Nasty global spells ? Well they definately should have some major implications, perhaps even some randomly chosen so you never really know what might happen. So opening that daemon gate in one game might result in the dead rising all over the world, and in the next game might result in regular meteor rains, of course the benefits should still be tempting and awesome in their own right, otherwise the spells will never get used...

And i don't know why, but i keep getting ideas of raising ancient dead gods to serve you and what not.. rather chtulhu like stuff...

I know that's not how it worked in, say, Age of Wonders. It's just a suggestion; Changes to the land doesn't have to be permanent.

I think the idea is probably to have some way to mitigate the effects of the mega-spells, not beat them entirely.  For example, a mega-spell that causes deserts to expand greatly into fertile land could have its effects reduced (say the land turns from fertile ground to plains in the areas effected by the counterspell) but not eliminated... and countering major spells would require an ongoing committment of energy.

Yeah its bit of a problem that frozen planes can just be harmful to you as to the enemy; that fits the condition that global spells are two-bladed swords There could be some way to "teach" your nation to live in cold environments; or perhaps if you start on cold northern continent, your people are simply used to it.

Ice Age would then become some kind of a basic, or I rather call it, a quicker way of expanding. Neighbouring nation is not willing to bow before you ? Chill the defiant will from their bones and march in there You could expand this way until you reach a land that is similarly held by a spell (oponnent channeler) which would be your final bus stop.

It could be even more extreme. One of the aspects in defeating enemy channeler could be to undermine his power and allow your Ice Age to expand into his territory. As in AoW, such global spells require upkeep in order to sustain its effects. This req. could be expanded so that you have a slider saying "how much mana you spend on upkeep". When two terrain-altering spells meet this decides which one will beat the other.

Once your Ice Age moves further, he is in trouble.

This could be interesting mechanic, I think.

I kind of agree with you... I'm pretty torn on how to solve the problem here. I think there definitely has to be a way to protect yourself from ANY enemy's spell, so long as you're willing to commit the time and resources - which should be significant in the case of major spells. I don't know about you but I'd be pretty frustrated if an enemy channeler casts annoying spell after spell on my kingdom and I can't do anything to stop it. 

Maybe you should only be able to cast counterspells against spells that are aimed directly at your kingdom? In addition there should be more permanent defensive spells that, once in place, mitigate any enemy spells against you but don't completely prevent them? Like in AoW:SM, as persistent spells they should have an upkeep. So if I find out that my enemy just started to cast Fire Rain against me, I could cast the counterspell and prevent it from ever going off. Or, I could let him cast it, knowing that the Magic Guard spell I put in place 10 turns ago will reduce its effect by 50%.

Ooo, and maybe you should only be able to cast the direct counterspell to spells that you also know how to cast! That could lead to some interesting scenarios. In fact, with a system like that I would even be in favor of completely countering massive global spells. After all, if somebody starts to cast a massive global spell that would be devastating to you, what are the chances that you'd know that same spell? You would only have researched it in anticipation of someone else trying to cast it as a way to prevent them from doing so.

And if you combine this with Iwarmonger and Bootss1's ideas, then you can get some really neat effects. Adapting Iwarmonger's idea, if you don't manage to gather enough strength for your counterspell to work completely, it can still mitigate the effects (in addition to whatever permanent defenses you've set up). If you combine that with Bootss1's idea, then for major spells that slowly go into effect, the counterspell will constantly strive against the spell. In fact, the way it could work is that countering a spell impedes the progress of the actual spell. The amount it would impede the spell would be dependent on the power/turn invested. So if the counterspeller invests more than the spellcaster, then the spell progress will be reversed! But if it's the other way around, then the spell will continue to progress but at a diminished rate!

Another way to counter spells (I think this should be in addition to the above!) could be to cast a spell with the opposite effect. If one channeler tries to freeze the world and another tries to burn it, a similar scenario as the one above with the counterspell would occur. The reason why i think this should be in addition to and not instead of the direct counterspell option is because not all spells should have direct opposites.

These ideas would give the player the ability to counter enemy spells, but only if their channeler knows the right magic and has good espionage, and is willing to commit the resources to it. Also when you get to the more powerful, especially global spells, it would give you that visceral feeling of two major powers striving against each other - much more than just flinging fireballs at each other would.

Sorry for the convoluted post... I used this post to formulate my thoughts as I went...

@ pigeonpigeon     Well, I think my point is that I think that a single thing that protects from ANY enemy is too powerful.   Like I think someone who gets off one of the global spells should have an undeniable upper hand.   like Iwarmonger said, at best you should only be able to lessen their effects of you (so that you could beat another player that didn't get a heads up or possibly survive long enough to get off your own super-spell)

I do like the idea of countering effects (burn the world vs. freeze the world) because then it would become a disjunction war. 

Good mechanics Lungdrago, but I'm not sure end-game spells should really have that kind of thing.  LIke it said, Elemental will have some intentionally un-balanceled spells.  That would be good for some of the earlier spells.

I really liked Dominions 3's top level summons, some of the things I think really worked.

Summoning individuals, while some of top summons were interchangible units, like the Tarrasque, others like the elemental kings/queens and the demon lords were named individuals with a backstory and if they were allready summoned you couldn't get them.

Summoning courts: some high level summons like the Faerie Queen broguht there servants along with them (she had 15 sprites), that was cool.

Summons as global enchantments, some spells (and not unconcidently my favourites) were global enchantments & summons: you could summon The Wild Hunt (attacks enemy priests if they are in forests), The Kindly Ones (hunt down blood mages) or the Fata Morgana spell that filled your empire with friendly phantasams (reduced unrest, increased income and production and defended your lands)

The verity of alternative words to summon helped too they used call, awaken, contact, bind etc. It worked

The size of the iron mine (and thus its duration) could depend on the size (strength) of the meteor. Although I suppose the strength of the meteor could come from its velocity (that would actually be more efficient, as kinetic energy increases as the square of velocity, and directly proportionally to mass...) - and in that case the faster (stronger) the meteor, the less of it would remain in the ground, which would result in a smaller mine...

Maybe I'm overthinking this?

no way.  I'm down with that.   

remember the old mana-slider bars we got in MoM, well I say this spell should have 2 of them.  1 for size, one for velocity.  Both of them will increase damage, but it will take more mana to increase size than it does for velocity.   Size covers both area of influence + increases the max amount of 'resource' that could be removed from the mine later.  (only the chance of higher yields, since it could still be mostly unless carbon rocks)    speed increases damage.  

So for destruction of just 2 wide creator on "blegh" city, and almost wipe out all units in the 5 radius AoE shockwave, you boost size |--|   but the speed  |----------|.   If you just want to wreck havoc on an entire metropolitin area, 5 space radius (able to take out 2 neighboring cities if this follows the Civ/Mom 3 space rule) and damaging everything in a 15 tile (a hefty chunk of an enemy nation) then you crank up that size.   Keep the velocity to a min though, because you don't want to mess up the casting time (and you're more worried about taking out as many towns as possible anyway)

I really like the idea of being able to adjust all the different properties of spells with multiple effects individually. Being able to trade area of effect for extra power, or boosting everything way up to get large AoE and lots of power, but for a very high cost premium - or even adjusting everything down for a pretty weak version of the spell. And this should apply to all spells with multiple effects. I guess it should actually apply to all spells except any with a binary effect.

This would allow for a relatively small number of spells to cover a much wider utility spectrum and make magic feel really customizable within the game itself (obviously, we know there will be a spell editor/creator, but I'd be surprised (but elated!) if they incorporated that into the in-game magic system).

"Evanescent Dark Energy" - once starts, magic starts losing power until there is no more magic points, enchantments doesn't provide bonuses, no essence...

"Star Reapers" - a star faring race reaches the channelers' plane and claim all its resources, living (and unliving) beings included.

As it was said in another thread...

"Hellfire" - Burns away a section of the world permanently. The cloth map for that area is burned away, leaving only charred edges.