Depends on how spellcasting will look. All for the suggestion as a feature unique to the Channeler, slightly against it if units or heroes are going to have spellcasting of their own. Then I would like to control what spells my units could use, but I would also want their spells to be separate from the ones my channeler has exclusive access to.

QFT

As I've said in other threads I am all for this.

Remove the 'Rote' vote for random!

Sammual

I really liked this part of MoM.  Each color had spells I really wanted and would really change the way I played when I got them.  Even with the same selection of spellbooks it was a different game each time.  I never felt that I got such a bad "random" roll of what was available to me that it wasn't as fun, though sometimes more challenging.  So it's not good for balance if you're aiming for mirror-ness.  If you're aiming for GC2 type balance where starting locations could stir things up quite a bit, then semi-random spellbooks aren't a major disruption.

I do understand the desire for mirror-esque balance, though, particularly in multiplayer.

I liked it in master of magic, but at the same time I see it being a problem in the multiplayer space (for balance reasons)

I think it would be ok if you can somehow select which spells are or are not available.   I mentioned the idea in another thread.  There should be an option at the game start where game host chooses how the spell book is structured in reguards to which spells are put into it.   With that you could pick if there is going to be random spellbook slots (i.e. you have 2 slots, but 5 spells to go there; picked randomly)  or pre-defined set spellbook (you know exactly what you get by the points you spend at the begining).

I think this is the best way to do it.  Because then you have the people who like having a bit of randomness happy, but the cry-babies that-would-quit-the-game-when-they-discovered-they-didn't-randomly-get-their-favorite-spells will be happy as well.

MoM did this, SotS does this with techs... A couple of guaranteed core spells and the rest randomised with different probabilities. Possibly affected by choices you made during the game - if you conquer a lot, you might be able to find combat spells earlier, if you explore a lot, maybe healing or world-altering spells...

I've been in favour of Alpha Centauri-like technological research, so why not MoM-like spell research?

The only thing I request is that the two systems are somewhat distinct from eachother. I don't want both being completely random, or both being GalCiv/Civ-like.

I don't konw if I'm reading this right, are there people in here actually defending blind research, and saying they used that option in SMAC?

If so, keep the spellbooks predicatble just to spite them.

As for the issue of randomized spellbooks itself, it depends how well stardock balances the spells with each other. Ideally, randomized spellbooks wouldn't hurt at all, because there will be enough good, viable spells that I won't mind losing some, and a lack of clearly superior spells that will cause a lot of frustration if left out of your spellbook roll. The worse the spell balance is, the more a predictable spellbook would be needed.

We'll see. At the very least, I hope they try the randomized version in the beta so we can see whether or not it can be made to work.

So maybe your "tech tree" only shows the next spell down that line that you can research, and maybe like MoM you can preselect SOME of what will appear in the tree at higher levels but some of it will be random. VERY good idea.

This could really be interesting if multiple school spells are in the tech tree. You could get out several levels in one school and have an optional spell that you COULD learn but also required a certain level of knowledge from one or more other schools!

I hope they also have the chance to make other choices at the beginning or even during the game where you can spend points for transmuting, spell focus, war mastery, charisma and so forth. Trying different variations of those really made MoM replayable.