While simply investigating Age of Wonders, I came across an entirely different game (non-magic) called Europa Universalis III Chronicles by Paradox.

I checked those videos and reviews, and I have to say that I am really considering that one instead.  And the music.... how it does wonders to my neuro-circuitry.  I bet that game is entrancing on many levels.

Me likes.  Very much.

-.-

But if you like strategy, you should play all three (AoW1, AoW:SM, and EUIII:Chronicles) at some point.

To soul-stream: I agree Magic should be powerful, I just say that focusing on other things should be as interesting an option, otherwise why bother so much creating all this unit-specific traits? But I think we agree on this point

To HallowedByMyName: when I said that in MoM you had only magic I did not mean that there were no armies or champions, and I realized I did not make myself clear at all, so my fault! I meant that in MoM there was no research to be done towards units improvement, or champions' talents. The main in-game "improvement" decision was how to split the magic points you collected beteween magic research, magic skill and magic mana... while in FE it seems that if you decide to improve on magic (e.g. research a spell) you decide to do that INSTEAD of researching a unit trait, for example, which makes armies and magic much more a trade-off than it used to be in MoM, where focusing on one mostly did not come at the cost of sacrificing on the other.

In order to possibly be of some help to developers, I want to try to list things that I'd like to see in the magic system. Feel free to say that you agree or not, that some are more important than others, or to add more stuff.

1) Many more spells. Some additional point:

  1a) no big disproportions in number of spells between schools

  1b) interesting characterization of each school (on this one, I think they are on the right track)

  1c) more strategic spells that affect mechanics on a large scale (e.g. see MoM spells Evil Omens, Crusade, Meteor Swarm, Time Stop...) and more tactical spells that affect all units on the battlefield (I adored MoM's Call Lightning, where a lightning was falling on a random enemy unit every turn for the entire battle, but see also Black Prayer, Warp Reality...)

  1d) cooler city spells with mantainance cost (magic protection, increase trade, increse healing for troops in the city, increase growth, create a gate to be used to teleport units between cities, but also negative ones: famine, anger, despair...). Personally I think that if a powerful fire mage can raise a volcano, a powerful life mage should be able to shield a few cities against it at a proper mana cost.

  1e) random/quest spells are a cool idea, but a significant chunk of spells should not be random - it is good to have randomness in a game, but not a random game

  1f) possibly add an Arcane school (like the base spells we have now) with some utility spells. Some examples: enchant shard (friendly units within 6 tiles from a controlled shard receive a bonus to magic resistance and healing rate, or a different bonus depending on the shard - healing for Life, evade for air, attack for fire, defence for earth, movement for water, +%critics for death - to make shards into stringholds that are easier to defend than to attack), Connect cities (takes several turns to progressively connect two cities with a magical road).

2) Avoid the fact that during the sovreign creation phase one can spend points to specialize his mage into, say, death magic, and find no death shards whatsoever around his capital. Possible solutions: a) shard generation takes into account traits b) allow the player to choose 2 minor shards to have near the capital c) allow for prismatic shards that count towards all magic schools, and let us find a minor one right at the beginning d) surrender to the fact that people will probably not take school-specific magic traits when creating their sovreign, or start again and again until they find one - so lame!

3) Make magic worth using in the first half of the game compared to focusing on, say, armies while piling up mana (I am sure you have this issue very clear in your mind, but still...)

4) The sovreign should be able to cast spells all over the world, but champions... shouldn't they have a range?

I agree Marionesi, Magic should be a main focus and other options like diplomacy should allow some manipulation like go attack this sovereign, that city or that special unit.

The other parts for buildings, you should be able to win maybe with a wonder or smth... But I know that the cities won't let us build dwellings anymore which was a serious pain in WoM.

Armies should have enough different traits to allow us to find some interest in them. I wish we could be build beasts in the city rather than relying on invocation all the time too, while the summonings should be way powerful creatures or creatures to summon in an emergency to support a city that will be attacked, for exploration or just a small raid to have an idea of what the target city will be like.

I want to see more spells but I don't want to see useless spells... Like the book of spider that was proposed =/ Summon a weak spider, summon spider, summon giant spider, summon ultra powerful spider... is not 4 additionnal spells but just one that should be there only once and maybe get more powerful with the number of death shards we own.

Same with heal, we need heal and mass heal and that's all.

I could give many more example but please, don't fall in that trap of creating 10 spells that could just be resumed to one that could get stronger following the number of shards we own or depending the amount of mana we put in a spell ! (CFR MoM again !)

I also agree with the range, the sovereign should be able to cast spells anywhere like in MoM and like in AoW as long as the Sovereign is in his tower, he could have a range outside his tower though.

And finally, I won't say it enough as well as other people on this forum : MoM, MoM, MoM and MoM !!!!!!!!

What about this easy implemention of the "teleportation sickness" idea mentioned previously?  Derek, what do you think about this way of balancing the power of teleporting armies with the need to strategically balance teleport spells so it's not just a case of strategic nullification of zapping in from anywhere on the whole map and attacking with full strength?

Best regards,
Steven.

Edited post to correct some typos...

In order to possibly be of some help to developers, I want to try to list things that I'd like to see in the magic system. Feel free to say that you agree or not, that some are more important than others, or to add more stuff.

1) Many more spells. Some additional point:

  1a) no big disproportions in number of spells between schools

  1b) interesting characterization of each school (on this one, I think they are on the right track)

  1c) more strategic spells that affect mechanics on a large scale (e.g. see MoM spells Evil Omens, Crusade, Meteor Swarm, Time Stop...) and more tactical spells that affect all units on the battlefield (I adored MoM's Call Lightning, where a lightning was falling on a random enemy unit every turn for the entire battle, but see also Black Prayer, Warp Reality...)

  1d) cooler city spells with mantainance cost (magic protection, increase trade, increse healing for troops in the city, increase growth, create a gate to be used to teleport units between cities, but also negative ones: famine, anger, despair...). Personally I think that if a powerful fire mage can raise a volcano, a powerful life mage should be able to shield a few cities against it at a proper mana cost.

  1e) random/quest spells are a cool idea, but a significant chunk of spells should not be random - it is good to have randomness in a game, but not a random game

  1f) possibly add an Arcane school (like the base spells we have now) with some utility spells. Some examples: enchant shard (friendly units within 6 tiles from a controlled shard receive a bonus to magic resistance and healing rate, or a different bonus depending on the shard - healing/health for Life, attack speed for air, attack for fire, defence for earth, movement/evade for water, +%critics for death - to make shards into stringholds that are easier to defend than to attack), Connect cities (takes several turns to progressively connect two cities with a magical road).

2) Avoid the fact that during the sovreign creation phase one can spend points to specialize his sovreign into, say, death magic, and find no death shards whatsoever around his capital. Possible solutions: a) shard generation takes into account traits b.) allow the player to choose 2 minor shards to have near the capital c) allow for prismatic shards that count towards a magic school of one's choice, and let us find a minor one right at the beginning d) surrender to the fact that people will probably not take school-specific magic traits when creating their sovreign, or start again and again until they find the shard they want close to their capital - so lame!

3) Make magic worth using in the first half of the game compared to focusing on, say, armies while piling up mana (I am sure you have this issue very clear in your mind, but still...)

4) The sovreign should be able to cast spells all over the world, but champions... shouldn't they have a range? (Btw one of the main things I did not like in AOE was the sovreign having no cool world strategic spell, and too limited a range even with the highest mage tower in the capital).

5) imo Strategic Enchantments (such as Regeneration) should also work during a battle, while it makes sense that the opposite may not be true.

Some ideas for new spells (level depending on the strength of the effect).

  a. Acid rain, Tactical, Fire&Water: units in a certain area get x damage and have their armor reduced by % until the end of combat

  b. Holy Purpose, Strategic, Life: All friendly units are filled with holy purpose: those within your Kingdom borders receive ++ damage and resistence rolls, and those outside your Kingdom borders receive + damage and resistance rolls

  c. Excruciating Pain, Tactical, Death: target enemy unit receives x damage; until the end of battle, whenever this unit receives damage this is increased by %. This additional damage is illusory and is healed at the end of the battle if the unit survives

  d. Water of Heaven, Strategic or City, Life and Water: City fountains spill waters that comes from the heaven. Friendly units garrisoned in cities you own heal at +200% rate and have +% life and def when fighting in a city you own

  e. Eternal soldiers, Strategic, Death: whenever one of your units is killed in a battle but you win the battle, a zombie unit is summoned in its place - you can make this tactical and have the zombie raise during the battle, but die once the battle is over

  f. Reaper's concession, Tactical, Death: during this battle, your units die only when their health reaches -20%. At the end of the battle, all units with negative health are destroyed.

  g. Impervious Skin, Enchantment, Earth: the unit skin becomes as hard as steel: all non-magic damage is decreased by %. Any further damage reduction bonus from worn armor is not applied.

  h. Call Lightning, Tactical, Air: Stormy coulds gather above the battlefield. Every turn 1-2 random enemy units are striken by a lightningbolt dealing x air damage

  i. Choking smoke, Tactical, Fire: summons a smoke cloud on target space(s). Units within the cloud cannot use ranged attacks and must resist every turn or skip their turn. Units within the cloud also receive % less damage from ranged attacks.

  j. Depression, Tactical, Death: all enemy units receive -x attack unit the end of the battle. When this spell is cast, any active Inspiration spell have a % chance to be dispelled

  k. Inspiration, Tactical, Life: all friendly units receive +x defence until the end of the battle. When this spell is cast, any active Depression spell have a % chance to be dispelled

  l. Whispering Wind, Strategic, Air: the wind whispers in the ears of your champions, revaling things seen far away; all your champions have their sight range increased by x;

  m. Pathfinding, Enchantment, Earth: target unit and all units in its stack do not receive movement penalties from terrain tiles

  n. Guardian Winter, Strategic, Water: A winter storm hails within the borders of your territory;

  o. Ambush, Strategic, Earth: target a friendly army on the world map; if this unit attack this turn an opposing army outside a city, your units receive a % bonus to their initiative in the first round of combat

  p. Frostbite, Tactical, Water: all enemy units on the battlefield receive  damage and their attack speed is reduced by x until the end of battle

  q. Blessing of Soil, City, Water: city crop yields increases; target city growth rate is improved by x; any Famine spell on the city is dispelled.

  r. Famine, City, Death: famine spreads in the city; population drops by x, and city growth rate is decreased by y; if target city has an active Blessing of Soil spell, either Famine or Blessing of Soilare dispelled with a 50% chance. (Famine could spread to friendly cities connected with the one infected).

  s. Elemental Ward, City, any element: target city have a % chance to resist enemy spells targeting the city from the opposite element (e.g. Air Ward is an Earth spell that protects against Air, et cetera); all opposite element spells cast during a tactical battle in this city have a % chance to fizzle.

  t. Inquisition, Strategic, Life: while this spell is active, you are not allowed to research magic, and all spells that you and your champions cast cost twice as much mana. In all your cities non-magic research is increased by x% and unit production is increased by y%.

  u. Bone Guardians, Strategic, Death: if one of your city is attacked and there are less than 8 units defending it, skeletal berserkers units are instantly summoned in the city to make a total of 8 defending units. For every two skeletal berserker units, a skeletal mages unit is also summoned. These units die once the battle ends.

  v. Master of Winds, Strategic, Air: all flying units you control have their movement increased by x, and all flying enemy units have their movement reduced by y

  w. Lust, City, Fire: citizen in target city are enflamed with fevering passion; growth rate in the city is increased by x, while research and production are decresed by y.

  x. Poisonous water, City, Death and Water: city population decreases by x; growth rate decreases by y. Units stationed in the city do not heal and lose % health each turn.

  y. Dispel, Universal, Basic; Attempts to dispel enemy spells from target unit/city; the base probability of dispelling is 50% and is affected by the number of shards you and your enemy sovreign control, the level of the spell to be dispelled, your mastery in the spell's opposite element (if you are Archmage in Light you are better at dispelling Death magic spells), whether the target is in your or his territory, and whether your sovreign or his sovreign are in that city/army.

  z. Divine Shield, Enchantment, Earth and Light: target unit is immune to magic

Final comment: I have never played E:WoM so I am not sure if all of the effects listed here make sense...

Uff...

For element related ailments:

Burn (fire) -afflicted unit takes more damage (easier to crit them and/or lowered defense) until cured/end of battle/ or resist

Poison (poison)- afflicted unit takes damage each turn until resisted (or x turns for more of a sickness thing), cured or end of battle

Stun (earth)- afflicted unit losses a turn (and cant counter attack, attack or move), may be resisted (shorter duration than others usually only 1 turn but shuts down their options)

Slow/freeze (water)- unit looses x amt of movement, chance to dodge reduced, may be a 1 turn thing or fall under the till end of battle/cured or resisted category

Knockback/Disorient (air)- unit may be knocked back (position changed) or unit looses accuracy, and cannot use ranged attacks until resisted/cured or end of battle (or chance to do some damage to itself on a failed attack)

Just some ideas for thematics on the elements, I wouldn't completely limit any of them to a given element (as one effect could be applied to multiple applications just by changing its name) but giving some keyword ideas or traits to each element to help guide the type of spells preffered could be helpful (as long as it isn't upheld too strictly).

I don't agree with this. Unit design is good if done well and balanced. Most of the time this is not the case (it wasn't in MoO2 and it isn't in Elemental). I would much rather they left units alone and just let us design heroes (through leveling up). Premade units can be as interesting if there a lot of them and they have a lot of different cool abilities as in AoW:SM or HoMM series.

I just don't trust Stardock that they can do designing units well for FE after they shown us their lack of imagination in EWoM

An idea just occurred to me.

When we find recruits in the wilderness, some have a certain profession assigned to them (acolyte/wizard, farmer, assassin, merchant, etc).  Although these heroes provide the towns with prestige and a certain bonus to production (of what I don't really know), I think there should be a way to assign their productivity as well as arranging marriages to them since there is a population in every city to begin with.  I mean, once I recruit someone I don't really see them anymore unless there is war and I have to provide the farmer, for example, with a sword...?

I'm just wondering if it would be beneficial (or necessary) to micromanage these heroes to better allocate their productivity during times of peace and of war alike.

For example, if we were able to arrange the marriages of the heroes, their offspring (every 2nd or 4th) would have, say, a ~25% chance of becoming a specialist as well, likely following the same profession as their father -- or we assign their professions with a certain change of that being a success.  Wizards beget wizards; merchants beget merchants; assassins beget assassins..., etc.  Also to balance this out, death of a hero (due to age/natural causes, an illness or whatever) and more interesting, the desertion of a hero (or offspring) to an enemy faction; espionage, betrayal, treason.

And when it comes to magic, why must the sovereign 'imbue' the wizards?  If breakthroughs in the knowledge of magic are achieved, then shouldn't the wizards also gain the knowledge of the skills learned? [[Maybe they presently do, but since I can't get enough play time in (due to work and the frequent CTDs) I have not been able to determine this]] So basically, if there is more of a global micro-management of our kingdom/empire, instead of only the sovereign, then that would essentially require a deeper level of interaction with the units (ie heroes) and cities in our control, which would only provide a better gaming experience.

-.-

I think a map generator would help but I do like having the option to play with handmade maps as well.  I think a random map option should first do a roll to see if it generates one or pulls a premade map.

As far as unit custimization goes, I think that the Trait system they will be implementing will help a lot with that.  I wouldn't mind a unit editor though (preferably with a check box for empire/kingdom and perhaps one for faction.

I think the empire can make sage casters (normal units), but I dont think Ive ever made one.  Ill have to give it a look the next time I can play.  The Imbue makes sense for giving champions (with the exception being if the champion is a caster already- something the trait system could be used to allow) the ability to cast magic.  The new damage types and options should be fun to play with.  I wonder if we would be able to define our own damage types (probably not, or it will require significant modding).

Meanwhile, we already have 10 pages of complaints but no news from the devs... Maybe we scared them by saying all those stuffs ?

We're saying lots of stuff but I hope someone is listening (reading) to us ! I'd like a small update from them.

They'll probably put out something sometime this week.  I'm sure they're following the conversation, but they may be more focused on working on the game or discussing some of our suggestions.  I suppose it largely depends on what part of the development cycle they are on.  There was a lull before this update as well, I'm sure we are all excited to hear the next bit of info they drop for us, but as difficult as it can be, we'll have to be patient.  There was a server maintenance notice for today and yesterday so I'll asume that they are lurking about and diligently toiling away.

I suppose if we did scare them off we could try luring them back by continueing to throw ideas to them.

Both negative and positive feedback are usefull for refining things afterall.

But the Unit Design (ship Editor) in Galciv 2 was awsome and it was made by Stardock so they can make a good one.

Perhaps the servers' maintenance has been done to prepare the matrix for FE's release?  It draws near, I know it.  I can sense it.  The voices in my head concur.

-.-

Amen !

I hope they're really listening to the kind of stuff we want to see and that they will come back to us with very good news.

I'm such in a hurry to read what they will say in their next news and what they think of our comments and how they will decide to modify the game accordingly.

I don't really want news about the game yet, I'm more in a hurry to have a comments from them to know how they will re-think the magic system or at least know if they're going to do anything about it and how.

Depending how far into production they are on a given system or aspect of the game, and how much work a given suggestions would take to implement, they probably make a few lists of the ideas we have and put them on a schedule.  My guess is that they are going to be more strict on following the development plan this time so once a certain point is reached some parts will be 'locked', and changes wont be allowed.  Any thing they want to do after reaching that point would be put aside (most likely) until after a certain check point is reached (such as an alpha build).

I think Frogboy had indicated that the lack of a locking point for changes was a contributing factor to issues with WoM, and part of why they have Derek on the team now.  I'm sure there are plenty of ideas they come up with themselves that have to be queued till later too.  It's difficult for us since we're removed from the intricacies of the process, and the work required to implement some of the ideas (especially if it's something that the engine needs to be adjusted for).

I would be giddy if the server maintenance was for release, but I think it was either to fix something, or prep work for something to be implemented (like putting in a FE info page, lore update, hiergemenon update or something else for example).

I like you.

So young and optimistic.

It is possible to be optimistic and realistic at the same time, you know. ;-)  Maybe requires a little juggling, but it is possible to look forward to things without getting too upset when they don't turn out exactly as you wanted.

Best regards,
Steven.

I put a lot of hours into Galciv 2 but the ship editor was just an annoyance for me. It was nice if you wanted to play legos but I am more interested in a strategy game. I hated having to go back into it every few turns to upgrade to whatever +1 weapon upgrade I recently got. Not much as far as interesting choices in that editor.

It's a shame that they choose to go with customization units in Elemental as well. I would have much rather had more varied but preset units like in MOM or HOMM. It seems much more difficult to create an interesting and balanced combat system with totally customizable units.

You owe me a coke, LoA, because I spit mine out when I read your post.

I believe some of them read the posts (it's a 30 min/day job, and some of us might actually say something not entirely stupid at times ). However, they are much more likely to introduce changes that require little remaking, and most of all little rethinking of all the consequences of such changes. We know very little of all the mechanics in the game so far, and of how far along they are in terms of implementation on each of them. I mean, they are unlikely to change a feature in the magic system if this would require to undo one or two months of work. I believe that when they are reading our posts they are mainly trying to see if people keep being excited about the game, and if there are some cool ideas that are not hard to implement and fit well with what they have done so far. Adding some spells should be a piece of cake compared to, for example, removing unit customization and making more unique units themselves - since I believe they have aloready worked a lot on unit traits/customization, and this is also something they (Derek) strongly wanted since the beginning I believe.

So, if it is about opinions I believe anyone can write almost anything on a forum. But if you are trying to make suggestions that are somewhat likely to be considered, better go for interesting twists that do not require a big remaking of the game, or suggest a potential flaw in the strategic mechanics of the game, like "doing this would not make sense for this reason" - but again, we know very little about the game. And maybe LoA is right, I am optimistic and this is all just marketing

Actually, I just read this interview by Derek (I believe it's July 24th). I think they should be about to start the implementation phase, since most of the raw pieces seem to be there altrady. What do you think?

(...) we had a significant design cycle. The high-level design was produced in about a month, meetings were held to go over each aspect, and anyone interested in that aspect was invited to attend and offer ideas. That phase ended with approval from the executive producer (Stardock’s CEO, Brad Wardell) and detailed design began. In that phase, we broke the high-level concepts into the minutia, and again the team was invited to meetings to go over the various aspects.

Once detailed design was complete, we started the implementation phase. This is where innovation is the least important. The goal of this phase is to get a full-featured version of the game. It doesn’t have to be pretty; it doesn’t have to be all polished. But it needs to have all of the features so that designers can start playing the game and getting real feedback about what works and what doesn’t.

Once implementation is complete, we go into iteration. This should be about a third of the projects’ total development time. This is where we polish the game, add in bells and whistles, change systems that aren’t working, and provide more depth in systems that are more fun than expected. We innovate here, but it’s more about the fine touches than new systems. We do expect that at least one aspect will fall flat and need to be reworked, which is why it’s so critical that we get through implementation quickly. But in general, we shouldn’t be creating new systems at this stage.