2 teleport spells???

i still want to know how i can cast teleport at all as an empire player. most useful spell in the game and it's free for one faction and hidden for the other?

I could be wrong but I think its an oversight. I think the first one was supposed to originally only teleport the sov and they changed it last minute. I could be wrong of course.

The only difference is a mana cost of 5 versus 15.

It's a safe bet that the 2 spells should have different functions but...

the empire one you have to research.. (lvl 2? 3?)

for some reason, you get teleport to start with in kingdom and have to research imbue. but you get imbue in empire and have to research teleport.

It is obvious the lower level teleport weren't meant to teleport the sov + stack. And only the later is.

personally i think the differences between the two "generic" spellbooks for the two sides are pretty arbitrary and pointless. i also don't understand why i have a death spellbook without ever selecting it or discovering it (to my knowledge). is this the resoln faction death worshippers ability? or is it automiatic for all empire players? if it is something i discovered, or got for picking resoln, it's pretty pathetic for something called the Book of Death, as it has no particularly powerful high level spells. i fail to see what connection Spirit Dance has with the concept of death. it would help if i had some way of knowing what spellbooks i actually had. also, unlike most people i still don't seem to have discovered any other spell books?

imho they should just merge the life, death and enchantment spell books into one, automatic book that covers all the basic utility stuff, or make the books of Life and Death at least worthy of the names. i also dislike the way that the "extra" spellbooks work outside of the shard system, making one of the (supposedly) most valuable resources pointless if you chose to focus on these spells. imho, almost every spell should be tied to an element, and shards should have an affect for non-damage spells.

generally though, spells seem to be really poorly though out. the spellbook interface is horrible; the huge icons mean you're having to use those little turn page icons all the time, and it's hard to remember which page you're even on. it was ages before i even noticed the bookmarks at the bottom for switching between known and unknown spells. the spells aren't even sorted by level, and you have to look at each one individually to see what book it's from. and bringing up the whole, screen eating book every time you want to cast something is really annoying.

the game needs more spells, but at the same time their is some pointless duplication already. summon minor fire elemental and summon fire giant seem to have the same mana cost and spell book. why is this? is one more powerful than the other (in which case, why would anyone take the other?) or are they equally powerful (in which case, what a waste of a spell). and i still can't decide which of haste or quicken (if either) is worth learning.

back on topic, i have reached "teleport friend" at level 7, however, i have still yet to find a generic, low level, low cost teleport spell for my sov (like the one kingdom sovs start with), which is pretty annoying given that it's the most useful spell in the game when i'm playing kingdoms.

update: have found it. apparently it is called spirit dance for empire factions. i had ignored it before because i assumed (due to the different name and it's description) that it would take me to the nearest tile automatically, rather than letting me choose a location like teleport does).

This has gotta get fixed. Easy fix we talked about in the game chat at launch, guess it got missed under all of the other problems.

If that is so then that plan by stardock is almost rediculous. Who has their soverign running around the map early on without support troops? And if you run into serious trouble you would be expected to teleport your sov back and leave those troops stranded or left to die. That could be a huge waste of gildar and material and it would really skew the early game. (even empire can get this spell early and it is needed. kingdom getting teleport to start and empire getting imbue i think is a pretty fair trade off.

What would make more sense would be for the teleport to work currently as it is for the 5 mana. Sov and army to friendly territory. Then the later teleport to send sov and army to ANY tile not in ememy territory (friendly or neutral) for 15 mana.

There have been many times that i'm playing a game and want to get at least halfway across the map to explore something and i dread it. That is a tremendously tedious process especially when it is through territory you have already explored.

i see your point. but i do think at the same time that transporting an entire army instantaneously should be quite a big ask.

a one man teleport can actually be really usefull. i used it early game quite a lot. you may not be able to take your army with you, but you can usually pick up a few troops at whatever location you just ported to. you may be sending your sov to reinforce a city expecting imminent attack, or to pick up a quest reward, or cast a newly gained enchantment on a friendly city.

Tbh remove teleport completely. It kills strategic aspect of the game.

Let us foresee enemy moves and counter them with armies placed beforehand at proper points. We wanna play with geography of our magical worlds.

Well said 

well, if it's only for sovs then it doesn't allow you to make an omni present army. and if group teleport is prohibitively expensive, it's not a problem.

As a sorta-related aside: in 1.06 I experimented with the first teleport, and found a 'difficulty'.  Apparently if you want the whole stack to teleport with the caster then the caster has to be in the 'first' spot in the stack.  Sov's are always (I think) in the first spot, but other casters are ordered by level (it appears).  ie -- if I want a lvl 4 channeler to teleport the stack and there's a lvl 5 channeler in the stack, the lvl 4 will only teleport themself, not the stack (because the lvl 5 would be in the first spot in the stack, or the Sov would be if present in the stack).  I'd have to remove the lvl 5 (and sov if present) and add/remove folks from the stack to get the lvl4 in the first position, then it'd teleport the stack.

So when that pack of creatures spawns and kills your caravans, you are supposed to foresee that? 

Strawman.

The game doesn't offer an ability to attach escort guards to caravans, but it should. And with the reports of monsters spawning and attacking a caravan in the same turn, Teleport wouldn't help you.

doesn't the description say teleport caster and army?

I'd removed caravans from the game too. I'd like to have more control over road building - give me Engineers units, just like in Civ / MoM. As for trade routes, I'd use GalCiv2 concept.

incidentally, the 2nd teleport is air only, isn't it?

must be a error - all i see -

and the reason for life / death spells - try research magic you gain access to more spells that way

My assumption has been that the level 1 teleport spell is bugged and was only intended to teleport your sovereign only, not your whole stack. So enjoy it while it lasts!

I'm with Nick-Danger on this one, I'm not sure how you can come up with the conclusion that the lv1 teleport spell is bugged and only intended to teleport sovereign only. Let's review the facts:

Lv1 Life = Teleport, moves army with leader, costs 5

Lv3 Death = Spirit Dance, moves army with leader, costs 5

Lv7 Air = Teleport Friends, moves army with leader, costs 15

For this I can conclude:

A ) All teleport spells should be level 7 and costs 15 essence

B ) OMG, I play Empire, it's so unfair, it's not called Teleport, so I never knew I had it.

C ) Air spell is completely pointless

D ) Originally, teleport was conceptualize as an Air spell only, costing 15 essence because any less would simply be too "cheap". Then, after much play testing they realize that in the beginning of the game, when the player only has a small group of units and not massive armies, when the monsters were actually dangerous and could destroy your capital and cause an aggravating early loss, they needed the ability for sovereigns to quickly bring the small scouting group home in emergencies. As such, they copied Teleport Friends and put it into the Life and Death spell book (to make sure everyone gets it) at a much earlier spell level, and at a much lower cost (because early level sovereigns won't have that much essence). They simply forgot to remove or change Teleport Friends into something different.

 You choose which option I believe, lol. (Hint: I mostly play Kingdom)

they needed the ability for sovereigns to quickly bring the small scouting group home in emergencies

Wonder if they could make a spell that does just that, returns you and your army to your capitol. 

Teleport Friends would then enable teleporting to any friendly territory.

The ability to teleport a single unit should be limited... something like scrolls of teleport and not available in the regular list of spells.  The ability to teleport an entire army stack should be extremely limited... something like a ritual spell which takes several turns to cast from a very high level spell with a high resource cost something like 4_Elementium.

AoW SM was better - a building for high-level-towns was a teleporting gate.

   Teleport makes defending too easy. Just treat both spells as, for example, 30 mana & level 7 ( Teleport Army Spell )