No info at all about enemy strategic spells

from Elemental Forums

While the game has other problems, this one strikes me as gamebreaker.

 

Been playing my custom empire, holed on a nice peninsula, well defensible, exploring the tech tree, when suddenly - BAM - next turn I notice my capital is suddenly KRAXIS.

 

WTF????

 

Let me restate:

 

WTF?????

 

The game gave absolutely no explanation in the events. After reloading several times, I have noticed rotating purple sphere above the city. No idea what spell is that, the game says nothing. 

After going through the spells, I have found out that it's probably, maybe (I still don't know for sure) the spell that adds 30% unrest, and the city rebelled and joined the enemy. My defending unit got kicked out of the city.

Major event like this, and no explanation? Seriously, and this is a finished game, with a datadisk in the beta almost ready to release?

How did it got through all the testing?

 

9,952 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

This is the newest 0.87 version, I have forgotten to add. 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm more impressed that the A.I actually cast that at you.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, yea, surely, casting that spell is impressive, but:

1) How comes such a spell can deprive you of your capital??? Capital cities are most often immune to loyalty flipping like this in similar games

2) No enemy scout ever saw the city, I am sure. This is really a narrow, ridge-like peninsula, with two more cities in front of this one. 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Looks like it's fixed in .87   :grin:

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kamamura_CZ, reply 3
1) How comes such a spell can deprive you of your capital??? Capital cities are most often immune to loyalty flipping like this in similar games

The spell would be Broken Loyalties.  It converts a whole city, costs 1000 gold to cast.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

That spell exist in real life, too. It's called bribe.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

My biggest gripe, of course, is not the existence of the spell, but the fact that the game fails to provide any information about what happens whatsoever. 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

hmm i guess they forgot to add that spell to the list. i noticed in 0.85 that one opponent cursed one of my cities with am unrest spell (antipathy?) and the game showed a notification in the event list that my city had been cursed. 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

An event this big deserves (capital city deserted!!!)  a popup window. 

Besides the missing popup, I think stealing a city with a single spell without the player having a chance to respond is a poor design. Similar to combat spells that are cast over multiple turns, spells with impact this big should have multiple turn casting time and you should be able to challenge it with a counterspell of some sort. 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah there should be a notification, but as i pointed out, they probably just forgot about it. you may want to post this in the support section of the forum. regarding the power of that spell - i'm not sure. i mean, that spell costs 1000 gildar and (more importantly) the trait that unlocks it costs 2 faction points and it doesn't do anything else but unlock that single expensive spell. plus, they will only have militia units there after flipping the city, so it's not exactly hard to just conquer it back with 1-2 real units. if the spell gets nerfed, they better reduce faction point cost of the unlock to 1 point (and add another 1 point trait to the default "Kraxis" faction)

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top


Cutscene is what this needs. This and other MAJOR stategic spells all need cutscenes when cast.