Sorcery Realm

Sorcery magic specializes in manipulating magic itself, and is best at tactical defensive magic and taking control.

Strengths

 * Counter, Dispel or manipulate other wizard's spells
 * Has only diplomacy purpose spell in the game
 * Neutral on the alignment scale which often helps diplomatic relations
 * Extremely powerful in the late game
 * Strong against Life wizards due to dispelling power. Strong at killing fantastic creatures
 * Good at combat summoning
 * Has diverse tactical options for combat spellcasting
 * Has spells to increase Casting Skill
 * Good at dominating naval battles

Weaknesses

 * Almost completely lacks spells that buff or debuff economy
 * Unit buffs don't increase combat stats, instead provide tactical benefits
 * Direct damage spells are below average
 * Overland summoning is mediocre at best

Common
NOTE: Comments from the developer of Caster of Magic are included in  italics .

1. Focus Magic (new)
Cost: 80 MP

Research: 440 RP

The enchanted unit gains 15 additional MP casting ability and gains +3 magical ranged or breath attack. If it did not have one, but had thrown or another type of ranged attack, it is converted to a magical ranged attack of equal strength. If the unit had neither, it gains a strength 3 magical ranged attack with 3 ammo.

''The game had plenty of spells to buff various attack types on a target unit, but nothing buffed magical ranged attacks or MP capacity. Both of these fit Sorcery the best. This spell also unlocks great combo potential, as adding a ranged attack to a unit enables it to use touch attack effects at range, which is most effective on creatures of other realms, but Sorcery can also utilize it by casting it on Nagas.''

Both the Focus Magic Nagas and Cockatrices strategy was tested and wasn't too powerful, thanks to the high casting cost of Focus Magic itself.

2. Resist Magic
Cost: 8/40 MP

Research: 320 RP

Enchanted unit gains +5 resistance against magic spells or effects.

''Poison being the only effect that doesn't count magical but checks magic resistance this is a fairly good protection spell that covers more realms than Bless but does not protect from spells that deal damage, or breath attacks. Still, these are the less valuable parts of the effect and being able to becomes mostly immune to resistance based spells from all realms is definitely worth the slightly higher cost.''

''For most of the development cycles this spell had a cost of 25 but that cost made it way too trivial to negate the disadvantage of usinglow resistance creatures or races. Like on most of these spells, the amount of bonus was increased because situational buffs that don't even provide reliable amounts of resistance are worthless, and resistance is typically situational.''

3. Guardian Wind
Cost: 6/30 MP

Research: 200 RP

Enchanted unit gains Missile Immunity.

''Another one of those situational buffs that gives a complete immunity to one specific threat. This and Warp Wood ensures the otherwise usually most efficient bow units in the early game aren't a universal solution to everything. Casting cost was reduced because you usually need to cast this on your whole army to be relevant, otherwise the unbuffed units will still get targeted and killed by missile attacks.''

4. Nagas
Cost: 73 MP

Research: 320 RP

Creature: 5 melee,+1 To Hit, 4 defense, 7 resistance, 3 movement, 5 health, 3 figures, First Strike, Poison 3, Water Walking

Nagas offer mediocre combat stats at a fairly high price but significant tactical advantages, as expected from the realm of Sorcery.

Poison allows them to deal damage regardless of armor, First Strike can help them engage enemies without suffering too much damage in retaliation, and fast water movement enables them to attack targets from unexpected directions early in the game, increasing the role of proper garrisoning, as well as making them excellent scouts.

''The unit's existence also serves as a major balancing factor against super-buffed Life units, Undead, and Werewolves as well as making sure the Poison game mechanic appears on just the right amount of units in the early game when it can be relevant without making it overly dominant. For a while they used to have 4 poison but that made them way too good for what they meant to be after the Poison mechanic was buffed. I considered all ways to make the unit less powerful, but pretty much every stat on it was the lowest amount possible without losing the unit's intended functionality.''

In the end, reduction of poison by 1 was selected, as calculations showed even 3x3 poison is enough for the intended goal of countering the mention of Life and Death early strategies.

5. Phantom Warriors
Cost: 14 MP

Research: 320 RP

Creature: 3 melee, 0 defense, 4 resistance, 2 movement, 1 health, 7 figures, Illusion, Poison Immunity, Death Immunity,

Stoning Immunity, Non-Corporeal

''Although a summoning spell, it offers extremely vulnerable troops whose only real purpose is to deal defense ignoring damage to anyone daring to get too close the the Sorcery wizard's half of the battlefield and dying in the process immediately. While this makes them act like a direct damage spell, using them trades away the ability to target any unit on the battlefield at any time, in exchange dealing slightly better damage that also scales by the presence of global unit buffs, such as a Sorcery node aura or Paladin.''

''This scaling effect is amplified by the very high figure count, while the zero armor and 1 hit point ensures the unit will not survive the encounter in most cases. Cost has been raised by 4 MP which might not seem much but is a 40% difference from the original, ensuring the spell to remain powerful but more fairly balanced. Being non-corporeal, this creature and all Sorcery summons in general, can be used in naval combat, helping the realm to dominate on the seas as intended.''

6. Psionic Blast
Cost: 20 MP

Research: 380 RP

Perform a strength 18 Illusion attack on a target during combat.

By far the least cost effective common direct damage spell, this offers a mere 0.24 damage per MP invested on average, in exchange for the tactical advantage of completely ignoring armor. While this makes it the only such spell that can't outdamage healing, and the cost of 20 MP makes it prohibitively expensive in the early game, allowing only one use per combat, remember that Sorcery is the realm weakest at raw direct damage spells and ignoring armor, while not especially useful in the early game, is extremely valuable later. ThisMP cost also makes this spell available for Magicians, significantly increasing the value of those units in hands of Sorcery players.

Slider cost have been removed from most spells in the mod as it typically worked poorly, and this decision is extra relevant on this particular spell, limiting the armor ignoring damage potential at the intended amount. The ability to pump the spell literally made it a top tier late game direct damage spell in the original Master of Magic, something a Sorcery Common spell has no business being.

7. AEther Sparks
Cost: 12 MP

Research: 260 RP

Perform a strength 20 attack on the target unit in combat. If it has MP or magical ammo, halve them.

''A mediocre direct damage spell that offers much less attack strength at a higher cost than Fire Bolt, but comes with the tactical advantage of countering magical units, which can often make it useful even on targets where the damage would be not relevant like high end fantastic creatures. However against targets having only a reasonable amount of armor it is often more cost efficient than Psionic Blast, and this spell isn't influenced by Illusion Immunity, making it the only way a Sorcery player can deal with certain units before reaching Rare tier spells.''

8. Floating Island
Cost: 45 MP

Research: 160 RP

Summons a Floating Island: 3 movement transport that does not participate in battles and cannot move the turn it was

summoned.

A good early game replacement of ships, saving you the trouble of building a town near sea and a ship wright's guild. On top of these, your walking units can participate in sea battles when using these, while in ships, they can only watch the ship getting sunk by the enemy and die. The Floating Island itself cannot fight, but the army carried by it will most likely be stronger than the ship you would use otherwise to carry it, even if they cannot move, making sure this spell improves Sorcery's ability to dominate naval combat.

The low casting cost makes it a very reasonable choice instead of using a ship, and not being able to move on the turn of summoning ensures it can't be abused as a one-shot “this stack can move an additional 3 tiles” spell on stacks that can already move over water on their own.

9. Confusion
Cost: 18 MP

Research: 320 RP

Target enemy unit in combat must save at -2 or get confused: Each turn there is a 25% chance for the unit being under enemy control/under your control/moving randomly/being unable to move. At end of combat, if the unit was still confused, it dies irrecoverably.

Along with Crack's Call this spell isn't very popular but serves a major purpose in game balance by being able to permanently destroy the early game regenerating units, and ensuring players suffer losses and pay the price for their expansion if targeting the Sorcery wizard's empire in the early game for conquest, a most reasonably and common strategy.

Beyond the early game, Dispel Magic can keep the spell's efficiency manageable, but it still makes resistance a relevant thing to consider when fighting Sorcery wizards. While from a viewpoint of fighting against it, the spell might feel too powerful, ultimately it has the same save modifier as Black Sleep, a higher casting cost, and significantly more chance for the unit to survive the effect as it's not going to instantly die the moment it is attacked, giving a much more reasonable chance of dispelling to the player.

Meanwhile, from the other side, if the player is the one using Confusion, while it can potentially turn enemy units against each other, the spell is quite unpredictable and will often result in the unit merely failing to engage or even outright attacking the player as if it was unaffected. Guaranteed destruction of the unit after combat sounds like a great benefit, but isn't particularly useful except as a last resort when winning would be hopeless otherwise, or an efficient removal spell in cases when the player already managed to make sure their units and cities are safe from the enemy attacking them.

The random nature of the spell is more appropriate for the Chaos realm, but Chaos already has reliable ways to destroy enemies through direct damage and would find such a “trickery” spell useless.

10. Blur
Cost: 25 MP

Research: 480 RP

There is a 20% chance each point of damage that would be dealt to your units in combat will have no effect, applied before defense rolls.

''This spell received a fairly major overhaul. Originally an uncommon reducing 10% damage, it was entirely too weak even considering Sorcery isn't as good at defensive spells as Life. Still, compared to Prayer's effective 25% damage and 33% defense increase on most units, a 10% reduction with no damage bonus was extremely lackluster.''

''The spell was moved to common rarity both to ensure it's not as powerful and game defining as Prayer, and also because that enables a better combo potential of the player taking a limited amount of Sorcery books to stack this bonus with other defensive advantages. Obviously, a global damage reduction is still a very good effect so it received the highest common RP cost and a fairly high casting cost, while providing a benefit that is appropriate for the tier and realm: 20%. The initial amount was 25% but further testing and calculations implied that amount would be a bit too much.''

''This also managed to make this into one of those common spells that remain useful for most of the game, as a stacking damage reduction is a valuable ability even in the endgame if the player can spare a combat turn to cast it. The spell's outstanding usefulness is greatly diminished by the abundance of units with Illusion Immunity to ensure it isn't as universal and potent as other global combat buffs from realms more specialized at those effects.''

1. Aura of Majesty
Cost: 200 MP

Research: 420 RP

Each turn, the diplomatic relation of the caster improves with each other player.

''The amount of relation improved by turn depends on the existing relation, the lower, the stronger the effect, so this spell is very good at staying on good terms with most wizards, but will not push relation to the point where it's easy to get a wizard's pact or alliance by itself on wizards opposing the player's realm. The initial relation gain that happens when the spell is cast was reduced to 4 to ensure re-casting the spell many times instead of casting it once and maintaining it does not become a more effective strategy.''

2. Counter Magic
Cost: 50 MP

Research: 1280 RP

Create a counter magic pool of 70 in battle. Each enemy spell has a (cost/pool) chance to be successfully cast, otherwise they are countered and the pool decreases by 10.

''This spell was somewhat tricky to design right because two opposing goals meet here. On one side, spells getting countered isn't fun so this spell had to still offer ways for the other player to cast them often enough. On the other side however, Counter Magic had to be reliable enough to be worth using - a control spell that fails to actually take control and only occasionally works is a failure.''

Obviously, for something as major as stopping enemy spells entirely, to be efficient was too powerful at the original common spell tier, so the spell was moved up to Uncommon, and to ensure both goals are met, I decided to use a formula that is very likely to counter spells of lower tiers, but unlikely or outright unable to counter spells of a higher tier than itself.

That makes it fit the role of spell tiers and thanks to the presence of many common spells that remain useful even in the late game, don't undermine the value of the spell - Counter Magic's caster can be sure the other party won't be using their low cost spells he wanted to prevent, while that other party can still have fun playing the game through casting bigger spells that won't be countered instead.

''The new formula ensures chance to counter is 0% if the cost of the spell exceeds the counter pool so most very rare spells will be unaffected and even most rares have a very high chance to work and will always work after one or at worst two failures. This design also gives a choice to the other player: they can use low cost spells for a while to weaken Counter Magic, sacrificing a few turns but not losing much in casting skill and mana crystals, or take the risk of using medium cost spells that are immediately beneficial if successful but a major loss otherwise. Of course only if they have no expensive, high tier spells which will always be successful.''

3. Spell Lock
Cost: 100 MP

Research: 1280 RP

Enchantments on the enchanted unit can't be dispelled until Spell Lock was dispelled. Enchanted fantastic unit is unaffected by “banishing” type magic.

''A powerful spell to support the already powerful but extremely dispel vulnerable unit buff stacking strategies, Spell Lock serves the unusual specialized role of being a counter to a counter and it is still good enough to be worth player attention, showing how good and popular buffing based strategies actually are. While powerful, disabling the ability to recast it in battle ensures the dispelling of Spell Lock will get followed up by losing more enchantments on the unit, instead of providing non removable protection.''

''The AI's ability to properly use Dispelling Wave on the overland map further acts as a way to keep these strategies under control, as an entire stack of buffed units will definitely lose several copies of Spell Lock and hundreds of mana worth of spells when targeted. Protecting fantastic units is a nice and often overlooked effect that makes the spell useful even for those who have no buffs to protect, and works against Exorcise, Holy Word, Banish and even Great Unsummoning.''

4. Spell Blast
Cost: 50 MP

Research: 2140 RP

Target overland spell is countered. Lose mana equal to the mana already spent on that spell.

''Another spell that caused some major headache, Sorcery is full of those. On one side, spells getting countered is super unfun, and consistently getting countered is even worse. On the other, the human player will want to be able to somehow prevent those big endgame spells that would make them lose - it wouldn't be a late game focused defensive realm if it had no choice but to let Armageddon or worse Spell of Mastery get cast by another wizard without having an ability to interfere.''

''Higher success rate of Dispelling is nice but many of the threats are not enchantments and even those that are, might do too much damage during the turn it takes to remove them. Also, while not fun for the receiving end, being able to counter the spells of others is fun. The problem was unsealed from the bottle when Hadriex complained the Sorcery AI wasn't stopping the other AI from winning through Spell of Mastery even though it had Spell Blast, so he lost the game. He was right, the AI should have been able to use Spell Blast intelligently to counter the spells that would be a threat to them, at least from enemy wizards. (The AI doesn't cast curse type spells, which includes Spell Blast, at targets they aren't hostile towards)''

''So a list of spells the AI will always attempt to counter was made. However that meant (human) players can't cast those spells at all when a Sorcery wizard is present - extremely unfun and completely opposes the design goal. Worse, curse type spells are also randomly used against enemies for no other reason than to be mean, and the frequency of this is regulated by the AI's personality trait, so getting into a war - or simply not having a wizard's pact with - a maniacal Sorcery wizard could often lead into the situation when the player's spells were countered almost every turn, regardless of what they were.''

''As making Spell Blast itself worse wasn't an option - I still wanted human players to be able to stop spells effectively when playing Sorcery - the issue was solved through adjusting AI behavior. The AI will only use Spell Blast against spells if Detect Magic was cast. The player can dispel Detect Magic (Disjunction isn't on the list of spells to counter as the AI has no way of knowing in advance what the player intends to target) and then the AI will stop intentionally countering their spells, until the AI recasts Detect Magic which has a fairly low priority.''

''The AI will not cast Spell Blast randomly as a “curse” during hostilities at all if the human player's overland casting skill is below 200. This ensures the player already has enough skill to instantly cast most spells, only being unable to do so for higher end bigger spells, and can expect to be able to have most of their spells be instant in a reasonable amount of time if prioritizing raising casting skill.''

''The AI receives a 40% casting cost penalty for casting most global enchantments and a few similar spells. This ensures when casting those there is a few turns of gap during which the human player has the chance to push through their own big spells. Note this penalty is on top of the difficulty based bonus they receive to overland spellcasting so even despite it they aren't casing the spells slower than if they had no bonus in the first place for most difficulties, but they do it slow enough to let the player get a breathing room to cast something. (this also applies in the reverse, if the player wants to keep spell blasting they can only cast their own big spells when the AI is busy casting theirs slightly reducing the power level of the spell)''

5. Vertigo
Cost: 10 MP

Research: 640 RP

Target enemy unit in combat must resist at -4 or loses -3 To Hit and -1 To Defend.

''Added a major save modifier and reduced the casting cost to make this underwhelming spell worthy of being an uncommon. Compare it to Shatter - reducing attack power to 1 is as good as eliminating completely, while penalties on to hit still leaves the unit with at least 1/4 of its original damage output. So the effect isn't as good and its higher tier, but the much better save modifier and the To Defend reduction makes up for it. (The original version reduced defense instead, this was changed to To Defend to make it more potent.)''

6. Dispelling Wave
Cost: 25-125 MP

Research: 1920 RP

Attempt to dispel enemy spells on the target map square. Additionally, when cast in combat, remove all enemy unit enchantments. Formula for dispelling is the same as Dispel Magic but the dispelling power is only half of the mana spent.

''This is pretty much Disenchant Area except now area dispelling is only allowed for the Sorcery realm. Long forum discussion and plenty of calculations were done to ensure dispelling power matches my intended design goal of being a very effective counter to mass-buffing stacks. On top of that, the AI's priority to cast this spell (and target it on the overland map) scales with the number of enchantments for this same purpose although note combat and overland casting decisions use entirely different algorhitms.''

''The original, possibly buggy behavior that combat dispelled city enchantments “respawn” after combat was kept as it works much better for gameplay. The ability to dispel combat global enchantments was removed because I disagree with the original design that made everything dispellable. There has to be at least a few groups of spells players can turn towards when their enemy specializes in dispelling power. For this same reason, Magic Vortexes are no longer affected by this spell either.''

7. Flight
Cost: 22 MP

Research: 1280 RP

Enchanted unit gains Flying movement and a minimal speed of 3.

A good spell that didn't need changes. While suggestions to nerfing flight in general have been posted, I believe flight as is is a valuable and good game mechanic that enhances and deepens the tactical gameplay. Being able to avoid getting attacked and retreating to safety as combat turns run out is a feature, not an exploit. Being able to defend cities using flying units is a nice tactic that enhances the game and makes wall breaking relevant, as then units can enter and destroy buildings and population even if they have to retreat after battle.

While some people perceive this too as an exploit, the harsh reality is the most you can gain from this is losing many of your buildings and having to deal with the same enemy attacking again next turn and their now refilled combat spellcasting ability. In some cases that can be outright worse than losing and reconquering the city, and is by no means able to produce any benefit.

8. Water Elemental (new)
Cost: 150 MP

Research: 1280 RP

Creature: 14 melee, 14 magical ranged (4 ammo), +2 To Hit, 7 defense, 7 resistance, 3 movement, 15 health, 1 figure, Poison Immunity, Fire Immunity, Weapon Immunity, Water movement

''Sorcery had no uncommon creature at all, which made the realm extremely hard to play in the early and mid game which hits AI players even harder. At the time the mod's first intended design of “very weak late game but almost unbeatable late game” was toned down because nobody liked AI Sorcery wizards reaching late game equaling an automatic game over, the need to provide at least one medicore uncommon creature for the realm surfaced to improve their early/midgame.''

''Water is the most suitable element and the only one of the four that had no “Elemental” creature, it seemed logical to choose that. While the other elementals are combat only, Water is the primary element of the world - 60-90% of the planes are covered by ocean and just like in the real world, most lifeforms have a large percentage of water in their bodies so consideirng the worlds water based planes would be reasonable.''

''The creature itself has stats similar to but slightly worse than Fire Giant overall, another mediocre uncommon creature, but excels at tactial use by having good water movement speed, weapon immunity (which Sorcery 8+ book strategies might even get early enough to take advantage of), posion immunity which counters several common tier creatures and one pretty good uncommon one, and most importantly, good magic ranged attack ability. While not very strong by itself, this creature can still form powerful stacks in larger groups as you'd expect from a general purpose uncommon creature.''

9. AEther Binding
Cost: 400 MP

Research: 960 RP

All dispel type spells cast are twice as effective. Gain SP equal to the current turn count each turn.

''The game almost entirely lacked spells that increase casting skill, and Sorcery is definitely the best realm for that. This spell's effect grows over time both playing into the role of “Sorcery is stronger in the late game” and ensuring the effect is neither overpowered early,nor irrelevant late in the game. It's also how the realm now achieves the “Strong at dispelling” role, without requiring additional spell slots for the “True” spells.''

10. Phantom Beast
Cost: 35 MP

Research: 1600 RP

Combat Creature: 18 melee, +1 To Hit, 0 defense, 6 resistance, 2 movement, 25 health, 1 figure, Illusion, Poison Immunity, Death Immunity, Stoning Immunity, Non-Corporeal

''An improved version of Phantom Warriors, the beast is still very fragile and often goes down in a single attack against multi-figure units due to having no armor, it's quite a bit more effective against single figure units, where it can expect to survive a few attacks and keep doing damage. With its 25 health it's also able to provide combat presence to avoid the combat ending with a defeat, although in this case extreme caution is needed to ensure the beast doesn't get killed immediately due to its lack of armor.''

While most of the time better, it isn't always the best option, as phantom warriors can still be the better choice when global buffs improve their attack power on each figure, ensuring it won't cause that spell to be entirely obsolete.

1. Mind Storm
Cost: 35 MP

Research: 4500 RP

Enchanted unit in combat loses 5 resistance, 5 defense, 5 ranged and 3 melee attack.

''A personal favorite of mine, this spell is an excellent combo enabler. While one would think curses belong to the Death realm, especially those that reduce resistances, I have to disagree. Death realm is good enough at intantly killing units that any high tier curses to weaken them would be perfeiced as worthless and uninteresting for a Death player. Death also is based on the “resistance matter” theme so giving them access to the game's most potent resistance reduction spell would be a mistake.''

''However, as a rare Sorcery spell it encourages taking Sorcery along with Death, Chaos or Nature, all of which offer some powerful resistance based spells without making this extremely powerful combo overly accessible. While it's quite potent and allows killing almost any unit in the game, it has to be pointed out it comes at a high price, as you need to both cast Mind Storm and whichever spell you intend to actually destroy the unit, and spending 2 turns and a sizeable amount of combat spellcasting skill on killing a single unit while still top tier, allows the other player to have time to participate in the game at least when they use larger stacks of units for combat.''

''Also, the abundant presence of Illusion Immunity ensures even this combo isn't omnipotent and there are some units that can withstand it. Of course, combo isn't the only way to use the spell, as a spell that reduces defense and attack power without a save modifier this is a potent combat effect by itself, in fact it was so powerful the attack reduction had to be limited to 2. While 5 defense reduction seems overpowered, consider that this realm can ignore defense using common spells, so it is only following that theme and doesn't stand out as much as it would in any other.''

2. Invisibility
Cost: 30/150 MP

Research: 3500 RP

Enchanted unt is invisibile: cannot be targeted by ranged attacks, and applies the effect of Blur when receiving attacks. If Blur is also in effect, the chance to prevent damage is increased to 30%. The unit also can't be seen and targeted by enemy wizards unless they have a unit with Illusion Immunity in battle.

As explained previously, this effect was way too powerful for the early game, fortunately being a rare spell this is not a concern to worry about here, although it did contribute to my decision to ensure rare tier spells also don't appear in treasure before a certain game turn and get replaced by an appropriately valuable other treasure.

''However the damage reduction the original had was way too powerful - reducing enemy chance to hit - especially the way it stacked with Blur so this was modified, and Invisibility now applies the exact same effect as Blur and stacking the two has only 1.5 times the effect.While this spell is very powerful, it's also very fun and a major source of interesting new tactics. Keeping them in the game is essential, however it's outright gamewinning if the AI isn't aware of how to react to it.''

''Thus many significant improvements were necessary for the AI - if no visible targets exists, the AI will now move randomly to try to find and engage the enemy units, and will prioritize casting spells that either provide Illusion Immunity or can affect all enemy units, thus also hitting the invisible ones. Furthermore the AI also had to learn to take advantage of the Invisibility ability and try to hide their units from enemies to stall for time when they can't expect to win through a direct approach. Fortunately I already implemented this AI tactic for flying and high movement speed units so only the right conditions had to be added to also trigger it on invisible ones.''

''This spell is a perfect example of how Sorcery fights: not increasing stats on the unit at all yet making it extremely difficult to kill regardless. It's worth mentioning again: while the AI will pretend to not know where invisible units are when fighting against them, this feature is limited to combat. They'll still be aware of the location of invisible units on the overland map as implementing them not to see these would be extremely difficult (there are hundreds of places in the code where the AI checks for the presence of units to decide on various forms of movement) and wouldn't really make the game better, it would only open up a lot of abuse potential by tricking the AI into''

''attacking unbeatable invisible forces and wasting their troops regularly. This would also have a negative influence on the human player - currently finding the path towards a destination will consider invisible units and will not accidentally bump into them on the way which can easily escalate into a war, so such accidents can only happen when the player directly clicks the tile with the invisible enemy unit.''

''Taking advantage of this pathfinding feature enables the human players a limited ability to find where invisible units are, likewise in combat they can find them through the face tiles occupied by them are not available for movement and show an “invalid target” type cursor. Finally, the AI will know where your invisible units are when summoning combat creatures and will often summon next to them to reveal their location: this tries to simulate the fact you can't summon on the tile of the invisible unit which reveals the location, similarly how the human player can do the same on unit movement.''

3. Air Elemental
Cost: 50 MP

Research: 4000 RP

Combat Creature: 15 melee, +1 To Hit, 7 defense, 9 resistance, 5 movement, 10 health, 1 figure, Poison Immunity, Weapon Immunity, Stoning Immunity, Non-Corporeal, Invisible, Flying

''Unlike Phantom Beast, the Air Elemental has very little hit points and less damage output, but has high movement and armor, weapon immunity, can fly, and is invisible, making it a much more tactical option. While it can be great for killing medium tier multi figure units which would kill the phantom beast way too quickly, the main advantage is countering ranged units even better than Guardian Wind, Magic Immunity or even Invisibility itself can, and to stall for time to cast more spells.''

''Originally it had pretty high abuse potential as the AI didn't attempt to find it, nor did they try to enter the city to damage buildings, so summoning one was a guaranteed way of defending the city without losing anything of value in the process. However thanks to the AI updates, this is no longer the case and assuming the enemy units can enter the city, they'll cause massive damage, only prolonging the inevitable defeat next turn. Nonetheless, when you ensured they can't enter your city, and have enough casting power, an Air Elemental will buy you the time to eliminate the attackers and keep your city safe, which is something Sorcery needs to be good at even more than any other realm.''

''Of course this applies in the reverse - when the player attempts to conquer a city from a Sorcery AI, they will need a plan to deal with any Air Elementals that might show up. Also, this creature is the reason why Non-corporeal creatures can't raise as undead other than flavor - you need a body to make it undead!-, as already explained, Invisibility in the early game is too powerful and raising neutral Air Elementals as undead is one way to achieve that - and to make it worse the AI often did that too.''

4. Wind Walking
Cost: 200 MP

Research: 5000 RP

Enchanted unit gains Wind Walking.

''While still powerful, the overpowered nature of this spell has been eliminated by ensuring the availability of + movement items on heroes is not excessive. Its relevance was further lowered as transportation is fixed to work correctly on flying ships, enabling them to transport troops over land tiles, providing nearly identical functionality.''

5. Banish
Cost: 35 MP

Research: 4000 RP

All figures in target fantastic units in combat must resist at -4 or be irrecoverably dead.

''Another example where removing the slider option made the spell much more reasonably balanced. This is a higher tier than Exorcise and is also in a realm that is strong at removal spells targeting fantastic creatures, so the save modifier is much higher, although inexchange, so is the casting cost. This spell makes Sorcery izards a major threat in battle as normal units can have a hard time dealing with all their tactical effects and buffs, but fantastic units are difficulty to keep alive against them.''

''This versatility ensures Sorcery is very powerful in the late game as intended and the ability to combine Mind Storm with Banish enables Sorcery wizards to stop even the most powerful creatures if they lack Illusion Immunity. Fortunately, all realms have such a creature, except Chaos which doesn't rely on them and dominates battle through spells of mass destruction.''

6. Magic Immunity
Cost: 36/180 MP (10 MP/turn)

Research: 5500 RP

Enchanted unit gains Magic Immunity: 100 defense and resistance against all spells, and magical ranged, gaze or touch attacks.

''Probably the only form of Magic Immunity not removed from Caster of Magic, this spell has been one of the major reasons for Sorcery's late game potential. While powerful, in this case reducing the casting cost made the spell more balanced as it's more likely to get dispelled that way, which is the most effective (and often only) way to deal with it. Nature magic still provides a few spells that can bypass this, and it no longer offers additional defense from breath attacks, giving a role for Elemental Armor that Magic Immunity isn't able to replicate.''

''It's worth noting the still high cost comes with literally no benefits in combat stats and efficiency (unless against units with magical ranged attacks which the realm can already counter using Invisibility anyway) so while extremely good when used properly, overusing it can be a disadvantage. In fact this spell has by far the highest maintenance cost of any unit enchantments in Caster of Magic making investing into it even less trivial.''

7. Stasis
Cost: 25/125 MP

Research: 3000 RP

All units on target overland map tile can't move for a turn, and must resist at -5 on consequent turns to break out of that status. When cast in combat, the targeted single unit must resist at -5 or become unable to move until the end of combat.

''The first thing to mention here is in the original game casting this on low resistance units made the AI disband those units, even if they were part of a city garrison, resulting in undefended cities. That oversight has been fixed.''

''Stasis provides players with the unique ability to stop an approaching enemy stack they aren't prepared to fight, however the original casting cost was way too high and in those situations the player usually only have one turn to react and stop the unit, so the cost was reduced to make it easier to cast instantly. As this ultimately only stalls the enemy army for a few turns, I'm sure the lower cost doesn't have any real abuse potential as casting this at all means not casting other, more permanent spells.''

However, this effect is very situational and rarely relevant so an additional combat usage has been added that's offering a much better save modifier than Black Sleep but costs more and doesn't erase the unit's defenses or ability to counterattack in melee making it a more tactical option and less like a “save or die” spell.

8. Flying Fortress
Cost: 200 MP

Research: 2500 RP

City tiles during combat in enchanted city can't be entered by nonflying enemy units. All owned units in combat gain Flying. The city is unaffected by Earthquake.

This spell was moved down to Rare from Very Rare and the unreasonable costs were reduced making it worth using. Like invisibility, special instructions were given to the AI to use spells that can solve this in combat. It's still a very potent city defense spell, and one that fits the role of Sorcery perfectly. Defenders gaining flight was added because the AI was often hurting itself by locking its own land units into their city, where being unable to leave, they got slaughtered easily by the human player's ranged forces or spells - something that of course could even happen to the human player limiting the value of this spell as it was outright harmful for melee nonflying garrisons.

9. Uranus' Blessing (new)
Cost: 200 MP

Research: 4000 RP

Enchanted city starts combat with a strength 60 Counter Magic in effect. Magic Market and Wizard's Guild in enchanted city produces 11 more power. Amplifying Tower in enchanted city produces 4 more skill.

Units built in the city have magical weapons even if the city does not have an Alchemist Guild.

''An antithesis of Gaea's Blessing that improves natural resources, this spell improves unnatural ones, in particular resources related to magic. While primarily designed for flavor reasons as well as having a free city enchantment and rare sorcery spell slot, the extra power and casting skill is definitely needed by the very MP and skill hungry Sorcery realm and the added Counter Magic improves the realm's city defense capability.''

''Still, the spell's main benefit is contributing to the strong late game of the realm, as by the time you buff all your cities up using this, you most likely reach the very rare tier, giving you a large jump in both the quality and quantity of spells you can cast at the same time. This also offers players a way to buff non-religious city power production, while other effects boost religious.''

10. Storm Giant
Cost: 330 MP

Research: 4000 RP

Creature: 18 melee, 18 magical ranged (5 ammo), +2 To Hit, 7 defense, 9 resistance, 3 movement, 25 health, 1 figure, Armor Piercing, Missile Immunity, Wall Crusher

''The only rare creature in Sorcery this one serves as a generic heavy magical ranged unit. While Armor Piercing makes it particularly dangerous, its attack strength and health is on the low end of the spectrum for a rare creature considering it has only one figure. Magic resistance isn't good either although Sorcery can easily improve that, and available ammo is also mediocre - better than the other giants who are more melee combat oriented but worse than true magical ranged units like Efreets or Shadow Demons.''

''Originally they had 4 ammo but during testing it became quickly obvious that amount was far too little to be a reliable unit. Missile Immunity was added as the creature obviously uses the powers of Wind, and due to its low armor and health (for a rare creature) its vulnerability to bows and especially slings was an real problem.''

1. Spell Binding
Cost: 1200 MP

Research: 21000 RP

Select any global enchantment any other wizard is able to cast. You learn to cast that spell permanently. This spell can only be cast 5 times per game and has a cooldown period of 12 turns initially and 36 on any further uses.

''By far the most difficult spell to properly design in the game was this one. Stealing global enchantments from others was and is the top selling point of Sorcery and by far the best spell in the realm, in fact the realm has only a few truly outstanding very rares, and this was one of them, so the original functionality had to be preserved. However, the original design, literally stealing spells already in effect, came with several serious implications.''

''First, it punished players for casting those spells which is bad design, and second, Spell Binding effectively acted as a package of a 100% success rate underpriced Disjunction as well as the ability to gain the targeted spell which made it both unfun to play against and way too underpriced for this double effect. There was a very very long forum discussion on how to solve this problem and after a while I was able to decide Sorcery does not need the functionality to have a “dispel” effect that entirely bypasses usual formulas and dispel resistance special abilities, something I originally insisted to keep due to the “strong at dispelling” theme.''

''Changing Spell Binding to duplicate the spells instead of simply stealing them means there will be more copies of global enchantments in play which escalates the implications of them and increases the role of global enchantments which can help making the late game even more intense. While I was worried about this a little, I decided to take the risk especially because this late in the game it's unlikely to still have a high number of relevant wizards in play - usually at least some will be already eliminated.''

''The second issue was that this spell granted access to literally all global enchantments other players had which is far too good for researching a single spell. On the other hand Sorcery itself had fewer very rare global enchantments and in general fewer outstanding very rares than other realms, so limiting it to only one or two spell would have been too much of a nerf. So the solution was to allow up to 5 spells which is amazingly good but not unlimited, and the reuse cooldown ensures this power is unlocked over time, and not all at once.''

In the original game the AI wasn't able to use this spell due to a bug, and while that bug was fixed in the 1.51 patch, Caster of Magic made sure to recode the entire AI Spell Binding target selection and priority system along with the Disjunction one to ensure the AI will always “steal” the best available enchantment and doesn't waste the spell on worthless targets like Just Cause.

2. Mass Invisibility
Cost: 80 MP

Research: 18000 RP

All of the casters units in this combat are invisible.

''I had no reason to change this spell, it's very powerful but the changes to Invisibility itself made sure the “Mass” version has no problems either. The only thing that needed special attention was AI as usual.''

3. Creature Binding
Cost: 50 MP

Research: 6000 RP

Target fantastic creature in combat must resist at -4 or you control it for the rest of the combat.

''One of the underwhelming Sorcery very rares this is basically Banish except you gain control of the creature instead of killing it. That's much better indeed but unfortunately while Banish isn't affected by Illusion Immunity, this was. So I removed that restriction and the spell is now definitely much less disappointing.''

4. Haste
Cost: 50 MP

Research: 15000 RP

Enchanted unit gains double movement speed and each time it attacks, it attacks twice while the enemy only gets one chance to retaliate.

''This was the spell that was entirely too powerful to be a Rare, as it both allowed any melee units to reach enemies and deal double damage at the same time, and also allows ranged units to reliably stay out of enemy range and also deal double damage (although at the cost of using up ammo faster). Additionally, the effect to allow counterattacking twice was removed, getting an extra attack per turn is powerful, but getting many extra attacks is simply broken. As very rare, this spell is well balanced but still amazing.''

5. Great Unsummoning
Cost: 700 MP

Research: 12000 RP

All enemy fantastic units on the overland map must resist at -3 or be irrecoverably destroyed.

''This spell will not affect most other very rare creatures, but can cause massive damage to rares and uncommons, ensuring it's powerful but doesn't make the impressive late game summoning spells worthless. It's specifically good at countering Death wizards whose hordes of undead creatures are fantastic and even their regular summoning spells have somewhat weak resistance, but can also cause great harm to Chaos wizards who carelessly cast Doom Mastery without ensuring they produce high resistance units. If you might think eliminating a lot of lower tier creatures is not good enough, doing so both ensures less enemy attacks so you can save a lot of mana crystals on combat spellcasting, and reduces the overall army strength of the enemy players which is beneficial for long term diplomacy.''

For short term diplomacy though, casting this spell will trigger a warning and small relation reduction - not a significant amount, but spamming this spell too often can have bad consequences if the victims still have enough surviving forces left to be a threat.

6. Spell Ward
Cost: 150 MP

Research: 9000 RP

Spells of the chosen realm cannot be cast in combat in the enchanted city. Fantastic creatures of that realm lose -2 To Hit, 4 defense and 4 resistance. City curses targeting the city are countered.

''The ultimate city defense spell, and one of the spells that makes late Sorcery exceptionally powerful. In fact this spell is so good, an indirect way to nerf it was necessary: Players who already finished researching Spell of Mastery can cast combat spells that cannot be countered (by this spell or otherwise), which gives a role for Spell of Mastery against Sorcery wizards who would Spell Blast it, as well as a path that can be taken to conquer the otherwise often unbeatable Sorcery cities.''

''This turns the game back the the economy race for Spell of Mastery, and whoever had the better and larger empire before Spell Ward stopped military conflict being effective will likely win this game. Of course this benefits Sorcery more than others, but if the Sorcery wizard's territory is reasonably smaller than the human player's it still opens up a path to victory that otherwise doesn't exist beyond the point the AI buffs all their cities with this.''

''Obviously, other Sorcery players are not really affected: Warding against Sorcery will hurt both parties equally, and Sorcery players will have Dispelling Wave to remove it as well. Racing the AI for the treasure hunting aspect of the game and finding Sorcery spellbooks can also open up this path for those who didn't start with Sorcery books. Only 2 of them are necessary to enable learning Dispelling Wave.''

The original spell completely disallowed fantastic units from entering the city which was way too powerful but most importantly, was something the AI had no way to be able to deal with - the AI isn't aware of the contents of its stacks at that level of detail and will try to attack the cities anyway, failing to do so and pretty much becoming unable to use those stacks at all as it tries to attack the city and keeps failing to do so.

It's important to note that while complete prevention of combat spells is against the mod's design, this effect is limited to defensive city battles - so any fights taking place at the non-sorcery player's cities, at nodes, or anywhere else on the map, still allow proper use of combat spells, ensuring they get the spotlight they deserve and that the Sorcery player can ONLY hold their position but not further expand through this spell.

7. Power Link
Cost: 1200 MP

Research: 15000 RP

Whenever another player casts a weak overland spell, if the base cost of that spell is below 100, gain 4 times that much power at the end of that turn, or if the cost is below 500, gain 500 minus the cost. The link misdirects the effect of Drain Power and Spell Blast, countering those spells, and has no effect on spells costing 500 or higher, or during Time Stop.

''The original Suppress Magic indiscriminately countered all overland spells, although the way the Dispel Magic formula worked, chance to dispel was much higher on low cost spells than high cost ones. For a long time this was kept although using a linear formula that ensures most very rare spells will be unaffected and only lower tier spells will get countered. Nonetheless, countering spells globally is very unfun and against the design philosophy of the mod, but the last straw was when I realized this effect can literally make it impossible to cast spells needed to avoid losing to other engame spells like Final Wave of Great Unsummoning. So the same approach was taken as with Nature's Wrath, to convert it into a new spell that “punishes” using low priced spells not by countering them but by making the owner of the enchantment more powerful, which also solved the problem that using this spell wasn't fun either.''

The formula for the amount of gained power was carefully enginieered to ensure the closer the spells are in casting cost to the common tier, the more severe the consequences are, yet they are still proportional to the amount and quality of spells used and can't result in producing power nearing infinity as the casting cost gets closer to zero.

''After careful examination only two low cost spells in the game were found that Sorcery wasn't able to properly deal with and wanted to those were included as exceptions and will still be countered. Being spells that counter/drain magic themselves, this actually increases the relevance of magic instead of reducing it. It's important to put emphasis on that this isn't like Fairy Link in that casting the “forbidden” spells will only allow the other party to gain a similar level of advantage, on the contrary.''

''Using a lot of low cost spells without a very good reason to do so will provide a massive benefit to the owner of the enchantment and this carelessness will allow them to win the game more often than not. For such a spell, extreme caution has to be exercised when implementing the AI's reaction: the AI will consider this enchantment being in play and will massively reduce or even completely eliminate the chance of casting the lower cost spells on a case by case basis for each spell in the game, while it'll prioritize high cost spells more.''

''A similar AI has been implemented for Fairy Link and Meteor Storm as well although those influence the priority of fewer spells, they do make quite a few of them a very bad choice to use. Power Link is thus the most potent when other players don't have any very rare (creature) spells yet and has no choice but to cast lower cost spells and trigger the spell, in which case functioning as a “win more” spell ensuring the Sorcery player already ahead, keeps this advantage - win more spells generally have low relevance for game balance itself, enabling the strategic nature of the spell to be in focus - will the player be able to judge which of their low cost spells are worth casting despite this, or not? This and Fairy Link also introduces an interesting element in diplomacy: you can trigger your ally's spells to make them more powerful intentionally, but this does come with the risk they grow too much and end up becoming too powerful to beat once they are the last one standing in the way of victory.''

8. Time Stop
Cost: 2000 MP

Research: 24000 RP

Stops the passage of time for all enemy wizards and their troops and spells. Only the casting wizard may move units. No income or production is generated and no maintenance has to be paid except for this spell. The maintenance of Time Stop increases by 30 mana for each turn in effect. Conquering a town is a major event that attempts to set history in motion, increasing the maintenance by 150. No gold can be looted from cities while time is stopped.

''Easily the most powerful spell in the game, this needed some major revisions to not be a guaranteed “I win” button even more potent than Spell of Mastery itself. This spell has two different uses: during peacetime, it allows gaining extra turns, effectively multiplying the available overland casting capacity at the cost of sacrificing a lot of mana crystals. A lot of calculations have been done to ensure this use of the spell works as intended and is a better investment of magic power once casting skill is higher than a certain amount and the game is expected to end within a certain amount of turns., basically, when long term investment in casting skill no longer is worth doing because the game will end soon enough. Casting cost and maintenance has been adjusted for this purpose alone.''

''Meanwhile the spell also offers a military purpose - you can conquer enemy cities without having to care about retaliation while it's in effect. The adjustment to maintenance on conquest and prevention of looting gold serve the purpose to ensure the spell remains reasonable for that role as well, not allowing the player to conquer a 50 city empire with a single stack of units while the entire enemy force is frozen in time and can't retaliate. Nonetheless, this is still an amazing spell that stands out as exceptionally powerful and allows the player to experience reeeally large scale magic. The ever increasing upkeep cost also ensures AI players can't maintain this too long and the human player gets to play a turn without having to wait half an hour.''

9. Djinn
Cost: 375 MP

Research: 15000 RP

Creature: 18 melee, 15 magical ranged (8 ammo), +3 To Hit, 8 defense, 12 resistance, 4 movement, 29 health, 1 figure, Teleporting movement, Caster 35, Wind Walking, Flying

''Djinn are a versatile tactical unit that's equally good at ranged and melee combat, can transport armies and support them by casting ability, and is extremely hard to kill thanks to its ability to teleport and even turn itself invisible, making both melee and ranged combat options ineffective. Its raw stats are somewhat low for a very rare creature and its magic resistance is also low by very rare standards but Djinn are still a powerful force in the hands of Sorcery wizards who can buff them with Haste or Magic Immunity on top of taking advantage of shooting 8 fairly good ranged attacks each combat. Djinn are a more defense oriented and tactical creature while Efreets focus on dealing raw damage at range and are not that great at physical combat and are overall weaker due to being in a lower spell tier.''

10. Sky Drake
Cost: 500 MP

Research: 15000 RP

Creature: 28 melee, 21 Lightning Breath, +3 To Hit, 10 defense, 14 resistance, 4 movement, 30 health, 1 figure, Magic Immunity, Flying, Illusions Immunity

''Having a reputation of being the best creature in the game due to the included Magic Immunity, Sky Drakes are still more on the tactical side, albeit pack more punch than Djinn. While definitely not weak on the offense, 10 defense and 30 hit points are subpar for a higher cost very rare, and the drake is easily overwhelmed by a large amount of lesser units, if they can find a way to attack it which is definitely not trivial thanks to its ability to fly and immunity to magic ranged attacks.''