slots of a type those spells would be dimmed in the list, and the type would be shown by the replacement for the casting time indicator.

The Agile mind spell would be replaced by projects, one for each group and one for general. The research cost would be based on the number of slots of that type you already have. When you research them instead of getting a spell to cast you simply get an extra slot. You can research them multiple times, and the general version would be more expensive to research.

You would start with 2 general slots - so can cast 2 spells from any two different groups.
Arch mage would add a third general slot and increase the chance of the bonus slot projects appearing.
Selecting a starting spell would also add a specific slot for the spell's group.

Counter spell would need to be changed.
Instead it would give a chance of stopping a spell cast against you - say 10% if you are in the AoE, 20% if the main target, 30%, +10% if in neutral hex, +20% if in friendly hex, +30% if in own hex. Once it stops a spell there is a 25% chance of it failing otherwise it lasts until your next turn.

You could then add
Counter spell II - same as above with slightly higher chance to stop the spell, and a slightly lower chance to fail.
Protection from Magic - buff cast on a unit gives it a 25% chance of ignoring any spell (including your own)
 
Make It An Optional Setting At Game Beginning

As many players has suggested this game suffers from relatively slow spell casting, typically 1 spell per turn. For a game called Warlock: Master of the Arcane this is a bit of a pity. We get 1 spell to cast and 50 units to move in the late game and as some have facetiously suggested the game could be renamed Warlock: Master of the Armies :eek:hmy:

...each turn they can cast or be casting all of these if they have the mana :

1 a Bane / attack spell (fireball, weakness, firestorm ...)
2 a Heal / Blessing (heal, frost weapon, elemental resistance ... )
3 a summon spell (ghost wolves, earth elemental...)
4 a spell in the Others category (counterspell, teleportation, greater dispel ...)

I love the idea.

I've read a gazillion of the responses to this post, and I don't like any of the other ideas anyone else presented nearly as much as this one. I do think it would significantly modify the game, and thereby, it would probably be best if this was an option that could be enabled "on" or "off" at the beginning of the game.

In Civilization IV there were a lot of patches and expansions that created a ton of options that could be selected at the beginning of the game that dramatically increased the games replay-value. The one-city challenge could be turned on in Civilization IV so that everyone had a max city limit of one city, for example. I only tried it once, but still, I loved that crazy-fun options like that existed, and I persisted with playing new games to try them all. I am disappointed that Civ5 doesn't have nearly the start-up options.

While bug-fixes, etc, are important, so is the replay-value of the game if they want to continue selling new copies and expansions. I think adding this as an *option* would dramatically increase replay-value.

~ Raederle
 
My wallet wants this change in the game

If this is added into the game as a DLC, maybe call it "Brave New Spell System" :p, I would buy it in a heartbeat. I'd also enthusiastically suggest a "divine spell" category be added which will give a nice boost. So if anyone has enough mana they can cast.

1 a Bane / attack spell (fireball, weakness, firestorm ...)
2 a Heal / Blessing (heal, frost weapon, elemental resistance ... )
3 a summon spell (ghost wolves, earth elemental...)
4 a spell in the Others category (counterspell, teleportation, greater dispel ...)
5 a divine spell (which can be any type really. This adds a nice incentive to go with a God to augment your playspell. e.g. go with Aegrelia = two heal spells per turn (if you have enough mana).)

The brilliant thing about the system you've proposed is that you'd have to think about how you're going to spend your mana. "Do I spend a bit more on a stronger fireball now and leave less mana to summon a support unit, or take a risk and wait so that I can cast that powerful divine spell?" That just sounds like how the game should feel... but it doesn't. I just pick spells at random really... and then wait... and finally cast and meh, pick whatever next one.

It would also be great if the current randomized spell research tree could also be changed to reflect these 5 categories. Let's say a player can always choose to research a spell from one of the categories which leads to more spells being available for research *in that category.* In other words: spell development tree. AI can then be customized to make either a "attack heavy," "summon heavy," "balanced," "heal heavy" etc. type of mage.

I don't suppose DLC's from released games can try to get Steam Greenlit?