Thank you for opening this thread, and for the specific introductory comments. Even though we may disagree in point, in principle it's great to hear from you.
The Spells feature has been designed to be one of the core features that Elvenar has to offer, not just for now, but also for the future.
Please recognize that you're introducing a "core feature"
after many of us have invested months and/or lots of $ into the game. We're likely to be somewhat apprehensive over a blind change. It's likely that you were feeling excited - we were feeling apprehensive - with disappointing results for both.
Do you know what would make lots of this frustration go away? Give Beta players free Academy upgrades, and existing real time players a chance to earn the diamonds necessary for upgrading the Academy. It's pretty essential for you to understand that most players consider it underhanded when you require a new core element and then expect vested players to either pay up or get screwed. A Level 2 Academy will never be able to produce sufficient spells (based on your description of this as a core element). I'm saying this firmly, not with intent to be aggressive, but to emphasize the extent of player reaction thus far.
Conceptually everyone seemed interested in the idea of Spells. It's the Relics which presented the conceptual problem. All the other core buildings utilize reproducible assets: coins / supplies / goods. We make them and spend them, over and over. But a "core building" which runs on Relics is an entirely different matter - we can't produce Relics. In fact...
We value our relics. Province encounters are challenging. We like the challenge.
Spending Relics on a Spell that lasts a couple of hours and produces nominal results - here you have the crux of the problem. It feels like insult to injury when we are required to build a large building in order to do this process we don't want to do at all. I'm hopeful that this is a big misunderstanding, and look forward to seeing the corrections and follow up to restore some mutual confidence.
During the repeatable quests debacle, we were all told repeatedly that we should aim to make our cities self-sufficient, with no need to rely on extra sources of resources, like the said quests. With that in mind, most players did that, which now made the existing spells redundant.
Yep! We were slammed and insulted for using Quests to boost production - now it's magically okay to boost production. This is one of the reasons players are balking - we'd like some ability to be Frank Sinatra, and "do it our way". Not all the time - just enough of the time. After all, this is a magical world.
The last negative thing I have to say is our concern about where additional Relics will come from. Relics from Quests was mentioned - and you won't hear any complaints when that occurs. Relics from some tournament where we compete against an independent standard - this will also be good.
Relics gained from direct competition against one another - where a limited number of resources are made available for players to fight over - this will change the nature of the game. Elvenar is a blessed relief from real life: here, I don't want to fight a world of finite resources. I don't want to win if that ensures that others lose needed resources. I don't want to compete against my best friend here - gaining Relics she may need. Please give us a standard to compete against - everyone who does such and such gets x relics, etc.
Aside from the competition issue, now that you're making Spells a core feature, Relics are the primary coin of the Realm (they can't be produced, only won). Then if you choose to make Relics available primarily according to fighting skills, once again you're changing the nature of the game by giving the advantage to fighters. This isn't the hallmark of a city-builder game. If you want to avoid this, you're planning on awarding just as many Relics via production Quests, right?
Specifically:
Either give us Spells that don't cost Relics - or drastically upgrade the caliber of Spells so they equate to the value of a Relic. We can easily spend 25,000 goods to negotiate one Relic - or lose hundreds of troops. We're unlikely to appreciate the value of using 2 Relics (40,000 goods apx) to gain a few thousands goods via a Spell.
This will mean reconsidering the calculation of Spells to benefit all cities. Because: A single manufacturing boost of 50% may be helpful to a fledgling city fighting to upgrade residences to Superior level....but what good is this bonus to a developed city? None whatsoever. (Think about it: what responsible city planner past Section V would be so irresponsible as to place his city in a position where gaining 50% of one manufactory could be meaningful?)
Since 1 Relic is equally valuable to players at all levels, the purchased Spell should also be of equal value to players at all levels. An equitable manufacturing Spell could be "All goods produced in x hours are increased by x percent". This produces a result equivalent at every city level. so long as the hours / percentages bring a truly "powerful" result - not a miserly one. (Note: if the programming can't be re-written to this extent, then keep the 1 Spell per 1 manufactory ratio - only make the results truly spectacular and equally costly). Please keep in mind how costly these Relics are!
Alternately, if the Spells could be attached to the Quest line - where outcomes increase along the way - you could have Spells that yield goods plus coins / supplies like a Quest. Everyone would enjoy the thought of Spells which grow more powerful as we progress.
On the same note, Ensorcelled and Supply spells should probably apply to total production - not one building at a time. And please reconsider the Ensorcelled Spell's application to the 100% culture bonus - this is another area where Spells efficacy varies depending on the size of a city.
As for other random Spells:
Straw into Gold: bottomless coin for 7 days
European Holiday: workers are at the ocean, bottomless Supplies for 7 days
Fairy Godmother: every NH click you make has 4x the result
AutoPilot: Manufactories produce at lowest level automatically until supplies / coin run out (we could save up for 3 big spells and actually go on vacation for a week...definitely worth saving up the Relics)
Spring Cleaning: Rent a storage space for 24 hours so we can clean up and rearrange (at least 12 x 12)
DoubleDecker: Very expensive permanent Spell! Allows us to stack two identical buildings
Secret Passageway: Another expensive permanent Spell! Allows us to replace a city Wonder with a 1x1 tall marker indicating the secret passage to the Cliff Wonder.
Clickers Delight: Skips the "do you really want to" second popup for declinable quests. LOL
Wonder Widget: Doubles the KP donation made by others for 24 hours
Please note: NONE of these speed up the game (I'm not suggesting faster scouting, lol).