My second thought however is, wouldn't this make it very difficult for a group of smaller players to band up against one larger player?

 

I understand what you are saying.  What about a line of magic research that would allow you to manually recharge partially dimished spells?  Puts the player back into the mix, but allows for getting spells back to full power without have to cancel it, wait the cool off time, and then recast.

 

I'm thinking it could work something like this:

 

1) Have three levels of recharge spells that could apply to any spell that has a charge.

 

i.e.    Gift of Mana: recharges up to 25% of charges, cool-off time 8 hours

         Minor Mana Flare: recharge up to 50% of charges, cool-off time 16 hours

         Major Mana Flare: recharge up to 100% of charges, cool-off time 32 hours

 

2) (Possible addition, but adds complexity)  Cool-off time applies to both the recharging line and the target magic school 

 

Excellent ideas, but it gets away from the main topic of this thread, making fear runes useful.  If your ideas are implemented, I still would never want to use the fear runes, because I'd always want to charge my killing runes.  In fact, I think that'd make seeking runes useless too. 

 

So we need something that makes fear runes useful, but doesn't let the system change the status.  How about changing the effect of the rune?  Right now the rune just makes the attacking army return.  How about if it not only makes the attacking army return, but basically paralyzes the army for a period of time?  That army returns, but then you cannot send it out or make any changes to that army for a period of a couple hours or so?  Or maybe the army doesn't return, but camps outside making it vulnerable to attack from other parties?  Maybe a fear rune gives a combat penalty to an attacking army?  Fear runes would have the benefit of affecting whole armies instead of having charges, but still wouldn't kill the troops.  Would this create a strategical enough choice that some people may opt for fear instead of killing?

 

In war, the seeking spell vs. assassins is also extremely useful...

Could the rune actually target the commander of the army, making him more than aware of his own failings, effectively removing any benefits the commander would normall impart. Would this be easier from a programmimg perspective?

Just reverse engineer the caravanserai bug a while ago and.. hope you can figure it out.

1 The army would be called a generic racial name "cowardly orcs", ""Saltwart" Dwarves" etc

2 Legion of shame?

3 No it'd be simpler to lump all units into the one division

4 ???? what happens with raids when the commander is killed, perhaps an extra, dead spearman commander is generated.

5 good point, its a bit silly if the cavlery don't make it back before the fleeing foot soldiers, however lets just say that they'd move at the speed of cavlery.

 

Alternatively could a diplomatic/caravan type unit be generated which upon arrival will deposit the troops into the city like newly created troops.

 Again I don't know how your scripting works and i know your all busy working on far more interesting aspects of the game.

How about: 

- if army is smaller than the fear rune capacity, they flee and take longer to return home (twice the travel time) and the fear rune is left perfectly working.

- if army is slightly bigger than fear rune capacity, then the rune breaks, but only after sending some fear into each troops, making them less efficient.

The bigger the army the more dillute the fear is and therefor the less effect it has.

For example, (I dont have time to think of a formula to do that, but I'm sure it is possible);

If fearrune is meant for 100 troops;

50 troops come-> they all return home slowly, giving you the time to counter attack the sender. rune stays the same.

101 troops come in-> 100 stay paralysed in fear while 1 courageously overcomes his fear and goes to batlle. They most likely all get slaugthered. Rune is cracked, must be manualy recasted.

200 troops come in-> 50 stay paralysed in fear, 150 courageously attack. Rune is cracked, must be manually recasted. If battle is won by attackers, all units return (including the cowards). In the report, explain that seing others keep on going gave the force to some of the paralysed to overcome their fear and fight.

You give a medal to these heroes.

1000 troops -> 1 paralysed, 999 figth.

What do you think?

No splitting of armys... only troops not participating. that shouldn't be too hard?

edit; damn, dervious, you bit me to it..