Spell negating...

[jjt034]

I have a suggestion... If a province already has a spell cast upon it, should that spell have preference or at least have some effect on any later spell cast to counter it?

One example... Love & Peace vs. Chastity
If I cast Love & Peace on my province to up my birth rates and then later on, an enemy casts Chastity, despite the spell duration of my original spell, I go from raised birth rates to no birth rates.
However, if an enemy casts Chastity on my province and then later on, I cast Love & Peace to counter it, it doesn't work and I am still at no birth rates for the duration.
How is that right?

I think that if a province already has a spell cast in place (self or enemy), a second opposite spell should be able to only hinder or negate the effects of the original spell.
Make it so that the spell needs to be cast twice for the effects to take place, first to counter the original spell and second to cast the spell (and maybe make it harder to do so).

So... I cast Love & Peace and 2 ticks later, an enemy wants to cast Chastity... That enemy would have to cast twice. The first cast would negate my original spell and then the second cast would effect my province.
The same should go the other way as well. If I had Chastity cast on my province, I would need to cast Love and Peace twice, first to negate the original spell and then second to get the effects of L&P.

I know that there are other spells that counter each other and was using this one as an example.

Thanks!

-Mongo

[North Southland]

Well, you have drought and storms, that negate one another. In that instance, just casting once will automatically dispel the other.

There's also Mystic Aura, if you want to get technical, in the sense that any one spell must be cast twice to stick.

In short, I like your idea, and I think more spells should interact this way (fanaticism/minor protection, anyone?) but we already have spells that do this that you suggest.

[LuckySports]

it would make it too easy to counter a spell that already has a fairly short duration and moderate difficulty. Game balancing is important. Want to get rid of it? ask for a MV.

[North Southland]

The thing is, MV is an offensive (hostile) spell, and using it for intra-KD clearances is somewhat awkward –you need to be a non-mage and ask a mage to do it, and it's a fairly expensive and difficult spell you're asking for, so the mage probably has better uses for their limited mana/runes. It's also random, meaning it can take several tries to get rid of that pesky spell.

Chastity is already tough enough and short enough, true – but that can change. You could extend chastity a lot more (and I mean, a lot) if you gave L&P the chance to be a good counter spell and made it a bit harder/more expensive. That way, you can reward activity and having a moderate amount of guilds and you can make chastity a very good spell in certain situations.

And, like, that's the particular case of chastity. That was an example Mongo suggested, but there are other spells that either already work like that or could do in the future. Why not consider those, too?

[LuckySports]

So you want to change both spells so that they punish less active players? Why not just leave this one as is? It is already balanced. Does it suck? Sure.. but so does any combination of other spells/ops that can be done to you.

I don't think you should have spells that automatically counter an offensive spell on you, because it severely weakens mages. Where individually, thieves are already more valuable pound-per-pound (Which is also why there are more ways to counter them!), this would really cement mages as nothing more than a support role. MV has been used like this for ages, and it's difficult because it SHOULD be difficult. You are trying to undo the work an mage did to you, why make it easy?

[North Southland]

It mostly just weakens mages that cast chastity, calm down. Most mages are either doing fireballs, blizzards or meteor showers, none of which would have counters.

And this game already punishes less active players. If that's your complaint, I think you're way off in suggesting this is what harms non-activity the most.

[LuckySports]

I am always calm.

And, like, that's the particular case of chastity. That was an example Mongo suggested, but there are other spells that either already work like that or could do in the future. Why not consider those, too?

Already forget this part?

By your own words, this would weaken chastity, which would effectively make it useless since it's already not that powerful. You need to dedicate a fair amount of time and effort into maintaining it for it to be truly effective, which is hard to do on a large-scale.

It would most definitely harm less active players the most, because an active player could login, see chastity, cast L&P, and then be on their merry way. A player that is less active will be less likely to catch it early if at all, thus allowing it to cause more harm. It's a pretty direct connection.