Strategy map spells

254 votes

I would like to see some strategy map spells. Because there is no mana system like in AoW, they could cost the magic resources amber, glimmer and celestial ore. The variety of spells that hero could use could be increased by his level in order, chaos etc...
Examples of possible spells are:
* Units that are recruitable only via summoning - the hero summons them anywhere.
* Teleport
* Vision spells
* Production boosts
* Debuff whole enemy army for next battle
* Buffs your army for next battle

Currently not planned Suggested by: Michal (16 May, '22) • Upvoted: 30 Mar • Comments: 20

Comments: 20

16 May, '22
Yaztromo Merged
So far the game only has combat spells -- which is a shame. Adventure spells (just like Heroes has) could really make the strategy part of the game a lot more interesting. I'm thinking about spells that influence movement or might even allow you to teleport (more limited than in Heroes though).
17 May, '22
Ventri
I'd love to see some strategy map spells, but not if they were of the movement type. Trying to catch a hero that could Town Portal/Fly/Dimension Door was not much fun to me. Also I don't like how they enable you to simply dodge a choke point on a map.

I'd be in favor of all the types you suggested other than Teleport, though, especially the summonables and vision spells, as long as they weren't so inexpensive it trivializes getting vision of the map.
17 May, '22
Grzegorz
Agreed - Map spells were the essence of heroes III. You could use fly/teleport spell to surprise your enemy and Town portal spell enhanced with master of earth magic would make you invincible!
18 May, '22
Emperor
I feel like spending resources to use spells would seem kinda weird. Personally, I like the fact that there's no control spells in the game. I'd probably rather have something like objects on the map that can give some such effects in a limited area would be better than having map spells always being available. The only thing I ever feel myself missing is Town Portal tbh.
20 May, '22
ako Merged
i am sure there will be , but not as spells. but as scrolls. thereis atm only one of those and it is a scroll of town portal.
25 May, '22
Nate
I like the concept of strategy map spells. However, those resources are already heavily utilized in multiple ways. City buildings, tier 2 unit recruitment, and research.

Would like to see strategy map spells added to the game only if the AI can expertly utilize them.
05 Jun, '22
Zymeth
No movement spells, please! I like the idea, but the game is already designed in a way that would require some wise implementation of global spells.
Eg. it is hard to answer the question which spells are available ?

Imo, it would be a nice thing to have global spells partially unique for each faction with the mana / acces determined by the level of the starting city + half level of other taken cities. This could be boosted by a medium-sized / maybe big-sied buildings.

But what spells would there be and which resources would they use? I think it is fine to add special resource cost too.
Some that come to my mind :
1. Buff permanently a specific slot for a specific commander (eg. +1hp for a unit in the slot #2), max 1 such enchantment / slot.
2. Summon a temporar guarding tower that sees for a good distance and maybe can scout the armies
3. Unit summons like in Age of Wonders (mana upkeep cost)
4. Unit summons exclusivley for the defence, including mines etc.
5. Production altern
17 Jun, '22
Ronan McManus
I agree that Town Portal/Fly/Teleport spells would be OP.
However, a +1/+2/+3 (depending on cost/ability) movement spell would be useful without breaking the game.

Resource production boost, defence/attack boost etc would also be nice.
23 Jun, '22
TheBlasterPastor Admin
"Wielder World Abilities and/or Spells" (suggested by slip on 2022-05-24), including upvotes (2) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
23 Jun, '22
TheBlasterPastor Admin
"Adventure mode spellcasting" (suggested by Yaztromo on 2022-05-16), including upvotes (13) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
02 Jul, '22
Seranuelian
How would this even work? Like with what resource would you cast these spells, what are the requirements, what are the stipulations?

The essence system only supports combat spells, because the way you gain them is balanced around that. If you now say "When you have 5 Arcana Essence per turn, you can cast xyz" - then. How often can you do that? How strong are the spells?

It is just an enourmous mess to try to implement that into this game and it is mostly what made HoM&M so aweful to play in late game. I heavily suggest not doing this because it imbalances the game too much. The restriction the game is putting onto movement and production work well and increases of that are meaningful and hard to get. Getting that by cheesing some orb composition would break more than it's worth it.

Further more spells like "Increase whole army" and "Debuff whole army" invalidates the strength and intruige of all In Combat Buff spells.
05 Jul, '22
Titus
I would agree with this but only if properly implemented, the adventure mode spellcasting in heroes 3 is broken and throws balance off the window but the adventure mode spellcasting in Age of Wonders3 is pretty fun and balanced.
16 Jul, '22
Wintermute
Would also love Map/Global Spells.
Master of Magic also had some nice Spells which could be adapted to work
in SoC!
More Adventuring, less fighting! (or at least, some adventuring also with spells outside of fighting ^^)
19 Jul, '22
ketura Merged
Add overworld spells you can cast based on the essences of each type of unit you have on a given wielder (so splitting into 1 stacks doesn't get you more essence, but maybe permitting duplicates if you have full stacks). Then, when you cast an overworld spell, you give your wielder a temporary malus that "drains" the units that you used for fuel, giving them -5 offense/defense or perhaps worse depending on the power of the spell. This would last until the next battle, and drained units cannot be tapped again.

Some ideas for non-movement overworld spells:

- add a no-walk barrier on the map for X turns
- "curse" a capturable point of interest to reduce its bonus for the owning player for X turns
- lay a trap that is an illusion of a resource pickup, which takes that resource from anyone picking it up and granting it to the caster
- leave an illusion of the wielder, granting the real one invisibility for this and the next turn
- compass spell that points to the nearest hostile
22 Jul, '22
TheBlasterPastor Admin
"Overworld spells proposal" (suggested by ketura on 2022-07-19), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
12 Aug, '22
BrudaVoo
Very important option. Surprized that it has so few votes.
Heroes, Disciples has it and it is a great variety of gameplay thanks to this one.
13 Aug, '22
luddegodofpain
While some adventure map spells could be alright, the movement type spells in HoMM heavily broke the game, and the Meta became earth magic or bust...

I like the way the devs are taking this, and i absolutely think that apart from core mechanics, this game should not be a HoMM game
26 Aug, '22
Moderator Admin
We like the idea in general, and have had ideas around this in the past, but it is not something that we are priorotizing for the development up until 1.0 right now.
21 Jun, '23
Alex
It would be hard to make that work with the current essence system which only applies in combat. Unless you can store unused essence from previous combats OR pay in advance essence that you won't be able to collect in future fights.
29 Dec, '23
Jack
No, hard no

World Map Spells have only ever been fun to use when you're the only one actually using em. Meaning, only in single player

As someone else suggested, it would be much preferable to have those effects be tied to rare and sparse neutral buildings put down at key points of the map. But the Beacons already fulfill the main part of the adventure spells which were the teleport ones, anyways