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Player Designable Spells

8 (8.6%)

Divination With Depths

3 (3.2%)

Mind Magic

6 (6.5%)

Construction Magic

6 (6.5%)

Enchanting With Variety

7 (7.5%)

Weather Magic

8 (8.6%)

Terraforming

7 (7.5%)

Attribute/Essence Transference

6 (6.5%)

Travel/Movement

3 (3.2%)

Creature Creation/Hybridization

9 (9.7%)

Unique Magical Resources/Materials

4 (4.3%)

Summoning

6 (6.5%)

Chronomancy

7 (7.5%)

Metamagic

1 (1.1%)

Countermagic/Magical Interactions

7 (7.5%)

Interactable Deities

5 (5.4%)

Total Members Voted: 19

[Astral]

Snip

Yeah there's games that went pretty far into undead but as you say almost always for military purposes. Warlords Battlecry 3, though it had laborers, Dominions 3-5, sorta had an economic effect but high abstract.

A true Ermor style nation in a game with a good simulation would be awesome.

It's one of those ideas I've always wanted to flesh out into a game proper, closer to EU4 or Stellaris in terms of how it played, with a sliding scale of good vs evil, presenting different challenges each would pose both in power structure and the empire that results from those choices.

A good necromancer empire would generally have happier people, more population (both living and dead), and more options owing to the broad variety of talent, but be bogged down by bureaucratic processes and distribution of power that would prevent swift, effective action in a time of need.

An evil necromancer may afford more control over their populace through terror, with fewer but generally stronger minions (as they can only control so many as an individual, and may not delegate power to underlings with their own unit cap as often as a more trusting one would), the ability to act quicker, as well as fewer tools at their disposal for handling certain events without a high cost of some kind (who needs specialists when you have raw souls?). 

I don't think I've ever seen necromancy done with the idea of "weak units, but no logistics trail." Give me a necromancer simulator where I'm playing cat and mouse with a kingdom that has to stand down its levies for planting and harvest, and whose knights get tired of chasing shadows. The necromancer's skeletons are technically stronger than standard kingdom infantry, but are too stupid and disorganized to win a 50-on-50 battle against fresh humans without clever pre-planning by the necromancer. The necromancer has no super units, but his armies don't have to eat or rely on a logistics train, while the kingdom's farmland is vulnerable.

It would be cool to start out having to remain undetected and actively hunted, using guerilla warfare and operating from the shadows to knock a weak link down, before transitioning into a wider scope strategy game once you hit a critical mass of undead and start openly taking over their lands in what amounts to a sort of undead singularity.

[axiomsofdominion]

Snip

Yeah there's games that went pretty far into undead but as you say almost always for military purposes. Warlords Battlecry 3, though it had laborers, Dominions 3-5, sorta had an economic effect but high abstract.

A true Ermor style nation in a game with a good simulation would be awesome.

It's one of those ideas I've always wanted to flesh out into a game proper, closer to EU4 or Stellaris in terms of how it played, with a sliding scale of good vs evil, presenting different challenges each would pose both in power structure and the empire that results from those choices.

A good necromancer empire would generally have happier people, more population (both living and dead), and more options owing to the broad variety of talent, but be bogged down by bureaucratic processes and distribution of power that would prevent swift, effective action in a time of need.

An evil necromancer may afford more control over their populace through terror, with fewer but generally stronger minions (as they can only control so many as an individual, and may not delegate power to underlings with their own unit cap as often as a more trusting one would), the ability to act quicker, as well as fewer tools at their disposal for handling certain events without a high cost of some kind (who needs specialists when you have raw souls?). 

I don't think I've ever seen necromancy done with the idea of "weak units, but no logistics trail." Give me a necromancer simulator where I'm playing cat and mouse with a kingdom that has to stand down its levies for planting and harvest, and whose knights get tired of chasing shadows. The necromancer's skeletons are technically stronger than standard kingdom infantry, but are too stupid and disorganized to win a 50-on-50 battle against fresh humans without clever pre-planning by the necromancer. The necromancer has no super units, but his armies don't have to eat or rely on a logistics train, while the kingdom's farmland is vulnerable.

It would be cool to start out having to remain undetected and actively hunted, using guerilla warfare and operating from the shadows to knock a weak link down, before transitioning into a wider scope strategy game once you hit a critical mass of undead and start openly taking over their lands in what amounts to a sort of undead singularity.

Necromancer kingdoms with discussion of the impact are extremely popular in fantasy fiction but it is no surprise they haven't really gone anywhere in games. Game developers almost never "go back to the source material" and create a game based on some cool idea from fantasy literature. They just slap a new skin on RTS or city building or something.

Also can at least one more person vote on the poll? Right now the number of people is at an unlucky number.

[Frumple]

I'm... roughly 80% sure there's been some 4x or RTS that did use the concept of "undead (mostly) weak, but no upkeep" in their design. Not, like. Super well, or otherwise decently enough for me to remember anything specific about it, but. Undead having a logistics advantage to some degree is pretty common design, if usually not particularly interestingly implemented. It generally just means, fairly literally, they don't have a gold or food cost or whatever, with major implications beyond that missing in action.

Closest I think I've seen to a "good necromancer" thing is... maybe Dominion's Well of Misery? It's a neat global spell that basically makes life better across the entire world, and will probably get rapidly tore down because it's also funneling all the world's misery into gems of concentrated death magic for the spell's caster to use to violently murder their opponents. It's neat stuff, heh.

About the closest I can recall running into recently to magic university type things having a major(ish) effect is... probably Wizard Warfare? It's a knockoff MoM thing, both fairly cheap and pretty pared down, where its magic type buildings add caster squads to the city's garrison, and not, like, weakened ones or anything. Full on, full power casters, which are very not cheap otherwise. It's legit fairly impactful, if otherwise pretty boring, heh. Memory's telling me I'm forgetting something on that front, too, but, y'know. Can't remember, ha. Folks have definitely played with that a little over the years, though. Total agreement playing with it more could be neat.

[axiomsofdominion]

I'm... roughly 80% sure there's been some 4x or RTS that did use the concept of "undead (mostly) weak, but no upkeep" in their design. Not, like. Super well, or otherwise decently enough for me to remember anything specific about it, but. Undead having a logistics advantage to some degree is pretty common design, if usually not particularly interestingly implemented. It generally just means, fairly literally, they don't have a gold or food cost or whatever, with major implications beyond that missing in action.

Closest I think I've seen to a "good necromancer" thing is... maybe Dominion's Well of Misery? It's a neat global spell that basically makes life better across the entire world, and will probably get rapidly tore down because it's also funneling all the world's misery into gems of concentrated death magic for the spell's caster to use to violently murder their opponents. It's neat stuff, heh.

About the closest I can recall running into recently to magic university type things having a major(ish) effect is... probably Wizard Warfare? It's a knockoff MoM thing, both fairly cheap and pretty pared down, where its magic type buildings add caster squads to the city's garrison, and not, like, weakened ones or anything. Full on, full power casters, which are very not cheap otherwise. It's legit fairly impactful, if otherwise pretty boring, heh. Memory's telling me I'm forgetting something on that front, too, but, y'know. Can't remember, ha. Folks have definitely played with that a little over the years, though. Total agreement playing with it more could be neat.

Dominions had Ermor and Warlords Battlecry 3 had undead but I can't recall anything about their upkeep. TW:Warhammer had a strong bonus from magic universities, especially named ones.

[Nirur Torir]

That's what I asked for about magic universities, but not what I'd wanted to ask for.

I don't want designers who asked "We have a magic college at the end of the tech tree, what bonus does it give?"

I want "By the middle of the tech tree, 10% of the populace is being trained in magic. What cool things can we do with the rest of the tech tree, so the player really feels like magic is flowing through their empire and has changed everything?"

[axiomsofdominion]

That's what I asked for about magic universities, but not what I'd wanted to ask for.

I don't want designers who asked "We have a magic college at the end of the tech tree, what bonus does it give?"

I want "By the middle of the tech tree, 10% of the populace is being trained in magic. What cool things can we do with the rest of the tech tree, so the player really feels like magic is flowing through their empire and has changed everything?"

I think a major issue is that pervasive magical impact is pretty comparable to advanced technology. It is only through rarity that "magic" in bakwards non-industrial settings makes sense practically.

[Aoi]

Something I don't think I've ever actually seen is, like... legitimate isekai summoning, cheats and all, where hero summoning is a strategic resource that can be borderline or outright world breaking. Not just a strong champion or something, but a critter that's actually running off a different ruleset somehow or another. Honestly, there's a lot of stuff in magic heavy fiction (especially litrpg or isekai junk, which regularly gets as ridiculous as the writing gets terrible) I've just never seen leveraged in a magic heavy game setting (often for pretty decent reason, because lol balance, but still).

There are two series that come to mind that do something rather interesting in this field-- in one, a guy is in a 4X-based world, fighting against an enemy from a turn-based RPG world... So he has battlefield control and effectively unlimited squad sizes, while his opponent has endlessly spawning random encounters, repetitive movesets, and, narratively critical,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

irresistible cutscenes

. Though that's still something that could be synthesized through creative application of many existing 4X conventions: Mario as a unit amuses me-- jump automatically kills any adjacent without a physical retaliation effect or armor, can take one hit of ANY kind without dying (and briefly invulnerable after) , dies instantly to fall damage, salad offers buff effects... and for some reason, it doesn't matter where he goes, every single kingdom's princess gets kidnapped as soon as he crosses into its borders.

The other is a guy that shifts between narratives: He ends up in a duel to prove who's the more powerful spellcaster... and ends up winning by having a space ship (meteor) flying down to land in the middle of the battlefield. Or uses magical telepathy to broker a peace with aliens on the verge of war due to communication problems. Effectively just the opening of entirely different avenues though abilities not present in the base world, which could be represented by unique traits in a lot of games.

[Aoi]

That's what I asked for about magic universities, but not what I'd wanted to ask for.

I don't want designers who asked "We have a magic college at the end of the tech tree, what bonus does it give?"

I want "By the middle of the tech tree, 10% of the populace is being trained in magic. What cool things can we do with the rest of the tech tree, so the player really feels like magic is flowing through their empire and has changed everything?"

I think a major issue is that pervasive magical impact is pretty comparable to advanced technology. It is only through rarity that "magic" in bakwards non-industrial settings makes sense practically.

What about the transition of rare magic to common in a predominantly nonmagical society though? Going from like one in a million (rare, but not unheard of) to one in a thousand (a nifty talent)?

That opens up all kinds of, frankly, terrifying possibilities. Precise gravitational adjustments? Energy sources that aren't constrained by current limits? Entirely new classes of engineering? Selectively burning fires? I've always been fond of the possibility of monopole magnets

[Frumple]

Dominions had Ermor and Warlords Battlecry 3 had undead but I can't recall anything about their upkeep. TW:Warhammer had a strong bonus from magic universities, especially named ones.

Ermor (or, well, the undead passively murderous ermors) is kinda' interesting on that front, in that while their unique units themselves don't, strictly speaking, have upkeep in terms of gold or supply, they do have upfront costs (of different sorts; the major casters cost death gems, everything else requires some degree of infrastructure, albeit the absolute most basic of its stuff only requires dominion) and they're actually one of the more logistics limited factions in the game.

Infrastructure and logistics is far and away one of their greatest weaknesses, because they're very dependent on both death gems (which requires conquest and holding specific areas) and gold (to build temples and castles, to enable more and better passive undead generation), the income for which their very nature rots out from under them. Plus one of their stronger advantages (the massive hordes of undead) is pretty difficult to concentrate and move around and requires construction to really get going. It makes for a necessarily aggressive playstyle that's simultaneously pretty unwieldy and easy to kneecap on the logistics front -- hands down one of the most thematic "undead apocalypse" implementations in gaming, but the exact opposite of one that emphasizes a reduced reliance on logistics, heh.

There are two series that come to mind that do something rather interesting in this field-- in one, a guy is in a 4X-based world, fighting against an enemy from a turn-based RPG world...

That sounds kinda' interesting, happen to remember the name of it? Maybe the other, too?

[axiomsofdominion]

That's what I asked for about magic universities, but not what I'd wanted to ask for.

I don't want designers who asked "We have a magic college at the end of the tech tree, what bonus does it give?"

I want "By the middle of the tech tree, 10% of the populace is being trained in magic. What cool things can we do with the rest of the tech tree, so the player really feels like magic is flowing through their empire and has changed everything?"

I think a major issue is that pervasive magical impact is pretty comparable to advanced technology. It is only through rarity that "magic" in bakwards non-industrial settings makes sense practically.

What about the transition of rare magic to common in a predominantly nonmagical society though? Going from like one in a million (rare, but not unheard of) to one in a thousand (a nifty talent)?

That opens up all kinds of, frankly, terrifying possibilities. Precise gravitational adjustments? Energy sources that aren't constrained by current limits? Entirely new classes of engineering? Selectively burning fires? I've always been fond of the possibility of monopole magnets

You could totally do something like that in some sort of map and menu game.

[Aoi]

There are two series that come to mind that do something rather interesting in this field-- in one, a guy is in a 4X-based world, fighting against an enemy from a turn-based RPG world...

That sounds kinda' interesting, happen to remember the name of it? Maybe the other, too?

That one's Mynoghra (the first arc is 4X vs 4X, the second arc is 4X vs RPG); I think official translations are out through v3 right now, and it's still actively being done. I'd actually call it fairly readable for the isekai genre, with a decent translation too. (There is a special place in hell for whoever did/signed off on the official version of The Girl Raised by the Death God...) Also don't confuse it with Her Majesty's Swarm, which came out at roughly the same time and is RTS, but every volume is 'Zerg Queen Having A Bad Day', over and over.

The second one I don't remember, but if you want to take a stab at it based on what I remember (super spoily):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was originally a *N that got a manga adaptation at least three years back. The kid in question has an innate trait to slip into narratives that are spiraling into destruction because their storylines got derailed. After the scifi world, he ends up in a fantasy world where he takes advantage of future teleportation technology to warp straight to the boss room, who, by virtue of being evil, is weak against light... and, by extension, laser cannons. After being repeatedly vaporized (I think said Evil Lord is supposed to be sealed in the world, not killed, so it keeps respawning... albeit slowly and painfully?), Big Bad calls a truce. Nobody believes that the McGuffin is dealt with since The Hero's Sword is still stuck in the town square, which he can't remove because IT'S SHOVED INTO A ROCK, so he just grabs the hilt and teleports away with it. There was also an underground tribal narrative, where a misunderstood ancient god was sealed away and sloooowly regaining its strength by eating corrupted dark matter that occasionally fell into its chamber... that was actually The Childhood Friend disposing of inedible kitchen waste by dumping it in a paradimensional hole that formed in her garden.

[axiomsofdominion]

Kinda surprised no one voted divination. Easily a top 3 magic if you give it some effort.

[Dostoevsky]

My votes, for what they're worth:

I think divination got some discussion earlier in this thread, and I agree it could be very interesting but probably hard to do in a compelling fashion given player free choice (and potential save scumming). A way to fiddle with future dice rolls in semi-predictable ways could be interesting and feasible, as could a way to actively choose to railroad yourself - take away choice - in exchange for certain outcomes.

Terraforming already has plenty of discussion, but I think one quirk about existing terraforming I'd like to see done better is AI usage. E.g. the terraforming options in SMAC were pretty solid, but the AI never really exploited them.

Travel/movement to me feels like there could be a lot more potential, though to some extent it'd mix with terraforming. Magic roads/paths, trade influences, interfering with the travel of others, that sort. Also omniscient navigation in fantasy settings should go away - that'd help in giving travel magic relevance. Make your opponent become lost, pathfind reliable routes... the idea of fairy paths in both their beneficial and harmful fashions, or the classic 'forest you can't leave', would also be interesting in strategy games.

Creature creation and hybridization can be fun and it's an idea I like, though if it's just about endless counter-counter-counters that's not terribly compelling.

Countermagic / interactions needs more than just 'cancel spell' and 'reflect spell'. Other methods of redirection, subverting intended purpose, unexpectedly altering spell costs, etc. could all be pretty interesting traps.

Interactable deities could be a nice way to make some form of diplomacy necessary even in world-conquering games. Something like a more inscrutable (and deadly) form of Stellaris's fallen empires (not necessarily with physical holdings).

[axiomsofdominion]

My votes, for what they're worth:

I think divination got some discussion earlier in this thread, and I agree it could be very interesting but probably hard to do in a compelling fashion given player free choice (and potential save scumming). A way to fiddle with future dice rolls in semi-predictable ways could be interesting and feasible, as could a way to actively choose to railroad yourself - take away choice - in exchange for certain outcomes.

Terraforming already has plenty of discussion, but I think one quirk about existing terraforming I'd like to see done better is AI usage. E.g. the terraforming options in SMAC were pretty solid, but the AI never really exploited them.

Travel/movement to me feels like there could be a lot more potential, though to some extent it'd mix with terraforming. Magic roads/paths, trade influences, interfering with the travel of others, that sort. Also omniscient navigation in fantasy settings should go away - that'd help in giving travel magic relevance. Make your opponent become lost, pathfind reliable routes... the idea of fairy paths in both their beneficial and harmful fashions, or the classic 'forest you can't leave', would also be interesting in strategy games.

Creature creation and hybridization can be fun and it's an idea I like, though if it's just about endless counter-counter-counters that's not terribly compelling.

Countermagic / interactions needs more than just 'cancel spell' and 'reflect spell'. Other methods of redirection, subverting intended purpose, unexpectedly altering spell costs, etc. could all be pretty interesting traps.

Interactable deities could be a nice way to make some form of diplomacy necessary even in world-conquering games. Something like a more inscrutable (and deadly) form of Stellaris's fallen empires (not necessarily with physical holdings).

I think you could have good divination in a strategy game with NPCs on the AI side that had some sort of goal/planning system. Especially if there are complex plans like ancient conspiracies to topple an empire. Just sort of grab some plans, fancy them up with prophecy language, and go for it.

Magical interaction could do a lot of interesting stuff. If you have rituals that take a lot of time they could be delayed, countered, scrambled, etc. You could merely ameliorate spell effects as well or drain the casting energy, which I guess is a method of delay. Maybe corrupt them as well.

[Aoi]

The trappings of otherwise uninteresting magic/mechanics can transform the perception of them in significant ways-- while I agree that most forms of time control come out as bland, Into the Breach turned an otherwise mundane Restart function into something narratively terrifying--

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Every time you restarted a stage, you were actually moving to a slightly time shifted alternate dimension... And by extension, you were willfully consigning the dimension you just left to certain doom. Oh, and if you read between the lines a bit, it's also implied that you/r squad has been hopping dimensions effectively forever to save every timeline you can... And these branching timelines may have only come into existence because of your meddling. So you've been generating new worlds of victims to TRY and save in some epic quest of futile revenge, ego boosting, or the like.