Time Travel spells & the Limbo

Cool idea, but I don't know if I like how there can only be one stack in limbo. There doesn't seem to be reason in the lore for that to be the case. I understand that you want to add a risk factor, but I think a better way might be to have soldiers slowly get weaker the more they use time travel, a la Michael Crichton's Timeline.

Nobody like time travel spells, except Raytay?

No one what to talk about it?  hm... a bit surprised.

Ratya, probably "soldiers get weaker the more they use time travel" is good in story-telling point of view, but it is not too interesting when we are playing a game, imho.

I can't speak for everyone off course, but I don't like them. Imagine you've just cornered the enemies dragon and defaeated it barely. Now, the enemy just casts his undo spell, and you're facing the same dragon with what is left of your army insuring almost certain defeat.

What is dead should stay dead I think...

Tactical/Strategic Stack Undo: What if the square (or whatever) is already occupied or is not "accesible" anymore? You are only time moving one unit, not the whole board.

Tactical/Strategic Stack TimeTravel: I seem to fail translating this one. So I send Unit A to Limbo for 3 turns. In "real time" that would mean 6 turns for the other units. Why not match the turns in limbo&real time? Effects on the time travelled are not calculated while in Limbo but once they return so no sense to have such difference. And if effects were still calculated while in Limbo, that's not time travel? Are we talking relativity and light speed here? For the sake of sanity, time travelling is better tought as instant in this kind of situations. Needs tweaking but I like it. As long as it doesn't allow to go back in time. Then I hate it.

Strategic Equipment TimeTravel: Ok, this is planar travel and not time travel. This Limbo can have a different time synchrony than the game world, so sending one armour to the nearest city through normal means could take 20 turns but through the Limbo just 5. But it's still planar travel. I do like it tough.

Battle Redo: Err... Someone could say that it already exists and is called "Load Game". Now seriously, no. Imagine this in multiplayer with some sovereigns with some essence reserves, mana and acces to the spell. Imagine to repeat the final battle (a one with similar forces but still final) a few times. Or the AI and if it knows how to properly use it (when a battle is worth repeating for the AI?). And when would it be cast? To be balanced it should be just right after the battle (Yeah, you must repeat your battle of the last turn against a unit that was disbanded this one?). Also, it makes me think of a "Turn Redo" spell, which is something I dislike.

Diplomacy Undo: Ok, this is simple and I like it. Specially is you clicked wrong ("Oh noes! I gave you my Capital by mistake instead of that filthy hamlet in our southern frontier!", I blame random name generation of this). How would it manage to surrender yourself to someone else? Useless for the AI to use?

Limbo: I get the feeling that it has very few to do with time travel and is nothing but an extra plane. I like extra plane. But... I send a unit to Limbo while in battle. Previously to that I had sent some merchants with armours through Limbo. Err... bye bye merchants and armours? If that plane is so tiny that they must fight until there is only one. But if you can have any number of your units there, why not allies? (backstabbing allies doesn't count)

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We have two parts here: Time travelling and another plane.

Time travelling is like... uf. If you can redo a battle, why not the last quest you failed? Or as I mentioned, the last turn? Things that involve back in time are bad (altough I liked the Diplomacy redo). Jumping into the future is a quite different beast tough. "Dear Paladin-Captain Leonard, we are low on food so I'm going to send your Paladin unit 20 turns into the future. Hopefully, that will allow us to save some money and food. And maybe when you appear we can afford to keep you guys around. All that for the affordable cost of 100 mana and 5 Essence."

Time effects by themselves could be cool. Some minor spells/enchantments that give "Insight" bonuses to those affected by them (better chance to avoid attacks as you can "see" them coming, or maybe a bonus to attack...). Spells that "insta move" units in the battlefield or "sends them into the future" for a number of turns.

The extra plane is something many of us want. If this plane also has a different synchrony from the game world, it would certainly make it more interesting. This plane would be just a limbo to use as road (or it wouldn't be possible to have such time difference without serious headaches and turn managements). As such, it would be used for allowing faster trade/movement. It wouldn't mean insant travel as unit would take some time to reach theirs destination. Problem is that units sent into the limbo during strategic part of the game, could need food too? Still trying to catch up with the beta so I know that they need money but not sure about food. If they require it, the spell would have a food cost associated to it.

Whichever the desynchrony between Limbo and game world, it could be possible to retrieve units from Limbo during a battle. You could send units into the Limbo with the whole purpose of being able to defend anywhere any time. As long as food doesn't end in their end. Then they would appear in the game world in the same place they were originally (if possible, close to it if not). But while on Limbo, you could summon them to the current battle and hopefully turn the tide of battle in your favor... until the enemy Sovereign summons his dragon from Limbo.

Effects on a unit continue to be calculated while in Limbo. So if the unit has an effect for 5 turns and is sent to Limbo for 10, it'll be debuffed while in Limbo.

 

That's the whole point.  And who's to say you won't defeat him again?  Except this time the dragon/army is dead AND they just lost resources casting the spell.

 

If done CORRECTLY this could be a STELLAR idea.  Bravo.

I just don't like the idea of time travel in any way, shape, or form.  I think it could ruin it a bit for me.  who knows, we all get surprised once in a while.

Yeah, you have to try it before you don't like it as my momma said.

 

In multi this could be great..of course there needs to be a counter-spell or some such as well.

A 100 mana spell called "limbo destabilizer" .... prevents all limbo spells within the battle, including any spells cast within this turn. (so if the enemy sovereign casts "summon dragon" and you cast "limbo destabilizer" their spell is cancelled and no more time travel/limbo spells for the battle)

That is the right idea!!

Wintersong, this is the kind of discussion I want!!

This is a kin observation; just make it a requirement that the tile has to accessible before the "Stack Undo" can be casted.  This is really cool spell.  When you have enough essence or mana to cast it, you can essentially send your stack as "bait" to damage your opponent as much as possible in one round.   In the next round, you cast the Stack Undo your unit will be back to full health while your opponent is damaged.   A new "Bait" category of spell in either cloth map or battle.

For example, if your opponent stack is poisoned & is expected to die in 6 normal turns, you send it to the limbo to make sure it will die from poisoning.   Because time runs doubly faster in limbo, his stack die in the limbo after 3 turns instead.  Your opponent has no way to summon him back from limbo (unless there are some ‘limbo-summon’ spell).    In my version of limbo, it is a special plane that time goes way faster (it comes from some Chinese myth).   This 'clock run faster here' concept is just something I add to jazz up the fun.


The limbo I've talked about is not about "Planar travel"  (but planar travel can be cool too).   AWOM:SM has a shadow world that doubles all units' movement speed, it is fun but not really great (it just feel like another speedier version of underground map layer, for many players point of view).    In this version of Limbo, it is more like a 1 tile cloth map.  You can send your equipment there from anywhere, you can send your troop from anywhere.  But when you exit this 1 tile map, your troop returns to the exact same location from where it come from (the same turn or many turns later).  I am trying to present some kind of alternative reality in the Limbo here.
Planar travel may be cool, but so far I cannot think of something that is different from AOWSM & fun at the same time.


I agree that the Battle Redo has to be done, right after a battle.  Otherwise probably there are quite some confusion will happens, namely the butterfly effect.


Initially I was thinking about, maybe your opponent is doing something bad to you, you Undo their diplo efforts using this Diplo Undo spell.   After you undo their diplo action, you can aggressively take you diplo actions now so that when next turn arrives, your opponent may not be able to repeat whatever they had tried to you before.


I understand what you meant.   Yes, probably you can send any number of allies to the Limbo and exit safely altogether.   The 'only one can exit' rule is just a means to have an interesting way to represent risk to time travel.

Maybe troops in limbo don't/can't eat & don't get paid?  Suffer morale problem after a while spent in limbo?

Any time travel related spells require careful balancing and playtest & most of them are powerful so you’ll see only at end games (or if your Sovereign specialize in it).  I am just excited it can provide an extra dimension to all-so-familiar spell system everyone is talking in this forum.

I think I would rather have an introduction of dimensional spells rather than time spells. They would probably incorporate similar ideas ... but not be restricted to thinking in terms of time.

Chronological spells (going into the future) might not be involved, but certainly summoning units from distant armies/cities, placing an enemy unit into a slip/space pocket for 5-10 turns, ect, would be quite interesting.

You could place a "damage over time spell" on an enemy unit and send them to slip-space, or you could cast regeneration on a wounded ally and send THEM into slip-space, or you could use alot of mana (possibly essence) to summon your dragon from guarding your castle and sending him into battle ... would kinda be interesting if it was like a Final Fantasy summon of sorts, where instead it was only a very high mana cost, and the dragon was only on the battlefield for X amount of turns.

FOr instance, do I use 50 mystical mana on summoning the dragon for 10 rounds, or do I spend 100 mystical mana to have the dragon for 20 rounds? and after those turns he returns to the castle, or whereever he was before the summoning.