Shattered Soul for tartarians. Do tell !

[PvK]

Or the cost could be tied to what you wish for... which would make the lesser things more viable and therefore interesting and used, instead of always trying to get the most bang for your 100 pearls.

[ano]

I also like the idea of variable-power Wishes. Probably not so easy to implement but definitely better than prohibiting wishing some things.

[Twan]

Spliting the wish spell is perhaps doable. They just have to create several spells with different costs, copying wish but with a limited list of working keywords for each.

[Tuidjy]

I really dislike the idea of variable power wishes. A wish is a wish. Any unit,
Armageddon, whatever. If the new units as so freaking awesome, maybe the problem
is with them, not with the wish spell. And anyway. A wished for, and wished up,
Seraph dies, just like anything else, to a squad that is tailored to take a
specific target out. I've had an anti-SC Wraith Lord stumble into a twice-wished
Seraph and take it out before it finished buffing (two rounds of attacks)

[MaxWilson]

But Tuidjy, a Wish _isn't_ a wish, exactly. I can't wish for 9 Death levels, or immortality, or _real_ Armageddon (kills everyone). It's limited in power already, we're just talking about differentiating the power levels instead of fixing them to one uniform standard.

At the same time, I'm not completely convinced that variable-power Wishes are a good idea, either. I just don't think Wish being arbitrarily powerful is thematic or an argument against variable-power Wishes. (Maybe if the game were modded so that wishing for "Victory" or "Godhood" ended the game, you could argue that Wish was arbitrarily powerful. And it would also be no fun to cast--you might as well just quit and delete your saved game.)

-Max

[Endoperez]

I don't mind Wish being able to bring in any unit, except that the most powerful currently available units that are wished for are probably Seraphs. I wouldn't mind someone wishing for an angel every now and then, but everyone with Wish wishing for several, and then armies of these ultimate angels going around and killing stuff for any powermonger, I don't like that. I'd like angels being different, at least by a bit.

Having a wish for "angel" bring in one of the several powerful angelic beings would be better IMO. With just the more powerful angels added in, of both the existing and upcoming ones, you'd still get good stuff for your gems, and there'd still be the chance of getting a seraph or something of AT LEAST the same power level. It could even be so that "angel", "seraph", "angel of fury", "things you won't know until the next patch" etc all give a unit from the same random selection.

[Twan]

For me it's pointless to make the most powerful SC unavailable via wish (after seraphs, another chassis will be the most popular, then another... it's endless). And it's a very bad idea to give to any nation an endgame summon others can never have. Balance between nations may be rock-paper-scissor in early game, but in endgame people should realise balance is only realised via the possibility for all nations to use tartarians, and about anything via wishes. Yes all nations tend to use the same things in endgame, but it's a good thing for balance as long all nations don't have a national powerful endgame SC summon.

Trying to reduce the number/availability of SCs in general is IMO a bad idea, as long the magic/initiative system stay the same. SCs (or any particular SC chassis) aren't actually overpowered compared to some endgame spells which *force* to use SCs to succeed to take provinces in endgame. Dominions without SCs would just end in big stalemates, with all battles won by defenders with mages.

For more diversity I'm rather for the addition of more non national non unique SC chassis in all paths (but uniques should also be made more powerful, or nobody will risk gems on them). Because it looks more doable than adding an endgame summon of the power of the seraph for each nation.

[kasnavada]

but in endgame people should realise balance is only realised via the possibility for all nations to use tartarians, and about anything via wishes.

That's exactly what makes the endgame bad and boring in my opinion. If you don't go for magic diversity, you don't win. Specializing in a type of magic should have a chance. But since research is capped, I suppose it's unavoidable.

I'm also in favor of more diversity for end-game. End-game needs more non-unique SC for all path and nation with different styles. But, end game also desperatly needs ways for armies to me more effective than what they currently are against SC. SC currently have counters, I don't say the opposite, but those counters are SC, thugs, mages. Most troops cannot compare to them and are merely dumb chaff against them !

One thing I'd love to see, is lvl 8 items that would auto-cast on a squad buffs powerful enough for a squad to rival the less powerful SC.

[MaxWilson]

I'd rather see such items be level 6. Too much fighting over uniques if it's level 8. I'd actually like a mod command #autocast that you add to an item to make it autocast some spell at the beginning of combat, once. That way you could mod in items that do Blessing on a squad, Weapons of Sharpness, Strength of Giants, etc., and we could work out which combos are overpowered and which are appropriately-priced. Sword of Aurgelmer autocasting Will of the Fates is fine, but I want to generalize it so some Level 6 items cast Legions of Steel.

-Max

[Edi]

Twan said:
For me it's pointless to make the most powerful SC unavailable via wish (after seraphs, another chassis will be the most popular, then another... it's endless).

Slippery slope fallacy. Yes, if Seraph is unavailable to any but the ones whose national spell it is, some other chassis will be the optimal one. The whole goddamn point of national summons is that they are supposed to be restricted to specific nations, which should override popularity as SC chassis for everyone. In my opinion anyway. It does not mean that all other SC possibilities should also be eliminated from the wishlist (not even possible to do that).

Twan said:
And it's a very bad idea to give to any nation an endgame summon others can never have.

Why? If you have 20 options that are generally usable and there's a top 5, eliminating one of the top 5 from those whose national summon it doesn't happen to be still leaves them with all of the others and if they can't deal with it, they deserve to get their arse spanked in an MP game.

Twan said:
Balance between nations may be rock-paper-scissor in early game, but in endgame people should realise balance is only realised via the possibility for all nations to use tartarians, and about anything via wishes. Yes all nations tend to use the same things in endgame, but it's a good thing for balance as long all nations don't have a national powerful endgame SC summon.

So unless everyone has precisely the same options, it's unbalanced? That's what your argument boils down to and I think we smacked that down in a couple of other threads quite handily.

Twan said:
Trying to reduce the number/availability of SCs in general is IMO a bad idea, as long the magic/initiative system stay the same. SCs (or any particular SC chassis) aren't actually overpowered compared to some endgame spells which *force* to use SCs to succeed to take provinces in endgame. Dominions without SCs would just end in big stalemates, with all battles won by defenders with mages.

That's a nice strawman argument there. Nobody is talking about restricting SCs in general. We are talking about restricting ONE specific SC chassis that also happens to be a nation specific summon. Though I would not at all mind restricting the Mandaha in addition to the Seraph and the new powerful Hinnom summons.

Twan said:
For more diversity I'm rather for the addition of more non national non unique SC chassis in all paths (but uniques should also be made more powerful, or nobody will risk gems on them). Because it looks more doable than adding an endgame summon of the power of the seraph for each nation.

That's a good solution, adding more viable SC non-unique chassis options that are summonable.