TLDR - I guess they walk to the mana, even though it doesn’t make sense.
The long version:
Taking the concept of a troop being “frozen” literally (I.E. they are covered in a layer of frost/ice that limits their movement, meaning they can still make some movement but not gain extra movements in most scenarios), I totally agree that it does NOT make sense.
Consider the following. I have a team of 4 troops, all sharing the same colours. Say, Frostfire Goblin, King Gobtruffle, Goblette, Sir Snothelm. They are all Blue and Green. The opponent manages to freeze one of my troops, say Sir Snothelm. Obviously, Sir Snothelm is now limited in movement, so if he casts his spell he will not gain the extra turn his spell should give. That makes perfect sense. And, if King Gobtruffle casts his spell, he will gain the extra turn his spell should give, because his movement is NOT limited. That makes perfect sense. Same with the other Goblins.
Now, if the frozen troop is in the 1st slot, big skull matches (4 or more, thus they would give an extra turn) do NOT give an extra turn, because the troop making the attack with the skulls is limited in movement. That makes perfect sense. And, if the frozen troop is in a lower slot, they aren’t the one making the attack, so it has no effect on gaining an extra turn from big skull matches. That makes perfect sense.
But, when a troop gains mana, it doesn’t matter what position they are in. So, if Sir Snothelm is frozen and King Gobtruffle is higher and empty of mana, and you match 4 blue gems, you would expect that King Gobtruffle grabs that mana and gains an extra turn. But, because Sir Snothelm is frozen, King Gobtruffle doesn’t gain the extra turn, even though he is not frozen and Sir Snothelm isn’t taking any mana. That doesn’t make sense.
It kinds seems like if they are frozen, they freeze the mana “pool” for that colour, meaning you are unable to gain an extra turn from that colour. From a literal sense, that seems weird in general. The mana created from matching gems seems to flow directly to the troops, without them moving, so why would their movement being limited by being frozen affect them gaining mana. The only conclusion I can come to is that the troops are somehow moving to collect their mana, so if any one of them is limited in movement, the whole group moving to collect that colour mana is unable to move faster (in a group, you’re only as fast as your slowest member).
I mean, it doesn’t really match what we see on screen, and it still feels a little weird, but it’s the best I can think of.
From a gameplay point of view, the devs decided it works this way, even if it doesn’t make much sense, because that’s what they want. If they don’t explain it, it can just be magic or something.
If we assume the “walking to collect mana” idea, they’re basically tied to a frozen troop. It doesn’t matter how fast they walk, or that they can’t be covered in frost/ice. They still can’t move faster, because they’re having to drag the frozen ally.
Well, consider a different team. Say we have Diamantina, Divinia, Celestasia, Dracos-1337. They all share the colour yellow, and Diamantina shares an extra colour with each other troop, but they don’t share another colour with each other. So, if Diamantina was frozen, it having limited movement would mean that every troop would be unable to collect mana and gain an extra turn, since going to any colour would require Diamantina coming too, and it has restricted movement. But, if Celestasia is frozen, only visits to the yellow and blue mana pools would be affected, so you can still match other colours and Celestasia would be left behind while other troops walk to the pools. For example, you match 4 green mana, only Diamantina walks to the green pool from that team. So, even if all three other troops were frozen, Diamantina can move freely to the pool, collect the mana and get an extra turn.
So, while it might seem like “when Celestasia is frozen, Diamantina is frozen as well, because it doesn’t get an extra turn when I match 4 yellows”, that’s not accurate, because Diamantina can still move freely to the other mana pools, because it isn’t dragging a frozen troop along to the pool. So, it ISN’T frozen. Though it can feel like it is, when two troops only have the same colours and one is frozen but the other isn’t.
Well, scatter damage is affected. Like, if one troop is submerged and the team takes scatter damage, the damage is reduced for the whole team, even though only the non-submerged troops are affected by it. Or, if one troop is fairie fired, the scatter damage is increased, even though only one troop has the status effect, I think. But that’s the closest example I can think of that I know works that way.
However, I suspect that disease is also like frozen, in that it affects all allies who share a mana colour. Put it this way, if you have the goblin team I mentioned above, and one goblin is diseased, it will reduce all blue and green mana you gain by half. But that affects all the mana the whole team gets, not just how much mana the diseased troop gets. I think. I haven’t tested to be sure, so I might be wrong, but it seems like it works this way. Which, if it does work that way, would fit with the “walking to the mana pool” system, in that the diseased troop can’t collect as much mana from the pool, I guess.
But there’s a bunch of status effects that work in ways that none of the others do, so I wouldn’t read too much into it. Like Barrier and Submerged behave completely different to other status effects. Almost everything else has a “timer” before they get removed, while these two are removed on certain actions taking place and last forever if that doesn’t happen.
Well, assuming your whole team shares at least one colour, and you’re trying to match 4 or more of that colour, yeah. But that just means you have to pay attention to what team they’re bringing and prepare for stuff like freezing, which is part of the strategy aspect of guild wars that some players love, and others don’t.
Yeah, this is exactly what makes me think the “walking to the mana pool” idea is the closest fit to how the game works. When mana is created from a match, all the troops who can use the mana form a line, and start collecting it from the “pool”, until the “pool” is empty. If the pool is big enough, they all get their fill and the rest is discarded, but otherwise they collect mana until it runs out, and even if only one troop gets any, the whole team has to line up if one of their colours is “pooled”. Like they don’t know how much is in the pool until they all get there and start collecting it, or something.
Like I said, it doesn’t really make sense, and I’m probably overthinking it to try and justify something that doesn’t make much sense, but I hope this helps you feel less like the frozen status is “cheating” or something, because it can kinda be explained. Either way, if you read all this, thanks.
and the walking in general, like animals shuffling to a watering hole. I’ll never see this game the same way again