Using the raw level difference as the percentage imposes far too minor a penalty for charming higher level monsters. At the very least there should be a per turn upkeep, and I think the percentage needs to go down at a superlinear rate of level difference. It would also help give the spell some flavor if different creature types had different susceptibilities to it, apart from the effect due to the level.

You really surprised about that? My (failed) joke in the other thread about releasing the 3D engine sooner was based on that. In 3D surely will look stunning and all that but in the cloth map... well, you could try to have some kind of custom animation for the cloth map. Or some kind of window/popup with a image of what the spell is supposedly doing? (a volcano raising, earth shattering...) The window would stay only as long as the spell is being cast and accompanied with some kind of little effect in the map.

In any case, people that play in the cloth map do it for functionality, right? Surely no reason to complain that you don't get fancy things that depend purely of 3D thingies.

Charm, charm, charm... What's up with Domination?

I suggested elsewhere on numerous occasions that every unit in the game have attribute statistics much like those an RPG-Sovereign would have, and at least one of these attributes (which I called Charisma so far) also reflected Mental Magic resistance. I would give the Charm spell the flag: "Is_Mental_Magic", and modifiers such as mental magic resistance would help deflect this. The game would go through a series of checks:

First, it checks if the target has a mind. (Undead, for example, will not have the flag "Is_Mindowning")

Then, it checks for target strength, based upon Level, as you suggested.

Then, it checks for mental resistance and/or susceptibility. Charisma (or whatever you want to call it) scores above base 10 yield +1 resistance point per point of charisma until 20, then +2 per point until 30, then +3 per point until 40.

Modifiers for the caster's ability to penetrate the resistance can be based on Level and Willpower, etc.

A similar system would be implementable for other types of spells (e.g. Constitution-based for poison-type spells, etc.)

I got your joke winter.

They need a text description on the cloth map btw. From an eye witness.

"Your high majesty of all lords sire, when you cast your oh so mighty spell, this here farmer was near by (and slightly singed by the experince)!"

"Aye me looiard! I twas thar! I saw it wit me own two eyes! A greeat boom of thunder followed by a tremedus roaring the likes of which I 'ad never once heerd before my sire! Then it happen, just like that it was. The icon for that plain turned right into a mountain it did. 'Well I right can't farm that' I said to the wife and she said 'Well you can't farm for the love of all thats blue anyway!'. T'at ungrateful sow of a woman. I tell you my sire, one o' these days she'll feel it right good she will! Then she wont be complainin 'bout me 'lack of purpose' for the 'life in me lungs'. Umm. What was I here for again? Spells? Oh yes sire! I was telling you how your amazing spell ruined ma farmland. Yee git... sire."

I think that charming monsters should have a short duration related to the strength of the spell, I'm assuming that the strength of a spell is related to it's mana costs so a higher strength spell will cost more mana.

Another option is to make charmed monsters a reasource drain on your ecconomy, they will require food and other things, that resource drain could be reduced with reaserch and special buildings.

For example if you charmed a wolf, you will get the option to reaserch "tame wolf" and unlock wolf kennels, higher level of reaserch will eventualy alow you to recruit wolfs like any other unit. This reaserch option should only pop up after you charmed X number of wolves.

That way you will also be able to get gaint spiders mounts, Gaint siege breakers, bear cavalry etc etc.

Warder

I think the different charm spells should work on different kinds of creatures.  Taking control of a giant spider has different balancing implications from stealing a unit of enemy soldiers.

A soldier with steel plate armour and a peasant are both just humans serving their liege; the only difference in charming them would be that the soldier might have anti-charm training and/or equipment, so such a spell's power is very variable.

A Charm Monster spell however, relies on the resistance stat of the monster, and is therefore easier to balance.

And, as the others pointed out, breeding animals is viable and breeding monsters might be plausible, but breeding enemy soldiers makes no sense at all.

Also, soldiers come in units, but monsters don't (AFAIK).  If you only charm half of a unit, things could get messy.

In Master of Magic, spells that could take control of a unit did work on a spell power vs. target resistance basis, but there were only a small variety of such spells.  I think the reason why it didn't feel useless might have something to do with the immediacy of the effect of the spell.  You could only do it during tactical combat, so it was always risky.  To be worth doing, the target must be dangerous, so you try not to harm it, but then, if your spell fails, you lost a lot of mana for nothing and sit with a dangerous unharmed enemy unit in close range.  And it of course worked much easier on some units than others, so choosing your target wasn't always easy.  A weaker similar spell was Confuse, which worked reasonably easily, but the effect was random every turn.  Sometimes the unit serves the enemy, sometimes you, sometimes it did nothing and sometimes it moved randomly.  The more predictable and powerful spell only worked on summoned creatures.  And I think there was a black magic spell which worked on normal units, but dropped their defence to 0 and doubled their attack strength.

So, for the beta, I think simple spells work well, but for the full game I think more complicated spells make the choices harder. (a.k.a. more interesting)

I absolutely agree...magic resistance must be very important in this case. So if a creature is highly resistant to magic, it should be close to impossible to charm it.

It think it will be more fun if the charm spell NEVER fails.  If you attempt to charm a more powerful monster, the duration of the charm decreases.   (I also agree that some statistics like Wisdom/magic resistance, or whether a unit is of the type of undead, is relevant to this Duration calcuation)

Focusing on the fun again, there should be a distinction btn Charm & Dominate.  Dominating a unit will allow you keeping the unit after the combat finishes.  How many units and how long the duration of the domination will be similar to the factors affecting charming.

A soveregin should be given pre-game option to specilize, whether he can be a great charmer or dominator (using a Charmer Modifier).   While It is inherently harder to charm higher end units, but when your sovereign is a Charmer, this is not that hard.

Using the OP as an rough example, the Sovereign can charm a level 8 troll for [93 / 8 * Wisdom Resistance of the Troll * Sov's Charmer Modifier] turns in tactical combat.

That made me laugh out loud, while I am at school in a computer room. Everybody stared at me. 

Anyway, I think some sort of upkeep maybe should be in order. That way you should pick carefully who you want to charm and soft-caps the number of creatures that you can charm. Charming should not become a major way to get raise a large army quickly imo, it should be just an options that you have in order to supplement your army should the need arise. Maybe you guys designed it otherwise, so then by all means go with that.

MoM had a system where you could summon monsters if I am not mistaken. This did cost upkeep in mana. It was a good way to get some punchingbag for your army while the real units took out the enemies, or to defend yourself for a few turns. Summoning was not a good way to build an army. Imho that will be the way to go for elemental too. It should be a viable alternative, not the main way.

Elemental: It's Fun to Charm Stuff...

On the other hand, this has given spells such as 'Charm Monster' a chance to prove their worth. Using magic to build an arachnid and troll army has proven quite enjoyable...an instant gratification spell that could also turn the tide of future battles.

 

wow ... some genius found out after merely 10 years why Pokemon became a billion dollar franchise.

You all probably thought it was because of the life-like realistic bestiary.

Several possibilities come to mind.

1.  Spell could have a maintenance cost.  They don't stay charmed unless you pay upkeep.

2.  There could be an ongoing chance of the creature breaking free of the charm based on its level.  For example, the % chance could be equal to the monster's level - a level 8 troll would have an 8% chance of breaking free each turn.  Thus, for very powerful monsters, the caster has a strong incentive to use the monster immediately or disband it.  This would prevent accumulation of large forces of high level charmed monsters.  For weaker monsters, who cares if the caster has a ton of level 1 spiders?  Probably not unbalancing. 

agreed. bc i already said it  <--- speaking of pokemon! OMG!    

the only problem i see with that is that a level 8 dragon (if we can even charm dragons...) would be so much more powerful than a level 8 troll. but they have the same percentage of breaking off the spell? I think mana upkeep- based on strength- would suffice. because that would make you balance how many turns you want to keep the unit without the frustration of losing the unit. That would just be irritating.

Which raises another question in my mind. Is this all going to be done on the main map or the tactical map? because that's very important. I would be far more irritated to have a unit break off a charm spell on the main map than I would if it broke the spell in a tactical battle. The latter might actually be kinda fun...    

It looks like we are all saying basically the same thing. Upkeep for holding monsters. Resistances based on magic-proofness, willpower and special considertions(aka no-brain). Couple talking about breaking free chances.

Are there going to be other sub-charm spells like charm undead? that could come in handy, but perhaps it should be a spell mainly for necromancers? TBH, i don't want to get into a DnD style where there are 15 different kind of charm spells, each one for a seperate situation, but you might want to split it into undead/organic/magical(golems and such).

I am of the belief that there are absolutely certain creatures that should be immune to charm spells, and I don't believe that charm spells should have an infinite hold, regardless of upkeep or no upkeep.  A charmed creature should get an increasingly better chance to break the hold of the spell over time if they did not resist it in the first place.  But that's just me being a party pooper. 

Thanks guys, a lot of great suggestions! We're working overtime to get some additional screens in for the beta, so I don't think we'll be touching charm again before Thursday, but defiantly keep the suggestions coming.

Oh, and right now I'm talking about the main-map version of the spell (non-tactical).