Something to think about: Terraforming... and the utter mayhem it can cause.

If the mana cost is right, terraforming is the sort of spell that the game SHOULD have, in my opinion. A set of spells that interacts with some mechanic in the game, but is different from other spells. But that requires the AI to understand and use it as well.

Yeah, I'd hate to loose it. It makes perfect sense for magical casters to recreate the world to suit their own needs. There is so much fun that can be had with these kind of things... you could create a map called "seperate valleys" or something where every starting point has its own valley, and you need to cast Lower Land to get out ( of course, earth magic would be a must-have)... and Lower Land again to break into the opposite valleys. Sane? Perhaps not. Entertaining? Very!

I love terra forming.  I don't mind that the AI can't utilize it as well as I can, but they should use a lower land or raise land to make paths.  But if they can't be taught to use a boat, I doubt they can be taught to cast these spells.  But, Either way, I want it in the game.

The computer actually does use these spells. They lowered the mountains in front of one of my cities I thought was safe for several turns.

Then I cloud walked there before they could attack...

I don't think there's any problems with the scenarios you mentioned OP.  Basically, you just said that terraforming is actually useful.  Because if you couldn't use it to give yourself a strategic advantage then well...what's the point ?

The only concern I see is that there needs to be counters to terraforming other than...terraforming.  I guess cloud walk is one, but I think that's really it.  Personally, I would like to see some high end units with a "mountain walk" trait that lets them go over mountains.  Or a trait that lets them cross water.

It would provide a "unit" counter to clever terraforming.

Best bet for a counter to Raise Mountain would be an even higher level spell that flattens the land in a 6 tile radius. It could be a level 5 earth spell from Book of the Magi III. There not currently enough spells in that book.

I've used terraforming since the early days of EWOM.  Boats don't work (don't exist).  So why not?  Counters are there, counter terraforming.  Not sure if the AI uses it.. as I have never taken terraforming to the extent that threadstarter has...

As long as we don't have MP, I can just voluntarily refrain from pushing exploits like that.  Mostly.  Promise.

But if there is a silly island I can't get to, or a peninsula that can only be gotten to by going miles thru unexplored territory even though I can see it from my house... it's landbridge time.

Lord Cobol, well said.  All 'exploits' require the player to actually implement the 'exploit.'   And when he or she does, who is cheated?  You have hit the nail on the head.  An exploit is only an exploit if someone uses it. 

That argument can be used for any strong strategy. Like in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, going with fliers against melee units and using magic if inside your domain.

The game clearly allows it. It is designed that way. So if the AI can't keep up then the AI coder is to blame.

Speaking of Age of Wonders ... why are Shadow Demons just 'evil' while Undead are 'pure evil'? Shouldn't it be the other way around? (just getting this off wikipedia, don't know about the accuracy of the information)

One thing FE is missing are the "counter" spells of meta-magic spells that alter the way you get mana/use magic or your opponents get/use mana.

It's missing a way to prevent strategic spells to be cast by enemies in your borders (expensive spell), to hamper the mana generation of your enemy ("Soul leeeek"), to add a randomization in the effect of enemy spells (for instance, each spell cast by the nemey wouldn't automatically be targeted at the right spot, but at a random place around the initial target), a way to weaken enemy spells (or add turns to their casting : instead of insta-casting they need 2 turns or more)

Also terraforming too much somewhere could bring some random mayhem : "You awakened the beast within !"

Is it no longer the case that you can't create mountains/water? As I recall, you can't create impassable terrain. That would prevent some of the problems in the OP (like raising mountains to prevent attack). 

I think you can (at least create mountains) just need Earth III I think.

Yes, those global or influence-wide enchantments certainly are missing, I do hope they put some in.

sigh ... yes we see your advertisement Steven

/me goes to check steven's post.

Advertisement?  Whenever I see or think up a good idea, I like to put it up in lights to make sure the devs see it.  With a topic talks about a number of different related topics, I sometimes make a new thread to focus on one of them if I feel like it could use a bit more exposure/focus.

PS: Note that the new thread was posted *after* I posted in the Terraforming thread, not before.

I think other than mentioning AoW, this thread was entirely about terra-forming. Nvm, it appears I started the derail, and then new posts I just skimmed over talked about more than transforming.

Speaking of which ...

Could someone be so kind as to answer my AoW:Shadow Magic question?   ( I know its just a lore thing, but still ...  sometimes I LIVE for the lore)

Easy answer: Cause Triumph decided it

Lore answer: The Undead HATE living things and seek to destroy all that lives.

The Shadow Demons are definetly evil but I don't know WHY they kill so much or what exactly they want. I'd wager a guess on that they kill and stuff just like the Orcs, Goblins & Dark Elves but aren't completely obsessed about destroying all life like the Undead are.

I mean, just look at this evil face!

There's worse though!

Even their catapults look evil

Teraforming can very easily be abused to either create or remove choke points.  The first game of Elemental: WoM I ever played past about turn 30 I was under attack by all the AIs (cause I was doing so bad) and instead of getting my ass kicked and restarting like I should have done I created a ring of mountains and locked myself in.   Ever since then I really consider teraforming a form of cheating and refuse to do it.

So for games vs AI it doesn't really have to be removed: you decide whether or not to use it.  For games vs other humans you can't really do that but it also removes a huge amount of the strategy aspect as players cannot make use of natural choke points.  For this I would prefer on option on game creation to disable teraforming (or at least to/from water/mountain)

I think several of the more powerful spells should take more time to cast.  The Volcano spell for example, which basically just destroys an entire city.  The spell caster should have to be within 10 squares of the target and it should take a couple turns to cast.

Most of you probbaly are not even old enough to remember it but Populous had terraforming. It was also usable by the AI. It created a big pain in the ass simply because the AI would create paths 1 square wide to cross large bodies of water.

Terforming does have the limitation of being only usable in your territory. However with the ability to spam outpost it becomes irrelevant.

The other flaw in terraforming is that the tiles created are not usable for settling purposes.

So pretty much as the current terraforming is implented it is kinda useless except to wall yourself in from the AI, then what is the point in playing if the AI can not reach you?

Seems one problem with terraforming is that if you place those mountains around a city with cultural control over the mountain's location, and only leave a one-tile wide, oceanic entrance which you can put a boat in from your city if you want to leave... congratulations - your fortress is now literally impenatrable (as long as you can extend the ocean far enough to deny vision).  Seems the only counter would be adding some way to use terraforming in hostile territory (perhaps a multi-turn casting time + limited range so defenders can react?)

I'm old enough.  I enjoyed playing it (along with StarCraft 1).  But, playing as a god of a planet is a bit different from playing as a magic user.