City debuff spam is annoying.

I agree. Recently had a game where I was not even aware of any other factions (really hostile Wildlands separated me from all other factions), and one city in particular was getting that firestorm debuff every third turn. If I can't randomly debuff unmet enemies, AI shouldn't be able to either.

In addition, where is the dispel city spell found? If we can get a city debuffed to the point where it can no longer produce viable units (-1 HP debuff x7), we NEED to be able to dispel said curse, and have access to said dispel with relative ease.

I honestly hope they soon are going to put proper range on overland spells.. The current "everything on endless range" is abit...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Agree.  

Yes, it's very annyod and I rather build mage tower in order stop hurt finger every time I click it, it's annyod me they do that every 2 to 3 turn.

The grasp of winter debuff preveneted me from building units. AFTER I dispelled it. What the heck.

Last I checked my capitol had at least 25 EACH of "Frozen Bones" and "Incinerate City"            I'm not even trying to dispel them.  And, at normal difficulty, I doubt that any of the bad guys can legitimately afford the maintenance.

Incinerate City costs 200 mana, Dispel costs 20, where do they find so much mana ?

Dispel is a discovered through research - level three I reckon

On a related note, last time I tried strategic summon spells always spawned at the sovereign's location, which is rather annoying once you have a large empire.

The AI should only be able to cast spells on your city if he's able to view it: e.g. his scout unit is nearby.

They should not be able to cast 'through' a fog of war.

This goes without saying, the concept is pretty cool but the execution is lacking.

I requested some changes on another thread, but here is what I think we need.

1. Debuffs require line of sight to to cast

1A. Debuffs cannot remain active for more than 4 turns after line of sight is lost.

2. AI must actually have enough mana to maintain Debuff spells.

3. There needs to be an indicator in Cloth view that a debuff as well as buff is on a city.  -Maybe spell icon and counter if more than 1 of that spell is active.

4.  to offset the fact that we can now see it - counter spell takes 2 turns to clear debuff - or maybe a little more mana.

* Debuffs should require that you have seen your target at one point. Most spells should actually require active LoS excepting very special cases. AND then you have a reason to create a spell which allows you to see everything you have explored (more spells, YAY!). I have absolute proof that they will cast debuffs on cities they have never seen. I had 9 Incinerate cities before I had even made contact with another empire (wildlands cut me off, which was actually pretty awesome).

* Debuffs should REMAIN after cast regardless of LoS so long as you choose to continue paying upkeep. Requiring LoS for debuffs to continue would just make them useless in all but siege situations. They should be a way for a military weak but mana strong empire to weaken an oppressor.

* If AI is deficit maintaining their magic we have a problem. That should never be.

* Not only should there be better indicators that debuffs are on a city, I want to know when one is cast. These are ATTACKS. You don't let them wipe an army without notifying you. Why do they get to cause a permanent debuff (-hps, no dispel) to my trained units without me knowing? Frankly, I intensely dislike that mechanic in general, but if that's the intended design, whatever.

* Counterspell should probably cost 40-50 mana, but the fact that you don't get to choose what you are disenchanting is a negative. It is a defensive spell. It should be acquired relatively early, be easy to identify (it currently is not), and fairly quick, if spendy, to utilize.

I think that some interesting things could be done with the hostile city enchantments. I don't think LOS should be required, but the city certainly should have been seen at some time. It might even be fun to have a spell Scry City, that would allow some chance to make a city emerge from the fog of war, making it be targetable. Of course there could be a counter spell that you could cast to prevent scrying (or at least make it more difficult).

There should also be a spell like Shield City that would provide some protection against hostile spells. I think that notification of being targeted for this type of spell should happen, but not who cast the spell. This could be discovered by casting Divine Source, that would identify who cast the spell. It would make it more interesting if there might be repercussions from casting a hostile spell, but it isn't necessarily known if your opponent has access to the spell that could reveal you.

Other ways that this could be made more interesting would be to provide different ways to turn the hostile spell back on the user. Maybe a spell that would reverse the flow and turn the enchantment back on one of the original caster's cities or to send a pulse of energy back along the flow that would damage the original caster in some way or a third option that would tap the flow, draining mana from the original caster and put it in your own mana pool.

Options like this would make it more dangerous to cast hostile city enchantments and if each response were a different spell it might make for some interesting choices, either in which type of defense you wanted to use or in what type of retaliation you wanted.

Nice thinking, I like the creativity.

I like ml_reg's ideas as well.   I would like to see a diplomatic option available to threaten war on an opposing wizard once you are able to find out who is casting against you.   I also agree that some sort of notification like the ones we get fro city and army activities should exist to let us know a hostile spell has been cast and which city was the target.   I also had a few cities where I went to work on my build queue only to discover it had 14  on it.   It was also annoying to have to cast the dispel 14 times in a row.   You should be able to select dispel all and have the mana scale up depending on the number of hostile spells you wanted to remove.