Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

staff of storms, spirit helms, shield of valor =) To be honest, air gems are quite awesome but globals isn't one of them. I don't think I've casted a single air global beyond the temptation at times to save up for gale gate.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Ive cast air globals a few times, i would use them more if i played air nations. I dont use staff's of storms often and i find spirit helms too costly but i agree shields of valor are rather kickass.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Fata Morgana looks good on paper, increases income by lowering unrest and gives your PD a huge boost. I've never actually cast it that I can recall, but it seems like a better version of Mechanical Militia.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I am unsure if this is really a balance complaint, but some of the supposedly strong mages are kinda crappy. Things like Celestial Masters. Ignoring the fact that they drop like flies to magic duel, The fact that they have a lot of magic isn't all that relevant. Their magic being spread out over so many paths means that they are unable to cast any high level spells, and unable to even forge boosters, except for water bracelets, and a few two path boosters. Similarly, Eagle Kings. What is with the earth magic? unless it's free, why would you EVER want to have it? Air 4 is good enough thank you. They can cast flying shards. Wheee! Oh, Wait! They can cast orb lightning and shoot 4 bolts. Nevermind. They can't even forge earth boots. It's not that eagle kings suck (they don't - air 4 is awesome) but that they seems, at least to me, to be overpriced, since they pay for something that is totally worthless. Also, their magic is a bit weird, aren't they supposed to be high mages of the storms? Or weather? Or something like that? And what about mind lords? Ok, enslave mind as an attack is cool, but it's not really all that usefull, and I'm pretty sure it's not free. It's not bad if you order them to quicken and fire, but if you want to cast with them, which I think is what most people will do, it's not great, especially since you need more then one to be truely effective. Yeah, like you can spam capital only 420 gold mages.
I've been playing Dom3 one nation at a time, so my observations are limited to a few races, but I think that they are fairly accurate. I'm not entirely sure whether paying extra for things you don't need is bad for balance, but it certainly seems that way to me.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Having multiple low paths opens up site searching for gems and eventually empowerment so you can forge boosters. Of course, then you run into problems when your scripting runs out and they start casting oddball buffs instead of better spells. It's not totally useless and IMO it's better to have it than not even if you have to pay a little more.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

My thought on "power of magic" by Twan and Zen's response.

The size of armies increased, but not because of units being cheaper, but because of more gold in the world. That means number of mages increases proportionally as well. And due to large armies, penalty for low precision is somewhat reduced.

The less effect of magic in early-mid game is more related to slower research, I think (in early game it's also related to the cost of setting up extra forts and labs).

In the late game more mage means more equipment for them (considering that you can't siege anything without being flamed/frozen/rain-of-stoned or lightning bombed and few mages can survive those without protection). However, amount of magic gems has not been increased, so it makes harder to use battlefield mages in the later game. Those are my projections, I haven't yet played late game vs human opponent.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

It's not true anymore in Dom3 : the "pure" Fire and Air boosters are at level 4 now, and Elem Staves also are at level 4.
So no way for CM to get at them...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, you'd have to empower them quite a bit, but at least you can find the gems to do so if you find it that important.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

heh. It's your gems.