Global Mana Pool? - Sir, I have a better idea!

well i would have the spells be more espensive in this system. which would also make you pine for aquiring more essence and more of a  "yay! i finnaly got 50 mana! now i can go nuts with this new spell summon!"

especially if mana increase happens.

How would you have mana upkeep in current system?

Individual mana-pools is fine for an RPG, but for a TBS it doesn't work very well.

I don't think upkeep is strictly necessary - I don't want my fire giants vanishing because I summoned an ive giant and that depleted my mana. If you want some form of upkeep, then I suggest you say that an enchantment takes 1 essence in upkeep - decreasing max mana until the enchantment is dispelled (either by killing the unit or ending the enchantment). I just don't think that having an overall mana pool is good gamewise as it would mean that fairly incompetant channelers like recently imbued champions would gain the capacity for truly epic spell immediatly.

Being able to pay upkeep is like being able to pay rent.  Or pay your soldiers.  Or anything else that you have to manage as a resource.  It's part of the game.  If you want to summon UBER MONSTER X, you have to pay the upkeep cost.  This helps balance summoned creatures against other creatures in the game.  Also, global mana pools allow number of other advantages, such as multipe feed sources, upkeep pools, and universal access.

However, a popup, "casting this spell will deplete your mana pool below your required upkeep" would not be a bad idea. 

I like global pool and upkeep as in MOM

But the main thing is this... in /MOM, the global pool is a resource that can be stored and accumulated. 

How is it going to work in EWOM?

Do you simply add everybody's mana together? if so how is it renewed?

There are some good points made here. I too am concerned with more "Globals" as I see it as a way to simplify detailed mechanics. I'm fine with some things being global of course, but other things being global feels too "gamey", "gamey" as in something that only makes sense in a video game and not even in Sci Fi or fantasy literature.

To give an example of how global things feel to me, think of this made up example from Star Trek. Bare with me on this, I know this is a sci fi reference but the same thing applies in my mind at least.

Lets pretend that in Star Trek they still had weapons that needed ammo. In the middle of battle if your ammo runs out, they have a transporter system already set up with beam in coordinates set to beam a full ammo magazine straight into the chamber of your weapon, without you even having to stop to reload. The old cartridge is beamed out while the new full cartridge is beamed in. Even with Star Trek transporter technology that just sounds Lame and Uninspired to me. Even with the Sci Fi lore that just sounds like a lazy and cheap explanation as to where your ammo comes from.

In my mind that's kinda how I see some of the global systems in Elemental. Sure, you can explain it like this, but it takes away from the feeling of accomplishment. Now, if I had to actually do a little work to get to that stage, say by having to research the transporter tech, find the materials to make the ammo, then have the ammo sent to the transporter reloading station, THEN I wouldn't mind having my ammo transported into my unit's weapons without me having to do anything. Any other way though and it just sounds lame to do.

In traditional forms of Fantasy Literature, Wizards, Magicians, Mages, whatever you'd like to call them, all have to study and learn for years before they can cast even the simplest of cantrips or spells. It takes a lot of work and effort to become even a moderately powerful spell caster. Having a vast pool of power just handed to a unit with no work to earn that vast pool doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

I'm greatly hoping Frogboy's environment of this new Global Mana will have some depth and detail to it other than just giving a pool of ammo to a bunch of weak casters. They need to have other ways to differentiate themselves from each other or each caster will just feel like a walking mouthpiece for their respective sovereign. For now I'm simply waiting to see what the chief comes up with and then after we know what's up with that we can concentrate on hammering out the finer details of it assuming Frogboy and the devs let the players have a chance to change things like they did through-out the beta process.

In MOM it worked because the so called "global pool" was actually source of power channeled by the wizard.. which you always could use (limited by skill) plus whatever magic power/mana your hero had..

In EWOM, your sovereign is on equal ground with champions hence this problem..

global mana is a great idea. this way your faction's mana regen rate isn't a product of the number of channelers and imbuing becomes what it was always supposed to be: a method of sacrificing your individual casting power in exchange for the flexibility of having channelers all over the board. currently it's stupid not to imbue four or five people, because it increased four or five fold the total amount of mana you'll get.

@Raven X:  I just think of it as access to "tamed ley lines".  Your sovereign provides access to the global mana pool, being the primary caster.  The others who are imbued with power, are granted access to these ley lines and mana nodes through a network of mana that permeates the world.

I favour a global mana pool heavily.

Why because you have to budget with it them, you have to think to yourself how much mana should I commit in this battle and how will that weaken me until I rebuild my supply.

But of course it needs balancing appropriatley how much mana can a Kingdom store, how much does it regenerate in a turn, there should be way to enhance both of these and of course spells all need rebalancing.

And why spending all your mana in a single battle will temporarily render spellcasters inert the mana pool will soon rebuild to  the point where they can cast low level spells again.

Basicly the new system makes mana a proper strategic resource for your kingdom and if it's balanced right will work very much better than the current system as well as opening up other possibile ways of spending mana now it's a resource.

So in summary I'm for mana being a global resource what worries the OP is actually a good thing from my perspective.

I disagree, I think it would cause more strategic thinking about spell-casting.

Personally I loved the global mana system that MOM and AOW had.

Yes - and that's a good thing!  The fun of strategy games boils down to how you expend your resources (how unique each resource feels / how diverse their capabilities are is a nice bump, also).  If using your mana in one battle was it's best purpose, then great.  If not - whoops!  That said, there should be a per-caster limitation on how much they can draw from the pool in a turn (essence, anyone?).

Global mana actually opens up a lot of tactical and strategic options, and starts to give shards the weight they deserve in the world.  In fact, I posted about the benefits (https://forums.elementalgame.com/394019) just a few hours before Frogboy announced the change.

Yay!

Global mana works well in Age of Wonders. To summarize how it works, you have a mana resource, which is aquired from various sources (in EWoM it would likely be shards amoungst other things). The upkeep for things like summons is subtracted from income. Finally, units that can cast spells can use a finite amount of mana per turn based on their ability to cast spells.

This model fits well with the game's backstory. Channellers draw power from the shards, and then use it themselves or "feed" it to their followers to use.

That's actually not a bad way of thinking about it. There was a fantasy book I read years ago, and sadly I can't recall the name of it since it's been so long, but in the world there was a class of magi and they could only learn magic by having the spark of power given to them by a mage. All magical power in the world came from the first magi, some uber powerful guy that was born thousands of years before and who became the god of magic or something like that when he gave away the last spark of magic to make another magi. It was a really kick ass book and I'd kill to remember the name of it. Elemental reminds me of it a bit.

We are going to disagree here.  A global mana pool is a great idea.  Multiple turns to cast powerful global spells, much less emphasis on in-battle casting, and make casters in battle have a maximum mana they can draw from.

I'd also like to see:

1. Shards increase mana gain/maximum mana pool size
2. Multiple mana types
3. Make each channeler have a maximum mana they can expend per battle
4. No more choosing spellbooks at creation - make the player research spellbooks (not individual spells)

global pool of mana is a no brainer. But this imbue thing is confusing issues..

Mana global pool is determined by improvements, shards, and wisdom/essence of soverign. Maybe even spellbooks taken or level achieved.

Early game it would depend heavily on the sovereign (as other factors like shards dont come into play yet), so stats like wisdom/intelligence, spellbooks taken would heavily influence how much mana you get.. That way, you could have a warrior type soverign but would have less mana to throw around..

I assume, if your sovereign  has say a wisdom/essence of 10, you generate x mana every turn say.. The important thing is to allow it to accumulate. Not like the currently RPG system where you have a fix cap , which regenerates..

On top of that, each caster can channel only a limited amount of power each turn. 

Champions imbuded with power could say channel up to their wisdom in mana each turn. As they level up, this could increase.

Soverigns as befits their status will have much higher limits say they can channel up to 3x-5x their wisdom or even have no limits (mod perhaps) ! In late game this would make soverigns very fearsome units as they could rain down insane amounts of magic in one battle. 

In a typical MOM by late game you would have hundreds or thousands of mana.. imagine between able to rain down a larger fraction of this.. If two soverigns squared off it would be really a huge magic duel.. the ground would shake in the battle.. summoned creatures would duel with each other..etc..

Imbuing champions should have a tradeoff. Each champion you imbue can either

a) Reduce the soverign's personal power, say it lowers his essence/wisdom?? which lowers how much mana he can channel each turn

and/or

Reduce the overall mana that is generated as soverign's essence/wisdom is a huge part of determining mana inflow..

I suggest maybe only (a), so a high wisdom/essence soverign would always be able to produce X amount of mana, but the choice is between having several casters + a soverign that is able to channel less power and one soverign but one that is able to generate insane amount of power but only at one spot at a time..

I'm thinking of balancing against warlike soverigns with low intelligence/wisdom who plan to imbue champions to do spell casting. ..  Depending on the numbers and other factors (how important soverign is to mana generation compared to shards/improvements) a warlike soverign could get away with imbueing lots of champions who in total could channel the same amount of power as a magical soverign. 

That's why (b) is important so even if this happens..  they might be able to match the casting ability but would not have the sheer casting power/mana. 

I want this both ways. As a once and former spiritual successor to MoM, Elemental could do very well with both a global mana pool and units as mana generation sources, with their mana production rates based first on the Essence stat.

This twist on your idea is especially attractive because of my hopes for how the end game on a very large map might be able to unfold. For 'epic' replay potential, it would be very fun to be forced to consider mana stockpiling, upkeep costs, and 'crisis-driven' mana spending on tactical spells.

I suppoe I am looking at this from a ver Lore-oriented point of view - which befits the variety of gamer I am. If I were a channeler then allow other to cast from my mana pool (Imbued Champions) wouldn't be a big deal. The problem arises when you consider my childen - they aren't imbued they have inherited my "magical nature" - not my magic, the essence of being magical. This should mean that they generate their own mana as innately magical people - they don't depend on my continuing existence for access to power. If the mana from both sovereigns and offspring goes into the same pot - that just doesn't make sense from a Lore point of view, no matter how much strategy and tactics are improved by the change.

From a lore-view no one has mana, but some people are able to use it. Per the back story all magic comes from the Shards, and is then used by those with the ability to use it. So a more accurate thought would be they inherit the ability to use magic, but still draw power from the global mana pool.

We might have pretty similar takes on TBS games. I've been 'role-playing' them since Civ 1. And I remain convinced that one of the top 5 mistakes the Elemental devs made was to treat the cosmology (metaphysics) as a decorative detail that could be left very rough long after the mechanics were 'nearly finished.' Now they are left with the task of reverse-re-engineering things so they are both more fun at a raw game level and more immersive at the story layer.

Complicated stuff has also never been a problem for me (as long as the UI can explain it somehow), so I find the idea of a mana pool for each channeler or scion to be yet another good idea to add. Especially if scions end up being able to imbue their own champions. That could lead to very interesting situations where a sovereign needs to work hard at keeping family relations strong because a couple-few of the strongest scions have their own imbued champions and losing the lot of them could cause all manner of problems.

Global mana pool is a good or bad idea depending on implementation. If it becomes a "global stat" like used in the economy then it is a horrible idea which will make all your spellcasters identical and you'll have annoying hero spamming.

If on the other hand it is used like MoM and heroes retain their own spellcasting stat while the sovereign boosts them global pool then it will work well.

See https://forums.elementalgame.com/397160/#2778711

It's worse than I thought.

As it stands I think that it's a VERY bad plan - shard have always been a rarity, a gem in the desert when you are exploring. If you convert them into mana factories it just seems that you're taking the mystique out opf magic. It isn't so much "channeling the power exuded by the titan's shards" as "hook up this shard to the national grid, let it run the magic". If you lump it in with the economy like this, people will view it as just another part of the economy, like making sure you have enough food to keep your houses fed.