Making non-summon strategic spells more interesting

[Hiliadan]

A poll run a long time ago put "Making non-summon strategic spells more interesting" as the #5 highest priority for the community:

So I'm finally opening a thread to deal with that! Disclaimer: the discussion is mainly for PBEM and SP, not for live MP. And it is about issues faced by veteran players, not beginners.

The problem:
Here is the issue as far as I can see... Casting points (CP) are limited and you are always casting stuff. Mana is sometimes a limiting factor but very rarely, and usually only when you're losing. Strategic spells compete with tactical spells for CP from your Leader so you have even less available than if you were only casting strategic spells.
At the same time, most strategic spells are overpriced in CP (and mana) cost compared to the main option for your CP: summons. Summons can reinforce armies far into enemy lines, without the need to produce them at cities and then bring them all the way to where your army is. Summons are directly useful and can fight battles.
City enchantments and empire enchantments are somehow better than spells that affect an area of the map or cause damage, because their effects are persistent. But it depends on the effects too.

Meanwhile, I believe (but it apparently is not a consensus) that mana tends to be too plentiful after mid-game (turn 30-40) and it's very easy to keep pumping more mana by building Temples and settling or building Fortresses near mana sites.


So what to do?
The first answer has to be to reduce CP cost of non-summon spells to improve the trade-off in their favour so that you actually want to cast them instead of summons.
The second answer is probably to reduce RP costs of weak spells and / or make them stronger, like we did in the balance mod for the Domain of [...] and Empire of [...] spells.
And finally, the upkeep of some spells may need to rise so that we cast more spells but we cannot sustain an infinity of them.

In the end, the results should be a more magical Age of Wonders 3 with more spells cast.
I think this should thus go hand in hand with a review of the way disjunction works so that it is also possible to fight back and disjunct the numerous spells opponents will throw at you.

Disjunction:
Currently disjunction usually costs more than spell casting and has a 50% chance of failure. There is also a 5% chance of critical success and 5% chance of critical failure. So it is actually dangerous.

If we make spellcasting easier, I think we need to make disjunction easier too, otherwise players will be swamped by spells with no possibility to counter. I think disjunction should cost at least 25% less than spellcasting, to take into account the 50% chance of failure. We could also increase the base success rate of disjunction, for instance to 60%.
The debate about removing or not critical success/failure should be conducted in another thread as it is a different topic.

Proposals:
Proposals were made a long time ago for Domain of and Empire of spells but were not implemented because we were waiting for a bigger overhaul, to avoid unfailry advantaging these spells.
The proposals were something like that for each spell:

Ea01
Domain of Earth costs 160 RP and 40 CP (was 180 RP, 60CP).



Ai03
Artic Empire costs 310 RP, 60 CP and 30 mana/turn (was 350 RP, 80CP, 40 mana/turn)


Basically it's a 40 CP cost for a city enchantment giving an average bonus and 60 CP for an empire wide average bonus and a slight decrease in RP cost, without changing tier. I'm going to make suggestions in that order of magnitude.

I'm going to start just with Theocrat to see if we more or less agree.

Theocrat

Mark of the Heretic - fine

Beacon of Faith - 120 RP and 30 CP, 25 CP to disjunct (130 RP and 40 CP, 50 CP to disjunct, Fertile Grounds is 120 RP and 40 CP and gives +200 pop instead of +100)

Paid Absolution - 70 CP and 55 CP to disjunct (80 CP and 90 CP to disjunct)

Prayer for the Hurt - 60 CP, 20 upkeep and 45 CP to disjunct (100 CP, 30 upkeep and 90 CP to disjunct)

Sanctified Sites - 20 upkeep, 75 CP to disjunct (15, 110 to disjunct)

Denounce City - 10 upkeep, 45 CP to disjunct (20, 60 to disjunct)

Wrath of God - deals 20 spirit damage, costs 45 CP (15 damage, 90 CP)

Hallowed Domain - 40 CP, 30 upkeep, 30 CP to disjunct (80 CP, 25 upkeep, 90 to disjunct)

The Great Purge - 50 upkeep, 75 CP to disjunct (40 upkeep, 120 CP to disjunct)

Armageddon - 100 upkeep, 440 CP to disjunct (80 upkeep, 550 CP to disjunct)

 

[nvc for the soul]

So what to do?
The first answer has to be to reduce CP cost of non-summon spells to improve the trade-off in their favour so that you actually want to cast them instead of summons.
The second answer is probably to reduce RP costs of weak spells and / or make them stronger, like we did in the balance mod for the Domain of [...] and Empire of [...] spells.
And finally, the upkeep of some spells may need to rise so that we cast more spells but we cannot sustain an infinity of them.

I support the general idea to make non-summon spells more interesting compared to the summons. More specific:
- I certainly support the first 'answer', maybe also slightly increase CP for some summon spells
- I would focus on making the spells stronger
- Probably right, depending on the spells...

On Theocrat; not played it for a while so I am struggling to remind what all these spells do

 

[Henrysix]

I agree with the overall premise. I suppose a 10% (or so) reduction in RP, CP, and/or mana cost would be a good first step. The Theocrat spells listed all seem reasonable, although I haven't played much Theo lately.

I agree that doing something about Disjunction would be nice, too. I think I would prefer making it cheaper rather than boosting the base chance (although they amount to the same thing). I did a quick look at Disjunction costs, and it generally seems to cost about 20% more mana than the underlying spell, which seems like too much. (The main exception is the T7 spells. Those all cost 500 mana to Disjunct, I believe, for spells that cost 600+ mana to cast.) Given a 50% success rate, I would think a general rule of the thumb should be that Disjunction costs the same as the underlying spell. Although maybe spells with high upkeep should be tougher to disjunct...?

Anyway, I'm curious how much other players use Disjunct. It's pretty rare in my experience, especially against global or city buffs. On the other hand, debuffs, especially city debuffs, do get disjuncted sometimes. Is that other players' experience, too?

 

[Rodmar18]

I myself try and disjunct A.I. global spells. At least, when I can afford the cost and time, it makes the A.I. leader always trying to cast them again.

If possible, there could be quite a lot of variability here : class spells easier to disjunct, depending of the class, spells easier to disjunct depending of their category : hostile city spells, allied city spells, global spells, domain spells, empire spells, ...

Some spells could be easy to reinforce and difficult to disjunct, or the opposite (if possible).

 

[Henrysix]

Yes, there could be more to the disjunction cost than I noticed with a quick survey. If anyone has figured out whether there is any pattern to the costs, I'd be interested to hear about it. In any case, somewhat more attempts at disjunction would be welcome, in my opinion.

 

[nvc for the soul]

Anyway, I'm curious how much other players use Disjunct. It's pretty rare in my experience, especially against global or city buffs. On the other hand, debuffs, especially city debuffs, do get disjuncted sometimes. Is that other players' experience, too?

I almost never use it on the strategic map; it is too difficult and AI almost immediately cast it again (playing against 1 team of AI emperors). When multiple debuffs are cast on 1 of my cities I let the AI take the city, and I take it back later. That is a quicker way to get rid of the debuffs.

In tactical battles disjunction is useful; but still a gamble.

Overall: making disjunction easier would be nice, as Hiliadan also suggested in the first post.

 

[Hiliadan]

Apparently few people had played Theo enough lately to give feedback, so let's try with an alignment specialisation: Grey Guard.

- Scales of Fortune: 10 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (was 5 upkeep, 60 CP, 120 CP to disjunct)

- Shield of Dispassion: 40 upkeep, 75 CP to disjunct (was 20 upkeep, 150 CP to disjunct)

Those two spells are pretty good so I would not reduce their research cost, and I limited the casting cost reduction to 10 CP for Scales of Fortune as it's already good at 60 CP (so could also remain at 60 CP maybe, but then it makes it harder to disjunct it as the disjunct cost is necessarily higher). But it's important to increase their upkeep.

Thoughts?

 

[Marcus Pers]

If im not mistaken, you must actually see the city that have the spell of "Scales of fortune" - when watching your videos of the top 8 game, I noticed that none of my cities buffs showed up in your list of "active spells". So it will be rather difficult to disjunct those kind of spells.

I agree on the upkeep increase for both those spells though - would a similar pattern be implemented for the other 2 specialisations that give "dedicated to X".
Also, is there a pattern in disjuncting cost based on type of spell and tier? Or you have ranked the spells on your opinion of their usefulness, and therefor how much they should cost to research, cast, upkeep and disjunction?

 

[Jolly Joker]

A word on Disjunct.

The easier disjunction becomes, the less desirable the casting of global spells become - why waste mana with the casting of spells, only to see them disjuncted? "Negation" must not pay, because that makes the game somewhat ungratifying. It's also some kind of "equalizer" - the negation of global (as well as combat with Dispel) spells works to make classes more bland.
Instead, Disjunction should be considered an emergency option. In other words, it should always be more desirable to draw on your Classes strength by casting your spells, than to negate the strengths of the others.
In other words, making disjunction cheaper is not advisable.

 

[Hiliadan]

To answer Marcus' questions:

Also, is there a pattern in disjuncting cost based on type of spell and tier? Or you have ranked the spells on your opinion of their usefulness, and therefor how much they should cost to research, cast, upkeep and disjunction?

Here is the guidelines I proposed for CP cost of spells:

Basically it's a 40 CP cost for a city enchantment giving an average bonus and 60 CP for an empire wide average bonus and a slight decrease in RP cost, without changing tier.

And for disjunction costs:

I think disjunction should cost at least 25% less than spellcasting, to take into account the 50% chance of failure.

So moving forward to:
Keeper of Faith
- Rally of the Populace: 60 CP to disjunct (was 80 CP to disjunct)
- Spiritual Freedom: 10 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (was 5 upkeep, 60 CP, 30 CP to disjunct)
- Keeper's Creed : 40 upkeep, 75 CP to disjunct (was 30 upkeep, 150 CP to disjunct)


Shadowborn
- Embrace Darkness: 10 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (was 5 upkeep, 60 CP, 120 CP to disjunct)
- Seed of Distrust: 10 upkeep (was 5 upkeep)
- Entwined by Shadows: 40 upkeep, 100 CP to cast, 75 CP to disjunct (was 30 upkeep, 150 CP (to confirm since it's different from Shield of Dispassion at 100 CP), 150 CP to disjunct)


Some guidelines for upkeep:
- 10 mana/turn for spells affecting only one city with a medium strength boost/nerf (Embrace Darkness, Denounce City... tier 2-4 spells)
- 20 mana/turn for spells for empire-wide weak spells (Prayer for the Hurt, tier 3 spells)
- 30 mana/turn for spells affecting only one city with strong boost/nerf (Hallowed Domain, tier 5 spells)
- 50 mana/turn for empire-wide medium spells (The Great Purge... tier VI spells)
- 100 mana/turn for empire wide strong spells (Armageddon... tier VII spells)

I think a minimum is around (T-1)*10 mana/turn where T is the tier of the spell for single target spells and potentially a lot more for empire spells. So it seems my values above are too low actually. I reached them by trying to modify current upkeep with incremental changes, but maybe more radical changes are needed.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I can't really understand the logic behind your disjunct values. Negating spells of opponent instead of casting your own spells must not be advantageous, but when the disjunction cost is lower than the actual casting cost, it's not, the 50% success rate notwithstanding, because in case of a success the original caster is worse off than the disjunctor, and in case of a failure, the next try will become that much easier. This is especially true when you think about games with more than 2 participants.

You do NOT want to see all interesting spells disjuncted as soon as they are cast.

 

[Hiliadan]

when the disjunction cost is lower than the actual casting cost, it's not, the 50% success rate notwithstanding

You can't ignore the 50% success rate. The real cost of disjuncting is higher than 1x[disjunct cost] in average so in average, it's higher than the casting cost. That's why I suggested to have disjunction cost 25% lower than casting cost. It still means disjunction is more costly than spell casting, but at least, it's less disadvantageous for disjuncters. Spells are very rarely disjuncted in PBEM games so there is clearly a problem with current disjunction costs.

Arch Druid:
- One with the Elements: 40 CP to disjunct (was 60 CP to disjunct)
- Fertile Domain: 15 upkeep, 30 CP to disjunct (was 20 upkeep while Beacon of Faith is 10 upkeep and gives +100 pop/turn instead of +200 pop/turn, 50 CP to disjunct)
- Insect Plague: 20 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 60 CP, 50 CP to disjunct)
- Sunburst: deals 20 fire damage, costs 40 CP to cast (was 15 fire damage, 80 CP)
- Poison Domain: 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (100 CP, 110 CP to disjunct)
- Wild Growth: tier III, 220 RP, 30 CP to disjunct (was tier IV, 350 RP, 60 CP)
- Nature's Eyes: 50 upkeep, 70 CP to cast, 55 CP to disjunct (was 40 upkeep, 80 CP, 100 CP to disjunct)
- Thorn Hedge Walls: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 50 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 120 CP, 120 CP to disjunct)
- The Wild Hunt: 80 upkeep, 450 CP to disjunct (was 64 upkeep, 500 CP to disjunct)

Warlord:
- Dread Siege: 20 upkeep, 40 CP to cast, 30 CP to disjunct (was 30 upkeep, 60 CP, 75 CP to disjunct) - that affects only units so should cost a lot less upkeep as Incite Revolt for instance, which costs 40 mana/turn and is tier III vs tier II for Dread Siege)
- Inspire Loyalty: 40 upkeep, 80 CP to cast, 60 CP to disjunct (was 20 upkeep, 100 CP, 110 CP to disjunct)
- The Draft: 40 upkeep, 100 CP to cast, 75 CP to disjunct (was 30 upkeep, 120 CP, 130 CP to disjunct)
- Conqueror's Feast: 80 upkeep, 80 CP to disjunct (was 40 upkeep, 140 CP to disjunct)
- Hero Slaying: 80 CP to cast, 60 CP to disjunct (was 100 CP, 110 CP to disjunct)
- Global Assault: 100 upkeep, 440 CP to disjunct (was 80 upkeep, 120 CP, 500 CP to disjunct)

Rogue:
- Poison Mastery: 40 CP to disjunct (was 60 CP to disjunct)
- Iron Grip: 30 CP to disjunct (was 40 CP to disjunct)
- Treasure Raiding: 15 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 40 CP to disjunct (was 10 upkeep, 60 CP, 60 CP to disjunct)
- Corpse Looting: 20 upkeep, 45 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 70 CP to disjunct)
- Incite Revolt: 45 CP to disjunct (was 80 CP to disjunct)
- Guild of Shadow Thieves: 45 CP to disjunct (was 70 CP to disjunct)
- Network of Scrying Eyes: 120 CP to cast, 80 CP to disjunct (was 150 CP, 170 CP to disjunct)
- Night Wish: tier IV, 350 RP, 25 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 45 CP to disjunct (was tier V, 700 RP, 20 upkeep, 100 CP, 110 CP to disjunct)
- Age of Deception: 100 upkeep, 450 CP to disjunct (was 80 upkeep, 500 CP to disjunct)

 

[Jolly Joker]

No, that's nonsense. Spells SHOULD NOT be disjuncted, so everything is fine.

 

[Hiliadan]

Dreadnought:
- Mana Fuel Cells: 15 CP to disjunct, 15 upkeep (was 40 CP to disjunct, 20 upkeep)
- Suppress Nature: 60 CP to cast, 45 CP to disjunct (was 100 CP, 120 CP to disjunct) - I also feel the upkeep is too high (40 mana/turn), but since the overall aim is to increase upkeep, I'm not touching it.
- Dragon Oil: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 50 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 120 CP, 120 CP to disjunct) - like Thorn Hedge Walls
- Forge Blast: 80 CP to cast (was 100 CP) - 40 CP for the 20 damage (like Sunburst) and 40 CP for the building destroyed
- The Great Mobilization: 100 upkeep, 450 CP to disjunct (was 80 upkeep, 500 CP to disjunct)


Sorcerer:
- Glyphs of Warding: 30 upkeep, 30 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 50 CP to disjunct) - Poison Domain proposed at at 50 CP and 30 upkeep
- Dread Omen: 25 upkeep, 50 CP to cast, 35 CP to disjunct (was 40 upkeep, 60 CP, 80 CP to disjunct) - a bit more expensive than Dread Siege which has a similar effect minus the -100 pop
- Dome of Protection: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 45 CP to disjunct (was 20 upkeep, 100 CP, 120 CP to disjunct)
- Lightning Storm: 7 physical and 13 shock damage, 40 CP to cast (was 5 physical, 10 shock, 80 CP)
- Enchanted Walls: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 50 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 120 CP, 140 CP to disjunct) - like Thorn Hedge Walls
- Summoner's Aura: 40 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 45 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 100 CP, 110 CP to disjunct)
- Spell of Return: 80 CP to cast (was 100 CP)
- Age of Magic: 100 upkeep, 495 CP to disjunct (was 80 upkeep, 500 CP to disjunct)


Necromancer:
- Undead Plague: 25 upkeep, 45 CP to disjunct (was 20 upkeep, 75 CP to disjunct)
- Enemy of the Faith: 30 upkeep, 80 CP to cast, 60 CP to disjunct (was 10 upkeep, 60 CP, 60 CP to disjunct) - in line with Hero Slaying. Arguably, it should be more expensive than Hero Slaying in terms of upkeep since it covers more enemy units.
- Rotten Wall: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to cast, 50 CP to disjunct (was 15 upkeep, 120 CP, 150 CP to disjunct) - like Thorn Hedge Walls
- Power Ritual: 50 upkeep, 100 CP to cast, 75 CP to disjunct (was 40 upkeep, 200 CP, 240 CP to disjunct) - similar to The Great Purge
- Damnation: 30 upkeep, 60 CP to disjunct (was 25 upkeep, 105 CP to disjunct)
- Age of Death: 100 upkeep, 450 CP to disjunct (was 80 upkeep, 500 CP to disjunct)

Destruction:
- Scorched Earth: 30 CP to disjunct (was 40 CP to disjunct) - there is a case for reducing upkeep to 10 mana/turn with this lower disjunct cost

Earth:
- City Quake: 60 CP to cast (was 100 CP) - 40 CP for building destruction and 20 CP for 30% population

Water:
- Freeze Water: 25 CP to cast (was 40 CP)
- Drench the Land: 40 CP to cast (was 60 CP)

Wild Magic:
- Warp Domain: 90 CP to cast (was 100 CP)


Overall I think it might have gone too far on lowering CP cost for building destroying spells (City Quake, Forge Blast) and strategic damage spell (Sunburst etc).

 

[Jolly Joker]

I'm going to make one last try to explain what is wrong here when it comes to the evaluation of the Disjunction "spell".

1) The main premise is that global spells are not interesting enough and are rarely used. That makes it rather obvious, that Disjunction is used even more rarely - there simply isn't much to disjunct.

2) What the AI does, is different; it fortifies the spells, so it's much more difficult to disjunct. However, when playing against the AI, disjunction of site-guarding spells is easy enough.

3)

In the end, the results should be a more magical Age of Wonders 3 with more spells cast.

If we make spellcasting easier, I think we need to make disjunction easier too, otherwise players will be swamped by spells with no possibility to counter.

This is strange. You want more global spells cast, but also an option to easier undo them, which is something that makes no sense. If spells are easier to undo, yiu can bet, that all good spells ARE disjuncted.
Global spells are Class-based and part of the identity of a specific class, while Disjunction is not. Make a thought experiment. Let's say the Disjunction of a spell would be 100% successful all the time, ro repercussions for anyone, same cost than the spell. Obviously, that would make the game silly, because everyone had the option to undo the work of someone else. A player had always a choice, what is more to my liking, undoing a spell I don't like or casting a spell myself. In this case not only the advantage clearly goes to those with more CPs to cast, it also makes all spells with immediate, non-disjunctable effect infinitely preferabble.
That's something you do NOT want. Imagine the same for units. Player A just built their first good Class T4. Player B can build their own - but maybe they haven't got a T4 or theirs is weaker, and instead of building your own you can UNBUILD the unit of PLayer A. Makes sense? Nah.

The 5% risk for both involved players when disjuncting may hit this or that way, but it actually means, that a player who deems themselves in an advantageous position will probably NOT risk a Disjunction, but rather cast (if at all) something from their own portfolio.

But disjunction SHOULD be possible - otherwise players would indeed be helpless against all spells.

What happens, if we keep the success rate at 100%, but increase the cost? That's obviously more like it. You are still guaranteed a success, but disjuncting the spell will cost you more than what the caster had to pay. In addition, there is no chance of failure - however, the higher the cost for Disjunction, the more interesting the 5% success probability become. Say, Disjunction would simply cost 150%, no additional chances. But say it would cost 200%. In that case an additional chance to set opponent's CP to 0 for the turn might be fine.

Lastly, what happens, if we lower success rate? If we make it between 55% and 95% success, then also the event probability for something negative to happen for OC goes up (success is more likely in the first place). Same thing the other way round.

Now, what if Disjunction chances are 50% (with all the consequences we have)? That means, in 50% of all tries the spell will be disjuncted immediately - with an added chance of making the Disjunction a catastrophic one for OC. Now, is the following result something you like:
a) You cast a spell, costing 100 CP. Next turn opponent Disjuncts it for 75 CP, and you also get your CPs wiped for the turn.
b) Conversely: you cast a spell for 100 CP. Next turn opponent tries to disjunct it for 75 CPs, fails, and THEIR CPs are wiped.

I hope you notice the difference, which is that catastrophic failure will not much worse for the Disjuncter than regular failure, because (if doing things correctly), you shouldn't have many CPs left after the Disjunction anyway.

So a) is really bad for the (constructive) caster, while
b) is not nearly as bad for the (negating) disjunctor.

Now, if you replace the 75 CP with 100 CP (the way it is), there is STILL a slight imbalance between a) and b) (a is worse for OC than b is for disjuncter). Additionally, if b), then integrity was halved (chances for disjunction success would double, for better chances for another a result, so b in effect forces OC to sacriice CPs for more integrity.

If, on trhe other hand, a Disjunction try cost MORE than 100% with 50% success probability, it makes no sense to try it in the first place, except if there is no choice.

So THAT means, the actual solution is, if you want uncertain success probability, a pretty good one. The only way to change that, would be an increase of success to 100% with at least 50% more cost and no negative event probabilities or an at least 100% more cost WITH a negative event probability.

 

[Hiliadan]

Thanks for your wall of text, we're not more advanced than before.

You want more global spells cast, but also an option to easier undo them, which is something that makes no sense.

It's your reasoning which is strange. If we said: "we want more T3 units to be built", it wouldn't mean we want them to be invincible so that nobody can ever kill them and they're uncounterable. Similarly, aiming for more strategic spellcasting does not mean those spells should be impossible to remove. What is not desirable is a constant "cast spell A / opponent disjuncts it / recast spell A / opponent disjuncts it / recast spell A / etc." cycle. But with the possibility to reinforce, the 50% chance of failure, the critical failure risk, and the relative interest of other spellcasting, it's hopefully not going to happen. If it does, we'll adjust, but I don't see why the proposed changes would make it likely to happen.

Let's say the Disjunction of a spell would be 100% successful all the time, ro repercussions for anyone, same cost than the spell

Yeah but it's not the case. There is "viscosity" in the system which makes it not that interesting to spend your time disjuncting, except for really annoying spells.

Overall, you're all speaking from a theoretical point of view. The current reality is that disjunction is not used much because it's not nearly as good as you suggest it is. It is risky and potentially useless.

 

[Jolly Joker]

You are even methodically wrong:

If you'd think that the global spells were "good", and THEN not much of them would be disjuncted (or even tried to), then, yes, something was wrong with Disjunct.
But that's not the case. If the global spells are NOT good - say, they are too expensive -, then why would you try to disjunct them, when the cost of disjunction is in relation to the casting cost of the too expensive spell? (It's better to simply summon something yourself, for example.)

However, if spells are priced "correctly" for what they do - then the Disjunction cost is also adjusted automatically.

 

[Hiliadan]

Dreadnought:
- Mana Fuel Cells: 15 CP to disjunct (was 40 CP to disjunct)

Following more recent discussions, I edited that to:
- Mana Fuel Cells: 15 CP to disjunct, 15 upkeep (was 40 CP to disjunct, 20 upkeep)

All these changes are going to be suggested to the community for v1.3 of the balance mod.

 

[El_Lobo1986]

A lot of stuff to read already... In general I appreciate making some of the non-summon-spells better but not all. There are already spells cast in every game so we have to be cautious which one to strenghten and which one are okay. Even if Hiliadan don't want it to be discussed here I'll vote (again) for removing critical failure/success. If 2 equal players prepare for a big clash one critical can completely change the outcome. It has nothing to do with skill and therefore should be removed in terms of balancing!

Disjunction should cost the same amount of mana like casting the spell. There is still a 50% chance to fail and that's okay. With greater disjunction it's possible to increase the chance so that would be fine I think. The original caster can strenghten the spell a turn later and in teams games it's normal to disjunct spells with the help of team mates. That's fine for me.

I am too tired to write more atm...

 

[Marcus Pers]

I think you have made a great job at balancing the spells, so that similar spells that have similar impact are now costing a similar amount of mana/cp/rp etc.

However, I must say that Im not totally in favour of making it easier to dispell/disjunct a spell.
In one way, you have taken the effort to clear a site (to get a spell), researched a spell etc. and then also cast it.
Im afraid if making disjunction cheaper, you will see more players try to be "sneaky" and save cp before a battle and disjunct empire spells, that otherwise wouldnt be possible.

I think lowering (increasing in some cases) the cost and upkeep of spells, so that more spells are cast, and similar lowering/increasing the disjunction cost (in relativity to the decrease/increase to cast it) would be sufficient as a first step.