Mana terrain features

[joseasoler]

It could be a good idea to implement terrain features similar to the Elemental Quarter, but for single specific types of mana. They would be a bit more common than the Elemental Quarter.

[Tasunke Witka]

what is the Elemental Quarter?

[joseasoler]

A terrain feature generated by MapScriptTools. It consists on 4 mana nodes (water, fire, earth and air) adjacent to each other. The terrain next to each one of the mana nodes is altered in a way that fits the element. I mean to either reduce its frequency a lot or to remove it.

[Tasunke Witka]

I think that fire Nodes should start near plains and burnt forest ... and fire nodes should give a chance to start smoke and fires in nearby forests.

Sun Nodes should start near Desert

Nature Nodes near Ancient Forest or Jungle

Water Nodes near Jungle, Rivers, Coast

Air Nodes Near Coast, Hills, and Peaks,

Earth Nodes near Hills and Peaks

Entropy nodes could give nearby tiles the 'Hell Terrain' modification.

Death nodes could have Barrows nearby (preferably on Plains or Desert)

Ice nodes near tundra/ice

Life nodes on grassland/ floodplains

Also, magic could affect yields of either its own tile or the tiles around it. (own tile yields would be easier, as terrain effects already produce surrounding tile yields indirectly).

Some magic could give hammers, others commerce, others food, some a mix, some perhaps even a penalty of some kind. Body mana could work like a miniature Odo's Prison and strengthen the nearby units.

Good mana for hammers: Earth, Fire, Death

Good mana for Commerce: Air, Chaos, Enchantment

Good mana for Food: Life, Water, Creation

penalty manas -> Entropy, Dimensional

mixed manas -> Water (food/commerce), Enchantment (hammers, commerce)

perhaps give Creation a little of all three.

Spirit mana could (directly increase?) the culture and GPP of the nearest city.

Or can an improvement node give a raw culture yield?

If raw yields are possible (like culture, science, gold), then Air, Earth, Enchantment = gold, Entropy,Death,Chaos = science Water, Spirit, Life = culture, etc

Body, Nature, and Life are good candidates for food (nature as food/hammers)

Ice would also be a good candidate for culture, of some kind (Preservation of Traditions, Keeping things of the same nature, etc) ....

Fire- passion/destruction, ice-maintain status quo, keep frozen, nature-growth/progress of an ongoing nature, creation-random and ecstatic progress, chaos-conflict and unexpected outcomes, body-various lusts and hungers, as well as strength of the physical form, Spirit- various virtues, as well as strength of the spirit, primarily HOPE (although Trust and perseverance are also important)

Life is actually the sphere that represents perseverance the strongest. The refusal to die, the constant struggle to keep going, going forward, going backward, up and down, but to just keep on keeping on. Basium was the archangel of life, and I believe he maintained with Arawn even after Arawn gave the life sphere to Sucellus. He worked well with Gyra (who was the archangel of death I believe), and therefore he was able to open a gate into Arawn's vault to somehow gain the souls of the newly deceased. 'Technically' half the neutral souls go to Basium and half the neutral souls are stolen by Ars Moriendi for the evil heavens, while those of good nature go to the good heavens. However it is better for the game to have good go to Basium and evil go to Hyborem (but it is why even neutral cities will go to one or the other, and sometimes both ... at least in the original mod).

[joseasoler]

I like the suggestions with regard to how each node type would affect nearby nodes. IMO having mana nodes should have the implicit penalty of giving poor yields, and therefore I don't think that they should modify them.