What about if 4 pieces of the adventurer quest were individual for a race, but the final piece was common, and then you had to get it back to your capital to win.  That means as soon as it is found everyone knows and mass carnage ensues. (perhaps could get it back to an allied nation for a joint victory.

ADDED later

The best way to balance is to make it so that each of the trees need each other for something.  Trade needs empire as you need to have something to trade, adventure can support magic by bringing back magical artifacts that support magical research.  Magic can support War through massive spells of damage, war provides better equipment for the adventurers, and safe passage to and from the adventure sites, war or diplomacy supports empire.  This gives an easy way to give the AI personality - This AI favours empire and war. wheras this one will use diplomacy to go after magic.

Its really just a mechanism to ensure a pure adventuring strategy needs at least support from one other element.

- an army to guard them

- an ally to protect them

- magic to teleport them home

- or the fact that home is so close that its not much of a walk

In reply 35 i really liked some of symondus' ideas. namely,

balancing attack and defense.  Can we have a clarification how units will work? will it be like MOM, were each man in a party of spearmen 'rolls' an attack (and defense), and killed individually? Or will the units stats simply be a sum of all 4 soldiers in a pary?

Overland magic:  agree with everything said.

Diplomatic capital:  i like how people are suggesting a 'use' for it- such as forcing treaties, or 'special abilities' (like assasination, entering enemy territory without a non-agression pact/ec'.

maybe make it involved in hiring high level hereos?

I really like the philosophy of striving to balance the game so players can choose their own playing style.

As far as suggestions go, I think the shards should be rare but impact all the other areas of the game in some way. The game after all is named because of the elemental shards.

Here are some possibilities with the shards being a more important focus:

Conquest and Shard Combat Bonuses

As has been mentioned in this thread, allow certain weapons to have a bonus if a particular shard is controlled. Fire shards give a +2 attack to sharp weapons. Earth shards give a +2 to blunt weapons. Air shards give a +2 to archery attacks. Water shards give a +2 to polearms.

And you get an extra +2 (for a total of +4) but no magic bonus if instead of building the normal magic shard building you research and build a Shard Combat Forge on the shard instead.

This concept could also give bonuses to specific armour.

Diplomacy and Shard Magic Weakening

Allow another building type, a Temple of Peace. These temples are built on the shards, provide diplomatic points but don't allow a shard bonus. Perhaps they also work to globally weaken the power of the shard they are built on. For example, for each Earth Temple of Peace it would globally weaken the power of earth spells and also the attacking power of blunt weapons. And so on for the other spells and shards.

Magic and Shard Bonuses

Current use of the shards but with the spells relying much more heavily on controlling shards. Owning a shard should provide a boost to spell power in that element but also many more spells should require a shard before they can be called.

Adventure and Shard Thieves

Have a special quest where a particular hero travels to a shard of each type. This hero is considered immune to the impact of crossing other empire boundaries and so is essentially a thief unit. But it can be seen by other players and attacked as per normal.

As he/she reaches each shard he steals the power of that shard until the quest is complete or until the unit dies. Once he has visited one of each shard an elemental of each element are spawned for the use of the player.

Or perhaps a better idea is the hero is globally highlighted once he has stolen the first shard and when he reaches the second shard an elemental spawns on the shard before. If he gets to all the shards in the game that player wins or receives a massive bonus.

So, as an example, the hero gets the quest and first of all reaches a fire shard. He steals the element from that shard but becomes seen by all players in the world no matter where he travels. The next shard he manages to get to is an Earth shard. At this point a fire elemental spawns on the initial fire shard. The hero then continues throughout the game trying to steal shard power and spawning elementals as he goes. If/when he is killed all the stolen shard power is returned.

So this way the shards become vitally important to all modes of victory. Two methods empower the world through shards and the other two weaken the world.

It would also give a simple yet important strategic element to the game. As an example, lets say my channeller has fire and air power but I have an earth shard nearby. I can focus on sharp weapons and archery for when I do get access to a fire or air shard but I can build a Temple of Peace on the earth shard I control to weaken a neighbouring player. Or I can build a Shard Combat Forge on the earth shard and focus heavily on blunt weapons to get the +4 bonus.

That could be done in one turn max if you can cast the Teleport spell

Or you can give that item to a unit inside the capital

Very much this, and it's a big enough problem that tactical battles just aren't fun because you're essentially trading units. Everyone one-shots everyone else, and armor is way too expensive and largely ineffective against the crazy high offense values.

I don't think the solution is simultaneous retaliation (though I don't personally mind that system) or bumping HP, but instead bringing the costs of armor more in-line with that of weapons, and evening out the stats a bit.

Imperium/Civilization

This tree really just provides the supports necessary for any other tree to succeed, while it's fairly fleshed out I'd like to see it even more intertwined with your advances within other trees. The game already tracks what rank you are in each tree, would it be possible to have it unlock more powerful techs when two or more trees are at a certain level. In addition to the tech level requirement there should likely be specific breakthrough requirements as well.

Example: Iron reinforced Walls

Req:

10 Civ and Forges

10 Conquest and Fortresses

Or

Magic Reinforced Walls

Req:

10 Conquest and Fortresses

10 Magic and Enchantment Foundry

There are so many possibilities for enhanced structures that combine the powers of multiple trees, and it makes sense really. Why wouldn't the breakthroughs in various areas lead to more breakthroughs that take from both? This might fall under the category of new research rather than rediscovering old technology. Perhaps once every X turns you get the chance to choose from a list of techs your civilization qualifies for from this special tree.

Adventure

I understand the intent of this tree but I don't particularly care for the implementation. It is really cool to find ancient artifacts and dungeons but everything attached to the tree seems fairly trivial. Quests are rarely challenging or engaging and despite research into the heroes line I don't often see them showing up. There also needs to be a much larger variety in quests/rewards to make it viable.

The master quest should be more like the Grail from HoMM as in there is only one, or in this case 1 of each of the 5 pieces, and they are scattered all over the world, they shouldn't be anywhere near each other and assembling them should be a truly epic journey worthy of being a game ending event. Each piece should really be guarded quite well, residual power within the shards should draw all manner of powerful beings to them. In return for this obtaining a shard should also offer some bonuses while they are carried. Perhaps instead of just gathering 5 nameless pieces they act as artifacts while you carry them and only assemble once you have all 5. The more pieces you have the harder it becomes to stop you from acquiring more. Thus creating a situation where everyone might band together to stop you.

I noticed some people looking for ways to make champions more unique and this should probably be the tree to do it in. In addition to the current tech unlocking quests and drawing heroes to you, there should be a way to strengthen them within this tree. Passive bonuses similar to what exists in the conquest tree. There should be a way to add combat abilities to our champions as well, also through this tree. Ancient fighting techniques unearthed in the tombs you're raiding, it would go a long way to making this tree a lot more appealing and self sustainable.

While this tree may not mesh as well into the tech combining tree I mentioned earlier it could provide its own benefits to cities and such. Perhaps you find ancient building plans allowing you to construct a new more efficient magic foundry or forge. Discover the location of rare metals that you can create an alloy with iron so any metal armor and weapons you create are slightly enhanced. Discover sources of power that increase mana regeneration, or simply provide empire wide passive bonuses, once discovered all the world can see them and fight over them. The potential for this tree is amazing, it could add so much more to the game than it does now.

Warfare/Conquest

This tree is pretty straightforward and is much like the civilization tree in the ways it could add to the list of combined techs. It also cannot really function without the support of civ techs. Unit recruitment is massively expensive and needs substantial support from multiple upgraded cities to even begin to field something that resembles an army.

The warfare tree could benefit from advances in magic tech more so than it already does, via weapon and armor enhancements or personal enchantments. Perhaps there could be buildings that allow you to not only enchant armor and weapons but your soldiers as well. Ways to enhance/speed up training or lower the cost of recruitment via magical means.

The adventuring tree could add new training types as lost arts of war are recovered, formations that provide bonuses to multi-soldier units. Fighting techniques or special training that increase ability with certain weapon types or offer new combat abilities for tactical battles. These are rare and lost fighting arts well beyond what standard military training provides.

Magic

This tree is pretty barebones right now, I like the two current repeatable techs, especially the essence boosting one as it allows you to imbue a champion and have them be a semi decent caster from the getgo that can at least provide support with a few spells from the beginning. I believe I saw somewhere that custom item creation would be a feature of the full version, if not, it should replace the current techs that unlock the groups of minor magic items you equip troops with.

Instead have techs that allow you to design items similar to how we design our troops. Those items are limited in the enchantment they can hold based on how skilled you are at enchanting them. Perhaps a combination of your spell level and various tech levels of item enchantment in the magic tree. This could be further enhanced by the discoverable resources from the adventure tree. The base items available are defined by your advances in the warfare tree, higher quality items have a higher enchantment limit.

In addition to this, the magic tree should also offer research into specializing your spells more. Not only to do more damage but to add secondary effects. Say you specialize in frost, the first rank increases damage a bit, the second causes frost spells to have a chance of slowing the target, the third raises that chance, and the fourth gives a small chance to freeze as well. Since damage types are in the effects could be tied entirely to that damage type.

There could be research into spellbooks discovered via the adventuring tree as well as research into combining the schools of magic. Volcano is a current implementation I'd love to see more of, dominions 3 has many spells of this nature and could be a good place for inspiration for this, they've got a similar setup of mixed elemental spells.

Spell of mastery as a win condition is decent, I fear on larger maps the conditions will be too easy to meet and there might not be as much conflict required to actually gain control of one of each shard. Maybe scale the requirement up on larger maps to be a certain % of ALL magic shards on the map controlled with at least 1 of each. If this spell you're casting is going to end the game and control the world you should have to control a substantial portion of the magic in that world.

Diplomacy

This tree is practically empty currently and most of the techs are unlocking treaties that shouldn't really need to be researched to begin with. I like the diplomatic influence as a resource that raises your standing with people and think it's cool that you can trade for it. I'd like to see more ways in this tree to create this resource but also turn it into a diplomacy/espionage tree. Intelligence, spying, and sabotage are all integral parts of diplomacy and always have been.

I suggest a line that allows you to build units for these purposes, diplomats, spies, assassins, saboteurs, and even bandits to raid trade caravans but without your banner. They could be enhanced by magical abilities from the magic tree, skills and items found with adventuring, equipment from the military tree. Maybe even have them designable from the troop design but with a different base unit than a military soldier, somebody that can level up but only in their specific ability.

I'd also like to see more enhancements to the trade aspect, stronger caravans with armed guards (military), magically enhanced caravans that can travel faster and carry more (magic tree). Trade ships for overseas trade routes, hire privateers to raid enemy trade without your banner being involved.

Perhaps we could even have units that can work to convince cities to join our kingdom/empire. If you manage to infiltrate the city with enough units you can eventually start to sway the local government and overthrow the town in a rebellion. This would be a hit to relations with the enemy nation but nothing your diplomats shouldn't be able to handle   You are the master of diplomacy and espionage afterall.

Could you make it where you couldn't teleport someone with a piece of the Master Quest forge, as it's cursed or something?

Here's the crucial factor for Diplomacy being useful: if the AI can make the human do something it doesn't want to do with it- then it's useful.

I am excited with this post, this is the direction I want to see.  I've presented more or less the same idea here 5 Unique playstyles by making each individual tech tree viable .  During the discussion the major obstacle of the suggestion is the difficulty of getting the balance right.   But if Stardock is committed to overcoming this challenge, EWOM can be revolutionary!

My emphasis is on having 5 unique playstyle instead of "Getting stuff".  No doubt that getting stuff is important, but I think adapting a different playstyle is more important still.  When player focusing 90% on the Magic tree, they will found that their empire will have a unique 'magical' feel.   How the empire is governed, grow or achieve 1 of the 4 victory conditions is designed to be completely different to other trees.    I hope it is designed in a way that, IF I play it right, investing 90% on Magic tree still allows me to win a Conquest/Quest of Mastery/Diplomacy victory condition (although it maybe easier to win by "Spell of Making").   A 90% focused tech player still have more or less equal chance of winning when competing with other 20%/20%/20%/20%/20% tech players.  Whatever resource/economy/tricks they need, it is already included in one tree.  Whether to research a few trees or not, is decision instead of a game requirement.

Adventuring (and tech distribution)

If I invest 90% of my research in "Adventuring", I should still acquire magical/civilization/warfare/diplomacy related resources, by the means of "Adventuring".   My kingdom will have so many sorcerers/wizards that even I do not have the tech to build any magic school, I can still use/acquire magic in my own 'adventuring' way.   The adventuring kingdom will not have the most powerful/versatile magic (comparing to another 90% Magic tree player), but it will have all magic related to adventuring that fit some of my magic needs.

Having some control the dungeon and its occupants like Troll/Spider should also be a focus of this tree; refer to my aforementioned thread for detail.

Diplomacy

For the Diplomacy tree to work well as a independent and balanced tree, more tech relates to bring unrest/disrupting economy & relationship belongs there.   Focus on how to cause revolution, bribing champion, espionage, and means of manipulating human psychology.   Focus on how to bring neutral country (or mercenary) to defend my country, or even join me for a right price.   Your champions can charm their way out of tough/closely matched battles etc.  Diplomacy capital (& money) can be spent doing these evil tasks.

For Diplomacy victory, alternatively you can win if everyone is at war is everyone else (just a thought).  This would be one wicked game if one wants to play evil.  

Magic

With above idea in mind, I don't think "Spell of Mastery" should require any pre-req in Magic tree.   It should be a level 1 Magic spell with huge research cost.   Any player spending significant amount of time casting & researching it will win the game.

Why not make the quest items for the mastery quest Strategic Resources?  Each one gives a different bonus.  Let's say the Forge gives you a bonus to metal production or the ability to make magic swords.  Let's say that the Tree of Life gives you a bonus to materials production, or perhaps gives one point of health regeneration across your entire domain.  The Shrine of Fortune gives you a bonus to random rolls.  The Temple of the Ancients gives you a bonus to magical research.  The Pool of Antiquity gives you a bonus to Technology research (it's waters naturally increase intelligence).  The Scales of the Ages give you an innate bonus to economy.

You get the idea.  The matter, the offer bonuses, people want them, they let you win.  They are a Big Deal.

This builds on the idea of the shards (in Galciv II) being a strategic resource, as well as the way to win.  And one should probably be spawned for each starting race, which means the more people you play with, the harder the quest is to complete.  You shouldn't probably be able to see these resources until reaching a certain level in the Adventure tree (as I think it is now).  You could have a player build a city somewhere really odd, only to find out later that they found the Forge, and will do anything to proect it from you.

Also, there needs to be a way to extend your domain artificially.  This would allow you to strategically take control of resources (and allow the computer to do so).  It would make the land grabs a lot more interesting, like starbases in Galciv II.

Just my two cents.

Ishantil

I think the rare techs would help with the tech trees somewhat.  I do want the twilight bees to come back though.

when it comes to balancing i think certain spells are op. For instance i cast a firestorm and 1shot 10 soilders X). That could be because basic units are given too little hp. To fix this adding leveling to trained units could do the trick. Just like leveling your heroes but you cannot change the stats of the trained units. Basically leveling the trained units would add hp and attack strength. defense would be based off gear.

Awesome idea.  This could make battle for resources a lot more fun.  Instead of having a hit and run approach (where you run in, blow up the mine, run away, dude builds it again, start over) you can have standing battles over resources.