Skills

[Sogrom]

Skills is first totally new addition to our game. Maybe it's not as big change as you people expected, but this is intentional; i know the game is already pretty good, and changing it should be careful. I thought about it for few weeks before deciding to actually put it in. What favored this project was that it makes possible for you to add to the game what you thought it was lacking. I just run through UBB boards to see what people see as biggest flaw / best enhancement to it and came up with this idea.

Remember that this comes with many bigger or smaller changes to currenlty existing game parts, which will be announced later as we're still tweaking them. So, you may not have full view at this time; however, you will have something to talk about during the game break :)

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The mages you can hire in Guilds can spend their time on thaumaturgical research, improving existing magick techniques. All this effort at some point can become useful even to most powerful mages, such as you. When you build Mage Guilds on your land, people working in them can not only help in researching new spells or uncovering ancient artifacts - they will also spend their time on mentioned thaumaturgy. This is reflected by research points income - to simplify things we assume that 1 Guild can generate 10 points per turn. However, only small percentage of inhabitants of you country is talented enough to provide such exceptional science work. It means that your Guilds can only produce maximum amount of points equal to size of your land. For example, with 3500 acres you can have maximum income of 3500 points, so having 350 Guilds is sufficient.
All this work becomes useful for you when you gather some amount of research points - this depends on server speed (it will be 250,000 on Guild). When you gather 250,000 points, they turn into one free SKILL POINT. You can spend it to improve your magic skill in one of 10 fields. You can use you free skill point at any time you want, however you can have maximum 5 unused skill points. If you have 5 free skill points and you are going to gain another - it is lost. Spending skill point costs 1 turn.

The 10 skills are divided into two groups: color-specific skills and neutral skills. Color skills are more powerful, but training color-specific skill that has different aligment from your magic specialty takes double amount of skill points.

When you train yourself in one skill, you increase your rank in it. There are 20 ranks in each skill, and attaining each next rank is more expensive (see the table below). Off-color skills take twice the amount of skill points, as mentioned above.

Rank-Total skill points needed
1 1
2 3
3 6
4 10
5 15
6 21
7 28
8 36
9 45
10 55
11 66
12 78
13 91
14 105
15 120
16 136
17 153
18 171
19 190
20 210


Here are short descriptions of all 10 skills. Generally, the higher skill rank the better the effect.

Barrier Proficiency [White]
Enhances your ability in supporting barriers. You have higher maximum resistance from building barriers (more then regular 75 maximum).

Combat Casting [Green]
Greately reduces chance to fail casting of any spell. Additionaly, at rank 20 you never lose concentration, even when under Confuse or similar effect.

Spell Penetration [Red]
Gives you ability to pierce your enemies barriers and creature spell resistance. It decreases target mages barrier resistance (if he has any) and spell resistance of his entire army (in battle).

Undead Mastery [Black]
It greatly empowers all your Undead units. Additionaly, at rank 10 creates Wraith instead of Zombies with Touch of Necromancy enchantment, and at rank 15 creates Liches. At rank 20, all Undead units gain +1 initiative in battle.

Spell Mastery [Blue]
Decreses spell casting cost. The effect is better with off-color spells, and very strong with opposite color spells. In addition, at rank 20 all spells cost 1 turn less to cast (with minimum 1 turn).



Grand Enchanter [Plain]
All enchantments you cast have increased effectiveness. At rank 10, all enchantments take 1 turn less to cast; at rank 20 enchants cost 2 turns less (with minimum 1 turn).

God's Favored [Plain]
You have better chance to get divine attention. At rank 10, all God relations last twice as long. At rank 15, you can atone from Hatred. At rank 20 God relations do not expire in time.

Legendary Commander [Plain]
All your armies get permanent bonus to attack and counter.

Augment Summoning [Plain]
Simply increases amount of summoned units.

Grand Conqueror [Plain]
After won battle, normally you capture one-third of destroyed land. With this skill, you capture more.



Initially Skills will be available only on Guild server. If we see they work ok, we'll migrate them to other servers.

Stay tuned to check Armageddon rules and other game changes, which should be posted shortly.

[Sogrom]

Here is thread where you ask questions and receive answers concerning skill system:

http://ubb.the-reincarnation.com/viewtopic.php?t=4592