Elemental Forums
I have this spell now, and have tried casting it a few times in a few different places, and so far nothing has happened. I get the animation/sound that the spell is being cast, but nothing changes that turn or within a few turns past the casting. Where do I cast it? I expected to see fertile land appear so that I can settle a new city.
Not every location is suitable for settlement. You'll get the most benefit by casting it in swamps or those dead-looking forests, I think. But yeah to answer your question, if you don't see any grain/material/essence yield info after casting, it's not a good spot.
Birth of summer updates tiles and sometimes you get something good (tiles you can build great cities on), while other times you get forests or whatever.
I have had best luck on bad terrain near shards. Green land usually turns into forests, while otherwise useless land near shards often turns into buildable cities.
But it's not a sure thing, so I like to make sure I have plenty of excess mana to burn before I use it
Best used on brown terrain (plains) that's an appropriate distance from any city (can't built too close to another city). Those usually provide a spot to settle. Even better if you do it on or near a special resource (bone ogre lair often yield 3 essence tiles for example).
It doesn't work on: desert, city (razed cities) tiles. You also need a min of 6 workable tiles to build a city, so don't cast it against a cliff or in a corner.
You can't settle with-in 7 tiles (I think) of another of your cities, keep that in mind so you're not wasting mana. Although this means you can park up nice and close to an enemy city if you wished.
Some tiles and features of the map influence tile resources. I think it was documented in one of the guides posted on the forums. So using Birth of Summer around a cluster of shards in a desert might turn up a low food, medium production, high essence town spot, for example. So if you are keen on using BoS it's worth trying to find that information or hope someone will provide a link after reading this. (Much appreciated if so).
You can easily tested this spell out by taking cheat mode by first Ctrl+U to turn off the fog, then Ctrl+R to unlock the spell, and finally press Ctrl+M a couple of dozen times so that you have enough mana to cast anywhere you like.
Some of my exp:
1. Like Schweiz mentioned above, it has hard tile restriction to nearest city, 7 tiles on huge map, 6 tiles on medium/small, not sure about tiny.
2. Your city buildings also has a restriction to the nearest city buildings, 4 on medium/small (aka, at least 3 spacing in between). Otherwise, you may have a city that you can't build any buildings.
3. swarms, seas, oceans will never turn to buildable tiles, don't waste your mana on those places.
4. tiles close to a resource has best chances, even deserts, note, not swarms, though.
5. tiles close to river might has some chances, try it out if you don't have a choice.
6. a good city snaking can do the same. city influenced area is auto re-birthed. why waste mana?
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