No worries, unless it happens again, I'll just file it under "weird stuff". Like I wrote, after a reload it worked correctly.
Life Spells - Great Enchantments Just a quick note that the Life School has some excellent higher-tier Enchantments, both for towns and units. Looks like I judged it wrong till now: I considered it not that great except for some of the important early spells like Tranquility and Fertile Soil. The downside is that the good stuff is *expensive* in all areas: Research, Casting, Upkeep. For a serious attempt with Life I highly recommend to get the research, casting and upkeep costs down as far as possible; with these picks: - Life 9 and Life Mastery: Cost reduction. - Archmage: more Spellcraft - Enchanter: 20% discount on casting and researching Enchantments - Alchemist - optional - Channeler - optional - Sage - optional Enchantment abbreviations: G=Global, T=Town, U=Unit. Tier I'll just note as number; so "Armsmaster 3 U" means it's a Tier 3 single Unit Enchantment. A few highlights of what's available: - Armsmaster 3 U. Gives 50xp/turn to each unit in the army. And it stacks. So 5 units with Armsmaster will give 250xp per turn; not too shabby, this really adds up over time. - Heroism 3 U: promotes any non-Hero unit to maximum level. - Eden 6 T: Casts Prayer when town is attacked, -50% Unrest, +100% Food. - Just Cause 6 G: -50% Upkeep costs for all your units. - Golden Age 7 G: -50% Unrest in all your towns. - Holy Arms 7 G: Spell desc says "Casts Bless Weapon on all units. Tohit chance +2, Bonus Damage +2". I am not sure if the +2 tohit/dam are on top of Bless Weapon (which gives +1 tohit/dam) ; or if it means that Holy Arms casts a boosted version of Bless Weapon. - Charm of Life 8 G: +25% HP for all your units. - Crusade 8 G: +1 current and maximum level for all your units. - Divine Conduit 8 G: Increases Spellcraft by 50 points. I didn't see/research any Tier 9 Enchantments yet, will add those if/when I come across them. In addition, the Angel and Archangel are okay/good summons. Both do melee. The Archangel also can cast some buffs, (Mass) Heal and 2 damage spells. Angel has Aura of Courage, Archangel comes with Aura of Heroism. If those stack - and even if not - they are a nice army boost. The downside - especially without all the boosting picks listed above, e.g. when playing Ariel - is that you'll be almost constantly busy casting expensive enchantments, with a heavy focus on town/global ones. This does not leave room for much else, e.g. summoning monsters or casting unit enchantments left and right.
Serious impact to the posterior area And one for fun: This is the first enemy army that completely annihilated my so-far-invincible Titan Shade of Night. The AI Sorc got smart on me, and cast Web on Shade. He then had to sit and sulk outside the towngates, with the big beetles using him for target practice That's exactly how a good AI on high difficulty should behave, well done! Currently busy beefing him up with all the boost enchantments I have. As this takes a bit, I let him roam through nearby dungeons to get a few units raised by his special ability, so they can support him in the attack later. Got lucky with the first dungeon and raised a Fire Dragon.
So far, the schools of magic I've explored are Protection, Destruction, Life and Death. Just finished a run where I used a single unicorn knight stacked with protection buffs to single-handedly conquer every plane, that was fun. Life is almost as good as Protection for unit buffs at high levels. Haven't really done a summon heavy run, those tend to peter out for some reason. Right now I'm exploring the elemental schools. Mentalism seems a little weak, and I'm not sure I really 'get' biomancy - it seems to focus on single target debuffs too much for real combat use, and I haven't found a good use for the various terrain transformation spells yet.
I'm stilling noobing my way along, but the game sure is growing on me! Still not sure I'm "playing it right" though. Quick question - am I supposed to be seeing the same battleground every single time? Does each plane have just one scene where battles occur, or what determines which one is used? I've battled on a couple different planes and it's always the same forest/path one.
@Jenman: Think you could do some longer write-ups on your games? At least I am really curious about your experiences and opinions. I haven't tried Destruction and Protection at all yet. The latter is on my list for an Orc melee game; the former I find has too many spells that enemies resist a lot - but I haven't looked at high-tier Destruction spells yet. Death I found supremely suited for the Unhallowed; it's like they have their own personal School, which makes sense both thematically and game mechanics-wise. Life is extremely powerful once you get used to the "cast tons of Enchantments" approach. And Invulnerability is so strong, it's borderline ridiculous... And I am quite impressed with the Unicorn Knight soloing entire Planes. I was convinced that's not possible below Titan tier. But ah well, that was before I discovered the Invulnerability spell
@calabash: First of all, welcome! As long as you have fun, you are most definitely "playing it right" . In other words, there is no "one correct way" to play PC. The options are far too manifold for that, and all I found so far are viable. Battlegrounds: That's odd, there are a lot more than one for sure. Never seen that happen so far, so I think it's safe to assume it's not a general bug. I always see various battlegrounds even on the same plane. E.g. Air Plane has a really cool one with an anchored Airship. Simple way to test: fight over water, all you should see is the deep blue. Or play Unhallowed on Shadow Plane, those look *very* different.
And a fun pic Is that Spider really so bloody huge? It completely dwarves (pun intended ) the Rune Catapult next to it. As funny as it is, the scale seems a bit off. I expected the catapult to be a lot larger. Maybe make the model a good bit bigger, half the spider's at least?
thanks very much! It's fun indeed - I meant that I'm quite sure I'm making plenty of early mistakes, or not pushing back against the game hard enough? I find it difficult within the first 30-40 turns to accomplish much more than explore my immediate surroundings, scoop up chests, and crank out some units and a building or two. Yet in this thread I read mighty tales of players amassing armies and capturing multiple cities by turn 10?! Um...HOW? What am I missing? on the battlefields thing, could it be a local bug? Worth deleting/reinstalling? I've fought dozens of battles on two planes and have yet to see anything other than the same "forest path" setting.* *Edit - I just found a gate to the Shadow plane - hopped through and picked a fight there to test it, and it was a different battlefield. Very gray, dark, and grim.
We have got some issues with the models recently. Multiplatform makes some of them acting weird. Anyway. I'm having a family celebration today, so I'm not going to be active for the rest of the night, but I just wanted to let you know that the Android version will be released on Friday. There was a press announcement sent away together with a pack of Android, PC and PS4 screenshots. I just posted two PC screenshots at the facebook page dedicated for Planar Conquest, so you might wish to take a look at them: https://web.facebook.com/planarconquest/
Regrettably, none of my writeups would probably be very interesting. My games generally go like this: Turn 1-20: magic spirits pick up chests, I build up a small army capable of securing starting plane Turn 20-40: Secure starting plane, continue building up starting city Turn 40-60: Capture nodes and the like on starting plane, build up all cities I captured, build high-tier army capable of interplanar exploration Turn 60-80: Lose interest, send interplanar army into headlong rush at enemy cities until I either win, lose my army and/or tower and subsequently lose interest, or a gamebreaking bug renders game unplayable (the last one happens the most) The unicorn knight run was my second proper attempt at a 'superhero' fueled with all the protection buffs I could afford. After a few aborted hero attempts with Mentor, the first proper run I tried was a Phantom Lancer - quicker to get off the ground than a unicorn knight, if you don't mind burning through half your starting population to rush for one. Unfortunately, that petered out once I started encountering cities with palisades - no way to get past the walls, protection didn't give me any real offensive spells, and the unhallowed siege options are less than stellar, so I went with the Unicorn Knight instead.
Side note: I've been using a slow Adept game to get most of the Biomancy spells researched, think I've got almost all of them. Might as well list them for anyone curious. Out of battle enchantments: Tier I: Insect Plague. B/Water. 25 mana, 1 mana upkeep, lowers production in a single enemy city by 25%. Wellspring of Life. B/Life. 32 mana, 1 mana upkeep, when cast on a city, units in that city will be healed to full every turn. Tier II: Chaos Channels. B/Fire. 42 mana, turns a friendly unit into a summoned fire creature, gives it either flying, +2AC or +1d6 fire damage. Must be living nonsummoned unit. Consecrate Earth. B/Life, 21 mana, purifies one tile. Corrupt. B/Death, 21 mana, corrupts one tile. Quicksilver. B/Wind, 26 mana, 1 mana upkeep, one friendly unit gets movement points +1. Strands of power. B/Earth, 48 mana, 2 mana upkeep, +1 power income for each unique terrain type in range of city you cast it on. Tier III: Drought. B/Fire, 42 mana, turns plains into deserts and swamps and forests into plains. One tile. Good Harvest. B/Life, 32 mana, food income +100% on one city. No upkeep, but lasts for 10 turns only. Transmute. B/Earth, 68 mana, 3 upkeep, improves single mineral ore. You can't see what the improvement is in advance, and the definition of 'ore' seems a little off at times. Wetlands. B/Water, 42 mana, turns plains into swamps and desert/tundra into plains. One tile. Tier IV: Alter Terrain. B/Earth, 51 mana, Lowers/raises single tile. Exhaust. B/Fire, 127 mana, 2 mana upkeep, disables resource on one tile. Mother's Resolve. 97 mana, 4 mana upkeep, population growth +100% on one city. Tier V: Purging Waves. B/Water, 76 mana, purifies tile. Yes, this is over thrice as expensive as Consecrate Earth. Raise Volcano. B/Fire, 127 mana, creates a volcano on one tile. Volcanoes appear to have no other effect aside from being unable to be crossed except by flying units. Tier VI: Domain of Storms. B/Lightning, 510 mana, 10 mana upkeep. 6d6 lightning damage to 1d3 enemy units per turn, -1 movement for every unit and -2 movement for flying units on an entire plane. Great Harvest. B/Earth, 454 mana, 8 mana upkeep, food income +50% for all friendly cities. Righteous Might. B/Life. 130 mana, 6 mana upkeep, To hit chance +5, Damage x1.5, +3 to fortitude, reflex and will saving throws on single friendly unit. Tier VII: Divine Fertility. B/Water. 585 mana, 12 mana upkeep, population growth +40 in all friendly cities. Infuse Sun. B/Fire. 552 mana, 8 mana upkeep, transforms 2d6 tiles worth of plains into deserts/swamps and forests into plains on an entire plane. Pestilence. B/Death. 765 mana, 10 mana upkeep, population growth -50 on all enemy cities. True Light. B/Life. 765 mana, 15 mana upkeep. To hit chance +1, bonus damage +1, all saving throws +1 for living units. Bonuses are reversed for undead. Affects all friendly units. Unchanging World. B/Earth, 425 mana, 10 mana upkeep. Blocks all terraforming effects by any other caster. Tier VIII: Black Magic. B/Death, 935 mana, 18 mana upkeep, corrupts 2d6 tiles per turn on entire plane. Chaos Mastery. B/Fire, 935 mana, 18 mana upkeep, casts chaos channels on all newly recruited units, limitations of that spell apply. Charm of Life. B/Life, 1020 mana, 26 mana upkeep, increases HP of all friendly units by +25%. Corrupt Atmosphere. 765 mana, 12 mana upkeep, 6d8 lightning damage to all units every turn on a single plane. Flood. B/Water, 680 mana, turns a single tile into a water tile, destroying any armies or features on it. Must be noncity tile. Majestic Uplift. B/Earth. 255 mana, transforms hills into mountains, plains into hills, shores/ocean/lava/quicksand into plains.. Affects a 3x3 square around chosen tile. Tier IX: Time Stop. 1487 mana, 500 mana upkeep. Freezes all other sorcerer lords, cities and all upkeep in time. Will get to the in-battle spells in next post. Note that I haven't actually tried casting most of the higher-tier spells because they're prohibitively expensive.
Incidentally, running Biomancy Mastery, Channeller and Enchanter, so if you're not, adjust those mana values accordingly. In battle spell list is a little smaller, Biomancy isn't really about that. Tier I: Fire Weakness. B/Fire, 8 mana, gives single enemy unit +50% fire weakness. Heal. B/Life, 6 mana, 3d8 positive energy on friendly unit. Vacuum. B/Wind, 5 mana, 5d8 bludgeoning damage and movement points set to 0 on single flying enemy unit. Weakness. B/Death, 6 mana, damage penalty and to hit chance -2 on single enemy unit. Tier II: Wind Blast. B/Wind, 8 mana, pushes target back 2d3 tiles and does 4d10 bludgeoning. Target doesn't move if they save. Tier III: Breath of Life. B/Wind, 19 mana, target unit is raised from dead if battle is won. False Life. B/Death, 9 mana, gives unit +20 max hp but unit takes 2d6 negative energy damage every turn. Must not be undead. Can be cast on enemy units. Tier IV: Stasis. B/Wind, 25 mana, all enemy units that don't save cannot move, attack, counterattack or cast spells. Lasts for 2 turns. Tier V: Mass Healing. B/Life, 34 mana, 3d8 positive energy in 5x5 square around chosen friendly unit, heals only friendly units. Web. B/Earth, 15 mana, target enemy unit cannot move/attack/counterattack/cast spells, and disables Flying. Lasts 3 turns. Tier VI: Drain Life. B/Death, 21 mana, does 10d6 negative energy damage to single enemy unit, and 50% of damage heals friendly undead. Righteous Might. B/Life. 22 mana, same bonuses as enchantment, single friendly unit, lasts for 5 turns. Warp Reality. B/Fire, 34 mana, gives all units on battlefield -6 AC and -6 hit chance unless they're summoned creatures. Tier VII: Simulacrum. B/Wind. 51 mana, clones target friendly unit. Slow Time. B/Water, 76 mana, all enemy units move once every two turns. No tier VIII or IX in-battle spells far as I can see.
I wouldn't worry about making mistakes at all, something as complex as PC has a very long and steep learning curve once you get past the basics. Again, don't worry about it. Nothing wrong with playing at your own pace, especially if you are still learning the ropes. The answer to "how" and "what" is the same: practice, practice, practice; and experience, experience, experience I've been playing Master of Magic on and off for 20 years, and other (strategy) games for even longer. So I do have quite a bit of experience to draw from. If you look at my play reports, you'll see that for conquering several towns early on, I play extremely aggressive and use every dirty trick in the book. And I am still learning new stuff with every game. For example, I only discovered about a week ago that the Spell "Circle of Protection" makes even a Magic Spirit resilient enough to take over a town that only has a minimal garrison. It simply takes time to learn how many of your starting units can take on what opposition, when you go conquering early on. E.g. if my 4 starting units move out as one and take over one town, or if I split them into 3 groups and rush to grab the 3 nearest towns makes an obvious difference. And you need the initial setup to support this kind of play. E.g. with Dwarves a rush is more difficult, simply because their units move slower and thus take longer to get anywhere. Highmen's early Spearman unit isn't powerful enough to really pull that off, but is a good garrison unit. And it takes a bit to build their more expensive Swordsmen. While Grey Elves or Orcs are suited very well for an early rush, the starting units you have and can build right off the bat are good enough to give enemy towns a serious headache. Your initial spell choices also make a huge difference. If you focus on town enchantments, you won't have that many options to support your army during combat early on, for example. Just different playstyles, is all. The really nice part is that all of them are equally valid, so far there doesn't seem to be one "ideal path". If you post your initial setup, and what you are doing - not necessarily turn by turn, a general report should be enough - we can give more specific advise. If you want to see examples, I'll toot my own horn and point you to my Orc play http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=3794092#post3794092 for a general report, and my Grey Elf breakdown for a turn by turn write-up http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=3791262#post3791262
@Jenman: Thanks a lot for the spell lists! I'll add links to your posts to the guide thread, if you don't mind.
[QUESTION] Invulnerability Spell - should some damage get through? @Wastelands: I currently make heavy use of the Life Spell Invulnerability. The description says "unit is immune to all damage". However, at least the damage reflected by the "Damage Reflection" spell gets through. Is that a bug/oversight, or is that on purpose? I actually like it, as it gives a means to bypass/counter Invulnerability at least a bit. I find that spell ridiculously overpowered by the way. 3 turns of taking no damage at all make for some serious slaughter.
Did another research run, here's a list of wind spells. Running air mastery, enchanter and summoner, so if you're not adjust those mana values accordingly. T1: Full Sails. W/Aug, 17 mana, 1 mana upkeep, gives x11 movement points to one friendly ship. Scouting. W/Ment, 16 mana, 1 mana upkeep, increases view range of single friendly unit by 2. Sprites. W/Summoning, 45 mana, 2 mana upkeep, summons a sprite. T2: Harpies. W/Summoning, 52 mana, 2 mana upkeep, summons a harpy. Shocking Weapon. W/Aug, 39 mana, 2 mana upkeep, gives single friendly unit 1d4 extra lightning damage. Wall of Air. W/Protection, 42 mana, 2 mana upkeep, city walls give additional +5 AC vs missile weapons. T3: Wind's Agility. W/Protection, 74 mana, 2 mana upkeep, single friendly unit passes all reflex saves. T4: Griffins. W/Summoning, 187 mana, 4 mana upkeep, summons a griffin. Guardian Wind. W/Protection, 63 mana, 2 mana upkeep, single target unit gains Missile Immunity. Strike First. W/Aug, 106 mana, 3 mana upkeep, single target unit gains First Strike - always strikes first even if attacked. T5: Cleansing Air. W/Bio, 63 mana, purifies tile and attempts to dispel all enchantments on units/cities on chosen tile with 3x mana modifier. Flight. W/Aug, 97 mana, 5 mana upkeep, single unit gains flying. Unseen Servants. W/Ment, 357 mana, 10 mana upkeep, all friendly cities gain -10% unrest and +10% production. Wind Walk. W/Protection, 97 mana, 10 mana upkeep, single unit (and army unit is in) gains Wind Walk - can fly over map, ignoring obstacles. Wyvern. W/Summoning, 300 mana, 6 mana upkeep, summons a wyvern. T6: Djinn. W/Summoning, 450 mana, 8 mana upkeep, summons a djinn. Domain of Storms. W/Bio, 510 mana, 10 mana upkeep, 6d6 damage to 1d3 enemy units per turn on chosen plane, -1 movement points to all units and -2 to flying units. Savage Weather. W/Destruction, 212 mana, 8 mana upkeep, each building in target enemy city has 1% chance of being destroyed every turn. T7: Augur of Caldrean. W/Ment, 722 mana, 10 mana upkeep, removes fog of war for caster. Storm Giant. W/Summoning, 562 mana, 12 mana upkeep, summons a storm giant. Wind Mastery. 680 mana, 15 mana upkeep, all friendly units gain +1 movement point. T8: Chimeras. W/Summoning, 675 mana, 15 mana upkeep, summons a chimera. Corrupt Atmosphere. W/Biomancy, 765 mana, 12 mana upkeep, does 6d8 lightning damage to every unit every turn on chosen plane. Great Channeling. W/Ment, 935 mana, 20 mana upkeep, removes distance penalty from casting in battle. Tornado. W/Destruction, 340 mana, summons a tornado that deals 10d8 bludgeoning damage to all units it encounters and moves 1-3 tiles per turn, lasts for 6 turns. Upheaval. W/Protection, 1147 mana, 30 mana upkeep, all friendly units gain flying. T9: Sky Drake. Pure W, 825 mana, 20 mana upkeep, summons a sky drake. In-battle spells next.
In-battle wind spells. T1: Blur. W/Protection, 7 mana, gives single friendly unit 20% chance to avoid an attack. Static charge. W/Destruction, 10 mana, affects 3x3 area around chosen tile, affected units have -2 hit chance. Vacuum. W/Bio, 5 mana, does 5d8 bludgeoning damage to single enemy unit and reduces movement points to 0, only works on flying units. T2: Lightning Strike. W/Destruction, 8 mana, does 6d4 lightning damage to single enemy unit and reduces reflex saving throw by -1. Shocking Weapon. W/Aug, 7 mana, gives single friendly unit bonus 1d4 lightning damage. Silence. W/Ment, 6 mana, target enemy unit cannot cast spells or use ranged magical attacks. Wind Blast. W/Bio, 8 mana, does 4d10 bludgeoning damage and pushes target back 2d3 tiles, target does not move if they save. T3: Air Elemental. W/Summoning, 18 mana, summons air elemental. Breath of Life. W/Bio, 19 mana, target unit is raised from dead if they die during battle, but battle is won. Guiding Wind. W/Aug, 16 mana, all friendly units ignore range penalty. Thunderclap. W/Destruction, 12 mana, affects 3x3 area, all affected units cannot move. Lasts 2 turns. Vertigo. W/Ment, 12 mana, -5 AC and hit chance on single enemy unit. Wind's Agility. W/Protection, 11 mana, single friendly unit passes all reflex saves. T4: Guardian Wind. W/Protection, 9 mana, single friendly unit gains missile immunity. Slow. W/Ment, 12 mana, affects 3x3 area, all affected units have movement points halved. Stasis. W/Biomancy, affects all enemy units, all affected enemy units who don't save cannot move/attack/counterattack/cast spells for two turns. Strike First. W/Aug, 16 mana, gives single friendly unit Strike First. Vortex. W/Destruction, 21 mana, summmons a vortex that moves through battlefield at random. Every unit it hits takes 12d6 bludgeoning damage and moves back a tile. Lasts 10 turns. T5: Chain Lightning. W/Destruction, 34 mana, single target unit receives 5d20 electricity damage, nearest unit receives 4d20, and so on. T6: Antimagic Storm. W/Protection, 42 mana, attempts to dispel all enchantments on battlefield with x0.5 mana modifier. Haste. W/Aug, 29 mana, gives single friendly unit additional attack and +1 movement points for 5 turns. Winds of Terror. W/Ment, 34 mana, all enemy units cannot fly. T7: Call Lightning. W/Destruction, 34 mana, every turn a random unit on battlefield receives 10d6 lightning damage. Invisibility. W/Protection, 34 mana, turns single friendly unit invisible. Simulacrum. W/Bio, 51 mana, clones single friendly unit. T8: Alacrity. W/Aug, 48 mana, all friendly units gain additional attack, +2 AC, +1 movement point and Haste. Not sure if Haste stacks with previously mentioned bonuses. Lasts for 3 turns. No T9 in-battle spells.
Progress Hey All, Work and coding for money got in the way of real life, but played through my first multi-plane game using Orcs (and @nullzone's write up) last night. Woohoo! Unlike the Summoner Guide (again provided by @nullzone), the Orc's didn't have as much help through spells, really just a bull-rush game. I didn't have anything to break through walls, but found that having enough soldiers, the enemy eventually comes to the walls (I had a few ranged units that maybe enticed them to come to me...). I'm now researching the spells, and trying to figure out some combinations for new strategies. What a complex and fun game. Appreciate the new update 1.2.2 just released last night, and looking forward to playing on Steam in the near future. I saw a 'bug writeup' regarding all of the saved games not being able to load. Just wanted to comment that it sounds like a memory glitch, probably can be solved by a reboot of the device. Also, if you have an iPad and iPhone, you can Load Game-> Restore on your other device to push the cloud saves to it. This gives you a second device to try and load the games, and try it that way before deleting and re-downloading. Finally, tho I didn't realize it, this means that you can pick up and play on any device, as long as you save your progress. Big thumbs up for this. I'm finding that I am setting up a game, then saving before turn one as a sort of 'master save', so I can restart my game at anytime without going through the setup. And settling in on Fast Movement and 2X game speed is what I'm comfortable with for trade-off between animation/battle speed/build-up. Outside of an upgrade to show the initial game settings (from within the game), pretty happy with 1.2.2.
Haha! Sounds like me with pretty much every game, whether 4x, RPG, or other. I often feel that the best moments of a game are found in the beginning when the world is big and you are small, and everything is a challenge or threat. @Nullzone, many thanks for taking the time to share not only such a thoughtful, helpful reply but to also share your knowledge - I really appreciate it! I will indeed share a playthrough once I get complete a game without being wiped off the map. And in the meantime I'll be over here absorbing your Grey Elf write-up!