I agree wholeheartedly, the game fails miserably at the summoner mechanic. The one summon per spell limit kills it outright. People don't play summoners in fantasy 4x games to have 1 of a few crappy summons running around the map, they want to summon armies. If I have the mana and want to summon an army of 50 ice elementals to defend my cities and attack my enemies, let me. Increase the upkeep or upfront mana cost of the strategic summons if needed, but we need to be able to summon lots of units. I'm just not even going to bother with the summoner spec until then.

I think they should have a perk later on in the last stages of the Summoner tree where it allows you to summon unlimited number of elementals of any type, but their mana maintenance stacks of course. I think it would be too OP early/mid game if you could do it, but if you've gotten to a sufficient level then you should be able to take the perk.

+1 Sanati, the upkeep cost is there for the balance. At the begining of a game, with 1 mana upkeep you just can't have unlimited summons (+initial cost). I never unlocked the last summons, i think it's always 1 mana upkeep? I think tougher summons should have an increased upkeep, reducing the amount you can get. Summons like Ice elementals or wargs aren't really good later compared to other elementals, so getting lot of them mid-late game isn't a game breaker i think.

There is other way to balance : have a soft/hard cap for each summons. Soft cap : For each summons of type x, have an increase of y% upkeep(and/or initial mana cost) for the next summon of same type. IF hard cap, make it x summons for each shard (depending of the summon/element).

But I really miss the element spec of summoner. In Master of magic, if your were spec in death you could summon ghost, undead units... Fire > fire element, salamander etc... Actualy there is no connection beteween your initial elements and the summons you can get.

There could be some ultimate summons, unique summons with huge cost, working like monster henchmen.

I don't remember how summoning was done in MOM.  How did they do it?

Since I'm working on the AI handling summons better, I would like to see summons be made more worthwhile.

In MoM summoning was just a strategic spell. Summon as many as you like with the downside being the upkeep cost (mana per turn) and competition for the casting queue (in MoM you were always casting something with spells taking many turns to complete).

FE/LH casting doesn't work like that so... what I'd like to see would be some kind of resource for summoning tied in with upgrading your outposts... which seems like too much work to see in LH.

-- Takkik got there first. SOrry for repetition.

One thing with summoning is the amount of summoning that can be done. I found it rather fun when I made a unit that was able to summon troops to fight instead of the unit itself (weak mage unit, strong summon unit). The summoning skill seems rather unfinished. I would like to see more types of summoning, for example. If you have Water, summon water elemental. If you have Air, summon air elemental. If you have Air and Water summon an Ice elemental. If you have fire and air summon a steam elemental (or the like). If you have fire and earth summon an angry cooked frog. The point is there are not enough summon spells to account for 1 summon per caster.

I would maybe look into creating a summon group spells as well, instead of summoning 1 fire elemental, the option to summon a group of 3 minor fire elementals (or something). This could leave you with 1 large fire elemental you can summon but you can summon multiple groups of fire elementals.

Another suggestion would be to attach the number of shards to the number of elementals of that type you may summon. 2 fire shards equates to 3 fire elementals and so forth.

I would like to see that tatical summons cost less mana than strategic summons (3 / 4 the price in mana) or something. Also, there should be a casting range limit to creating summons in the tatical battle.

We need a shrill summoning trait.

I think instead they are trying to go the route of tactical summons having a cast effect, like wisps healing in an area around where they are summoned.

More I think about LH, more I think the problem is how you acquire new spells. Compared to games like MoM where you got a master spell book and unlocking all the spell with research (or the recent warlock), here all the spells are scattered into multiples trees + tech tree. Personnaly I think each character or the faction need an unique spell tree, with all the spells aviables and lot of branching, and you unlocking tiers/spells categories with the fire/earth/life/death/water/air perks in your general tree and by doing research in magic tree. Need to add something like spell points for buy new spells (asquired with the research tech tree? could get some free spell pts when buying new ranks in elements or in mage tree). And the mage skill tree is here just for improve your spell casting & unlocking mages skills rather than spell.

http://masterofmagic.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning_Spell

I love Fallen Enchantress, but MoM has the best-designed, most fun magic system I ever played with.  Even if it was unbalanced.

In MoM, your nodes, inhabitants and champions would generate "magic", which if I remember correctlly you'd distribute between research (only spells came ut of this), Mana, and Power.  Power represented the amount of mana you could cast on each turn, and it increased in a arithmetic progression (i.e. to jump from 100 power points to 105, you had to spend 100+101+102+103+104=510 magic points).  So if you had 105 spell points, you could cast 5 summoning spells that costed 20 mana each.

Almost all spells and magic creatures had some mana upkeep, so balance was kept by how carefully you had to develop you power and how much mana you got left after all upkeep.

edit: replaced gold by research

A few have already replied, but there is a point missed:

For MoM, there were two types of summoning:

Of the first type, tactical summoning: This occurs when you are on the battlefield and wish to have some assistance from a summoned unit. There sometimes was a casting time, but most were instant. The summoned creature cost a set amount of mana (generally larger amount than if cast outside of combat). I believe you were also limited to one of each type. Once the combat has resolved, the summoned creature goes back from whence it came.

Of the second type, strategic summoning: This occurred whenever the player wants to summon a creature on the strategic map. There was no restriction to the number that can be summoned, however there was turn duration for this summoning depending on the creature being summoned and there was upkeep on all summoned creatures. When these creatures entered into combat, and if they survived, they still existed afterwards.

This escentially gave the player two types of summoning with one set of creatures. You could either use summoned creatures in a pinch during combat to help you win, but at greating immidiate cost....or you could plan ahead and build yourself a magical army that took time and upkeep to maintain.

I for one really hope this type of summoning is implemented. It would totally open up a world of options.

support better summons