Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Easy Solution for Wizard Tower Problem

Maybe there could be a use for Wizard tower that also benefits a dragonless AI? Either that, or dragonless AI's should immediately deconstruct any wizard tower they come across.

Perhaps you can buy spells from them:

Word-of-recall: Pay X/2 gold to respawn casualties up to a total value of X to this wizard tower from battles the coming turn. Naval units require coastlines. Excess gold is returned at the beginning of the next turn. (If you pay 2 it is enough to return a 3 or 4 gold unit; if no unit is returned you get 2 gold back. If you pay 10 it is enough to return up to 20 gold's worth of units. If you return only 10 gold's worth, you get 5 gold back.)

Recovered units behave like newly constructed units (cannot move before next turn).

Teleport: Pay 6 + 2X gold to spawn a transport unit that has X cargo capacity, can move on this turn, lands in any friendly territory where you have units already (without entering other territories on the way) and unloads automatically before ceasing to exist. (Spell cancels before payment if wizard's tower is invaded before the owner's turn.)

Waterwalk: Pay 7 gold. All ground units in the territory gain the ability to step onto ocean tiles. They ability is lost if they travel by other means (enter a transport), if they encounter enemies and if they end their turn on dry land. Waterwalking units cannot engage enemies, and if they are engaged by naval or air units they are destroyed without battle. (Hostile waterwalkers can go past eachother without incident, and naval units can take out enemy waterwalkers without forcing their own waterwalkers into battle.)

Haste: Pay 10 gold. All units in area with 1 or more movement points left gain an extra movement point.

Cloak: Pay 20 gold. All units in area are cloaked until they reach their destination. (Will not intercept or be intercepted before final tile. Will not claim territories before final tile.)

Quest for the philosopher's stone: Once per wizard tower, convert X research points to an equal amount of gold. (This should not reset if a new player conquers the wizard tower; to reuse the ability, a new tower must be built - you can sell the old one and build a new one, of course.)

Pricing may affect what phase/situation wizard towers are most useful in. Expensive wizard towers can be interesting for long campaigns. Teleport, waterwalk and haste makes for less predictable troop movements, which could be a bit harder for the AI, but it also gives the AI more reason to spread its forces the way it already does. (Whereas I leave most of my empire wide open because I control all his attack vectors.)