Plant growth is new research. Ideally, we want something that uses old research.
Honestly, at this point, steam cannons sound like a nice investment. Their wind can't block a cannon ball and it could help at sea. Has that already been discussed for this phase?
Yup, in the beginning. My opinion is that we should not invest in experimental steam derived techniques when we can't even get ordinary ones to work.
That's a good point, but we've already got the explosive bit to work, to some degree. And a steam cannon is significantly simpler than an engine. And it may give us something to use against enemy ships as well as in the jungle. We need to hold our position, and cannons are fantastic at doing so. There are a lot of
potential benefits to steam cannons, especially if they're investing in ballistas.
However, if we continue on the way we have been in the jungle, we will be giving them an advantage there that will make it much harder for us to hold. (And may or may not effect the bonus from there). Learning how to accelerate plant growth could solve those issues and could potentially make their lives hell in the same way storm magic has for us.
EDIT:
1 steam cannon: Stabby
1 Obscuring Mists: shameless10ebor10
0 Timed Bomb Arrows :
0 Variable Crystal Weapons :
0 Fireball arrows :
0 Earth Elemental Control :
1 - (Anti-magic) "IFF System": Stabbyx2
0 - Anti-magic bomb lingering anti-magic fields:
0 - Anti-magic mines:
1 Attunement Rods: RAM
0 Crystal Tower Shields:
0 Saboteurs :
0 Design: Living Shields:
0 Design: Codpiece-Rippers:
2 Plant-growth: Chiefwaffles, Roboson
0 Permanent conjuration:
0 Pillar of unmagic:
1?Sell the Crystal Axes: shameless?
1 Use channelled fog: shamelessRAM
I think I'm going to put my vote into plant grow/manipulation. It has boundless possibilities (notice I'm not saying we're going to get them all in one design phase) if we invest in it. And it's incredibly difficult to counter.
[spoiler=My Thoughts on Plants]
I'm putting this in a spoiler so that no one is forced to view if they do not choose to. I'm also putting it here because I'm not really using them as part of an arguement, this is simply what I think plants could do for us. Also, I don't particularly want to fight about it, so if you're here looking for ammunition as to why your idea is better or why this one is bad, please read no further. I'm tired of the negativity.
Plants are basically everywhere. The jungle, ocean, mountains, and plains all have some sort of plant life. Its likely the desert has some as well, otherwise there couldn't be so many evil bastards living there. As a result, plants manipulation gives us ammunition that cannot be avoided, much in the same way that we cannot avoid their storm magic. This is the kind of magic that the enemy is really good at concocting, magic that has no direct counter and is flexible in many many ways. We've done so much more work trying to deal with their storms, than they have put into those storms. Plants offer that same sort of advantage.
To illustrate, here are a few potential spells that we could come to use if we decided to invest in plant magic.
1) Basic plant magic: Allows us to cause individual plants to grow at incredible rates. May or may not allow us to guide that plant growth.
2) Poison Ivy: With just a bit of poison ivy, we could cover vast areas in the stuff. Their horses, their men, and their camps will be covered in a terrible itchy rash. This would seriously hurt moral and cause chaos in their army.
3) Natural Walls: If we can get trees to grow in just a few instants, we can seriously change the field of battle. The plains will suddenly be less open, impeding their formation movements and lowering their horse archer's effectiveness. In the jungle, the enemy will be caught in an ever-changing maze of trees and dangerous plants that grow around them in mere moments.
4) Regrowth: A lot of their weapons and equipment are made with wood. If we could find a way to make the wood in their spears start to grow into trees on the battlefield, they'll be completely unarmed. Same for their ships. If their mast suddenly turns into a branching tree, they're dead in the water. (Of course we have to catch them for that, but thats a different issue).
5) Improved crops: If we use this to feed our people and our armies, we may eventually get more horses and soldiers due to having limitless food and being able to feed more people.
6) More wood: Same as improved crops, but used on trees. [spoiler]
Author
Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 393741 times)