While I agree with the fear that the late game spells are too powerful without some sort of counter (counter spelling, artificial cast limits, mana limits, whatever) I think this paragraph is completely wrong.  If the systems are properly balanced you should be making gains for that magic you are expending.  The earlier you make these gains the greater the benefit should be later. 

For example, using magic to conquer the wilderness or a weaker foe and therefore gaining resources or shards. 

If you're not gaining anything for your magic use, that's not necessarily the fault of the game.  It could just be a bad player. 

Firstly, I really appreciate what Derek has done, and I think it is a massive improvement over War of Magic.

I do agree with Campaigner though that there are some issues. Firstly, there are a lot fewer spells than either Age of Wonder 2 - Shadow Magic or Master of Magic. The system also allows for a lot of overlap between players. So expect most players having very similar spell sets. Also, there are no world wrecking spells like armaggedon in Master of Magic.

So my feedback is that I like what has been done but I would like to see -

1. Many more unique spell books like Ceresa's spell book. Love the idea but there should be tonnes of these that are only unlocked by pre-game selections. Not just one! For example a spider themed book, a necromancy themed book.

2. Also think mebbe there should be a few 'findable' spellbooks again with several spells where there is only one (or no) instance per game world and the only way to get the spells is to find that book or trade with someone who has them.

3. The spells at level 5 are not powerful enough. Where is Armageddon? Great Wasting? Dominions 3, AoW SM and MoM all had more powerful top tier spells.

I just realised a fun thing about making cloudwalking something x2 movement rate. It could be implemented as army always walking on road. This means there is two ways to achieve the same effect

Not airmage: Build and use roads

Airmage: Build no or few roads, but move armies around just as fast with a spell-caster. 

If we have more control over road-construction than in WoM, this could make air-specialized empires/kingdoms very different, with few domestic roads that also makes invasions different. And air-mages might even have the fast armies that attack into other empires along non-road routes.

Spider Themed Spell Book - Excellent Idea - Discovered by Quest - 2 to 4 spells per level

Primary Focus: Tactical Spells

17 Spells - 13 tactical, 2 strategic, 2 city enchantment, 1 Enchantment

"In ages past there was a titan that was the master of all giant spiders. It is said that their exists a tome that instructs one in the magic of this titan and how he controlled his creations. Legends say that this tome can be found deep in a forest guarded by the spiders spawned by his creations. Defeat these guardians, retrieve the tome and decipher its writings to know the secrets of the Spider Titan."

Note: Only characters of high intelligence can decipher all the writings within this tome.

Level 1 - Requires Intelligence 14

• 1. Repel Spiders (tactical - Level 1) - Spiders must resist to initiate an attack against a unit with this enchantment.
• 2. Spider Spit (tactical - Level 1) - Shoots a stream of poison at a target. Target must resist or suffer 2 pts of damage per turn. Can be negated by Life: Cure Poison Spell.
• 3. Spider Climb (tactical - Level 1) - targeted unit receives a +5 bonus to dodge when fighting from or defending in a forest tile as they can freely climb trees. Negates bonus of defensive city walls for the enemy unit due to targeted unit's ability to climb city walls.

Level 2 - Requires Intelligence 16

• 4. Web (Tactical - Level 2) - Unit can't move or attack until it breaks free. Excellent for use against archers and catapults.
• 5. Summon Giant Spiders (Tactical - Level 2) - Summons a unit of giant spiders (can be cast multiple times during a battle)
• 6. Dispel Web (Tactical - Level 2) - Dispels Web and Webwall.

Level 3 - Requires Intelligence 18

• 7. Summon Poisonous Spiders (Tactical - Level 3) - Summons a unit of poisonous spiders  (can be cast multiple times during a battle)
• 8. Webwall (tactical - Tactical Level 3) - creatues a wall of webbing. Units that enter can't move unless they resist. Can be destroyed by fire spells.
• 9. Mass Spider Climb (tactical - Level 3) - all units receive a +5 bonus to dodge when fighting from or defending in a forest tile as they can easily climb trees. Negates bonus of defensive city walls for the enemy due to targeted units' ability to climb city walls.

Level 4 - Requires Intelligence 20

• 10. Spider Plague (Tactical) - summons a horde of giant spiders against a targeted unit, forcing them to fight to move.
• 11. Spider Shape (Enchantment) - transforms a sovereign or champion into a half-human / half spider creature. +2 bonus to movement, -6 penalty to charisma.
• 12. Spider Nest (Tactical) - raises a 2x2 insect mound upon the battlefield. It continuously spawns giant poisonous spiders that attack all units; friend or foe, until the mound is destroyed (100hp) or the battle ends. Strategy: Cast Spider Nest, then cast Repel Spiders upon your units so that these spiders only attack enemy units.
• 13. Charm Spiders (Tactical) - Targeted spider unit becomes a friendly unit for 1 turn per caster level
• 14. Sticky Walls (City Enchantment) - City walls are covered by sticky spider webbing that reduces movement of attackers by 1.

Level 5 - Requires Intelligence 22

• 15. Summon Spider Demon (tactical - Level 5) - summons a humongous giant spider - Level 5 - that is 100% AI controlled.
• 16. Spider Portal (strategic - Level 5) - creates a gate to another plane. Until it is destroyed it allows a stream of humongous Spider demons to enter the world of elemenetal. These spider demons attack all - friend or foe - creatures they encounter
• 17. Guardian Spider Demon (City Enchantment) - A humongous giant spider guardian is awakened when the city is attacked. This spider consumes 1 population per turn when the city is not under attack. The strength of the spider does not appear in defender's stats until the city is attacked.

Giant Spider Types and Battle Tactics

Spiders are insects and do not make morale checks, they attack until they are dead. Spiders are immune to the effect of web spells (Web, Web Wall, Sticky Walls).

01. Giant Spiders

02. Poisonous Spiders - the bite of these spiders are poisonous and cause and additional +1hp of damage per turn.

03. Web Casters - These huge spiders cast a web spell at targeted unit before attacking. A webbed unit can't move unless it resists and suffers a penalty to its attack and dodge ratings.

04. Spider Demon - Summoned from the planes of the Titans these spiders are deadly, are as large as a house, tower over mortal men and are hard to kill (200+ hit points). They can cast a web spell that ensnares units. Taking orders from no one (100% AI controlled) these spiders will attack the last creature that attacked them.

You could do stuff like that in AoW 2 as well, though you very rarely built roads. Air Mages could throw up stuff like Haste Domain and Flight, and burn mana to have an entire army of flying high speed (whatever). Fire Mages had no answer to that kind of mobility, but they could set their domain on fire and do damage per turn to everything hostile inside. I saw there's a wall of fire spell for cities, that's a pretty good start.

I think they're going in the right direction with the spellbooks they have now, and just hope it's not a "final" list. If we get into a beta there will hopefully be a chance to add some more to flesh it out.

You can't force yourself to be innovative, the core of evolution is to take what is the current best and improve on it, trying to reinvent the wheel is not how things work.

Whatever it is, the system presented in here was not based on MoM's system, there are merely some borrowed spells and shared themes but the mechanics are fundamentally different.

Alas, in the end you will leave and travel the world, only to return and realize that which you craved was where you left all along.

I like that there are some area denial type effects, though I think there could be more for both tactical and strategic.  Currently that is what mountains can be used for, being able to make other difficult terrain or a cost/benefitt choice such as slower movement or damage to go thru a tile would help beef up the options.  Or being able drop a wall or movement altering areas in tactical to change unit movement options.  The control type spells of the 4th edition AD&D for the mage class are a good place to look for ideas.

I also like the idea mentioned to have options for making your controlled terrain more difficult for enemy forces (such as overall slower movement as the starbases could do in gal civ) could work to allow you to use your magic to stall advancing armies as you rush fortifications on your cities.

In regard to the shard conversion and caster schools, having a conversion option (filter) for aligning a shard with your casting types OR having the choice of specializing come up once you've captured a shard would be the way to go.  It would allow the player to adapt to the world or adapt the world to meet their needs.  For example you could place an enchantment on a fire shard to make it count as an earth shard (for purposes of spell boosts only- not for the spell of making for example)  this way the shard still maintains it's natural type, but a player can take a reduction in mana production to power the enchantment to alter the bonus.  This would especially be helpful for the first case as then you arent stuck with an inferior shard if your starting position matches you up with one that doesn't match the choice you made when making your sovereign.  This would also have the benefit of having a shard that changes ownership revert to its natural state, such as the life to death conversion for empires.

I believe there were caster units you could make for the empire faction, would they have access to the spells based on their traits then?  For example, if the unit is given the fire 1 trait at creation it can cast rank one fire spells.  Would they be able to cast life/death spells as default based on their faction or would they have to put traits into it at unit creation?

I do have to say that the art is awesome.  Though the pictures for the curse and mass curse are rightfully similar the single unit one looks better with the stronger one not seeming more powerful by the art.  Some effected unit(s) in the background and or an alteration to the energy effect could help.

Yes, concerning the artwork for spells, I think the artword is amazing and make the spell really look powerful but in WoM I was always disapointed with Artwork vs Effect... And especially for the terraforming spells which are amazing on the drawing and then the animation is just a normal animation you can see in any game  I hope the effects will match a bit more the artwork for fallen enchantress  

I apologize if this has already been asked and answered. I was wondering where acuity stats fit into the spells. Does Intelligence, charisma or any other stat have an effect on damage or number of targets etc for spells?

Is mana blast set to a fixed cost or does it take say 3/10 of your mana when you cast it (ie being more than a 1 to 1 ratio of cost vs. damage dealt).  We wouldn't want it to be able to one-shot bosses or something it would make them completely anti-climatic, perhaps the cost to damage ratio increases beyond a certain point or with a popup choice?  Otherwise there could be a monster trait that prevents or minimizes damage beyond a certain % of total health threshold.

I too like the mana shield and the spells that are at least partially fueled by more than just your mana.

I wasn't going to comment on the journal, because I didn't want to add a whole lot of negativity (because it seems like that's all I do) but I have to disagree on this. The one game that is always on my hard drive no matter what is Master of Magic, until I find a better game. It's not remembering the game being better, it actually was. At least IMHO, Fallen Enchantress's spellbook can't compare to the one in MoM (and anyone saying FE's spell book is better is lying). Yes, the direction they have taken with the expansion is good, but that doesn't mean that it's great yet. The way it feels from the first game, and the info we've been given of FE, is that the game is about battles of armies with a bit of magic thrown in here and there. 

It feels like magic is so rare in the game, and then when you finally have it, even some of the higher level spells don't seem worth it. There's a bunch of good spells in there that I can see myself using, but a LOT of them are not going to be useful unless you get random luck. Too many spells based on shards means that there had better be more shards in the world, otherwise even those high level spells utilizing them will be worthless. Too many spells with low numbers and multipliers; didn't we see creatures with like hundreds or thousands of life in Elemental? How is Regeneration or even Heal going to help later in the game, unless you have tons of shards?

Like I said, there are good spells in there (like the Death spells, and Falling Star and Call of the Titans seem crazy powerful) , but for the most part it's missing the point of what makes a good spellbook in a game. There's a reason that every spellbook in any GOOD game shares a few similarities. See it's OK if you want to be different and NOT copy any of the standard stuff or borrow from others and say you're 100% original ... but if that means it's not even as good as the competition, was it worth it?

I think Master of Magic is going to be on my hard drives for a bit longer. ... Ugh, see, another negative post.

I agree with a lot of the other comments. The spells are definitely an improvement over WoM but still doesn't seem to be up to par with some of the older fantasy 4x games. I'd love for FE to be a great game but the pre-release hype WoM and its subsequent failure has already largely destroyed my faith in Stardock. Again, I'd love to be proved wrong.

FE could still be a lot of fun.  It just looks like, the spells do not have that "magical touch", at least from reading their effects.

Best regards,
Steven.