[Discussion] Spell of Mastery Victory

spell of making shoud allow something like magical nuke - superweapon of mass destruction, not automatic win.

ability to wipe towns and salt tiles will speedup process greatly, especially vs greedy AI, but automatic win is kinda stupid, especially on hurge maps, when you can win with spell of making without single combat with AI. 

Others have suggested moving it later in the magic tech tree, and I tend to agree.  As far as I know, you are the first to suggest moving the tower of the sword and the tower of the padars to the other trees.  I'll have to think about that.

By the time I get to this technology its game over anyway, because I already dominate the game (on hard/hard). So more needs to be done to extent the length of  games, namely some drastic changes to combat mechanics to nerf player made stacks of doom and give the AI a chance to counter the player with superior numbers. But basically I agree that this victory condition should be moved into the late game.

A victory type which make you automaticly win the game after you builded some achievements our did tech research is kind of standard for games these day. You won't find a 4x game which doesn't have this kind of victory, so I think some players will even expect a victory condition like that. So you can't really remove that option completely, especially since there are still players who don't play very war focused (even if this is usually the easiest way to win). That's why this kind of victory is usually made very late game, to give less agressive players a doable victory type.

Anyway I don't dislike the idea of some magical superweapons.

Agree.  I play on Hard/Hard or Hard/Expert and the AI has never been able to build the Forge and cast the spell.  I've even waited around for them to do it and they haven't done it.  I don't know what all the fuss is about.  I guess my biggest issue would be if they're going to go for it, then they need to go for it and pull it off.

I have suggested changes the population points at which your cities level up to the adjusted following:

100 pop - lvl 2 city
200 pop - lvl 3 city
300 pop - lvl 4 city
400 pop - lvl 5 city

add the following:

500 pop - lvl 6 city - gains you the core building of the Spell of Making Victory.

The lvl 6 cities open to any of your cities, and grants the city the following ability: "you can now build Spell of Making Towers in this city"

Thus, you would need at least 1 lvl 6 city in order to persue a Spell of Making victory. Note that this change would make the achievement of this victory type harder as you would need to focus on city growth in at least one city in addition to technology research.

I would also propose that reaching lvl 6 status should result in a cutscene.

I would also propose that reaching lvl 6 status should change the City into a Citadel. (for astetical reasons)

Finished a play through on expert.  The AI does cast spell of making.  In fact, it locks their sovereigns down and makes them unproductive, because although the AI is casting spell of making, it does not result in them winning.  You can see it in the faction power chart, right beneath the symbols for the towers.

I let the AI get up to 9/10 turns several times, they were not in any wars, and on the 10th turn it just reset.  AI cannot win via spell of making, even though they try.  

Anyways, my on two cents is you don't have to be ahead or dominant to win via spell of making.  I was a big underdog (first playthrough), and just happened to be able to pick off another weak players forge to win the game.  You can stall the AI by paying tribute, etc.  I really think a conquest victory is about 10x harder -- and more entertaining as you see more late game mechanic.

Sounds like a bug. You should report this.

I tend to turn off the master spell victory as well. It's just too easy. It should a) be end tech, not middle tech, and it should require a certain number of all shards in your control. It just makes no sense to control 'all magic', if you haven't really got any control over the actual shards. 

I've played a couple of games on huge maps where Pariden (in one) and Oracle whatever-her-name is started building the towers before I'd explored far enough to find them.  Since then I've been turning off the spell of mastery victory.

I support the idea of splitting up the Towers into different trees.

The most I've seen from the AI is the building of the final tower, but none have cast the spell yet. The worst part about the Towers, however, is the AI priority to build them, particularly once you've taken a city and they need to be rebuilt... which takes priority over building troops which would greatly help the AI recovery from combat losses.

Perhaps the building of Towers for the AI could use a minimum turn, and maybe peace conditions with a majority of opponents (not including the player).

spell of making shoud be alot earlie and provide magical superweapon to clean towns, wipe armies and be manifestation of ultimate power, but not just gg no re

current implementation is ugly and only option is to disable it.

The problem with the Spell of Making isn't how early or late it is. The problem is that it is completely uncompetitive and done in isolation. You don't have to interact with other players at all. Unlike conquest you don't actually have to interact or compete with other players, except as a race to do it first.

I would suggest adding a new rule to the Spell of Making. This new rule would be that the caster has to have more Mana then any other player. The spell would be cancelled and uncastable if the player does not have the most mana. Thus players going for a magic victory would have to plan it from the start and compete amongst each other to amass the most shards, magic tech, and unique buildings. This would be much more organic and interesting then the current system. Like military conquest it would be organic, challenging, exciting, and require planning.

You could also make the spell not require the towers except for the forge, move them to different magic techs, and and make them wonders. That way instead of just taking up time and delaying an automatic win the towers would be late game boosts to Mana production players would be rushing to build them before the others to secure the most mana. Thus adding an additional layer of strategy. You could alternatively use Mana produced per turn, total elemental shards, or a completely new resource instead of Mana as the spell constraint.

You could just remove the shard bonuses from the different towers and then still require one of each of the base elemental shards ignoring life/death shards to be able to cast the spell as well as making it require the sov caster be a certain level to cast such as say 11 thus making it a focus to not only got out and get the shards but also level your sov so that they are strong enough to cast the spell.  Since the AI already levels their sov pretty well already it wouldn't affect them so much as getting the shards.  Since most AI's highly value shards once they had all 4 they have the ability to cast the spell, that and the forge of the overlords which would still be needed in addition to the shards..

Along the lines of the above, while casting the Spell of Making, your shards could/should be redirected to that end. That would mean you would take a very harsh drop on the faction power chart, most likely encouraging other factions to attack you. Since shards have been redirected, while you are being attacked, you will be hard pressed in pulling off this spell.

Whenever I think of the Spell of Making, I think of the final cutscene for the Protoss in Starcraft, Broodwar. As the Protoss attempt to succeed in an ultimate victory, swarms of zerg relentlessly press in for the kill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbn8A-fYgc4

Imo, this is how the other factions should be pressing at you if you decide to obtain this type of victory.

Another topic with a thread per week for it.

I disagree. I don't want to waste my time clicking next turn waiting my targetted city to grow to next level especially since it will take forever. SoM is not so much about growing, but about controlling magic.

I'd rather have to control a wildland to harvest magic power from it (putting back wildland into the gameplay). But as others have already pointed out, SoM or whatever you want to call scientific victory is a builder's way. Right now it's unfun and unbalanced.

Totally agree on the cutscene (no hope for it though). As you finish your 3 Towers/Forge of the Overlord everyone who is not an ally should go hostile/attack you.

There is the -9 to diplomatic relations.

I disagree that this is a problem. It's a standard in nowadays 4x games that there is at least one possible victory, which doesn't need interaction with other factions and can be done in isolation (for someone who might enjoy that). But those victorys are without exception very late game, a military victory usually will be faster.

The point is, that a victory by achievement is allready competative: Whoever spends most resources into research will win. Not the mage with most resources or the most shards not the most powerfull leader will achieve Mastery over the Arts if Magic, but the most wise one will do so. There are still different ways to achieve that: Build less military units, which will make you vulnarable, which is a risk; Build more research buildings than other faction, which actually does mean aggressive expansion; Or by having more research treaties with other faction. Concentration on the resource science isn't that easy as it sounds.

But such a victory has to be late game or even end game. Winning this way without having seen most of the research tree is very wrong and no fun. I really think you should research all three trees allmost until the end, before you can achieve Spell of Making victory.

(By the way I am sorry for my bad english, I am not a native english speaker. I hope people do understand what I mean.)

I like the suggestion of splitting up the towers between the tech trees and putting them somewhat towards the end of the trees.  That really makes a lot of sense.  It rewards "educational" dominance for a win rather than simply rewarding those who rush down the magic tree.

Yeah, Spell of Making has been my go to VC, so it's probably a little too easy as it stands.  Moving it down the tech tree might be a start.

In one of my recent playtests, I saw three empires/kingdoms start building towers before I had the relevant tech, some of which had the third tower online before I built my first tower.  I was able to get all four towers built and cast Spell Of Making before they could, which I'm still scratching my head about.  Is the AI not 'seeing' this VC correctly?

I sort of agree with the splitting up the towers between several techs idea, or at least the requirements for spell of making.

The three towers, by the nature of their bonuses, are inherently magical.  So they probably should remain in the magic tree, OR, be merged into a single tower with upgrades: i.e. bonuses to 2 elements, upgrade 3 elements, and then upgrade to 4 elements for the 'Full Monty' Tower.  As there are 4 towers, 3 prerequisite to the fourth, I actually like the idea of having 4 techs for the 4 towers.

I do like the multiple towers though, but for a different reason than you might think.  Their footprint when placing them makes them nice for expanding your city borders next to an improvment (shard, stables, etc.), so they can be incorporated within the city borders.

The other two 'structures/requirements' for Spell of Making could be put in other trees.  The question is: 'What non-magical requirements make sense for a Spell of Making?"

A suggestion might be 4 techs in Magic (one for each element) with the final required tower to merge their effects requiring some civ tech, perhaps involving a combination of crystal and metalworking or somesuch.  I can't think of a good reason to include a warfare tech, but perhaps others here might have thoughs on this/which tech might be relevant to such a pursuit.

This is definitely a VC that needs further discussion and tweaking.

I would have thought that 4 towers would exist.

The 1st, achievable only though city growth and reaching level 6 status (as mentioned above)

The other 3 existing along each of the three techtree types. Different places perhaps along each of the paths...

Maybe 'earth' in the Economy tree.

Maybe 'fire' in the Warerfare tree.

Maybe 'water' in the Magic tree

Then 'air' in the level 6 upgrade.

Some thoughts on how to make spell of making more competitive:

1. Require player casting it to have at least 50% of the shards on the map, or allied with factions, giving his alliance that amount.  If that seems too high, put in a lower shard percentage.   Casting spell of making imo, should at least force you to not be turtled in 2-3 cities.

2. Each tower must be built in a separate city, and each tower will have a corresponding shard requirement (life /death, earth, fire, water) which must be in the cities resource.

3. The spell can be interrupted in one of several ways: killing the sovereign, capturing/destroying a city with any of the towers, or destroying the towers themselves via destroy improvement spell (earthquake), or causing the player to lose control of more than 50% of the maps shards.  

4. All non-allied factions will hostile at the start of construction of the third tower.  Towers cannot be rushed. 

If this were the case, you might as well just push for combat victory.

Imo, a technological approach shoud grant your faction some of the best techs of the game, but not give you enough time to utilize them fully. (ie, expanding your empire sufficiently to be competitive on an economic or military scale)

I really don't think spell of making should be a tech race divorced from combat / map control -- that's what makes it so uncompetitive now.  It currently can be completed by a faction long before you've made any contact with them.  And well before you can send your armies to the other side of a gigantic map.  Map presence at least ensure the the ability of the player to be attacked on multiple fronts.

If its moved to late game tech, do you really want 5-10 factions all trying to cast spell of making, having to run around and bash every single one of them every few turns?  Forcing you into constant war with allies and enemies alike.  Better to have some dominance criteria to prevent everyone trying to constantly cast it.  Perhaps its 50% shard control through alliances, perhaps its 33% and more than 1 player can cast it...But I don't think everyone with the tech should be able to turtle up and get a chance to declare victory, when other players may control more of the map, more shards, and be more technologically advanced, etc.

I think the entire point is for it to be a win path disconnected from map control or combat. A way to win through pure nation building.

That said, I'm currently mostly playing with spell of making off, mostly because it's kind of absurd on a huge map, that I can lose to an enemy far weaker than me, just because I didn't choose magic and he's too far away.

With that said, I tend to dislike overly fancy solutions, and it makes intuitive sense that the magic tree is the path to magical victory. It's good that straight magic can win the game, with minimal interaction.

Along those lines, I think the best suggestion above is to add a requirement that the caster must have the most mana. That way, as a player, you would have some defense against the spell, and, for a faction aiming for such a victory, especially one where you hide and isolate yourself, you would have to overcome the hurdles of hoarding mana. (Though the AI rarely holds significant mana reserves, so that would have to be fixed if the AI were to seriously pursue magical victory.)