Istari

Join Date 03/2006

+24

The GMP. Do you feel like sharing?

Give it back, it's mine!

In the currently running thread Global Mana Pool Design Revealed by Gwenio1, there has been an interesting discussion on what the Global Mana Pool (GMP) might be like in the up and coming v1.1 patch.

Brad has mentioned that it will work as a shared resource (at least that's what I understood).

My personal opinion is outlined as follows:

Each Sovereign has a mana pool that accumulates and stores mana each turn.
The amount of mana generated each turn is based on the Sovereign's stats, abilities, equipment, city improvements, resources and shards.
The Sovereign has a bottleneck or limit to how much mana they can draw from their pool each turn. This limit is based on their stats, abilities, equipment, city improvements, resources and shards.
Imbued Champions and Offspring have their own individual mana limit that does not accumulate and does not get stored.
If Imbued Champions and Offspring are allowed to cast spells outside of combat, then their mana limit should get reset every turn.
If Imbued Champions and Offspring are only allowed to cast spells in combat, then their mana limit should get reset after every battle.
The mana limit of Imbued Champions and Offspring should be based on their stats, abilities, and equipment.
Imbued Champions and Offspring should not be allowed to approach the potential power of a Sovereign. This may be accomplished by restricting spell levels or spell variety, or by assigning them to a particular element, thereby prohibiting their use of the opposing element, and reducing their prowess with the remaining elements that they are not specialized in.

From a mythos perspective, I don't view mana as a physically collectible resource such as gold or metal. In other words, you don't have people bringing the mana home in wagons or caravans. The way I see it is that mana is the internal power of the wizard, and it defines the limits of their magical prowess. As such, it doesn't seem to fit that Imbued Champions and Offspring would draw their power from the Sovereign rather than from the world around them. I would think that the Champions were imbued for the benefit of such an ability, and that Offspring would have inherited this capability from their sires.

From a gameplay perspective, I don't see the advantage of having any Offspring or Imbued Champions acting as magical casters if they are drawing from the Sovereign's mana, seeing as the Sovereign will now have the ability to cast spells anywhere on the map and even in tactical battles that they are not physically involved in. Because of this new mechanic, there would no longer be any strategic advantage to investing in Imbued Champions or Offspring as magic users.

That is my view according to what I have understood from the currently available information. Of course, I could easily have misconstrued everything, or jumped to inaccurate conclusions for lack of the finer details.

The question now though is, how does the community feel about this as a whole or on average? Do you prefer a shared GMP, or a system closer to the one I have described above, or something else entirely?

elemental

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Each Sovereign has a mana pool that accumulates and stores mana each turn.
The amount of mana generated each turn is based on the Sovereign's stats, abilities, equipment, city improvements, resources and shards.
The Sovereign has a bottleneck or limit to how much mana they can draw from their pool each turn. This limit is based on their stats, abilities, equipment, city improvements, resources and shards.

I like that

Successfully updated karma reason!

i hate to recycle posts, but i don't see any reason not to in this case

i'm going to go against the grain here and say i really approve of the global mana pool, especially if it regenerates non linearly. i don't think there's any need for individual mana pools. with magic as powerful as it is (and there's nothing wrong with the power levels) making channellers autonomous units in any sense just makes balancing far too difficult. in my last game i got 7 channelers with only one imbue (my spouse, spawning a daughter and two sons, each gaining me a daughter in law) and won the whole game without building any troops, just summons (and i almost didn't even need them). that's obscene.

channelers were never supposed to be the source of magic in this game. magic comes from the shards. the value of channelers should be logistical (being in more places in once) not in overall power. this is the only way they will ever be balanced in a strategy game. the cost of creating channelers should be a sacrifice of individual power and reducing stats. use one stat to limit the level of spells the individual can cast and another the power of spells that are cast by that individual (currently int). one or both of these is then reduced by imbuing (and, i believe, having children, though to a lesser degree).

it works best to my mind if you regenerate mana along a non linear formula like this

where x is turns and y is mana. the equation is mana = max mana x (1 - e ^ (- game constant x turn number))

this way mana regenerates at a decreasing rate until it reaches your max mana. the higher your max mana, the faster the generation. you increase the max mana with every shard you own, for some unique buildings. every summons or enchant reduces it slightly. this has a lot of advantages over linear regeneration (ie, +2 regen for shard, -1 for summon) in that it's impossible to give the player negative or static regen if they summon too much. it also favours people who actually use the stuff, rather than stockpiling mana (though that is still a good idea). finally it governs both the size and the pool and it's regen in a single stat.

then the player has only three variables to manage. (and the designers have only three variables to balance)

1 - how big is my mana pool and how quickly does it regen (see graph)

2 - how powerful spells can this channeler cast (essense, will effectively stop your hundreds of channelers blowing all the mana in one battle)

3 - how powerful are spells cast by this individual (int)

if anything, i'd increase the size of the pool (and thus the rate of regen) slightly for every channeler. the downside is that it takes you longer to get to cast the big spells and you get less bang for your mana because spells aren't being cast by a skilled master with high int. your strategic spells expecially take a big boost from doing this hoarding power. you choose between being sauron, or the emperor, accumulating personal power, or an army of heroes with human level power pumping out medium magic. you can't let people do both.

3 variables with checks and balances that represent everything the game needs to and are easily balanced for a strategy game.

Successfully updated karma reason!

@Sethai

How would this still be advantageous if Sovereigns will be able to cast spells from anywhere, and in any tactical combat that their units are involved in? What system could be implemented to make it worth it to still have magic casting offspring and imbued champions?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Istari,

reply 3

@Sethai

How would this still be advantageous if Sovereigns will be able to cast spells from anywhere, and in any tactical combat that their units are involved in? What system could be implemented to make it worth it to still have magic casting offspring and imbued champions?

i was assuming that tactical spells could only be cast by a channeler if they were present in the battle. having more channelers means you can have casters with more of your armies, so you are more flexible. it also gives you more total mana, and if you have more channelers in a single battle, you get to cast more spells more quickly because you get more actions. and don't forget that channelers are also (or at least should be, and if they're not this is a separate issue), powerful fighters as well, if built for it.

i know it sounds kind of slim, but imho it needs to be. a child coming of age, or stealing a bride through diplomacy, should not bag you one of the most powerful units in the game.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Sethai,

reply 4

Quoting Istari, reply 3@Sethai

How would this still be advantageous if Sovereigns will be able to cast spells from anywhere, and in any tactical combat that their units are involved in? What system could be implemented to make it worth it to still have magic casting offspring and imbued champions?

i was assuming that tactical spells could only be cast by a channeler if they were present in the battle. having more channelers means you can have casters with more of your armies, so you are more flexible. if also gives you more total mana, and if you have more channelers in a single battle, you get can cast more spells more quickly because you get more actions.

I would have to agree there. One voids the other's usefulness. So either share the GMP and don't allow omniscience, or don't share the GMP and have individual mana limits.

I've just thought of a third option here, and it might just be having your cake and eating it too. Assume for a moment that the new magic system and GMP were implemented in the way I described them in the thread topic. There is no reason that a Sovereign can't sacrifice some of their power in a Sauron like way to increase the power of their imbued champions or even their offspring. So your standard imbued champions will still have a mana upkeep and won't cost the Sovereign any personal power. However, you can then have 'Empowered Champions' that have been imbued and then empowered by the Sovereign at the cost of some personal power.

These empowered champions should have some overland spell capabilities, such as casting firestorm on a group of units before engaging in tactical combat for example. They should also be assigned to a city, which will be their place of power, and they will receive a portion of the benefits of that city to their stats. Sort of like the Witch King at Angmar, then later at Minas Morgul, or Sauron at Mordor. They could also have their own accumulating mana pool, but with a maximum limit set.

That is something I'd really love to see. It would be quite special, and a feature that would really set this game apart from and above the rest.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I forgot to mention. It would be good if Imbued Champions and Offspring that were heavy on the magic side could have ranged magical attacks. If they were specialized in a particular element (as mentioned above), then that ranged attack should relate to that element. This would tie in with the game very well.

If not a ranged magical attack, then a special ability useable N times per combat or per turn that is not considered a spell, but is also tied to their chosen element. For example, an Air Imbued Champion summons a hurricane, or conjures a shield of wind that protects them from mundane ranged attacks.

I think this differentiation of units would better emulate a proper army, as your captains become easily distinguishable from your lieutenants, and your lieutenants from your privates.

Successfully updated karma reason!