VERY IMPORTANT: Make Teleport Optional or REMOVE IT in 1.1

You do know that you can only teleport into friendly territory, right?

Hmm... Seems like my best impression is that teleport only works into your own territory.  I'd agree that it is overpowered (or at least at 5MP it definitely is), but it hardly seems game-breaking.

I'd be far more in favor of a solution like:

-Making teleport a 20MP, 3rd level spell for both armies

and

-Only allowing you to teleport into a city that had built a teleport gate (maybe requiring a level 3 city and a bit of MP maintenence with the global mana in 1.1).

I also don't think arguments as far as the character of the spell being sci-fi or fantasy matter much.  It's what the developers make of it, no more or less.  Maybe Tolkien realized teleport doesn't really aid storytelling in a epic journey, but if he was telling a story about an epic war of magic, maybe he'd think differently.  Who knows?

I would latch onto something you talk about with defense and road/city building.  I think there's a flaw in the game that it doesn't allow us to intentionally build roads to aid travel (only for trading) and that the movement is free for cities.  It would improve things a lot to make movement in cities cost movement points, and for us to get road-building packs in the tech tree. 

It would also be nice to be able to get updates when enemies enter our territory so that we don't get surprised when some death-stack comes in the backdoor and starts taking cities.

Uhh, you know that teleport works only within your own area of influence, right?

So it does not affect your intricate defences anyhow. Enemy cannot just 'jump' at you, it will have to move from his influence in normal way.

I can teleport where ever I want.  I am ninja. 

nice rant btw. But next time try using this "instant win tactic" before you loudly declare that it is "too powerful".

Nah, always that black-and-knight thinking.

Why can't Teleport change to something that is balanceable?   Something like this?

In it's current form, yes. I'd agree that there is no way in hell to balance that.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

No actually teleport works in 2 ways.

There is a spell that makes you teleport only in YOUR territory available from the beginning of the game, much sooner tha the one that created the huge debate in Age of Wonders (even though there you could get that much later and only after developing a tower to its maximum level)

And there is one that can TELEPORT IN ENEMYTERRITORY, which I know you can get a little later.

Assuming that you guys agree about the second one spoiling the game, let me address the first one:

THE WHOLE GAME CANNOT BECOME ABOUT SENDING A PIONEER TO CREATE A LANDING SPOT NEXT TO THE ENEMY TERRITORY!!!

Turn 1 I send a pioneer, turn 2 my uberarmy arrive! TRY TO PREVENT THAT WITH UNITS MOVING BY 2 TILES EACH TURN!!!!!!

Your System is still too cheap!

Even if it costed a million it would be a price worth for what it does : IT WINS THE GAME

Even if ONLY the wizards could teleport THAT WOULD MAKE WORTH MAKING A STACK OF UBERWIZARDS and do VERY annoying things to the enemy (I agree that I wouldn't risk my sovreign in enemy territory, since its death would be my loss, but I WOULD MAKE A STACK OF WIZARDS)

How can it be too cheap when there's not a single firm number in there?
It's just an idea for possible features. The price or magnitude of those is a matter of balancing. They are never set in stone with the first draft...

This is your post, there are numbers, maybe you don't remember it?

Anyway in my opinion teleport could ONLY end up becoming the ONE dominant startegy and that is not good!

This describes a system.

A lot of players would have trouble with even  "(0.5n+m)  where n is the number of units in the stack and m the base cost of the spell".
Examples help.

The fact that it is a post in the Ideas forum and not a released mod should tell you that no single number in there is carved in stone.

IMO, no single spell can become dominant if proper exploitable weaknesses are built into it.
If you categorically rule out any possibility of the spell changing or countermeasures being introduced then yes, under that assumption it will always stay overpowered and there will be no alternative to removal.

totally disagree with the OP...  especially how slow it is to move units otherwise now.. btw the current cost for TP is 15 mana and I have never seen Teleport friends in game, I do not think it made the cut.. I have no issue making it a toggle choice in game set up for MP as for single play ... if you do not like it do not use it... if you do not have the self control to not use something you think is over powered or breaks immersion for you then just walk away from the pc now... as to dealing with these teleporting stacks here is a clue make one/some of your own to deal with it ... how hard was that to come up with? Here is another tactic ... defend your border cities better... anything one player can do I can do as well so how is that overpowering? sigh!

I think you'd be taken a little more seriously if you toned down the sensationalist rhetoric.

Anyway, there is no "teleport in enemy territory spell."

Also your pioneer strategy of doom territory is flawed since it'll only let you advance forward at the speed of a pioneer, since you can found the city only in neutral territory, it'll take as many turns to send a pioneer to the border of your enemy as an "uberarmy."  Also, since an uberarmy is only going to be available late game, the enemies is going to have a pretty expansive distance between his cities and his outer borders.  Finally, and it's already been said, the enemy can also use teleport to kill your pioneer or your uberarmy just as easily as you can send it. Any player with a well defended border is going to effectively counter this.

I see your point, but I believe that introducing something that powerful would force players to concentrate and deal with it. In that sense it would still be overpowered.

Better to introduce "fly" as a spell or spells that speed up units, I have no problem with those, but a spell that can make you cross the whole map in a blink PLEASE NO!  There is no way for the enemy to contain that and imagine how the AI would be exploited by it (in fact it is, but we are all so upset about the bugs that we are not even thinking "that" much about balancing the game.

Even if it was only used to teleport back to your hometown to defend it from an assault, it would still be annoying and  unealistic, it would allow to cross the world in a second making pointless large maps and all sort of things. Besides can you imagine the AI ever being able to deal with something like that?

Its least annoying form would be that just the sovreign can teleport, just as a last resource to escape. But still he could use it in an abusing way: teleport somewhere where there are empty cities (or cities with garrisons weaker than himself if he is powerful)  and take them from the enemy: he could just jump around and burn an empire like that. Who cares he is immortal? Essence is not too hard to recover even if he dies.

The whole game would become only that!!! Even with all the penalties you would add to this system it would still become the IDEAL system to win, thus all effort would be put into that! Forget about regular movement (units are too slow in this game anyway) teleport is the tactics in order to win! If players don't exploit it yet is only because it is so absurd that they don't think about it, but in multiplayer they will be forced to!

Guys but did you play this game before saying stuff like this?

Not sure about the kingdom spell book, but I play empire and there is a spell to teleport in enemy territory. I can even tell you that it must have been added with a certain superficialty , since its description is erroneously identical to that of the regular "spirit dance" spell which is the empire spell for teleporting.

Ah, I stand corrected. Sorry!

No problem: then from the comments in this thread seems that everyone agrees that THAT one has to go.

Regarding the other one, "teleport" or "spirit dance" - I just don't want to play an Arcade game! Jee I swear if they leave it in I'll create a character with a red hat and a moustacheand call him "Mario" and have him jump around everyone's maps just to spoil everybody's fun! Then you'll believe me!

I just don't want a stack that is in Troy to teleport back to Ithaca to deal with the suitors and be back in Troy the turn after to build the horse!

I WANT THE ODYSSEY AS IT IS!

If you go to war too far your cities are exposed! That is so basic! Anyone who knows any history understand the importance of that concept in strategic and political terms!

CAPSLOCK IS CRUISECONTROL FOR COOL

I'd really like to support you, but you make it so damned hard.

Don't worry I like support from people with solid arguments. Sorry to have bothered you.

He just said it needs to be optional.  Let those of us who don't like an auto win turn it off.  Others who like it can use it. Arguing balance will never end.

That's exactly what the non radical wing of Age Of Wonders ended up obtaining, which is fine enough for me (although I would instead suggest that the guy who had that idea are covered in tar and feathers, but one cannot have everything ) 

I don't use teleport.  It feels wrong.  If should be like a level 10 spell if it exists at all, not a gimme.  If heroes can cast spells from a single realm-wide mana pool then teleport shouldn't be particularly necessary.

But the OP makes a good point about city defenses.  Sure, you can buff up and garrison your cities on the border, but then the opponent's main army runs past those to the lightly defended cities as the core and starts knocking them down (at least that is what I do for easy wins against the AI).  How to defend against that except for costly large garrisons in EVERY city?

City walls should mean something.  As it stands now city defenses are pretty unnoticeable.  What benefit they do offer seems pretty minimal.  Stone walls and even lumber forts should slow down an invading army enough to let defenders retaliate.  Now, I understand this is the sort of thing that teleport is set up to defend against, but instead of a broken teleport spell to make up for broken city defenses, how about have city defenses mean something?  Rather than a defensive buff, let them slow down attackers by a few turns.  Make garrisoned armies cheaper too.  Also, if units are in production, then let them serve as a defensive garrison if attacked.  These are just a few ideas.

With better city defenses, turtling would make alternative victory conditions more enticing and necessary.  Once I researched the Spell of Making but only after I crippled the AIs and was just messing around.  I've never even gotten close to the adventuring or dynasty victory conditions.

I also want to say that it would be cooler if advanced cities looked more like keeps.  Maybe tall spires for the administrative and educational buildings would give enough of a fantasy kingdom look.

Standing Ovation!

Well, that one is obviously wrong thing to have, if not bug at all. Teleporting to arbitrary location is definitely too game breaking.

Take the MOM approach:

Earth Gate:
Nature/Very Rare/City Enchantment: Casting Cost: 250 mana;Upkeep: 5 mana/turn. Creates a teleporting device within the city. Friendly units can instantly teleport between any two cities (controlled by thecasting wizard) equipped with earth gates for the cost of onemovement point.

Hmm... This still didn't sound right to me, so I loaded up one of my empire games and I knocked out all but one AI city so I could research all the Empire spells (I'm up to level 14 now and there hasn't been a new spell in a couple of levels, so I think I'm done).  I still don't have any spell, teleport or otherwise, that allows me to move directly into enemy territory. 

I have two teleport spells at this point: "Spirit Dance" and "Teleport Friends."  Both of them have the same flavor text and operate identically, although spirit dance costs 20 mana and Teleport Friends costs 15.  Neither of them will allow me to teleport to a square that is outside of my borders.  I've tested it in several different ways (at war, at peace, into neutral ground, with stack, without stack, etc.) and there isn't any combination I see that allows me to do the thing you are describing.

Can you name the spell that is allowing you this action?  What level is it?  What conditions need to be true to allow you to teleport into enemy territory?