Spell Casting Skill

Spell Casting Skill represents the amount of  Mana a Wizard can spend per turn casting spells overland and, independently of that, within the span of one battle. Skill training is assigned from the Magic Screen; it requires diverting  Power from the research and mana wands to the Skill wand, and it will rise by a point each time twice the Wizard's current skill value has been invested.

The Spell Casting Skill mechanic prevents both players and AI opponents from throwing overland spells quickly until they have properly honed their arcane abilities. If the cost of a spell exceeds the Wizard's total skill (or the amount of it left after another spell had been cast in the same turn), it becomes a multi-turn project, whereby the Wizard will continue casting the spell and taking down the Casting Cost over subsequent turn(s).

Spell Casting Skill likewise limits the total cost of spells, in any combination, that can be thrown on the battlescape. The Wizard might not be able to launch expensive spells even once in combat until he has sufficient training. High Spell Casting Skill therefore gives the Wizard better command of the fruits of his research, allowing the casting of more and/or stronger spells in all contexts, so long as there are enough mana crystals in the treasury to pay for them.

Description

In the course of a campaign, a Wizard needs to learn spells, amass resources, and finally train himself in the arcane arts. Each turn (which represents a month in the campaign), he must examine the situation and make a decision on how to apportion his efforts between these three goals. For instance, having ample mana crystals lying around might be reassuring, but if the Wizard's spell repertoire is weak or his spells take ages to complete due to low skill, then he cannot make good use of that wealth.

The Wizard's Spell Casting Skill represents how fast he can transform mana into magical effects. Mana itself, being a stored form of magical energy, has to be carefully released from its containing crystals and shaped into its final form - a process which takes time and effort. As a Wizard becomes more masterful of the skill of spellcasting, the required time and effort are reduced. Thus, wizards with a higher Spell Casting Skill value can cast spells more often - and take far less time casting complicated and powerful spells.

Power and Skill Point Summary

The program stores a wizard's lifetime, cumulative investment of  Power Points in skill. It derives the Spell Casting Skill from this lump sum.

Using your displayed Spell Casting Skill in the magic screen, you can estimate your "lifetime total," using the equation below. The game is doing it the other way around, plugging the "lifetime total" into the quadratic rearrangement (second below) to obtain your nominal Spell Casting Skill.

Total  Power invested as a function of current skill	$Power=(Skill-1)^{2}+Skill$
Spell Casting Skill as a function of invested  Power	$Skill={\frac {{\sqrt {4(Power)-3}}+1}{2}}$

Each Spellbook rank taken at the start contributes an initial endowment to the "lifetime" total, as if enough power points had already been invested to advance the wizard +2 Spell Casting Skill Points.

Turn-by-turn  Power Point allocations to Skill from your power base are added onto the lifetime total.

The Archmage Retort adds +10 points to Spell Casting Skill which are not incorporated in the above formulas in any way; therefore, the bonus does not slow down your advancement. To the turn-by-turn  Power spending, the retort quietly adds 50% more than is displayed, rounded down to the nearest whole integer.

For instance, let us say a wizard starts up with 8 spellbooks, in any combination. The game knows she should begin with 16 Spell Casting Skill, and therefore gives her an initial endowment of

(16 − 1)² + 16 =  241 already added towards improving skill.

If she commits  7 towards skill, this lifetime total rises to  248. As an Archmage, the only differences will be that this total rises to  251 instead, and that her nominal casting skill is going to be 10 points higher at all times.

Note: In the case where you start with no spellbooks and have no power invested, the game just declares the Spell Casting Skill to be zero (rather than attempting to take the square root of a negative number in its formula!). Getting the first skill point costs exactly  1.

Combat Casting

During combat, a Wizard can cast any combination of spells so long as the sum total of their base Casting Costs does not exceed that wizard's Spell Casting Skill. This assumes, of course, that the Wizard has sufficient  Mana available to cast those spells.

At the start of a battle, the game sets a value called "Remaining Spell Skill". This value is initially equal to the wizard's current Spell Casting Skill. It is displayed in the small magic information window, just to the right of the control buttons. This value is tracked throughout the battle in order to enforce the Spell Casting Skill limit.

Each time a spell is cast, the "Remaining Spell Skill" value drops by an amount equal to the Casting Cost of that spell (Spellcasting Range is ignored for this purpose). For example, if a wizard has 50 Remaining Spell Skill at the start of a battle, and then casts a spell whose base Casting Cost is 10, the Remaining Spell Skill value immediately drops to 40.

Before any spell can be cast, the game first compares the "Remaining Spell Skill" value to the Casting Cost of the desired spell. If the Remaining Spell Skill is lower than the spell's Casting Cost, that specific spell may not be cast anymore during the current battle.

With this system, the game limits the number and strength of spells a Wizard can cast during any battle. It forces the wizard to decide whether to cast several cheap spells, a few powerful spells (or just one), or any combination of these - so long as the total Casting Cost does not exceed his/her Spell Casting Skill.

Furthermore, this system ensures that a Wizard may not cast very powerful combat spells - even if they are researched and plenty of  Mana is available - until the Wizard can improve his/her Spell Casting Skill sufficiently. For example, a Wizard with 20 Spell Casting Skill may not cast a powerful combat spell costing  50 even once during any battle, since the Casting Cost exceeds the Spell Casting Skill limit for that wizard.

Spells that are invalid for casting due to exceeding the Remaining Spell Skill limit are greyed out in the spellbook interface. All other spells are marked with the corresponding Realm icons. The number of icons displayed next to the spell's name represents the number of times that particular spell may be yet be cast during the current battle, before hitting either the Spell Casting Skill limit or the  Mana reserve limit. For example, a spell marked with may only be cast three more times.

Spellcasting Range

When determining the Casting Cost of a spell in order to check if it exceeds the Spell Casting Skill limit, and when deducting its Casting Cost from the "Remaining Spell Skill" value as explained above, the game completely ignores the Spellcasting Range multiplier. That multiplier applies only to the amount of  Mana actually required to cast a spell during combat.

For example, a Wizard with 20 Remaining Spell Skill may cast a spell that has a base Casting Cost of  20 Mana, even if the current Spellcasting Range multiplier is as high as 3x. However, that wizard does still need  60 Mana on hand in order to cast that spell ( 20 x 3 =  60) due to the high multiplier.

This means that distance from the Fortress does not alter the strength and number of spells that can be cast, unless there is actually insufficient  Mana to cast them. If plenty of Mana is available, a wizard should be able to cast the same combination of spells regardless of the battlefield's location.

Caster Heroes

Heroes possessing the Caster Hero Ability may also cast spells during combat, but their spellcasting does not lower the wizard's "Remaining Spell Skill" value nor his/her  Mana reserves. These Heroes function separately, using a much simpler limiting system: Their own  Mana pool and Spell Casting Skill are always the same value, and they are never affected by Spellcasting Range, meaning that the only limit they obey is the limit of remaining  Mana.

Overland Casting

Spell Casting Skill is the turn-by-turn limit on how much mana your Wizard can channel into an overland spell. It can be considered just as much of a resource as the mana crystals themselves. Note that the value really does apply only to overland spellcasting. Mana spent on Alchemy, mana spent in combat, and the  20 one might burn here-and-there transferring items to Heroes— these do not decrement your turn's reserve of Spell Casting Skill.

The computer-controlled wizards do not cast spells instantly. They always pass at least one Next Turn when casting a spell, therefore casting one spell per turn, at the most.

While the human player may be able to throw certain overland spells instantly after some training, the more powerful ones should be treated as multi-turn projects. They require that you lay some groundwork, raising Spell Casting Skill with gusto, gathering up lots of mana crystals, and maybe even nurturing spellcaster heroes who can help. The complex process for resolving the player-wizard's spellcasting is as follows.

Process

Spell is clicked

• When you click on a spell in the grimoire, your Remaining Skill this turn and your mana reserves are checked, and if these meet or exceed the Casting Cost, it gets deducted right away from both of these reserves, and the spell is thrown just as foretold in the grimoire: instantly.
• If either your mana or Remaining skill are insufficient for an instant completion, the spell is queued for the Next Turn sequence, with neither mana nor skill invested yet. In fact, you may opt during the remainder of the turn to cancel the spell without any sort of penalty.

Next Turn is clicked

• Before spell progress is computed,  Mana Income from  Power is added to the reserve if you have made such an allocation, and the Upkeep Costs on your sustained enchantments and summons are paid.
• Your Remaining Skill from the completed turn is next added together with the skill of any Heroes in the Fortress. They contribute half of their aggregate Caster skill, rounded down. This sum, or the entire remaining mana reserve if it is smaller, is invested into the spell.
• If this was sufficient to finish the cast, it will be fired at the beginning of the new turn.
• Skill training then occurs. Spell Casting Skill is recalculated and may rise depending on  Power invested.
• Still before the new turn begins, your new level of Spell Casting Skill, and mana as usual, are then checked against the remaining cost of the spell.
• If they meet or exceed its remaining cost, the spell will be fired at the beginning of the new turn. Remaining Skill for the new turn will be decreased accordingly.
• If either mana or Skill are insufficient, then the spell gets queued, as it did on the first turn, with neither mana nor Skill for this turn invested into the spell yet until Next Turn is hit again.

During the new turn

• Cruel Unminding "immediately" shows its effect in the Magic screen if you were hit by it. Howbeit, it does not adjust your Remaining Skill for this turn, so the effect only really begins in subsequent turns.
• Any skill training you achieve with Life Drain during the turn likewise registers in the Magic screen immediately but does not adjust Remaining Skill.
• If you cancel an ongoing cast, none of your mana or Spell Casting Skill for this turn will have been used on it. Your Remaining Skill will therefore be your full Spell Casting Skill... although you still lose out on your investment in the spell from the previous turn(s).

Notes

• Heroes contribute their skill in the Next Turn phase. They do not apply their skill towards making an "Instant" cast, as such. Any hero skill in excess of what was needed to complete a spell essentially goes to waste; this may be a matter worth calculating ahead-of-time if your heroes are contributing lots of skill points.
• It is worth emphasizing that during the Next Turn sequence, spellcasting quietly occurs twice. In the first event, the old turn's Remaining Skill is added to the Heroes' skill totals. In the second event, the new turn's skill points may or may not be applied immediately, depending on whether they would allow you to finish casting.
• It is advantageous that Skill training occurs before the new turn's skill points are checked. One or two extra skill points might be just enough to finish the spell that turn.
• Remaining Skill is explicitly stored in the memory and checked for all sorts of purposes, but unfortunately, it is not displayed to the player. One way to estimate this turn's Remaining Skill is to peruse your grimoire for the most expensive spell that is labeled as "Instant." Then, find the cheapest spell that is not. It lies somewhere in the cost range between them.
• The spell grimoire precisely reports the remaining Casting Cost and displays a line of Realm icons by the spell's name which estimate the number of turns needed. This estimate, given by (Casting Cost - Remaining Skill) / Total Skill, changes in very inaccurate ways when mana reserves are running low.
• Since maintenance is paid before spellcasting, spellcasting will not inadvertently run your mana into the red and dismiss all of your sustained spells. That could otherwise be a complete disaster.
• Obtaining discounted Casting Costs is not an easy thing. It is accounted by players to be very powerful, though, because it leads to savings in two resources, both  Mana and Spell Casting Skill, which saves turns.

Examples

Consider the case of Cockatrices, a summoning spell needing  275. The following examples walk through the spellcasting sequence in various scenarios, but be advised: this section may still be rather cryptic because of all the steps and numbers.

Wizard with 236(199) Skill; that is, 37 contributed by a garrisoned Caster  75 hero, but only 179 Remaining Skill this turn, no mana shortage:

This will not finish instantly, so the spell is queued for the Next Turn sequence with no expenditure yet. At Next Turn, the old turn's  179 and the  37 from heroes are invested. Before the new turn begins,  59 of the maximum allowed  199 is invested, finishing the spell. The excess 140 skill points become the Remaining Skill available for this turn.

Conjurer that is otherwise the same as above:

In spite of a discounted price of  207, the summon will still not finish instantly, because it isn't  179 or less. So, the spell is queued for the Next Turn sequence with zero expenditure yet. At Next Turn, the old turn's Remaining  179 is contributed, and the hero contributes  28, finishing the spell.  9 of his skill goes unused. Before the new turn begins, the new turn's skill points are checked... but they are not needed, so the entire skill reserve of 199 becomes Remaining Skill, ready to use.

Archmage with 112(77) Skill, 45 Remaining Skill this turn, adding  200 each turn to a lifetime Skill accumulation of  4,430, no mana shortage:

In the first Next Turn, the 45 remaining is added to the 35 from heroes. Skill training then occurs with the Retort of Archmage exerting its effects; the wizard's new lifetime total of  4,730 resolves to 79 skill points. Still in the first Next Turn sequence, the wizard is found to be unable to finish the spell ( 195 to go) with 79 skill points, so it's queued with none of the new turn's skill or mana spent yet. Next Turn is hit a second time. The wizard's own 79 points and 35 from heroes is invested. ( 81 to go). Skill training resolves  5,030 to 81 skill points. Still in the second Next Turn sequence, the program checks and finds out that the wizard can finish the spell with the 81 skill points he has for the new turn. Mana & Skill expenditure therefore happens immediately, with the unit being summoned at the dawn of the third turn, and leaving 0 Remaining Skill to play with.

Wizard with 40(40) Skill,  250 in reserve,  3 income from  Power:

For 6 Next Turns straight, Remaining Skill will be checked and  40 invested into the spell every time. In the 7th Next Turn, the depleted reserve of  28 plus  3 from that turn's income is invested, with 9 Remaining Skill going unused and  4 needed to complete the spell. In the 8th Next Turn,  3 is invested; In the 9th Next Turn,  1; And the spell finishes immediately after the 9th Next Turn with a mana reserve of  2 and a skill reserve of 40 available, since the prior turn's Remaining Skill covered the final point.

Modifying the Spell Casting Skill

There are multiple ways to increase one's Spell Casting Skill, and doing so is of paramount importance to any Wizard who has a strong emphasis on magic-use. Though some Wizards can get by with little or no improvement, they rely on specific other strategies. Most wizards will become virtually impotent by the mid-game without at least some improvement to this attribute. In particular, the most powerful overland spells in the game (i.e. most of the Very Rare spells) have such a high Casting Cost that it would take ages to cast a single one without significant Spell Casting Skill improvement.

The primary method to increase Spell Casting Skill is through investment of  Power. The higher a Wizard's Spell Casting Skill, the more  Power is required to increase it further.

Wizards possessing the Archmage Retort will find it very easy to increase their Spell Casting Skill in this manner, making them some of the top spellcasters in the game.

It is also possible for any Wizard to temporarily augment his/her Spell Casting Skill by hiring Caster Heroes and placing them at the Fortress Town. While this "wastes" a Hero slot, some wizards prefer this over sending Heroes to battle, and may rely only on Heroes of this type.

The only way to lose Spell Casting Skill points is through the Death Magic spell called Cruel Unminding. This spell will cut a rival's Spell Casting Skill by a significant but random percentage.

Finally, the Death Magic combat spell called Life Drain may result in a small (but significant) increase in Spell Casting Skill, when the spell is cast by a Wizard and successfully injures an enemy target.

Investing Power

The primary method for increasing Spell Casting Skill, available to each and every Wizard at any time, is to invest  Power into this attribute.

This is done on the "Magic" overview screen. One of the three bars controlling  Power distribution is labeled "Skill", and you may adjust this bar to influence the percentage of Power points invested into improving the attribute.

 Power is converted into "Spell Skill Improvement Points" at a ratio of 1:1. However, the actual increase in Spell Casting Skill is not so simple, becoming less and less efficient as your Spell Casting Skill goes up.

In short, to increase Spell Casting Skill by a single point, a Wizard must accumulate an amount of "Spell Skill Improvement Points" equal to exactly 2x his/her current Spell Casting Skill. Therefore, to go from a Spell Casting Skill of 10 to a Spell Casting Skill of 11 requires exactly 20 of these "Improvement Points". Going from 37 to 38 requires exactly 74 points, and so on. 

Note: It's unnecessary to micromanage Spell Casting Skill training. Skill is re-calculated each turn, using the Wizard's lifetime investment of power in this endeavor. It is possible to gain two or more skill points in a single turn, assuming a sufficiently large investment of power occurs all at once, and all overflow is properly credited towards reaching the next level of Spell Casting Skill.

Archmage

The Archmage Retort is specifically geared to help the Wizard increase his/her Spell Casting Skill at an alarming rate, by making all increases from  Power investment (see above) be significantly more effective. It also gives a significant boost to the Wizard's initial Spell Casting Skill.

For starters, a Wizard who possesses this Retort has a conversion ratio of 1:1.5 between  Power invested and the resulting "Spell Skill Improvement Points". For example, if he/she invests  30 Power into Spell Casting Skill improvement, he/she will gain 45 Improvement Points per turn, whereas a "normal" wizard would get only 30 points. This essentially means that Archmage Wizards improve their Spell Casting Skill 50% faster than non-Archmage Wizards. Naturally, this still means that the Wizard must invest  Power this way, but gains a much larger benefit.

Furthermore, the Archmage Retort provides the Wizard a +10 bonus to his/her initial Spell Casting Skill level at the very start of the game. This bonus is permanent. To make the deal sweeter, these extra 10 levels are not taken into account when calculating the number of "Improvement Points" required to rise in Spell Casting Skill levels. Therefore, an Archmage with 50 Spell Casting Skill is considered as having only 40 Spell Casting Skill when the game wants to figure out how many Improvement Points are needed to get to the next level. This Wizard only needs 80 Improvement Points (40x2=80), rather than 100 (50x2=100). A good formula for determining the necessary amount of Improvement Points for an Archmage is as follows:

Req. Improvement Points = (Current Spell Casting Skill - 10) x 2

As a result of both these bonuses, Archmages may quickly reach Spell Casting Skill levels that other Wizards may not reach even by the end of the game. Such Wizards have an appreciable advantage in spellcasting frequency, and will more quickly reach a stage where they can cast very powerful overland spells within manageable timeframes ( Mana permitting, of course).

Caster Heroes

Aside from the methods of acquiring permanent Spell Casting Skill described above, any Wizard can potentially augment his/her Spell Casting Skill temporarily by recruiting a certain type of Hero, referred to on this wiki as a "Caster Hero".

These are Heroes who possess the Caster ability. Aside from their ability to cast spells during combat, these Heroes may be used to augment your Spell Casting Skill level. To do so, all you have to do is place the Hero at your Fortress town. From the start of your next turn, and for as long as the Hero remains at the same town as the Fortress, your Spell Casting Skill is increased by an amount equal to 50% of the Hero's current  Mana pool.

The Hero's  Mana pool may be inspected by opening the Hero's details panel. It is shown next to the Caster ability icon. The size of the Mana pool is directly related to the level of the Caster skill, at a ratio of  5 Mana per Caster level, or  7.5 per Super Caster level (rounded down after totalling). Since the Hero contributes only half this amount to your Spell Casting Skill level, we can say that he/she gives 2.5 Spell Casting Skill per level of Caster, and 3.75 Spell Casting Skill per level of Super Caster.

Again, this boost applies only as long as the Hero and Fortress remain in the same place. If the Hero moves out of the Fortress Town, the Wizard's Spell Casting Skill will drop appropriately at the start of the subsequent turn unless he moves back in before that happens. Similarly, users of the Move Fortress spell need to remember to move all their Caster Heroes to the new location of the Fortress after casting this spell.

The extra Spell Casting Skill levels given by Caster Heroes are displayed separately from your "actual" Spell Casting Skill. In the "Magic" screen, the first number shows the effective Spell Casting Skill level including all Caster Hero bonuses. The second number, in parentheses, shows the Wizard's "base" Spell Casting Skill.

For purposes of investing  Power into improvement (see above), Caster Hero bonuses are disregarded. Therefore, their presence does not slow down the improvement of Spell Casting Skill.

Note: There are several non-Hero units who possess the Caster ability, such as Djinns. However, they do not augment your Spell Casting Skill even if they are placed in the Fortress town. Only Heroes can do this.

Cruel Unminding

The only method in the game to reduce a Wizard's Spell Casting Skill is to cast the Cruel Unminding spell on that Wizard.

Cruel Unminding is a Very Rare Instant Spell from the Death Realm. Cast only on the overland map, for the rather high Casting Cost of  250, this spell must be targeted at one of your rival wizards. That wizard will instantly lose anywhere between 1% and 10% of his/her Spell Casting Skill, with a minimum loss of 1 Spell Casting Skill level.

This allows competent Death Wizards to cut their opponents down to size rather easily, especially when the Random Number Generator works in your favor and cuts large percentages off the competition's Spell Casting Skill. With a rough average of 5% per casting, it is quite possible to totally cripple an opponent's spellcasting abilities this way with only a few castings of the Cruel Unminding spell.

Points lost to Cruel Unminding can only be re-acquired by the other methods described in this chapter.

Life Drain

The final method to acquire Spell Casting Skill levels is relatively effective during the early game, but is available only to a handful of Wizards. It involves the spell called Life Drain.

Life Drain is a Common Combat Instant belonging to the Death Realm, and thus can be acquired relatively easily. It can only be cast in combat, and must be targeted at an enemy unit on the battlefield. It forces the target to make a  Resistance roll. If the target fails its roll, it suffers damage based on how badly it failed.

When this spell is cast by a unit on the battlefield, the unit will regain lost  Health based on how much damage was done to the target. If, however, a Wizard casts this spell, he/she stands to gain exactly 3 Spell Casting Skill Improvement Points (see above in this chapter) for each point of  Damage done to the target. For example, if the target suffered  3, the casting Wizard gains 9 Improvement Points immediately.

These "Improvement Points" accumulate towards increasing the wizard's Spell Casting Skill, but more and more such points are required as the Spell Casting Skill goes up. Therefore, as the game progresses, the benefits of Life Drain become less and less significant - unless you can reliably increase the damage done by the spell. In the early game, however, copious casting of this spell against low- Resistance targets can very rapidly give the wizard a surprisingly high Spell Casting Skill score that other Wizards may take a long time to reach.

A major downside that also appears during the later game is that the target must fail its  Resistance roll in order to suffer damage from this spell, which becomes a problem when units with higher Resistance scores begin to appear. However, the casting Wizard may invest additional  Mana into the spell in order to inflict Resistance penalties on the target, making it easier to damage pretty much any target in this manner. The spell's default Casting Cost is  10, and Wizards may add up to  40 more, with every  5 inflicting  -1 Resistance penalty on the target.

Improvement Points gained through Life Drain are identical to those gained through  Power investment, and accumulate in the same pool.