Interesting idea. Never thought of putting something at the unitstat (champion) level.

Would about tactical summons... where you going to require dominion for a tactical summons?

Only because we were planning to extensively use randomization in tactical battles, and that made it so we couldn't drain a unitstat due to the limited nature of randomization. We were going to use long cast times in tactical instead.

No, it would work like an upper limit, you can't save it up.

Champion X has 3/3 dominion on a unit. Summoning a shrill requires 1 dominion and drains 1 dominion. This means Champion X is brought down to 2 Dominion (-1 modifier from the spell). When the unit is killed or unsummed, the spell ends and the unit no longer has 2 dominion, now it has 3.

If the champion summons 3 shrills he has 3 * -1 dominion, bringing it down to 0. He then cannot summon another one.

We never got as far as testing any real numbers, but mana cost was fairly high across the board as well. In particular, casting the summon in strategic was expensive while upkeep was lower (to encourage using the same units over a period of time, instead of just summoning just before an important battle which would confuse the AI).

I'm weighing up whether going for a global resource might be a better option.  So having Dominion as a global resource, probably make it not stored so it would work in the same way as the unitstat but shared across all champions.

There are some advantages:

- the dominion cost and maintenance of summon spells would be displayed in the spellbook (it's not for unitstats)

- it wouldn't hide spells in the spellbook if you don't have enough dominion to cast it (they'd be greyed out instead)

- easier to see if you have enough capacity to summon more creatures (it would be displayed at the top of the screen), saves having to click on all your characters to find who has enough dominion to summon creatures

Some disadvantage that come to mind:

- You could still have abilities that give you more dominion, but it would be at a global level rather than a character level.  Not quite as good.  

- Same thing for items, you could have them give a boost but it would be global

- Doesn't reflect an individuals ability to sustain summons

Looking at this, i'm thinking a global resource (used the same way as you described the unitstat use) might be in some ways simpler.

Have I overlooked anything obvious ?

Hmmm, wow.. thats amazing thanks.

However.... not sure it works anymore.  It displays the required minimum unitstat in the spellbook, and doesn't stop the spell display (awesome).   But unfortunately it doesn't seem to prevent casting the spell

Bummer.  Kinda suprising that it doesn't work now.... guess it must have been removed from the code somewhere alone the line.

Thanks for the input.  Might try it out with a global resource and see how that goes.

In order for this approach not to be completely abusive, I highly recommend that any unit summoned on the stategic map have a casting time and a mana upkeep.

Thereby, any of these units can be cast in tactical for a balanced casting time, cost no upkeep, and automatically unsummon at combat's end.

I'll definately be looking out for a mod in this area of gameplay. Good luck with your development!

I tend to agree that casting times for strategic might be a good idea.  What would be neat would be (late tree) abilities to reduce that cast time.

OK I think I have a sneaky workaround for this. 

I've done some preliminary testing and knocked up a rough prototype, pretty sure this is do-able.  So at this stage i'm going to push on with it, the plan is to introduce a Path of the Summoner that will provide the following:

- 1 summon-able unit type per element per level (initially i'll just use monsters that are already in the game)

- stackable summons, limited by a global resource (as touched on above with HF - thanks for the idea)

- casting times for strategic summons (and abilities to reduce casting times)

- group summons (unlocked via abilities)

- abilities to reduce mana cost for summons and to increase the max summons

Each element will unlock a new unit type with each level, and they will have increasing mana cost and casting time.  This is my start point (earth as an example):

Earth 1 - Earth Shrill (30 mana, 1 mana upkeep), capcost=1, start level 1 + summons level bonus, casting time 0

Earth 2 - Sand Golem (40 mana, 1 mana upkeep), capcost=2, start level 2 + summons level bonus, casting time 1

Earth 3 - Stone Golem (50 mana, 1 mana upkeep), capcost=3, start level 3 + summons level bonus, casting time 2

Earth 4 - Earth Elemental (60 mana, 1 mana upkeep), capcost=5, start level 4 + summons level bonus, casting time 3

Earth 5 - Grave Elemental? (70 mana, 1 mana upkeep), capcost=8, start level 5 + summons level bonus, casting time 4

Probably will go for blanket zero casting time on the tactical spells seeing as tactical battles are so quick in LH.  Bear in mind strategic casting time will be able to be reduce with path abilities.

The "capcost" is the costing that will come from the global unit summons limit.  I have no idea how high this will be... can tweak it later.  Probably go with something like, each champion with Path of the Summoner contributes 3 x level towards the "capcost" resource (similar to "domain discussed above).  

So a level 1 Summoner could have 3 Earth Shrills in this example.

Once they reach level 2, their capcost contribution would be 6.  So now they can have 6 x Earth Shrills on the go.... or 3 x Sand Golems... or a combination of both etc.

That's the concept.  Any comments/feedback very welcome.

I need a name for this "capcost" resource, any bright ideas?  It's a global resource (ala mana) that represents the number summoned unit you can have in play at any time.  I'm no so good at coming up with cool names for such things.  "Channeling" maybe?  "Domain" as an ode to Goetia?

OK first minor issue.  Have got all the other mechanics working other than this...  Was hoping to have abilities in the Path of the Summoner that generate +X Summons Power per level like this:

<AbilityBonus InternalName="SummonCapacity1Ability">
  <AbilityBonusType>Unit_Level</AbilityBonusType>
  <AbilityBonusOption InternalName="SummonCapacity1">
    <DisplayName>Summon Capacity I</DisplayName>
    <Description>+1 Summon Capacity per level</Description>
    <Icon>S_SummonShadowWarg_Icon.png</Icon>
    <GameModifier>
      <ModType>Unit</ModType>
      <Attribute>ProduceResource</Attribute>
      <StrVal>SummonCapacity</StrVal>
      <Value>1<Value>
      <PerLevel>1</PerLevel>
      <Provides>+1 Summon Capacity per level</Provides>
    </GameModifier>
    <Type>Spell</Type>
    <UpgradePathID>SummonCapacity</UpgradePathID>
    <AIData AIPersonality="AI_General">
    <AIPriority>5</AIPriority>
    </AIData>
  </AbilityBonusOption>
</AbilityBonus>

Unfortunately this only gives +1 Summons Power.  The PerLevel tag doesn't appear to be valid in an AbilityBonusOption for producing a resource

Anyone got any idea on how to get an ability like this to generate +x per level of a resource per turn?

Nice one, that works a treat!   

Only minor bummer being that when you hover over the resource at the top of screen it shows the bonus to the Summons Capacity is coming from the city name rather than "units".... presumably because of the way the way the A_Additive thing works.  Not a huge drama though... that's pretty cool and will run with that for now, as I think it seems best to have the limit on units that one can summon scale with the level of the summoners.

Yeah my summons capacity resource is global and non storable also, however I intentionally have set....

<ShownInGlobalDisplay>1</ShownInGlobalDisplay>

So that it appears at the top of screen.  Reason being that it is a shared/global resource across the whole faction... and like mana, you really need to easily be able to see how much you have at any point in time.

Hmm hangon it's not "shared" though.  This is what I have out of interest..

<ResourceType InternalName="JB_Summons">
  <DisplayName>Summons</DisplayName>
  <Description>A measure of the number and strength of summoned creatures your faction can sustain in the material world.</Description>
  <Type>JB_Summons</Type>
  <IconColor>0,0,0</IconColor>
  <Icon>Spellbook_Icon.png</Icon>
  <ClothIcon>Spellbook_Icon.png</ClothIcon>
  <HideInHiergamenon>1</HideInHiergamenon>
  <ModelColor>0,0,0</ModelColor>
  <Global>1</Global>
  <Stored>0</Stored>
 < Rarity>0.0</Rarity>
  <Shared>0</Shared>
  <TradedByCaravans>0</TradedByCaravans>
  <ShownInGlobalDisplay>1</ShownInGlobalDisplay>
  <RummagedPerTurn>0.0001</RummagedPerTurn>
  <Medallions InternalName="JB_Summons_Res_Medallions">
  <All>Spellbook_Icon.png</All>
  </Medallions>
</ResourceType>

Hmmm, actually I just noticed that the summons resource generated by the unit with this ability now shows up under the city details in the Resources section.. even though I have it set as a global resource.  I guess that makes sense, kinda.  It is showing the resource contributed to the global pool this city, and the unit is somehow linked to the city once you give it that A_Additive modifier.