Resource Limits

Mana seems to hold an interesting place in the resource trees. As the only resource that does not require storage, it is the foundation of all but one of the rush decks I’ve seen so far. Further a mana-spam design to a deck

Alternatively, Gold is by far the hardest resource to store, as it has no direct production card, and storage cards are either expensive (treasury, village stores, empty trunk) or have very marginal utility (treasure chest).

Wood, Stone, and Iron are all nearly identical (slightly different deploy rates and recovery rates, but not significant compared to the other two).

I wonder if resource limit changes might help with balance?
Idea 1) Give Mana a limit and storage cards like the other 4.
Idea 2) Give Mana a limit but allow ALL resources to have a base capacity of 1 or 2 (with cards adding more capacity).

A limit on mana would decrease its individuality as I said here. Perhaps there is another solution to improve the balance without making all resources the same?

Maybe instead of limiting the mana storage you could give all other recourses a starting-limit of two. That would help to get out weaker units like armored guard out very fast. If this is too strong maybe the time you have to wait when you expand your storage with your castle should be reduced imo.

I think the storage limit is fine where it is. If you increase the starting limit to two, it will allow people to play their cards which increase storage limit extremely early. At the start of the game time you could then easily put Deep Mines, Large Quarry, Redwood into play. It wouldn’t take too long to get a card like Village Warehouse into play either.

This also would create a whole new version of rush decks. Imagine 3 Mountain Wolves in play at the start of the game or Elven Riders, Blade Dancers, etc. in play at the start. Right now, it still takes some time to get cards like Elven Riders and Blade Dancers that require at least two of one resource into play. It is possible to get them in play at the start right now, but doing so is also much more of a setback.

Resources would also be extremely ramped up at the start. It wouldn’t take very long and would be much easier to get a card like Copius Thicket into play.

I think gold is in a very good place right now. Since it is so much more difficult to acquire than the other resources it is very useful for attaching to powerful cards and abilities and/or cards that you don’t want to be deployed too early for balancing purposes.

Going back to the original point, I think mana is fine with no resource limit. If gaining mana is too easy, you can always increase the time it takes to acquire it.

ok. I agree with Cheezypoofs and would like to forward this question to all players:

Should we increase the time to acquire mana, ie. reduce production speeds?

If there are overpowered spells, we could also increase the mana cost on these individual cards. Or should mana be compare-able in value to iron, stone and wood?

I think some of the spells might be overpowered to be honest. I’ve been winning a majority of my games using a deck with a lot of spells. It seems too easy sometimes. If people agree that they are overpowered, I think there’s a few ways to handle the issue.

1) Increase the cost of the spells.
2) Reduce the effectiveness of the spells.
3) Limit the number of certain cards allowed in each deck.

Here are some of the spells (and the amount) I’ve been using in my deck that I think need to be looked at. I’ve included some suggestions for possible changes. I listed multiple suggestions for many of the cards. In most cases I think making just 1 change is enough.

Lesser Chain of Mind (4)
Cost = 2 mana

This spell is extremely powerful for how cheap it is. I think this is a great spell for stopping rush decks and I always include one of these in my starting hand.

1) INCREASE COST
• Increase cost to 3 mana.
• Increase cost to 2 mana, 2 population.

2) REDUCE EFFECTIVENESS
• Reduces targeted unit’s health by 3 and captures card. This would, of course, destroy any card with a health of 3 or below.
• Reduces targeted unit’s attack by 2 and captures card.
• Captured unit requires an additional 1 mana to move (or maybe attack instead).

3) LIMIT AMOUNT
• Limit the amount of this card to 2. There are several games where I have used this card 3 or 4 times and I think it made the game too easy, especially when you steal cards like someones alchemist. :P

Greater Chain of Mind (2)
Cost = 5 mana

I’m not sure whether this cost of this spell it too low or not. Capture spells are extremely powerful though. Allowing 4 of these along with 4 Lesser Chain of Mind spells I think is a little too much.

1) INCREASE COST
• Increase cost to 5 mana, 2 population.

2) LIMIT AMOUNT
• Limit the amount of this spell to 1 or 2.

Mind Agonizer (2)
Cost = 1 mana

I think this spell is just too cheap.

SWALLOW (2)
Cost = 3 mana, 2 stone

I’m not sure about this spell yet. It might be too strong in conjunction with all the other capture and destroy spells I have in my deck.

METEOR SHOWER (4)
Cost = 1 mana, 1 stone

I think this spell is too powerful later in the game, especially for its cost.

1) INCREASE COST
• Increase cost to 2 mana, 1 stone.
• Increase cost to 1 mana, 1 stone, 2 population. I kinda like the idea of some of these capture and destruction spells costing an additional amount of population.

2) REDUCE EFFECTIVENESS
• Card also does full or half damage to my units as well.
• Put a cap on the amount of damage it can do to 5 or 6.

3) LIMIT AMOUNT
• Limit amount to 2.

METEOR STORM (2)
Cost = 2 mana, 2 stone

Just a slightly better version Meteor Shower.

LIGHTNING STRIKE (4)
Cost = 2 mana

This card is just way too powerful.

1) INCREASE COST
• Increase cost to 3-5 mana.

2) REDUCE EFFECTIVENESS
• Opponent loses 4 population.

3) LIMIT AMOUNT
• Limit amount to 2.

PLAGUE (1)
Cost = 5 mana

This card is very interesting. It could be very powerful or very weak depending on your and your opponents population. The only suggestion I might make about this card it to put a cap on the amount of population it can take from someone.

1) REDUCE EFFECTIVENESS
• Max of 10 population.

Ok, great suggestions. Limiting the amount of card per deck is not possible yet – so its not a option :(, but most of the other things are possible, of course.

Lesser Chain of Mind
This one is tricky. It should be a rush stopper. But I remember the alchemist issue :). It would be best, to limit the amount to two, but – as I said – it’s not possible yet. With 3 mana it would be no longer a rush stopper. Population cost, would give the card an “evil” theme, which wasn’t meant – neither by name nor by artwork. Perhaps changing the condition from cost to attack would help? REDUCE EFFECTIVENESS might also work.

Greater Chain of Mind
Its a similar issue. Would be best to limit the amount.

Mind Agonizer

I think this spell is just too cheap.

Ok, maybe 1 mana, 2 population or just 2 mana or 3 mana?

SWALLOW

I’m not sure about this spell yet. It might be too strong in conjunction with all the other capture and destroy spells I have in my deck.

I don’t think its overpowered, but it might indeed be the combination.

METEOR SHOWER

Increase cost to 2 mana, 1 stone.

Ok, sounds reasonable.

METEOR STORM
Perhaps 4 mana, 2 stone?

LIGHTNING STRIKE
Ok, I would suggest “3 mana: Opponent loses 4 population” then.

PLAGUE

Max of 10 population.

This would make the card more complicated. An alternative would be to change “half population” to “a third of the population” – but this would make the card far less interesting.

LESSER CHAIN OF MIND
What did you mean by “changing the condition from cost to attack”?

I think a lot of these cards may be fine the way they are when you have the capability to limit the amount allowed per deck or when the cards have a limited distribution.

While some of these cards maybe be very strong right now, if they are not common then I think you can justify the cheaper costs. If it is rare that someone owns more than 1 Meteor Shower or Meteor Storm, or everyone doesn’t have access to 4 Lightning Strikes, then I don’t think it will be as much of an issue.

Just out of curiosity, how will players attain cards in this game? I assume through trading and buying booster packs?

I played another online TCG that had some similar rules to this one, especially pertaining to deck building. It was different from most online TCG’s in that players didn’t buy cards/booster packs. The game had a subscription fee and players played games to win and lose cards.

What did you mean by “changing the condition from cost to attack”?

Forget that. It was a stupid idea by me.

Just out of curiosity, how will players attain cards in this game? I assume through trading and buying booster packs?

The game will stay free, so there will be no ‘real buying’. Players will receive new cards for beating the ais, getting awards and playing the campaigns.

I played another online TCG that had some similar rules to this one, especially pertaining to deck building. It was different from most online TCG’s in that players didn’t buy cards/booster packs. The game had a subscription fee and players played games to win and lose cards.

It will be similar to that, but without the subscription fee :)

Ok. Here is an overview of the proposed changes:

• Start population will be 40. (this should increase game length like suggested in another thread by cheezy and also weakens direct damage cards, except Plague)

• Spell Costs will increase:

Greater Chain of Mind
5 mana, 1 gold

Lesser Chain of Mind
2 mana, 1 iron

Meteor Shower
2 mana, 1 stone

Meteor Storm
3 mana, 2 stone

Lightning Strike
3 mana, 2 iron

Mind Agonizer
2 mana

Plague
5 mana, 2 population

Some small and mid-range units might also get their Attack reduced by 1.

If no one objects, I will activate these change in the next few days.

I think this changes are ok.
only one problem:
teeraal, the greater demon.
now he must have 7*4/3 population cost this will really explode the icon-ress-place
better solution:
increase the cost for his attack: for 1 pop to 2-3 pop?

Hi guys:

Back to where this all started: I think it might make sense to make the beginning cap for Gold 2 or 3 — any respectable kingdom got to where it is through having gold… And, in terms of the game itself, it offsets the fact that it’s by far the most difficult resource to produce.

And, to echo and alter some of the talk around the early storage capacity increases, it might make sense to have different starting Castles — some might have beginning storage capacities that differ from others. So a basic one could have 1 of each resource, a Woodland Enclave might have 0 stone, 0 metal, 2 wood, 1 gold, an Imperial Outpost might have 0 stone, 2 metal, 1 wood, 0 gold, etc. It might lend itself to more duo-decks to have this kind of foundation…

imho,
to increase the beginn storage of gold to 2 or even 3 will break the “tech-principe” you could have very fast a golden dragon on the field while the enemy has only small-hp-units. With his mass attack ability you could be able to kill everything.
gold should be hard to storage, but the gold-units should be hard to.

I agree. Gold is much harder to acquire than the other resources and is a good way to keep some of the more powerful cards from appearing too early in the game.