SOLOSOL

Join Date 01/2012

The "Magic" Outpost

I have seen a spell that allows to place a Monolith (ancient monolith I think it is the name, not sure sorry) that acts like an outpost, at a cost of 50 mana. I'm not sure if it was in previous builds, or it is only from last .992

The good things:

- IT allows to stop the pioneer spamming needed to increase ZoC in zones not suitable for cities. Not only to get resources, but to ocupy land

- It acts exactly the same that the pioneer outpost, and can be upgraded (armory, stables etc...)

- The cost of 50 mana...I find it reasonable.

- Inmediate...no need units to go, just an empty tile, and hover with the mouse.

The bad things:

- To magically put an outpost in an empty tile and suddenly I gain that ZoC...I'm not used to it, I find it a bit "out of the sense of the game".

- I find this like a patch solution for the pioneer spamming. If that was the idea, now nobody will use pioneers in building outposts...unless not enough mana...

- ¿Expansion balance can be affected.? Now we can use cities for gildar and pioneers, and mana for monolith, so it will be very fast to expand (that is what i'm checking in my last game).

Do you find this introduces an interesting alternative to the pioeneer spamming, or on the other side it can be disbalancing?

Does the AI uses it too? Will we see land fighting through monoliths?

It all seems to take to the same place: Outposts should be buildable by pioneers at a cost of 50-100 gildar and not get consumed in the process.

And this spell could be a good alternative for paying in mana instead of in gildar. If 100 mana = 100 gildar (Alchemy spell) then the costs could be easy to balance.

What do you think about this spell?

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If I am not mistaken you only get this spell if you happen to have the 'Enchanters' trait, like Pariden does, so not every player will be able to use it.

Edit: And yes, I do believe it's been in previous builds for some time now. Personally, I find it quite useful when I have access to it, although I don't ever remember seeing the AI make good use of it.

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ItsIt's a perk for those who take Enchanters as a custom trait... A wonderful fantastic perk, in fact enchanters is arguably one of the best traits. it would be good to make the spell part of the tech tree or spell books so anyone could get it and reduce the awesome of enchanters.

imo it isn't for patch for pioneer spamming, just a cool idea thrown in too quickly perhaps.

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The Arcane Monolith is the salvation to pioneer spamming. Problem is, only those with Enchanters trait gets them.

They are fantastic though, as your city queues are released for more important things. I suppose this is somewhat balanced out for Pariden because they have a +25% building penalty. Nevertheless, I wish all factions had some alternate way of creating outposts so that you wouldn't have to SPAM so many bloody pioneers.

ps. I still have YET to build a scout. Maybe there is still enough time to squeeze in this change: make scout's build outposts. not pioneers. Scouts are cheaper units and provide more fuction in terms of finding resources and setting up shop.

However, in regards to the Arcane Monolith, I do have two small concerns with the mechanic:

Have you ever seen the High Tower upgrade attached to an Arcane Monolith? Yeah...this needs addressing. It's not game breaking obviously but it looks very silly.
You have the ability to place an Arcane Monolith ANYWHERE there is an empty square. That means, so long as you maintain peaceful relations with the other factions, you can magically take over the world and build all the resources that are afar from the comfort of your livingroom. Imo, there should be a max range from your Sovereign that the spell can be cast. 20 squares or something...

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So that is, my last game I tried Enchanters (as many people talks so good of it)...and it is true....

I think no place in this trait informs about the spell Monolith. I will check again to be sure.

GFireflyE:

The point 1, IDK what you mean...

The point 2. I agree with you. But it is hard to think in a suitable solution...I mean, suposing you HAVE to use monolith at a Max of 20 tiles from your ZoC....well, it doesnt matter...just make another one, an ZoC increases too... At the end, the only limit for the control of the world is the available Mana. So this spell can be very disbalancing... Costing a lot of mana means no use, and costing little means abuse.

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It does not look too overpowering to me, not at 50 mana, but then it's been a long time I've used it. I haven't played with "Enchanters" lately.

When it cost 30 mana, and shards gave you 3 mana from the start, and developing resources did not tie up your city queues... then it was overpowering, and I was clamoring to have it made more costly.

Right now, it's mostly about ZoC for Cloud Walking, because I'd rather rush a pioneer for ~100 gold than spend 50 mana.

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I don't find the arcane monolith spell overwhelming. You pay 50 mana up front for each, and it suffers from all the drawbacks of other outposts. In the early game, 50 mana is a lot that could be more effectively used as summons, city and hero buffs, and in combat, while in the late game you've got many big battles that require very mana-intensive spells. Of course, if you select dense resources and easy AI, you will be able to spam the thing, but that's your choice as a player. And no one needs to be protected from making their own choices in this respect.

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Quoting Tuidjy,

reply 6

Right now, it's mostly about ZoC for Cloud Walking, because I'd rather rush a pioneer for ~100 gold than spend 50 mana.

When using enchanters, I usually use pioneers too Mana have so many uses compared to gold, and if everything fails I probably got the alchemy spell through quests.