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[VoidSlayer]

Waitwaitwaitwait, hold on a second. We were revising it to grow bigger things, not affect different areas.
We get a 4 and all it does is grow grass and thin vines? I must have misread he revision report because I thought it was more then that.

Evicted: Is this intentional, or did you misread he request, or did o mess up the request? ( pretty sure I didn't. )

We are working on an entirely new form of magic here and we got not only a wide area spell but very small progress on vines.  A 6 would probably have had us growing trees but we did not get a 6.

This is why 10ebbor10 was against making an entirely new form of magic.

[evictedSaint]

Ah, my mistake - I misinterpreted "large-scale" as larger area of effect.  Sorry about that, I'll tweak the revision to reflect the goal.

[10ebbor10]

We have some experience bringing life into the world - primarily through wasps, but it's experience nonetheless.  As it turns out, making things grow is pretty dang easy compared to spewing blood-thirsty wasps out of your fingertips.

The spell is cast through a wand of fresh-cut dogwood, still green and sticky with sap.  It requires rather precise cutting, engraving, and enchantment before it can be used, but dogwood trees are common and a mage could produce a wand a day, given the time and motivation.  The downside is that the wands only last a couple days before they dry out and stop working, but that's not a big issue due to the relative ease of production.

The effect is currently constrained to what our mathemagicians refer to as "low-level" plants - grasses, weeds, wildflowers, plants of that nature.  Each plant must be enchanted one at a time, with each enchantment taking a couple minutes to perform, but once enchanted the plant can grow from a sproutling to full adulthood over the course of single day.  Aside from the eventual combat applications, our researchers are excited as to how this spell can be used in civilian life.  Poor harvests may one day be a thing of the past, and we will never want for wood to keep our homes warm at night.  Imagine growing tropical fruits in the dry, cold tundra of our homelands.  Oranges and pears for breakfast and dinner every day, rose gardens lining every road in Arstotzka, full granaries of wheat and corn every autumn - our King seems particularly pleased with the direction of our research.  It still needs a bit of work, but our current progress is very promising. 

So, let's see. What did the improvement improve.

Low level plants -> Low level plants
Single plant -> Multiple plans
Couple Minutes -> Minute
Day -> Day

Based on rate of progress, I guess this will still need 1 well rolled design or 2-3 revisions to get it fixed.

Edit : Comparison outdated, recalculating

[andrea]

indeed, this is the typical effect of branching off to something entirely new.
trying to use known magic to push them out of the jungle might have worked better and saved the jungle anyway. But what is done is done, we work with what we have.

anyway, stinging nettle fields and thorns might be able to substitute our caltrops in breaking charges, although they can't be deployed quickly and tactically like caltrops.

edit: ah, nevermind. No stinging nettle fields anymore, but maybe we get to keep tree coverage. Although I am very worried about their ballistas. Kind of regret not taking the time to vote for the mist before going to sleep.

[evictedSaint]

Revision: Large Scale Plant Growth [4]

Some adjustments to the dogwood wand allow us to now increase the effect of growth beyond low-tier plants.  A mage can produce a shrub that reaches to mid-thigh, and a skilled mage can grow a sapling to his own height.
Perhaps most pleasing is that we can now grow basic crops - an experienced mage can grow a stalk of corn or wheat, although doing so one at a time is rather tedius. Casting takes between five and twenty minutes depending on the plant and the plants grow to adulthood in about a day.  Because there needs to be an existing plant for the mages to cast on, we took the liberty of equiping these plant mages (referred to as "Dogwood Mages" by our men) with satchels containing a small supply of basic seeds they can sprinkle on the ground and cast upon.

Due to the time needed to generate plant growth, these mages will be used defensively to terraform emplacements and provide what cover they can.  Cheap.

[andrea]

The other one probably had more immediate utility, but this matches more with what we were trying to do. Thanks.

[10ebbor10]

Let's see.

Low level plants -> Mediocre shrubberies
Single plant -> single plant
Couple Minutes -> 5-20 minutes
Day -> Day

Now, let's hope Moskurgians decided to do something useless, because we have barely improved anything.

[VoidSlayer]

ohhhkay can we have general agreement on no new magics until we get crystals/antimagic crystals/weather/steam engines/(and now)plants to be actually useful?

Or bigger fireballs, I will always vote for larger fire.

[andrea]

I agree, no more branching off. It takes several turns to make new branches bring fruits.

[10ebbor10]

We already have bigger fireballs.

In addition, I'm hesitant in investing further into crystals. It's something that is not that useful given our metal bonus, and it has already been countered by the enemy.

But yeah, no more more branching of. One long term project is already too many, and now we have two.

[evictedSaint]

No plant puns. Puns derail threads and I'm nipping this in the bud.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Briars they defeat horses and a vine like bush.

[Roboson]

Order:
Make civil service part of the education program at our mage academy. Require all mages who go through the academy to spend one day a month growing crops for our soldiers and civilians. This will allow them to get acquainted with plant magic and aid in the war effort from a distance.

[10ebbor10]

Remember people, orders are not free.

Orders roll at a disadvantage, and if they fail they will actively harm our war effort. Do we want to run the risk of disrupting our harvests/ magic units  for just a few tiny bits of extra food?

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Agree with eborr here. Orders can back fire, badly.