I can't comment an opposition, even if I would question the number three, limiting enchantments would require reworking the game. It limits their value, and the value of their tomes.
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The way this worked in Planetfall is that higher tier mods had higher costs of application.It's the same thing as with limiting the tomes you can research - there is none. Still, costs are increasing, so the number of tomes you will research in a game is factually very limited, which also means that the number of enchantments is limited. If you increase the upkeep for enchantments the same way as research costs have been increased (that is, enchantment upkeeps not only have a base cost, but also an additional cost depending on how many a unit class already has active), multiple enchantment costs will become prohibitively high (of course, if you play an easy enough realm you will still be able to slap the things on like they cost nothing) - plus, those with a better economy can translate that advantage into a troop quality advantage.
Limiting the amount of enchantments per se will limit the tome choices quite drastically, because you will have decide beforehand which tome combination will allow best enchantment combo for your tome and cultural units.
Tweaking yes, reworking no. Besides there is already groundwork set with transformations as NorthenDruid pointed out. (so this isn't even completely foreign concept for the game)I can't comment an opposition, even if I would question the number three, limiting enchantments would require reworking the game. It limits their value, and the value of their tomes.
If you aren't using your mana you aren't doing it rightYes, exactly. And since we are at limits - why not limit the amount of Mana you can store? If that sounds outlandish, look no further than AoW 3.
This will make mana even more uncompetitive. Compared to mana, gold is used for the vast majority of unit upkeep, used in some enchantments, used to build buildings, province improvements and recruit units. Gold is also used to instantly build and recruit, making gold as useful as imperium to jump start a city. Lastly, gold income automatically increases with higher level town halls.Yes, exactly. And since we are at limits - why not limit the amount of Mana you can store? If that sounds outlandish, look no further than AoW 3.
Usage of mana is already globally bottlenecked by casting points which doesn't scale as well as new cities. Unit summoning is competing with strategic spells, players who focus on summoned units can find that they can't cast as many strategic spells. Also mana income is hard to come by early game. Mana isn't granted by town halls and I have seen guaranteed gold mines near every starting city (free city or player) but mana nodes are scarce. And also in coastal cities you can't build conduits and have to rely on oyster reefs, which is based on luck, unlike gold which is generated by the seafarer's guild.What do you mean, "uncompetitive"? You need mana for everything in the game we are talking about here: every race transformation, major or minor, every strategic and tactical spell, every Summoning, every enchantment and for the enchantment (and summoning) upkeep especially which is what matters for this thread. An enchantment has to be cast which costs mana PLUS it increases the upkeep of the enchanted units, mostly with Mana.
The complaint in this thread is that armies and units have too much enchantments. My point was, that instead of putting a cap on number of allowed enchantments you can increase the mana-upkeep for enchantments, based on how many enchantments already are on a unit, for example, by adding the upkeep of all enchantments already on a unit to base the upkeep of a new enchantment.
Now, obviously, when you have amassed 10.000 Mana, it doesn't matter much when you have 10 turns with a 500 points mana deficit. However, when you have a mana limit - as you have in AoW 3 - you can't amass these amounts of mana, and consequently cannot afford too high a deficit for too many turns.
Mind you, if the game is scaled the right way (for you) then you wouldn't amass so much mana because you'd need to spend it, and if you spend it, most of the time, the mana uplkeep increases reducing your income. That's how it SHOULD work, at least.
After OP admitted to extensive use of moods and house rules, especially the rule about no more than 1 high level spell use per battle, I understood the issue. The problem here is not with the base game balance (which isn't perfect by any means) but OP's expectations about how the game should be at the detriment of other players. Some affinity builds are dependent on high level spell usage and taking that away from them and then complaining about balance is disingenuous.The complaint in this thread is that armies and units have too much enchantments.
You have no idea how quickly that would inflate the cost of even the 3rd, 4th and progressive enchantments. And before you say, "that's the point! We should only have one or two enchantment" then why would people research later enchantments? Or why would people research early enchantments, if they are planning on researching later enchantments?by adding the upkeep of all enchantments already on a unit to base the upkeep of a new enchantment.
Nah man, 1 high level spell use per battle isn't that outlandish as a rule. The only reason you don't see people complaining about this, is 'cause AI plays like a gentleman. If AI would spam Tectonic Shatter or something like that peeps would riot and you would see no end to it.After OP admitted to extensive use of moods and house rules, especially the rule about no more than 1 high level spell use per battle, I understood the issue. The problem here is not with the base game balance (which isn't perfect by any means) but OP's expectations about how the game should be at the detriment of other players. Some affinity builds are dependent on high level spell usage and taking that away from them and then complaining about balance is disingenuous.
Huh, you talk about game difficulty quite a bit, but game difficulty doesn't give any malus or bonus when it comes to player resource acquisition. So what exactly are you talking about when you say "depending on game difficulty it doesn't make a lot of sense when you can effortlessly cast everything you want"?I obviously agree with most of what you say and posted a lot to the setup of OP's games. STILL, depending on game difficulty it doesn't make a lot of sense when you can effortlessly cast everything you want, never having any mana problems. Plus, Triumph already changed the game insofar that they reacted on the complaint "later on we can research all lower-tier tomes effeortlessly and slap a ton of additional enchantments on". The idea is obviously, to put no hard caps anywhere (or most anywehere), but to limit things by increasing costs in a way that makes sure that you have to make a choice at some point and cannot simply do everything.
That should be reflected in the game difficulty. A simple upkeep cost modifyer might suffice here, but it SHOULD be possible to allow a simple setting to do that.
Here's an example of a multiplayer game, I played the army on the left.
The unit damage you see is without Strengthened, Fortune, Wet or Storm Crow being active.
AND this is a nerfed version of Stormbringer in my mod, 1 turn CD on Trident and a 2-hex line.
Meanwhile the opponent's Tyrant Knight did like ~50 damage on a full Charge attack (+90% in the mod).
These units have 155/160 HP... That's without Gaia's Chosen. Tell me how you're going to kill them.
Disrupting Blades wouldn't even be able to touch me, as his entire army was affected by Slowed.
I also had Lava Burst ready just to slow him again if needed. Severing Golems are very bad units sadly.
Disruption Wave is the only counter to this, but then I can just retreat and cleanse it from my units.
Or you could do the big brain play and also go for Disruption Wave, countering the counter.
Shock units scale very poorly, as they don't have great supporting enchantments and cannot access their targets.
Battle Mages are also horrible beyond T3. Chaos Eater and Transmuter aren't units, but they also have no range.
So where my Zephyr Archer deals 32 damage per shot from 6 range, a Battle Mage has 4 and deals less damage.
On top of this Zephyr Shot is dealing 49 damage at 7 range, whilst a Battle Mage AoE deals around 22 at 6 range.
All of this is without High culture giving them another +1 bonus range, which is incredibly insane in my opinion.
If you don't allow me to stack 3 billion enchantments, then this problem suddenly becomes far less extreme.
Once again.... I am playing Primal Crow and I have 5 cities. I can still get another 95 income and build 3 more Storm Megaliths for ~30 each.Look, dude, *I* use my mana. But OP doesn't; on the screens he posted he has 4300 Mana plus an income of +607 per turn - after paying upkeep. You cannot even use all that income because that would mean you had to have a combined tactical and strategic map casting allowance of 600.