WMD Spells

from Elemental Forums

I don't know if I am jumping the gun a bit with some magic ideas or if they have already been added and I don't know, but I figure the earlier the ideas get proposed the less annoying they are to add them if they pass muster. Anyway, on with the proposal.


I have always enjoyed the idea of, when major magical powers fight, its not just hundreds of soldiers dying on either side, but entire citys are destroyed and, in some cases, whole regions/continents are blasted to wasteland. Perhaps, when a channeler owns whole contenints and has vast powers, and he goes to war with another channeler of similar power, they don't just throw metor showers and fireballs and artic blasts, but instead call down real asteroids the size of texas to level entire citys and leave chunks of land as a blasted hellscape. Spells that create spreading viruses that make the black plauge look like a joke and slaughter not only troops but citzens, crops, animals and drain the life right out of the ground.

These sorts of spells should be the equivelent of ICBMs from CIV. Very high up on the tech tree, hard to make, difficult to use and having/using them is a big diplomatic hit. But when used entire races get annihilated.

Another option could be creating a single zombie. Not a zombie like from most fantasy games, but a zombie from one of those B- horror movies that infects others with its bite. Cast a massive, difficult spell to create a single zombie in an enemy nation. But unless the other player acts quickly to kill the zombie, the number of zombies increases exponentially. If the zombie hordes are not dealt with an entire continent could be lost to the zombie.

Once my channeler is immensly powerful and capable of amazing feats of magic, I would like him to have the ability to cast some truly horrifying spells that lay waste to huge areas. MoM had a couple spells like this. One caused 2-3 volcanoes to randomly erupt anywhere in the world each turn. The other caused every soldier lost in battle to return as a zombie under your command.

In a lot of backgrounds for fantasy settings, there is often a massive dessert/wasteland that is attributed to a fight between two wizards thousands of years ago the destroyed thier nations. I want the chance to be one of those wizards and really mess the world up when I start casting war spells.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

9,096 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I actually brought this up a while ago with the concept of MAMD (Mutually Assured Magical Destruction): Spells that are so powerful and unpredictable that they would only be used as a last resort against overwealming odds, as they would likely get you killed as well.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Awesome, glad to know i am not alone. Consider me backup then. :grin:

Although TBH, some should be dangerous to everyone, yourself included, but some should be fairly well targeted like calling in a gaint asteroid. The catch though, is that it should take a couple turns to land and if the other channeler is strong enough, he could divert its path or if he is way way more powerful he could just push it right out. That kind of defense dosen't work very well agasint a zombie apocalypse, but then the zombies could kill the original guy too. Sort of a trade off between the abilty to be blocked and the ability to target the attack.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Yea, I like this idea a lot. The feeling of not knowing what the repercussions of powerful magic use could be would add a lot to this game, I think. |-)  I like the idea of two powerful channelers mind dueling for control of an asteroid that will destroy most of the battlefield while below all the unknowing soldiers battle it out.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

On the topic of mutually assured destruction... how about a diplomacy option to ban a spell, everyone has to 'bank' at least one spell. In the event of breaking the agreement everyone starts firing?

So maybe to make it more certain that none will cast armageddon you bank 5 rain of fire spells... or something... just something a little more interesting than 'diplomacy hit' to have everyone start firing on you. Or a general ban on area spells, everyone chooses their favourite area spell to mass cast on everyone else in the event of breaking the agreement. It only really changes one thing, most spells would have a long cast time, especially the large ones... to counter an unexpected spell could take ages. Perhaps the first person to use/research a significantly higher tier spell could unlock the ability for everyone to bank spells by preparing them but not casting, for use in special circumstances. So it would allow people to unleash pure destruction on a race by preparing 20 nukes of inferno, rather than nuking 1 town a turn for 20 turns. Just to help out the non-magic power focussed empires retailate.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I always liked the idea of a necromantic faction that gets zombies each time a normal humanoid non undead unit of any player dies. So if Kindgom A goes to war with Kingdom B and in their first battle they lose 1000 men, Kingdom Z gains 1000 zombies. Not as WMD or flashy as a Moon Crash Spell, Massive Desintegration Spell, Neutrino Explosion Spell or the Nukegeddon Spell but surely more frightening. And it'd be a sustained global spell, which would be cool.

We can always cast Mass Hysteria Spell and watch how the enemy cities riot, people kill each other without your intervention, research is stopped...

Fucking Egads x 2

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

TBH, i really love the idea of creating a single zombie in the horror movie style where one bite infects you. Casting a super massive spell to create a single zombie, then watching the infection spread widly until an entire continent is consumed. All my other SMD ideas are just hanger-ons to that one. ^_^

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

My idea was that the truly horrific spells could carry a risk of "back fire", sort of like the nukes going off right at launch.  Keeps the game exiting when you are close to winning, but could still loose it all.

 

Seems to me that they could then allow access to more powerful spells earlier, but at a great risk of either just a fizzle of a complete backfire.  Backfire could be anything from death of the caster to the effects landing on the casting, or possibly totally uninvolved 3rd party.

 

Of course the chance of success must be much higher, particularly for a powerful caster, but should always involve the risk of something going wickedly wrong.

Mike

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Having a chance of backfiring would be intresting, but would also prevent them from being used. No one would want to risk using one unless they had no other choice, then they would just see how many they could spam off before it kills them. Or you would have folks who would use them the first chance they get and either recieve a huge advantage, or be removed from the game right there.

That was the reasoning behind having them either spread uncontrollably, or have them fought over. Plauges might spred right back to your own cites, so could zombies, takes care in placement and prep to stay safe. And a more powerful summoner could grab the incoming metor and shove it back at you.

I am not in favor of having the RNG decide such massive things though.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Russian Roulette Spell, there we go! (with a bang)