[eMOD] Expanded Magic Mod v0.93

*Updated with 2 spell books*

Hey all.

The EMM is a section of a larger mod I've been working for a little while now. It started out as a personal mod to change some aspects of the game that I wasn't crazy about, and the game's magic system was one of those. But... it's grown in scope enough to where I thought I'd release it to the public when I finish. 

It's still in development, as you can see, but I thought I'd go ahead and post the notes online, in case anyone has feedback, suggestions, etc.

looks promising, I'm not a modder, but your ideas seem a wonderful direction to explore.

Thanks!

If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to throw them out there. I'm currently on holiday from school, so I should have a substantial amount of time to work on this over the next few weeks. I'm certainly not a pro at modding either, but the community has been very helpful.

Anyway, I have the non-elemental mana shards/shrines aspect of the mod working, and this feels like a substantial improvement to the game already (ymmv). Next up is the Spell Focus system and tweaking the spell distribution. The reassignment of spells is something I'm especially keen to get feedback on.

*Updated with initial spell distribution* Some spellbooks still need fleshing out, obviously.

Shadow:

Merge light into shadow

Blindness -> Darken Sight

Radiant Visage -> Eyeless Swarm

Dance of Shadows -> Mantle of Shadows

New Spell Dance of Shadows: +3 to Combat Speed for target unit for (1 * #shard) turns. Or 5, if that's not doable.

New Spell Haze: All enemy units combat speed reduced by 33% for 3 turns.

Arcane:

Merge Ether into Intuition, change name of Intuition to Arcane.

Add to Ethereal school.

New spell Mana Blast: 3x3 does 3 + (40% * int) damage.

New spell Eradicate: does 9999 damage to target enemy. Caster loses next three turns. Can be cast once per battle. Costs 1/2 of all mana.

Split elemental into two schools, Elemental Warmth (Air and Fire), Elemental Chill (Earth and Water). Or Elemental Creation (Air and Earth) and Elemental Destruction (Water and Fire). 

Fire:

Remove Flare

Ignite: targets in 3x3 box take (10% * int) + (1 * #shard) damage per turn for 3x turns.

Fire Ball: target enemy unit takes (20% * int) + (5 * #shard) damage

Air:

Suffocate: Target takes 1 + (1 * #shards) damage for three turns, combat speed halved for three turns.

Evade: Target friendly unit gains (20% * int) dodge.

Remove Storm

Remove Greater Evasion

Water:

Grip of Winter -> Chilling Kiss: Adjacent enemy loses next turn and takes (1 * #shard) damage.

Greater Grip of Winter -> Heart of Winter: For 3 turns, all enemies in 3x3 box take (1*shard) damage per turn, and have a 20% chance of losing their turn.

Blood:

Contagion -> Burning Blood: For 3 turns, all enemy units gain 2 combat speed and take (3 * #shard) damage per turn. 

Remove Unceasing Labor (+1 mat isn't worth anything)

Spirit

Remove Teleport (broken mechanic, annihilates positional play)

Remove Return (broken mechanic, annihilates positional play)

Mend Flesh: Heals for 2 + (40% * int)

Blink: reduce range from unlimited to tiles within 3 squares of caster.

New Spell (strategic) Cleanse Weariness: adds +3 move to stack for 3 turns.

New Spell Soul Cage: Target unit loses next turn

New Spell Nightmares: All enemy units have 33% chance of losing next turn

With what you've already got and the changes I suggested, I'd actually use magic. 

 Awesome! Thank you, I'll take a read over this and update. Check back in a bit and let me know what you think?

We're on the same page here. I think making Light and Shadow one school makes sense. Done.
I'll think about the name changes. I'm pretty keen on the Dance/Mantle changes.

I'm not entirely opposed to this. I'll mess around with it, see how it looks.

Again, I agree with you regarding the teleport mechanic. But, it's one of the few advantages of this school over others. I had imagined the Blood and Spirit schools to come with significant costs attached, and being further up the tech tree. Maybe I'll remove Return and make Teleport a level 4 spell. I'd prefer teleport to only move the Sovereign. Then I'd be more comfortable with it.

Looks awesome!  I'm still laying some groundwork with my own mods, but this is definitely on my 'Mods I wish to play' list!  Can't wait to see the final result!

And just as a reminder, Shards will no longer provide what is now Spell Focus (Formerly Elemental Mana). These will come from Sovereign traits, buildings with significant mana upkeep costs, and Wonders. That will factor into how it is incorporated into damage calculations.

Keep the good ideas rollin'!

Teleport only moving the sov reduces the amount of herowarping, but still leaves you with the issue of offensives where the player charges in without scouting, finds they are outnumbered, and then warps away to safety. Or the situation where the AI somehow musters an offensive and the player simply warps their sov around until a sufficiently large army is formed to defend the realm. 

No teleport means more defensive troops and scouting. That impacts income and population efficiency -- it's far more costly to put 4-5 units in every border city than maintain one infinitely fluid strategic reserve and a single unit in every city. It also makes horse units and +move spells valuable instead of a lolalternative to teleport. 

The advantages are huge for gameplay. The damage to the spirit tree is somewhat significant, but you could add a few more spells to make it worthy.

Soul Vortex: target unit loses 1/2 of all health, all friendly units are healed for (2 * #shards).

Siphon Soul: target unit takes (20% * int) + (2 * #shards) damage, caster faction gains mana equal to 3 x total damage inflicted if target is killed.

Compensate for the lack of mobility with enhanced opportunities for violence that has powerful side effects. 

I don't want this to turn into a debate about teleport. I personally think that many of the problems would be eliminated with a significant mana cost and the spell affecting the Sovereign only, but the easy fix is to include an alternate file without teleport, which I'm completely willing to do. I understand why people don't like the mechanic.

Just remind me if I forget to when it gets published.

If it costs 100 or 200+ mana, and is sov only, that seems fine. Good for emergency use, utterly impossible to go around grabbing everything.  

*Updated with new talents*

*Updated with a few more spells, some mechanics changes, and minor talent changes and the beginnings of spell level assignment*

Ritual of the Firmament -> Ritual of the Breath of Ellas

Ritual of Ellas Reborn -> Ritual of the Flesh of Ellas

Just to keep the pattern going. I'd actually remove the ritual part for the elemental ones. So, instead of Ritual of the Breath of Ellas, just Breath of Ellas. Shorter, simpler. 

Post some numbers on the spells (cost, result, maint, etc) and I'll whip together a spreadsheet to check balance. Also think you should expand the oppositional feel for various books, especially the elemental ones. Might also be a good idea to have a Good school and a Bad school -- one gets you a diplo penalty with Empires, one gets you a diplo penalty with Kingdoms. 

Also consider Mass Summon spells that call a group of X into being. Improves mid/late game viability of summoning. Also consider tactical summons -- Create Zombie, generates a weak unit with low combat speed and a ton of hp, once per battle.

Done. I like these names better, too.

Yep, that's next on the agenda. I wanted to settle on spell levels before I get into damage, to see how full each level looked and then tweak spell damage.

What do you mean by oppositional feel? Ideally this is something that I'd like to do, but without specific types of damage, I have no idea how this might work currently. Any ideas on this?

Overall, I want to move away from a black and white Good vs. Evil setup. I just don't like it, personally. Broadly speaking, in the lore I've written up, manipulating the elements is OK with everybody, the Light and Ether schools are questionable, and manipulating people's body and spirits generally upset everyone.

I plan on posting a general list of facts about the custom setting, factions, and how magic fits into it "relatively" soon. Maybe you could take a look and tell me what you think?

Idea is having a good book and a bad book will worsen relations between Empires/Kingdoms and lead to more wars. A player who gets good and bad book is basically shunned for doing things both sides consider reprehensible. Just adds more diploflavor to magic decisions. 

Oppositional feel like Water holding lower terrain spells, Earth holding raise terrain spells. Air speeding movement of own team, Water hurting movement of enemy team. Fire causing immediate damage, Earth causing damage over time. Spirit raising attributes, Blood lowering them, etc. Differences in how things are done, no both sides of any effect in same book -- rewards players who spread out their research by giving them more abilities rather than just more spells. 

Recommend cutting damage spells with similar effects -- players will naturally select best spell in class and use it rather than choosing between various types. Especially true since elemental shards are no longer a factor. 

Happy to look at anything. 

I agree with the intent and disagree with the implementation. Right now, I have it set up that other factions are neutral on some spellbooks, slightly concerned with some, and will get belligerent when a couple are researched. I think that (assuming a significant power rating) there is plenty of peace to go around- in all my games, the AI is a little more passive than I would like.

This way, there is a tradeoff. More power and fewer allies or less power for more allies.

Also... Initial spell level assignment is done. I'm very happy with some spellbooks (Earth and Blood), unhappy with others (Water, specifically), and feel like the remaining could use a little work.

Don't be shy if you have comments or suggestions. I want this mod to be the best it can be, and I've already gotten some great ideas from comments.

Aeon: working on one spell damage. One done, I'm going to try to get all the elemental schools done before I call it a night.

A couple of considerations:
1) Intuition and low level spells should ideally have as much or more power for casters with low intelligence and Spell Affinity. But, they should not scale well as the casters power grows (in Int/Cha and Affinity). That is how they stay relevant, I think. They will work well for low-stat imbued champions as well as in the early game. I think this is what keeps them relevant. Thoughts?

2) I think that different damage progressions by school are very important... I look at it this way: Fire > Blood > Air > Spirit > Water > Earth. Any thoughts on this progression? Notice any significant deviations from it?

Your comments, as well as anyone else's comments, are more than welcome. The back-and-forth is very helpful! I'll even credit you for contributions.

*Also, added another important "Special Thanks."*

-(3)Clay to Gold (Alchemy)- Target city gets +2 gold per turn; 2 material, 1 mana per turn maintenance

Remove G. Clay to Gold, change to (2 + EA) gold per turn

-(2)Blood Wound- Caster takes (Int/4) damage, target takes [(Int/2) damage + (4*Blood SF)] damage

-(4)Greater Blood Wound- Caster takes (Int/2) damage, target takes [Int damage + (8*Blood SF)] [Balance]

Change to caster takes (Int/((3 or 1) +BA) damage

-(2)Fervent Research (Invisible Workers)- settlement gets N arcane research per turn (mana and population upkeep)

N = 2 + BA

-(2)Nurturing Rains (Nature's Bounty)- settlement gets +1 food (red. cost, inc. upkeep rel to Nature's Bounty)

Change to (1 + EA), 2 mana maint

Single target turn loss needs to have a higher chance than multi-target turn loss in all cases -- otherwise, why use it, the mana efficiency will be higher in any case where multiCost/#units <= singleCost. Not much other feedback possible without mana costs. Upkeep based resource bonuses should provide higher bonus for use based on affinity, otherwise no point in specialization for builder players.

*updated with new spell school, revised damage equations for first 2ish schools*

Also, after thinking long and hard (relatively speaking), I've decided to release a canon lore version of this mod, as well. Will include everything, minus non cannon names, creatures, etc.

I've not had much free time recently to do any modding for elemental but I do have a fairly decent water spell idea (and mostly implemented) if you want to use it.

Ice Prison: Holds the target in a block of ice for X duration preventing the unit from taking action but granting it increased defense.

Reasoning: Taking a unit out of play is a powerful ability. Offsetting it by granting the unit extra defense means that the unit is less desirable for you to attack directly.

Possible issues: I think allot of magic is now true damage rather than resisted (may be wrong), so there may be little deterrent to using magic to attack the helpless unit.

Implementation: Create a world prop in the target tile to make the prison of ice effect last the duration of the spell. 100% chance to loose next turn for the duration of the spell. Plus extra defense to the held unit.

Possible extra: Reduce some of the units abilities for a longer duration as the target is chilled for a while after.

Another idea I had but had issues with implementation was an ice cage which forms around the caster (as in the squares around you), preventing melee units from getting close. The problem was that friendly units would prevent some of the blocks from forming, leaving holes in the defense. Implementation was similar to Ice Prison except with a radius of 1, range 0 and spell target type EnemyUnitIgnoreFriendly.

I've also been making some staffs that fire elemental bolts at the enemy as the standard attack (similar to how bows work). Damage is based off (Number of shards of the right element + attack) * Str bonus * Int bonus. Didn't want the Str bonus in there but wanted to keep the damage based off attack so had no choice (so increased attack spells, magical items still effect the staff). Mostly all this is an excuse to play around with the effect cauldron to see what I can make it do.

Aaaaand now I'm rambling

Done. I agree, I think this contributes significantly to the spell book. As for your concern about the encased unit being the target of other magic... the Water school is very light on direct damage. Maybe this would be an incentive to develop affinity to another school as well?

Just to update again, without unnecessarily bumping the thread again...

*Shifted emphasis for Earth school to make affinity more important than Int. Should make it a better fit for warrior-type sovereign.*

*Update* Due to coding limitations and in the interest of making the mod as of general interest as possible, I've decided to release a canon lore version first.

The biggest changes are that all flavor text will stick to the current game lore, and spell affinity is out, for now.  On a related note, if anyone knows how to reference resource levels in the Calculate tag of the CoreSpell xmls, I'd be very interested to figure this out.

Getting close, folks. A quick to-do list before release.

1. Filling out a couple of the schools. Specifically, I'm not happy with the Water, Ether, and Light schools. I'm also worried that the Air, Water and Light schools are too one-dimensional (the Ether spellbook is purposefully one-dimensional). Any thoughts?
2. One last balance pass at mana costs and damage.
3. Assigning paintings and particle effects to a few of the new spells.
4. Placing schools on the tech tree.
   1. Right now, I plan to have the first six available on creation and researchable with a couple intermediate techs added into the list to make researched schools a little harder to get.
   2. Transcendence is research only.
   3. I'm on the fence as to Spirit and Blood. Right now, I'm leaning towards having the first two levels of each available on creation and the higher levels requiring research.
5. Balance pass on Epic-level research costs.
   1. Arcane research requirements increased.
   2. Increases in spell level requirements increased.
   3. Tech requirement exponent increased slightly.
6. Debugging. 

If there's anything you'd like to see included, speak now or forever hold your peace. At least until the next release.

Ether could be used to summon beings that posses a unit granting it greater abilities, also summoning different workers for cities for city bonuses. Possibly adding actual population? Also maybe a summon which only has the ability to explode and damage all around it?  Summon weapons, demon swords etc.

Light could summon a unit or multiple units that are illusionary (have no attack low/1hp), they should then save your real units a few hits depending on who the AI decides to target. An enchantment to a city to add prestige (cause it's all shiny)? or maybe increased production in the city as you can artificially lengthen the time there is light to work by, or something where light or darkness is key to production (eg, food though water does that).

Depending on your viewpoint a water spell could be used to cause drought lowing food production in a city (depends if power over water is just to create or to remove as well). Also the ability to create ice fortifications around a city (like hedge wall).