Magic (from schools, not research, and I only looked at single-school) generally falls into one of several categories:
City Buffs
City/Faction Debuffs
Damage Spells
Heal Spells
Strategic Buff
Strategic Damage
Summon
Unit Buff
Unit Debuffs
Other (Things that didn't have a clear categorization like cloudwalk, counterspells, etc)
I counted out the spells in each category by school of magic, and the resulting chart looks like:
|
City Buffs |
City/Faction Debuff |
Damage Spells |
Heal Spells |
Strategic Buff |
Strategic Damage |
Summon |
Unit Buff |
Unit Debuff |
Earth |
1,3 |
5 |
3,5 |
|
|
2 |
4 |
1,2,5,5 |
|
Water |
1 |
5 |
4 |
|
|
2,4,5 |
3 |
|
1,2,3 |
Air |
2 |
|
3,3 |
|
|
5 |
|
1,1,2,2,5 |
4 |
Fire |
5,5 |
|
1,2,3 |
|
|
2,5 |
4 |
2,4 |
|
Life |
2 |
|
|
2,4 |
4,5,5 |
|
|
1,1,3,5 |
3 |
Death |
3,4 |
3 |
4,5 |
|
|
5 |
|
1,5 |
1,2,2,4 |
There's some logic to it, but it looks like spells were created because they were really cool ideas and then slotted into one of the schools that they fit at a location relative to their power. I feel like a systematic design would improve the magic system, and it should be possible without changing it too much.
My idea is that every school has some basic elements, and each school of magic will have Major and Minor specialties in categories.
So the basic elements that every school might have might look like
|
City Buffs |
City/Faction Debuff |
Damage Spells |
Heal Spells |
Strategic Buff |
Strategic Damage |
Summon |
Unit Buff |
Unit Debuff |
All |
Low, High |
|
Low, High |
|
|
Mid |
Mid |
Low, Mid, High |
Mid |
Where
Low = level 1-2
Mid = level 2-4
High = level 4-5
Based on the current setup with some slight adjustment to even things out, specialties might look like
|
City Buffs |
City/Faction Debuff |
Damage Spells |
Heal Spells |
Strategic Buff |
Strategic Damage |
Summon |
Unit Buff |
Unit Debuff |
Earth |
Major |
|
Minor |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Water |
|
|
|
|
|
Major |
|
|
Minor |
Air |
|
|
|
Minor |
|
|
|
Major |
|
Fire |
|
|
Major |
|
|
Minor |
|
|
|
Life |
|
|
|
Major |
|
|
|
Minor |
|
Death |
Minor |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Major |
So how would that change spells in the game? Largely, it should leave almost everything that exists the same, possibly just changing the levels and scaling the effect of some spells. But it would add in some missing specialties and really differentiate each magic school while giving them a common foundation.
Using Earth as an example (and my names and some of the spell ideas are terrible, but the general principle is there).
Earth is the element of Iron and Stone, of hammers pounding on forges and of war drums calling soldiers to arms. A faction calling on earth magic will see its cities raise towering structures with a whisper and its enemies laid low under a barrage of stones.
Low City Buff: Enchanted Hammers (1)
High City Buff: Enchanted Production (5) - adds N production to the under-construction building city's queue
Major City Buff: Set in Stone (3)
Major City Buff: Enchanted Mines (4) - targets an iron or crystal mine, increases mine production by 50%, 1 mana upkeep
Major City Buff: Enchanted Materials (2) - target city gains 0.5 material per essence
Low Damage: The throw stone ability that henchmen get (1)
High Damage: Fracture (4)
Minor Damage: Shockwave (3), but made more useful
Minor Damage: Chasm (5): target makes a resistance check or falls into a chasm that opens at their feet and dies. Does not work on huge creatures (wildland bosses, maybe dragons?)
Mid Strategic Damage: Tremor (2)
Mid Summon: Earth Elemental (4)
Low Unit Buff: Nature's Cloak (1)
Mid Unit Buff: Stoneskin (2)
High Unit Buff: Giant Form (5)
Mid Unit Debuff: Mid level debuff, maybe something on movement speed
Missing but should still be somewhere:
Diamondskin (5)
Earthquake (5)
A similar thing can be done with the rest of the schools (and, if I have time, I'll give it a try later). It'll probably result in 3-5 new spells per school, but the end result will be schools with real differences from each other but a core set of abilities that won't gimp any faction that doesn't get that school.