[.912]Feedback on Pariden's create outpost spell

The other possibility for balancing it could come from changes to outposts.  Frogboy has talked about his wish (not necessarily Derek's though) for more complex outposts.  Surely at that point there will be maintenance costs and/or other downsides to too many outposts. 

Some sort of negative from building outposts would probably go a long way towards balancing the spell, though maybe not far enough.  Worth considering though.

I agree it is too powerful. A mana maintenance cost might help

how about a compromise. The Spell would require an initial mana cost and maintanence for the next X turns, then be a full outpost.

How about just a larger mana cost?

I think raising the mana cost to anywhere from 70 to 100 makes sense.

I know they've said no way, but I'll say it anyway. Outposts, via pioneers or magic just don't feel right in this game. I honestly think there should be a hell of a lot less resources, and the few that do exist be much, MUCH more potent. Keeps or a type of defense structure resembling outputs that you can build on top of them to safeguard from roaming monsters or other kingdom/empires make much more sense to me.

Would clear up more room for important stuff, like dungeons, quests, and epic creatures. Just my two zeni.

not enough imo range  should be a factor too

There's nothing wrong with the idea of the spell per se, its the enormous casting range that makes the spell broken. You can scout and grab any resource on the map, and you can build a road through enemy territory by putting one down on the other side of where you want to go. Bang instant road.

Someone made the suggestion that the monolith is placed in the same square that the sovereign is in while casting the spell and i think that is a good solution. 30 mana cost is a good amount. Early game you have to balance ho wmuch mana your putting into enchantments and spell casting and droppping 30 mana down for an outpost that can be detroyed by a wandering monster is reasonable. You also need to invest 10 gildar into harvesting most resources which isn't something your going to do in contested territory because your probably not going to recoup your losses before its demolished.

Glowing_Ember has hit the exact same issue that I find with the spell. 

I was just thinking, even thoug houtposts are squishy, you can't actually destroy someone's outpost unless you are at war with them.  Perhaps when the AI is more agressive, those far off outposts by them selves won't last very long.

As for the road issue, I think there was a thread talking about the use of roads through enemy territory, should be disallowed.  That would solve the instant road to rome.

Maybe just stop treating it as an outpost for other purposes.  Remove the roads don't let it get the buffs to outposts that are coming.  Make it so you have a reason to replace them later with pioneers when you have gaps in production.  I like the spell, picking which sov to play should be painful.  This is a single player game, they each need some sort of overpowered ability (or two).

I tried playing Pariden thinking it would be the race I liked least, live and learn, but that is one whopper of a spell.  I think it might be fine with 1 mana upkeep a turn.  I feel like 30 mana is about right for the cost though.

In my latest game, a pack of umberdroths and a certain cantankerous forest drake, were eating those magic structures for breakfast, they also had a certain thing for snacking on townsfolk.  It would have been easier for me to use pioneers, but not quite as fun.

hehe further abuses of the spell - i can make a corridor of space to travel through other peoples ares by carving through their zone of control by mass casting of theis spell.

LOL!!  I love that tactic Glowing_Ember  Sooooo much fun   and unless they go to war, you can completely surround the poor little empire 

But no..... we're honourable gamers..... we wouldn't gimp the system......well actually we would

Maybe just a cooldown of about the same time it takes to train a pioneer. 

Other then that i don't see any need to change it.  its a perk for playing the Pariden after all

Putting in a cooldown for the time it takes to train a pioneer would be just early game, and completely unjust mid-late game because you can have multiple cities train pioneers in the late game.  Early game it takes ages to train a pioneer, so the spell wuold be better (3 turn limit assumed).

I think putting a 10 turn cool down and raising the cost to 40 would make it a little more balanced 

heh thank you for the idea i think ill go abuse it right now 

on a side note it would be easy to fix this if you made it so that the spell can not be cast in another player or npc's zone of control

I dont cast it in ther zone i cast outside of it.

Furthermore the spell can also be used to block other players from building cities. If you do not want a lot of cities, but you still do not want the other players from building more cities, this spell can go in and block the area.

I agree it is overpowered as I can cover every tile on a large map with this spell - preventing the computer from building cities or reaping resources. I can also scout an area and later on cast this spell if I want a particular resource I didnt need earlier on even with FoW

I also agree that a maintenance cost (1 mana/turn) would be appropriate. I believe the cost is ok. As someone mentioned earlier a cool down of 2 turn or maybe just limit the casting to 1 per turn would also balance this.

I agree with this.  There either needs to be a distance limit from where the Sov is standing, a cool down, or a limit per turn that it can be cast.  Or else the cost would need to be massively boosted.

I agree it is very powerful. It is also pretty fun to play with. Don't know what the right option is for balance, but if they are re-doing outposts then that would be the time to balance it, it obviously doesn't need protection to be a very useful spell.