How about 1 shard per uber unit? gain the shard back when it dies... so large summon cost and incentive to use them aggressively? (or 1 shards worth of mana upkeep... but I think not being able to cast fireballs because you're focusing on a massive elemental would make sense... plus loss of control if your shard is lost or sov knocked out) Simple mana upkeep for anything less than uber?
I think faction relations could work... I was just thinking that you would need multiple merc factions that way... at least a fallen/kingdom one... or you would be able to hire trogs if you previously bought several angel defenders... if you split it into multiple ones then you could probably get away with hiring from each and using them all as suicide squads (and you would barely increase the costs with the more different factions). I suppose you could lower trust with all merc factions if y
an aside to this... how about anything above basic creature summoning requires a large quest/input... it has the potential to be unbalanced (as does creating artifacts)... I know MoM was fun but unbalanced from creatures and artifacts. Creatures the computer didn't pay upkeep for nor use them well and artifacts the computer didn't use at all. But even with better use, artifacts were based on skill level not research, so you could make shields of magic immunity+3, orbs of flight and phantasmal
Next action a unit does: Beserk - attack anyone Taunt - attack target Cursed lies - causes a unit to be taunted by selected unit Pacify - causes a unit to wait/rest Trick - causes a unit to move randomly Lure - causes a unit to move to the selected location Next spell cast on the unit: Reflect, mirror, bounce, bend, twist, bump Can cause the spell to reflect off the target, be mirrored onto the target, bounce off the t
How about spells that affect: the next spell cast on them, the next action the unit does or like chaos channel in MoM gives a random enchantment? Natures grip + Aura of natures grip (killing the unit generating the aura removes effects) causes a unit to change - stoneskin, stoning, webbed, webbing attack, poisoned and venom strike - anything from 1 to all Chaos channel + Chaos aura Causes - flamestrike, firebreathing, causes the next healing spell to harm, fire sp
slightly off topic from auctions... but with mercs... should you buy them, a group of troops you use like normal troops or fodder... or should you buy the ability to use them? Say if you win the bid you can summon them 3 times, you select where you want them and they go there for 10 turns... so instead of just getting free troops you get to send troops where they're needed for quick boosts to defence or attack. To avoid using them as fodder, maybe you have a cost to hire and a life insurance
Below are ideas for additional game modes that would most interest me and would provide additional challenges and twists to the game. Survival: You are given a head start of x turns before survival mode starts, you have to survive y turns to win with every turn over that giving bonus points. 1. Zombie horror A necromancer has risen and is experimenting with creating undead, he is immortal and every city he captures becomes a spawing
well I'd like autosave on the turn someone exits as well... with the ability to change AI for each slot and have human players added or removed, taking over AI if you wanted... say to turn a single player game 150 turns in where you were doing very well into an advanced start for a couple of players where you join as the AI players you were beating. Sword of the stars did this well, it was nice opening up a save game and dragging the human icon over the race you wanted to play as... s
I'm guessing after they do more compatibility testing they will be able to talk about it, in the 'coding coding coding' thread frogboy talks about handing builds over to QA for testing soon... so hopefully even if it has high recommended specs the minimum will get lower as more work gets done on stability and performance issues and most common builds will be supported
Items: another thought about the blind auctions... maybe each person can submit an item for the auction to get it started, and new items are generated as the first are sold around the power level of the average item... so you could try to sell worthless/cursed junk but then you would only find worthless junk generated to mix with your worthless junk... NPCs bid for items? Loot captured by NPCs put up for auction? Techs: I'd
One thing to suggest would be to play each race a few times, you don't know the problems or benefits of each FTL drive until you use them. (and ship section strengths, tech-tree bias, counters and what the CNC ships look like for target practice) Hivers can be tricky but still a lot of fun, remember that having undefended gates is just asking to lose that planet to randoms or fast invasions... at sub-light speeds it's a long trip to get it back. Despite the expansion weakness (a
1. colony ships are slightly expensive and fragile, pop when hitting any random encounter (if you're over 0%) so it's good to have extended range ships ahead of them. (plus tankers have a set number of 'ships' worth of fuel- so tankers + ERs go much further on one tank) you can overextend easily, for the zuul having half your budget on colony costs at the start is possible for rapid expansion. For the other races aim for the big planets, cheap planets or the rich planets... pop c
Could we see some screenshots? maybe a spellbuilding walkthrough? (please?)
I'd vote for Expanded race distinction , without those assets most custom races will seem like merely minor adjustments of the defaults... I want to play with different skeletons. But as someone said on the other thread, in GalCiv2 I played the stock factions more when each had a superability and techtree. I'd play each stock race more often in elemental if each default race had one unique ability or group of associated techs... It'd be nice if those elements could be
it's even more interesting if you change off advanced lighting mid-game since it doesn't require a restart... all that remains is a glowing white spotlight
I wasn't suggesting removing having the same building on multiple tiles, rather questioning the logic of building hard-caps... why can you only build 1 workshop? why 1/2/5 workshops or labs? If you have a specialist mining town it should be able to build more production buildings, at a cost to other areas. One way to do that is to group buildings under the same hard-cap and turn it into a soft-cap affected by specialisation. It could be related buildings or it could be opposites, like magical
Currently the maximum number of buildings is limited by city size and building type. I simply suggest that groups of incompatible buildings share the same hard-cap. Things like passive and aggressive buildings (morality): a monastary vs barracks, or other conflicting build choices (population): slums vs mansions vs sacrificial alters. (production): the first small production building, producting materials, food, research etc Also, the hard-cap should be adjustable... I'd like each cit
Perhaps it's just me, but I'd like any consideration of minigames to consider how they could be used in singleplayer. Picture solitare(cards of fate)/minesweeper (trap sweep, crystal scouring)/arcomage...in MP it's a diversion, perhaps gambling mana or gold. How about use of these as an optional quest minigame in singleplayer. I'd quite like a long arcomage battle to determine if I get just the quest item or the quest item and a tiny xp/gold/mana bonus. I think if there were limits, dim
Although it would be nice to have a key configuration option to set/change the double click defaults for cities and units
Since we're talking about time... here's Archon http://achrongame.com/gameplay.html http://achrongame.com/technology.html an RTS game all about time travel, moving in real time and the technical problems of having to resolve conflicts... They use travelling time waves to resolve the superposition of states. Building destroyed or alive and downstream effects. They reduce the di
I have to say, I love Master of magic. I wan't around for it originally... or rather I was playing sonic back then...but have played it for many hours on Dosbox... as most races, with most spellbooks and twice cheating to have every spellbook...at which point the possible enchantments run off the window in the artifact creation screen... and it doesn't actually make parts of the game easier, since you have far more things to research before you hit the ultra rare spells... but you can
[quote who="the Gorgon" reply="82" id="2552490"] ...What I realised when thinking about e.g. the system in GC2 was that a "passive modifier" doesn't make the game more fun even when it is hugely important and influential in the game . Take for example the Federalist modifier in GC2 giving you +20% (or was it +15%??) bonus to economy. Hugely important, but the game isn't really any more fun to play and you never really think about it. What would be bet
I think most of the lore will be there in the defaults, small adjustments to that are fine... large ones should eventually just be custom civs. Although with lore/backstory I would love it if each trait linked with a line of text that was added or removed to the backstory. So... with the default options they have the backstory, change a trait and it changes any backstory related to that trait . E.g. General lore - Faction specific "after the war of the titans
[quote who="kingtiger_522" reply="90" id="2552713"]if you combine "lucky" and "stupid" you get "Fool's Luck," meaning that while you're really stupid, you're also nigh-immune to negative events.[/quote] Just thinking, I like this idea... I'd have fools luck being unlocked and automatically gained when you mix traits, lost when you lose a prerequisite. Another thought, related to the above. Traits/items gained trough quests... with some form of adventurer trai
I really struggled to find an ore earlier... I knew it was there from the mousover... I built a city and had to snake along with huts to find it. (Building adjacent did reveal it, being in city visual radius didn't) Still good luck with tracking it down... It's odd that it gives you the pop-up which I would have thought meant it was now "unhidden" at some level, as it's fully hidden and shouldn't display the pop-up in the FOW...which makes it sound like the tactical i