Just a thought on new, upcoming Troops.
Maybe it’s been up for discussion before, but a nice way to get variety could be to make skills more powerful if there are many gems of a certain color on the board. Like Queen Mab; if there are more than 10 blue you get an extra turn.
Thoughts;
Troop X - heal an ally and give barrier. If there are more than 10 (green) gems, heal another random ally, if there are more than 15 (green) gems, heal random ally + give barrier.
Etc.
This gives much room for experimentation, balance and variety in how the skills work.
There would be a benefit in the risk of hesitating to throw powerful skills;
“I should cast this powerful skill now, however, if I wait 3 turns it might be a better benefit of doing it… Or not.”
Just a method to get more troops published, that doesn’t repeat old skills from previous troops.
I think this could open up for a more defensive kind of strategy, as Super Troop X would like to maximize his / her (green) gems to achieve maximal effect of his / her skill, and the other team would like to minimize green gems in order to postpone Super Troop X’s skill (or make sure it does as little effect as possible)
More suggestions:
Skill - Make red gems brown and brown gems red, if there are more than 10 red gems, gain half mana back, if there are more than 10 red and 10 brown gems, give an ally full mana.
Name:Mana Battery
Cost: 20 Mana, all 6 colours
Rarity: Legendary
Kingdom: Adana
Type: Construct
Spell: Recharge - Redistribute Mana to all other Allies, gain an Extra Turn if an Ally fills it’s Mana.
Traits: Construct Bond, Impervious, Armored
There are actually several troops already with spells that are boosted by gems on the board, without destroying or removing them: Frost Giant, Revenant, Runesmith, and Winter Imp. So they could certainly add more troops or weapons with these kind of effects, even without expanding on their scripting system, which they’ve said a few times is limited by onerous restrictions from Apple for their mobile store.