Well personally I consider it to be near the bottom on any priority list but if I since you asked the simplest system is usually the best...

1.Open the equipment screen.

2. Click a new "Craft" button. A new screen would pop up with a list of all basic weapons that character has. The screen would also have 3 recipe slots.

3. You select the base weapon or armor piece and up to 3 crafting items like skath scales or poison sacs.

4. If you get a correct combination the craft button would become click-able and info on the craftible item would appear.

5. You click the craft button and get a new shiny enchanted item.

Edit: You could also have resource costs or trait prerequisites, such as WaterII or Smithing. Items created this way would be items you could find in game already, for the most part anyway.

Crafting in MoM was the absolute bomb.

The difference is that here the list of magics is a "per hero" thing, not a "powerful overlord" thing. The spells you cast were that of the supreme wizard that didn't go wandering around the countryside to earn experience that unlocks spells. That said, if that hero is not present in the place the item is getting created, what then?

Ergo, the theory is that if you want to craft something, it has to be researched, and at the moment there are few things in the research tree that even look halfway useable on items.

The game would have to make a significant turn towards MoM2 to be able to incorporate the this feature - and I am all for that.

Just make it a sovereign only spell that you research and uses only the magic available to the sovereign. That way true mages of power can make something really awesome, while that fighter guy with a little bit of life magic to keep himself going only makes minor trinkets.

Rubber bands and paperclips work great as crafting components.

Step 1) Select an item that you've researched. This may be a leather helmet or a low-strength amulet, or a Lightning Hammer.

Step 2) Attributes are unlocked from having spells (or indirectly from having the spell trait required for a spell - earth 2 for stoneskin). Spells add individual effects, such as Stoneskin/Earth2 adding extra defense against cutting/pierce. An item can only hold so many spells depending on the crafter's technology (bonus: sovereign history with an extra tech level in this area). Spells that add random effects are also available for everyone, although they differ in tier as well (weak random effect / strong random effect).

Step 3) Choose the amount of mana / crystal you wish to invest in this item. The more you select, the higher the chance it will succeed. The more you select, the faster it will go to finish (also buildings that improve speed of crafting). The more you select, the stronger the magical effects will be (obviously not linear!). The more you select, the higher level it will require from its wearer in order to function.

Step 4) When the item is completed, a list of your champions appears and you get to teleport it to one of them. Alternatively, a caravan will appear and travel to the champion (if killed, item is lost).

The item should be randomly named when finished, but the player should be able to edit it.

I'll hand it to the folks at StarDock, that would be an ambitious undertaking.

Lessee....

LEVEL 4 Path Unlock:

Path of the Artisan

Allows a Hero/Sov with this Path to research & unlock material combinations which can be used in manufacturing Artisan only features.

Example:

A Sovereign levels to 4th level and picks Path of the Artisan {or Inventor or w/e}.

That SOVs ZOI includes an iron node and a crystal node, both producing metal & crystals.

SOV's research path now has a new path called "Discoveries"

SOV starts researching "Discoveries" which at this point, has endless seasons and unknown potential.

Seasons pass. At Season 31 {for ex. maybe a 4% chance per season to Discover something new} [As long as a Crystal + Iron resource or stockpile is available] the Sov has a Discovery!

SOV discovers "Crysteel" - a new production resource from which improved blades, arrow tips, armor, etc. can be made...These Crysteel weapons/armor/bows now appear as part of the production arsenal that his Faction can draw from.

ie. As long as a supply of Crystals and Iron are available, they can be melded in to Crysteel...{2 Crytals + 4 Iron = 1 Crysteel or w/e}

Then, a unit can be equipped with "Crysteel Scimitars" or "Crysteel Chainmail" etc. which is a variation on standard Plate/Chain/Swords,etc.

-Some balancing act would have to be implemented to prevent an Artisan SOV from discovering a combination that basically makes them God-Like.

Other discoveries might include:

Wargs/Horses + Air Shards = Discovery of Winged Wargs/Pegasi mounts that have an enhanced &/or a unique stat.

Grain + Earth Shards = Discovery of a cheaper & or better Food item(s){think Elven Bread from LOTR for example} that can heal health when used by Hero units, or repair injuries from death for Henchmen types.

etc.

etc.

Just a thought on balance is that a SOV might spend a lot of time trying to control one particular resource to try and unlock a new Discovery...all the while, the AI SOVs are building their power base....

Combining a few ideas posted above with my own:

There would basically be three types of craftable items: enchanted, mundane (not enchanted), and hybrids.

Enchantment enhancements would require (a) researching the appropriate magic technology ("Power-crafted Weapons", "Power-crafted Armor"), ( a sovereign or champion of appropriate magic skill (Fire II would allow flaming weapons, Fire III would allow ones that shoot flame darts, Fire IV for fireballs--the idea here being that the magic skill needs to be one level higher than the level needed for the caster to be physically present and cast the spell in battle, etc, and the strength would be less than a caster using the spell, too.).

Costs for enchantments would be mana and time.  Some enchantments' strength would be dependent on the number of shards owned when the enchantment was cast--so crafting bows that shoot lightning bolts become more powerful as the player captures air shards.  The cost should be significant enough that only the weakest enchantments are economical for non-champion units except for the occasional rare "King's Guard"-like elite unit.  Units with bows that are enchanted for accuracy or flaming arrows?  Okay.  Units with bows that (each) shoot an arrow that basically casts Blizzard on the target area?  A little overdone.  (But a good Champion weapon.)

Here are some proposed ideas for enchantments.  (Not a complete list, but conveys the idea):

Earth:

Technology: "Spirit of the Earth"  Your researchers have unlocked the ancient art of infusing worldly items with the power of Earthly essence.  Mages of required skill will now be able to craft items with enchantments.  Unlocks:  Power-wrought Edge enchantment, Hardened Skin enchantment. etc.

Earth Enchantments (and required mage skill level):

Power-wrought Edge (I): Gives a weapon +1 Attack
Hardened Skin (I): Gives a piece of armor +1 Armor
Edge of the Earth (II): Gives a weapon +1 attack per earth shard
Armor of the Earth (II): Gives +1 defense per earth shard.
Fist of the Earth (III):  Gives a weapon the power to Bash a target
Earthly Storm (III): Imbues a range (or staff) weapon with an earthly ranged attack (Hurl Boulder)
Steady Ground (III): Immunity to being knocked prone.
Wrath of the Earth (IV): Strikes with enchanted weapon cast Earthquake on the target
Mother's Embrace (IV): Enchanted armor causes the tile a unit moves into to become Fortified.

Fire Enchantments:

Searing Blade (I): Gives a weapon +1 fire attack
Hearth of Respite (I): Gives +15% fire resist (cloaks, chest, helm only)
Flaming Blade (II): Gives a weapon +1 fire attack per earth shard
Hearth of Solace (II): Gives +10% fire resist per earth shard (max 40%, cloak, chest only)
Edge of the Sun (III): The weapon can cast Flame Dart every 3 turns
Searing Skin (III): 1st attacker hit by weak fire attack when striking enchanted target
Wrath of Fire (IV): Weapon strikes have a chance to call down a meteor storm upon a struck target
Cloak of Flames (IV): All attackers hit by fire attack when striking enchanted target

Air Enchantments:

Edge of Swiftness (I): Gives a weapon +1 initiative
Winds of Swiftness (I): Gives +5 dodge (cloaks, chest, helms)
Edge of Lightning (I): Gives a weapon +1 lightning attack
Blade of the Winds (II): Gives +1 initiative per air shard
Cloak of the Winds (II): Gives +3 dodge per air shard
Blade of Lightning (III): The weapon can cast Lightning Bolt every 3 turns
Edge of Lightning (III): +1 lightning attack per air shard
Armor of Lightning (III): 1st attacker hit by weak lightning attack
Wrath of the Storm (IV): Weapon strikes have a chance to call down a lightning storm upon a struck target
Guardian Storm (IV): When enchanted target is hit, chance attacker is hit by lightning storm

..and so forth..

Mundane enhancements would require world resources and harvesting buildings.  These enhancements would require (a) research of the appropriate harvesting/crafting technology ("Mining Adamantium", "Poison Alchemy" (probably with some kind of swamp tile or spider-themed tile), "Ironwood" (for bows and staves), and ( availability of the resource and the construction of the proper harvesting building.  Since these enchancements largely boil down to base materials for crafting (wood, metal, etc), there could be several levels of each with different amounts appearing on any given map.  This could make the two or three deposits of high level resources (like Elementium?) in the world very strategic points on the map.

Costs for mundane enhancements are labor and resource amounts of the material used--and increase progressively with the level of the base item (long bows more expensive than short bows, etc) and the level of the resource.

Some suggestions for mundane resources:

Poison/Acid (maybe of different strengths depending on resource?)
New metals (mithril, adamantium, elementium, etc)
New woods (ironwood, heartwood, etc)

Hybrid items (ironwood flaming staves) would cost a healthy amount of labor, resources, and mana to make--as well as incur additional time for the enchantment.


Champions/Sovereigns creating items for themselves should probably be required to be immobile (in a city?) for the duration of the crafting?  (Personally, I'd like to see this already--rather than having to buy all the upgrades through the shop.  That way you can either sacrifice time or visit the shop to "rush" production.)  Cities training new units with these items should have their cost figured into the unit cost (via the unit designer) and possibly be required to have some sort of forging/crafting building built in that city.  I haven't had time to think through how the buildings would work--just one generic building for each type (enchantment/mundane--must build both to make hybrid items in that city) or levels to go along with the levels of enchantments/resources that are to be used (so some sort of Level III magical forge to craft items with level III enchantments.  All that extra building would help make higher enchantments/resources used more rarely and prevent super-unit spamming, but it might be so time intensive it's hardly used at all--which just isn't any fun. 


Anyway, my morning's up, so I gotta move on.  Here's my $.02 on the matter.

GS

I like the idea of crafting, but while your busy collecting materials and spending time building the magic item, your not adventuring and leveling up, which could put the sovereign at a disadvatage vs. the AI.

Why not just make each element of the crafting take a certain amount of time for trained units and the Sov/Champ just looses a single turn.

I must be part of the more grumpy people when I personally feel crafting would be redundant in FE.
Right now each player can achieve each magic easily depending on which heroes he gets, so if crafting is based on magic as per MoM it will be rather random and out of the players control what choices are available, unless you have access to Paridens spellbook and/or have lots of heroes, Paridens spellbooks + henchmen even boosts your magic availability even further. This is part of what would make crafting an uneven experience if applied similar to MoM.

If it is just a preset set of tools which is the same for each faction, it would be (to me) become the "same grind" and boring, similar to unit designs, I would pick the same 3 traits each time I design a unit, or craft a weapon (My problem with the crafting in Age of Wonders 2).

I think it would be much better if you focused on the other parts of FE right now, like UI and meaby even another favourite which is "Sieges". Implementing more spell/ability options would help make hero levelling less patched on and a more complete feeling, thats my thoughts anyways.

I would rather see the shop improved, and meaby you could build a special building, that would populate your shop in a particular city with a random magic item each 7 turns. (That would require for you to overhaul the shopping, but if you ask me, shopping limited to cities would be a step forward).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I would want a very simple crafting system.  And have it be champion based.  Get rid of the Path of the Governor  and create a path of the Enchanter.  If you have an enchanter, you can give him items and that enchanter can create magic items based on special ingredients from killed monsters, mined metal and crystals, mana and based on his magic paths.  Also, special building could unlock special enchants or be required for some enchants.

Actually, it might be pretty cool if the enchanter's crafting were random--that is, every turn there's an X% chance that some random combination of items in the enchanter's inventory were turned into an item. In this case, I'd make enchanting not a Path but a subset of abilities available after Path of the Mage--and you could tweak it in minor ways, maybe by parking the hero in a city with certain buildings, etc. And, I suppose, give some XP when the item is done.

I actually really like the random idea. It prevents it from being too OP and doesn't upset the existing balance too much.