The implications of global mana pool (discussion and suggestions)

I am not sure that I like this.  I kindla like the system as is. Speed up mana regeneration. Change the cost and time of spells.  Summons can only be done in summoning circles. Super powerful spells needs to consist of multiple shards. A single unique spell book per faction, unless..  there is a favorable marriage.  Other spellbooks open later in the research tree. Each spellbook becomes unique.  Vs. magic save/immunity.

Just to name a few things.  ALl of these are not my original ideas and if I mentioned/reworded someone elses idea, sorry.  The credit is yours.

I actually like the idea of global mana.

This will bring in multi turn casting, for massive world spells which I think will help make the player have a lot more strategic decisions involved with that. 

I really like the idea of spell books for each character, I would also go so far as to say perhaps having to level those casters as well to use those spells of higher level.

Wisdom can be used to determine the number of spells the caster can learn.

I actually like the shards multiplying still...is that going to be removed with the new mana pool?

I would like to see global spells requiring more than one turn to be cast, powerful effects requiring upkeep and, derived from the last point, magic "contingencies" [ahem, spelling?] to protect from said effects.

It would also be nice to have a personal mana pool on units representing the maximum amount of mana a single channeler can use in a given turn. This would then open the way to "channeler" summons, or summoned units wich are themselves able to cast spells. Maybe even linking spell research and spellcasting to the same "resource" like it was in MoM.

That said, I have mixed feelings about global mana, I guess I'll just wait and see what it brings to the game before forming an opinion, surely the current system wasn't THAT bad,

I don't think the mana system is bad, but the spell damage/effects system certainly is. I can't say I have a very strong opinion on global mana or per-character mana like we have now, I just hope this isn't the only change they do to the magic system because I feel it's far from the most important one.

I think it's an absolutely positive change.

It's less micro, both for player and AI.

You just have to generate mana and mana generation itself becomes an actual gameplay element.

It's no fun waiting for your army's channeler to regen mana or having to switch out the channeler "in play" with one from the bench.
That's obvious "playing the system" and the player - and the AI - are better off without the need for such borderline exploits.

All the fine details like the size of the temporary pool for tactical battles are unknown so for that we'll just have to wait and see.

In MoM, the amount of mana you could personally channel to a tac battle depended on your channeling skill and how far away it was from your tower. (a pretty cool idea)
Local spellcasters potentially could "fire their full load" in any number of tac battles per turn, provided your mana reservoir held out.

The global mana pool idea isn't mine, BTW, it's from Frogboy's Labor Day Dev Journal. I just want to explore possible ramifications that we could see or would like to see from the change.

I also wonder what the down side will be to imbuing a hero, since is essence is binary, you can't lose essence from doing it. Perhaps you can only imbue one cast for each owned shard? Actually, linking imbues to shards would be interesting if the hero linked to a shard gained bonuses depending on the shard type. Thus, water champions, fire champions, earth champions, etc.

Alternatively, imbue could just be a very expensive spell, but that would really limit the number of spellcasters in the early game unless the first cast was cheap and each successive imbue cost more mana.

Imbued heroes could have a mana maintenance cost. The sovereign generates a little mana each turn, but each imbued hero consumes a small amount.

These ideas could also play into magical research options. For instance, research could increase the amount of mana received from each shard per turn. Research could increase the number of imbued heroes each shard could support. Research could increase the reduction in mana cost for spells of a school linked to a shard.

I totally agree with this. I have been pretty supportive of Stardock going in different directions with game mechanics up to this point, but I do have some serious reservations about global mana pool. If it is not implemented correctly, we'll just be spamming heroes into casters, it certainly has the potential to diminish a sovereign and heirs importance.

[EDIT] - actually boolean ESSENCE would do this, it was just mentioned in the same breath as global mana pool by Brad.

I would like to get global mana - but getting access to the mana should not be -instant refill after every battle - rather that near towns the heroes mana regen speeds up - and if the hero walks unto a shard he can get his mana alot faster - perhaps even make a area of effect that the mana flows to the players units -




but also i would enjoy that mana regen just got sped up - as examble above - with more mana increase near towns that have certain buildings and /or walking onto/near shards.

even a -go into meditation that fortifies your hero and allows for increase in mana regen.



also i think its weid that your childre get mana regen /health regen - buuut only in combat? - wouldent they get instant mana/health all the time this way ?

I am in favor of following the MOM model.  Intellegence affects power of spells, wisdom is amount of mana you can use per battle.  Also, it would be great to figure out a way to allow your main character to participate in all battles (spell wise not physically).

I am sooooooo in favor of a global mana pool, its not even funny.

Mainly because I see the Sovereign as the channeler that is the origin of each spell my faction casts, while 'caster champions' are merely the vessels that bring my sovereigns awesome power to the battlefield.

On a related note, I think we need a third stat (1st being health, second mana) energy. Energy would be used by normal/slightly magical units to power their special abilities. They dont use mana as they arent channelers, and this way we could let individual units regenerate energy during tactical combat, without messing with the Global Mana pool.

Global pool goes hand in hand with enchantments having upkeep.  SD agrees that this is way better than "slots". This increases strategic choice... 

Would be nice for each champion to have separate spell books , though in the game I shall not name.. the spellbooks allow you to cast more spells than what is known by the sovereign, which makes champions even more valuable..  

I also like the idea that you could "channel" only a proportion of your power.. based on some skill . Maybe all champions should have a casting skill.

If you had high casting skill you could channel more power easily, if the skill is low to cast say a 10 point spell, you would have to use say 30 mana.. 

With a Global Mana Pool:

1.  Champion (or wisdom) level should still restrict the most powerful spell cast.  If you want to allow them to cast higher level spells, restrict it so that:

        A.  Each level spell over their current level increases the number of turns to cast by two.

        B.  Each level spell over their current level gives them a 5% chance of the spell backfiring, causing the caster to explode on the spot.

2.  The Spell of Making (SoM) has two components - researching it, and casting it to win.

        A.  With a global mana pool, you are not gimping your current caster by saving up the mana to cast - you are gimping all of your casters, but only if it takes a significant amount of mana to cast.  

        B.  This is hard to balance via map size - the bigger the map and longer the game, the easier it is to win with this method compared to others.  It is tricky to stop this form of victory, besides playing aggressively - a player can turtle and win.  Perhaps requiring the player to have a certain percentage of the shards on the map to cast, or one of each type, would give it some challenge.

3.  Does the champion "charge" his personal mana from the pool, or does he just cast from it directly?

I agree with basically everything you cover in the OP, Spitz. When I first heard Frogboy mention "Global Mana" I thought it was a bad idea, but, that's because I didn't think of the other stats involved that could differentiate casters from one another.

I really, REALLY, Don't Like It When Things Are Simplified. Mostly because I've seen it done on other projects I've worked on. Even ones where I was getting paid. The Real Reason behind why a lot of things have been simplified in other games I've worked on in the past is honestly because it was Easier on the AI Programmer because there weren't as many variables to be dealt with. I Don't Think Stardock would do things for that reason, but, we'll see for sure when Mana is moved over to being Global. If none of the other stats are taken into account then all this will accomplish is to make all casters generic and they won't be different from one another. If that happens I'll be very disappointed and I'll probably loose a little faith in Stardock, so, hopefully it won't go down like that.

I think you should really stress the importance of making sure the other stats are used to make casters different from one another. I still honestly think each caster should have their own mana pool based on the characters Int or Wis and possibly other scores or abilities the caster may have. Until I see what Frogboy decides to do though I'll hold back on making any judgment calls.

Oh, might I suggest maybe you should repost this in the General Section as well so it gets a little more traffic and more people to discuss it. For some reason a lot of people just don't come to this part of the forums.

I really like hte idea of global mana - for one it makes the game easier to balance, and it also opens up a lot of possibilities.

A spell that taps into the enemies mana.

Enchanting troops so any damage they take is asorbed by the mana pool -- AKA troops do amazing until mana dries up.  Than they are much more fragile.

Random events could cripple the mana - cause the world's supply of mana to dissapate or turn into hostile energy beings

Making it harder to achieve the spell victory -- it's 20 mana for it currently, isn't it?  Not hard to get at all

We could introduce soldiers who don't fight, but instead summon mana into the mana pool.  Instead of an army of soldiers, you'd have a select few who relies upon a massive mana pool to do tremendous damage. 

In short, I feel a global (much bigger than a single units) mana pool would open up new playstyles.  And hopefully magic begins to have a much more important place in gameplay.

I don't want to cross-post to multiple forums, but if you think it belongs in the general forum instead, just report the thread and see if someone from Stardock wants to move it. I'd certainly like to hear more brainstorming in what could be made of global mana; the more the merrier.

I'm really leery of things being even further dumbed-down and simplified.

Honestly, the magic system needs a lot more complexity. It needs a stat to impact mana regeneration. We need the elements of spell damage to matter. We need the battle environment to impact the magic.

WE DON'T NEED heroes and sovereigns to be homogenized with a global mana pool. Hopefully this is done like MoM though where the global mana pool pretty much only pertained to the sovereign and heroes had their own limited mana pools but could gain buffs from their wizard.

I can't wait to see the new magic system. It's like buying a Wii when you already have and love the gamecube. But the Wii is free and comes out a week later. The Wii sucked but I will wait to equate this to that until I see the new system. I am optimistic about it being awesome despite how much I like the current sytem.

I don't think anyone really wants a dumbed-down system.

It all depends on how it's implemented. Right now there is only personal mana and you can blow all of it in one tactical battle or one strat turn.
Also, if your caster is "dry" you have to let her sit on the bench for like 30 turns until she becomes a "useful caster" again.
That is not a good system. It's completely erratic and includes extremely no-fun parts.

Global mana would equalize the availability of mana, making the system less erratic.
That does not automatically mean that there doesn't have to be wisdom/essence any more. There still needs to be a way to limit the amount
of mana that a caster can draw per battle / turn.

MoM used "channeling" for that. The farther from your seat of magical power you were, the less efficiently the mana transfer worked.
In WOM we'd be talking about the shards.

Every channeler can draw mana equivalent to her wisdom/essence in one tactical battle.
Within a strategic range of let's say 15 of the closest own shard, spells would cost normally.
Within 30, each spell would cost 1,5 it's default mana, and so on.
The "channeling" ability/range could also be increased by... measures.  Researching stuff, building "transmitter" improvements in cities...

It's a very simple system but it's non-erratic and with fixed rules. But it ties mana closer to the shards that generate it. (the "new way" Brad hinted at)

To improve your mana situation you would take actions on a stragtegic scale that fits with the game. You'd conquer more shards, research technology
to improve the channeling bit, or build up a network of "transmitters" to extend your reach beyond that provided by the shards.
Assigning your champion's leveling points towards wis/ess would still affect their casting but there would be more
levels of complexity to magic as a whole.

Global mana = dumbed-down? I think not.

i was very much against it at first, but after thinking of the possibilities then i changed my opinion.  when brad said that they were going to hook up the spells to the global resources system, my first though was for spell components.  which would be really neat for powerful spells.  like certain summons or world spells you may need X amount of resources(iron, material, crystal etc.) as well.  and since the modding community can do this also, well its going to REALLY open up what they can do with the magic system.

Well, being as how this is a possible idea for implementation (and a good one I might add) I do think it Belongs here in the idea section. I would very much like to see this discussion get some more attention though and on certain things where the most visibility is an issue I don't see the harm in cross posting a dual thread. I've seen some really good ideas go by on these forums with not even one reply, when I know for a fact if they would have been on the general forums they would have been a hot topic and got a lot of attention.

I'm not totally against the idea of global mana as long as it's done with enough attention to detail that casters can be different from one another and not just a roaming caster/gun for the sovereign. All the champions, whether they cast magic or not, should be their own characters. Maybe they shouldn't all know the same spells. Maybe one has a Int score that's too low to learn "Volcano" while another one is super smart and knows every spell there is. I want to grow attached to my favorite characters and champions like I did in MoM when I would make a magical item and give it to my Death Knight champion because he was a bad ass. Characters grow and level up and go down different paths as they advance in the game. Some champions are best left managing a city, while others are more suited to take to the battlefield. Some are good mêlée characters while others make good casters. Some champions are worth more then others for various reasons. I just don't want to see all magic casters be the same with no distinction between them. As long as that's all taken into account when global mana is implemented then I don't think I'd have a problem with it.

Hopefully the Chief will shed some more light on it soon and let us start making replies again in the dev journals so we can get on with the discussion of the mechanics and things that really matter to the development of the game instead of worrying about and concentrating on the bullshit from the last few weeks.

With global mana I would really like to see some specialization on the caster side. We have a leveling mechanic and theoetically anything can be added. I think adding proficiencies towards either elements or books would be an inteligent move for the core game. It could be as simple as giving a proficiency point every five levels that could be spent on different ways of making the caster more powerful. Since the Sov tends to level faster than others, Sovs would still be the most powerful users. Others could eventually surpass he or she in certain areas of wizardry, but he would still be top dog.

What do you think?

How I'd do it.

Mana- amount of magic that can be cast from your empire.

Essence- amount of magic that can be cast from said character in a turn.  high-level strategic spells would be expensive enough manawise that only levelling up trains into essence would be able to make those spells castable.

Intelligence- power of magic.  Maybe, in addition, require minimum int for certain levels of spells.

If unique perks are added to level-ups such as what AOW has, learning specific spells or a specialization towards a spellbook could be one of those level-ups.  (This is a feature I'd like to see added from AOW for heroes/sovs period.)

The funny thing about EWOM, is that when it comes to magic it has actually has more ways to differentiate spell casters than in MOM (except resistance).

There's 

intelligence, wisdom , mana, essence and level of champion.

.