(There is a point, just a bit down)
I'm a college student with scant time...but, sometimes, I pick up a game. Of late, I've been playing Final Fantasy - Dissidia on my PSP. One of my favorite characters is Emperor Mateus, the trap-laying sorcerer. With Mateus, you can't just go around throwing spells all willy-nilly. Instead, you have to think about what you'll do. Going to lay that trap there, or perhaps a bit over?
It got me to thinking. I've played Age of Wonders, I've enjoyed Age of Wonders. But the spells seemed to be mostly just point-and-click. That is, you prepare a firestorm, and you drop a firestorm somewhere on the map, and watch people get burned. It's nice, but also very, very blunt.
I, personally, think that magic in games has become just that - point-and-click. Sure, you'll run across the odd spell or two that let you do something out of the ordinary, but usually those spells are swept aside for the sake of the heavy hitters. What I'd like to see are spells that require intelligence in their casting, so that the battles between the factions magically isn't just a constant barrage of spells one way or another, but like a game of chess.
One idea I have for this is the ability to lay a spell as a tripwire sort of trap. For example, that fireball which can burn an army to a crisp. Instead of throwing it out there and burning everyone, lay it as a tripwire. An army ventures too close, and it explodes. This way, you can populate your domain with various tricks and traps, which would make it difficult to navigate. Naturally, these spells wouldn't be easy to have (else, we could lay a fireball at the feet of an army and wait a turn).
Laying a tripwire spell requires extra energy, and has a constant, albeit small, toll on the income of energy (essence?). Even if a spell wouldn't fall into the tripwire category, perhaps spells could be cast in a way that will let them be triggered by something else. Place a massive explosion spell on your general, which goes off if he dies. It's a bit of a risk - doing it could take your army out instead - but it could also be a final laugh in the face of a conquering enemy.
Other spells would exist...I've always been a lover of illusion magic. Make 'em think you're something, and surprise them when you are unique. Between laying traps and trigger-spells over characters, and weaving illusions about your domain, you could ultimately fashion a domain far more powerful, or deadly, or weak than it truly is. A deceptive target.
To make matters more entertaining? Add a sort of detection spell or skill to characters. Not a passive one, but a skill that has to be activated, and can only be activated once in a while. The weaker the trap, the easier it is to detect...even a new sort of tech could be made, where the highest level allows traps to be hidden from all but a Sovereign's searching.
Anyhoo, that's my spiel.
