Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

I was thinking of investigating this while staring at list of nations and wanting to weighing which nation has the best magic for me to use. It seems to me that there is a far from equal representation of each magic type in the whole game, that I'll be attempting to put down in writing, with brief analysis.

I'll attempt to consider every aspect of the nation's magic before giving it a classification as one or two very accessible types of magic, but it will be a generalization. I wouldn't want to type out every nation's individual analysis, but I'll give my justification if anyone wants to discuss/dispute a nation. I'll leave a note if anything appears

(I will use brackets to note what magics exist for a nation but is not their strong suit.)

(I'll also be throwing out any magic that's unreasobly rare, like the Nahualli's 1/40 chance of Death in Mictlan, Reign in Blood or the magic found on Caelum's Amesha Spentas.)

My guess before actually counting all the national magics is that there will be a disproportionately large number of nature and air users and a disproportionately small number of fire and earth users and rainbowy nations will show up in surprisingly large numbers.

Early Era -

Arcosephale: Nature, Air [astral, fire, water, earth]
Ermor: Death, Fire [Astral, air, earth, nature]
Ulm: Earth [nature, fire, water]
Marverni: Astral, Earth [nature, water]
Sauromatia: Death [blood, nature, water, astral]
T'ien Ch'i: Water [all but blood]
Mictlan: Blood, Nature [water, astral, fire]
Abysia: Fire, blood [astral, earth]
Caelum: Air [Water, Death, Earth]
C'tis: Death [nature, astral, water]
Pangaea: Nature [blood, earth]
Agartha: Earth [death, fire, water]
Tir'na'nog: Air, nature [water, earth]
Fomoria: Air, death [nature, water]
Vanheim: Air, Earth [death, blood, fire]
Helheim: Death, air, earth [blood, fire]

Niefelheim: Death, Water, Blood [astral, nature, air] (Air comes on a little more than every 3 Niefel Jarls)

Kailasa: Water, Earth [Astral, nature]

Yomi: Death, Fire, Earth [nature] (Air could come on a little more than every 4 Dai Oni)

Atlantis: Earth, Water [Fire, Astral]
R'lyeh: Water, Astral [Death, Earth, Nature]
Oceania: Water [fire, nature, earth, air]
Lanka: Blood [air, death, nature]

count of strong magic

Fire:2 (Abysia and Yomi)
Air:6 (Caelum, Tir'na'nog, Fomoria, Vanheim, Helheim, Arcosephale)
Water:6 (Niefelheim, Kailasa, T'ien Ch'i, water nations)
Earth:5 (Ulm, Agartha, Vanheim, Helheim, Atlantis)
Nature:4 (Arcosephale, Mictlan, Pangaea, Tirnanog)
Death:7 (Ermor, Sauromatia, C'tis, Fomoria, Helheim, Niefelheim, Yomi)
Blood:3 (Mictlan, Abysia, Lanka)
Astral:2 (Marverni, R'lyeh)

I'm going to stop at Early Era because that's all the time I have right now.

I've tried to be fair by keeping in mind how high a mage should be in a path before being useful in a magic, which I realize is debatable, but FYI, I usually rank a nation with easily attainable fire 2 or earth 2 casters as being a strong nation in fire or earth, due to the easy accessibility of Phoenix Power and Earth Power to allow them to count as rank 3 in a battle. I was also more lenient on Blood because you don't need spectacularly high levels of it to bind the soldier demons and blood hunt, and the pretender can be tailored toward the really big projects like demon lords.

As it turns out, fire and astral were barely represented, and nature didn't turn out very big in Early Era, which surprised me, while Death had an extremely large following for some reason.

Keep in mind this is of course only an analysis of Early Era, which possibly skews the representation of certain magic as a design decision, since, for example, the armor pierce that's iconic for fire evocations don't function well in an era where most units have low armor. I'll have to wait until I can analyze the Middle and Late eras to really make a statement about what magic is underrepresentated or over.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

I think a more useful way to look to the nations is to also look at how much of a magic they get. The best types of magic require a minimum amount before they do anything good.

For example, Death 1 is enough to create a death economy. You can cast Dark Knowledge to find sites and summon Revenants. The problem is that unless claw up the hill on your tongue by Empowering one guy with the Death gems you need to slowly cast Dark Knowledge, then making a Skull Staff to summon a Death 3. Then you must live with the fact that your only good Death Mages are summoned with your short supply of Death gems.

Common Death 3 on your recruitable mages is enough to be a "Death Power." You can spam skeletons and Shadow Blasts, make a Skull Staff and summon only slightly better Death Mages, cast Terror, and with a Skull Staff make a Skull Helmet, and with either spam Drain Life. With a Helmet and a Staff you can cast almost all of the most powerful death magics.

Air on the other hand, is only actually useful if your recruitable mages are natural 4s or 5s, considering that the best battle magic is Air 6 or 7 with heavy drain, so you really want to be like an 7 or 8 with most spells. You can't even make an Air boosting item until Air 4, meaning they cost far more than any other type of magic to boost.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Strictly speaking, the potential to grow your magical arsenal is possible in every path, getting 1 to search sites and then empowering until you can actually become a "power" in that path. But yes, Death would be easier to grow than most of the other paths.

But if anything, that makes Death even more heavily represented in at least Early Era.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Being a Power, in my mind, means not having to do anything crazy to be good at it.

Fire for example, is a Path that you just don't get into except by straight empowerment, which is wasteful in the extreme.

Death and Nature are very easy to get into, since summonable mages are available that let you "walk up the ladder" to powerful amounts of those magics.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Air is only useful if you have 4s and 5s in it? Huh?

What about arrow fend, thunderstrike, wind guide?

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Arrow Fend. A3. Costs a gem, but its great for the value. You want an air 4 or else your mage is knocked out.

Thunder Stike: A3, and is 50 fatigue. Cast two, then get get knocked out. Compared to Falling fire or Falling Frost, its underpowered and overpriced.

Wind Guide: A2. Cheap, but costs a gem.


Sooo, thats three spells, one of which is a loser and others two cost gems. Do you seriously expect anyone to build an army on that?

Look at the best Air spells:
Mists of Deception, A6, 200 fatigue
Wrathful Skies: A5, 200 fatigue
Fog Warriors: A5, 300 fatigue

Considering that the AI often won't cast high fatigue spells and overspends on them if it does cast them, you are spending Air gems at a very fast clip.

Add in that the Bag ogf Air needs an Air 4 to make(20 gems), and a Wind Helmet is A5(25 gems).

So lets say you are Lanka and you best Air mage is A3, and you want to ever cast Mists of Deception. You spend 60 gems to empowered youself to A4, then another 55 gems to get yourself to A6. Now you can overcast the spell with an extra gem and only knock yourself out(total spent: 115 gems).

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Or, in the case of your mists of deception example, you can use a sabbath.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Sure. Anyone can use a Communion or a Sabbath to make up for weak magic, and some nations even get those options on recruitables. What's your point?

Setting up a Sabbath is difficult and easy to foil, and costs blood slaves, and its not going to help 99 out of 100 castings of spells you need to cast over the course of the game. Even implying that it makes up for weak magic is baffling to me.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Erm...doing a bit of setup for a BE (especially one that doesn't kill your mages) is pretty bar for the course...

Even without a communion it's pretty easy to drop a single booster onto your caster, cast summon storm power and then burn an extra gem while casting to get mists off.

The one time empowerment cost to get to A4 for the boosters (assuming you can't get there some other way, via trading, etc.) isn't THAT steep. You're also flat-out wrong about the helms being at A5.

Thunderstrike is also an incredible spell. It's lower research level than falling foo and has 50 range. A single caster with each spell might fall in favor of the bigger AE spells, but if you bring along a whole squad of mages the range advantage of thunderstrike will become obvious, since the army getting pounded by it will be well on the way to routing before their mages even get in casting range. If you commit enough mages to a fight you'll find that 3 casts of it per mage is generally enough to do the job. It's also never rendered obsolete against troops. Army of Niefelheim completely shuts down cold damage and army of gold makes fire magic pretty worthless...the best you can do against lightning is a 50% resist from storm warriors.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

I personally consider magic skill of 1 in any path to be virtually useless. However, once you're at level 2, you can boost with constructed items to 3 or more, and it's at level 3 (and the then attainable level 4 battlefield) spells where a mage becomes really effective.

I've played ME Vanheim, and a series of A3/4 mages pounding a battlefield with thunderstrike is devastating; similarly Arrow Fend is incredibly effective if you're up against any enemy with lots of archers.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

To original poster: certainly, some nations are definetly stronger in some paths of magic than others, and your choice of two thanks to Pheonix Power and Earth Power, pretty spot on. Your distrubution is interesting.

However, there is a middle-range between weak and strong, particularly with those two paths- and nations with matching national gem income. A nation with lots of/only fire one mages and small starting gem income can easily and cheaply afford to spend one gem as a temporary booster to get their fire path up high enough to cast Phoenix Power and still be useful afterward thanks to the low 20 fatigue cost, If I Remember Correctly.

With this, fire magic isn't cheap enough to throw around all the time like it may be for abysia, but it can help you get out Flaming Arrows in a pinch (F1+gem-> Phoenix Power = F2 -> F2+gemcost+gemboost -> Flaming Arrows of fire 3, fatigue 100). It also enables repeat casting of spells occasionally useful such as Fireball, Firebolt (facing an immunity to your main path?), Pillar of Fire, and Rage for no additional expense beyond that first gem.

It doesn't make them strong, but if I've got the right income, I make sure to keep a stash of minor path gems in hand for emergencies. Not regular use, though.

RE: K
Actually, I think the focus on air boosting items is greatly overrated. There are definetly some times when they're valuable, but I can find other more effective ways to spend them - albeit as a short-term loss, not an investment like conjurations or forging.

It is worth mentioning that valid as keeping them awake is, my strategies for big battles often revolve around knocking spare mages unconcious. Spell-casting fatigue is capped at 200, after all.

"Arrow Fend. A3. Costs a gem, but its great for the value. You want an air 4 or else your mage is knocked out."

It only costs one 100 fatigue. If you've got a nation without access to storms, but ready access to air two, then why not have one knock themselves out? An air two mage can spend one gem to temporarily boost their casting level, and another to cover the base cost. For the price of one of those air boosters, I could use this spell ten times. It certainly has a greater effect than one lone air mage spamming lightning bolt.

Oddly enough, I view Fomoria as somewhat weak in air magic. Generally, getting regular combat magic for them involves some signficant sacrifice, be it gold, staff of the storms, etc. Sure they can bust out a few big spells, but their druids are utterly unreliable, and your captial only one recruit a turn. Fomorian Kings are a very limited resource, and using them for the big spells renders them melee-useless.

"Wind Guide: A2. Cheap, but costs a gem."
A gem? that's cheap. You're not hitting a single target, you're getting a battlefield enchantment.

There are a lot of spells that have a path requirement of A4, but only a fatigue cost of 200- or less. This means your A3 mage can spend two on the cost, and one to boost, IIRC.
Phantasmal Army, Living Clouds, Mass Flight, Storm, but not Fog Warriors or Wrathful Skies. However, with just air one, you're kind of stuck for anything useful to do.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

This is reminding me of this thread about the best nations overall:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...art=3&vc=1

Air magic certainly gives certain nations some nasty power in the early/midgame. Not exactly a late game deal though.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Another factor in rating a nations magic is to consider the paths and powers of the recuitable everywhere mages. There are several nations that have real nice capitol only mages but useless recuitables everywhere else. EA Arco comes to mind.

And I recently tried MA Shinu. I didn't like them when I tried them earlier, and I find that I only recruit 2 units (barring initial turn limitations) but I found you can recruit everywhere a mage with 8.25 picks in 4 paths, DEWF, of which I think 3 are great paths. This moved the nation up my list of strongest nations substantially.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Some ideas on how to make use of skill 1 mages:

Arcane Probing (S1) and Dark Knowledge (D1) are enough to find sites that let you recruit amazing independent mages.

N1 will prevent your armies from starving, especially in MA an LA where tribals are not so common.

S1 also gives you Body Ethereal. It's great to sit your mage on a couple thugs and cast this. S1 also scares off Mind Hunters.

A1 lets you forge quills, making Drain scales more palatable.

B1 bootstraps you into blood much faster than messing around with a bunch of scouts, and B1 mages can Leech.

F1 gives you lanterns.

W1 can boost themselves to W2 at const 6.

Also, about air: am I the only guy who likes Seeking Arrow? Oh wait, I can answer that: no, the AI likes casting it too. Not sure if that's a good sign though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

I believe the answer to your question is a resounding yes. Having seen the AI cast it at me approximately three megagagillion times I believe the biggest problem I have with it is that it generates one additional message that I have to scan every time it is cast.

It may be more effective if directed by a player at an opponents capitol, but the AI doesn't seem to use that targeting logic. Regardless, I have placed the spell into my list of "Waste of Gems" file.


Other than that, how are you doing? Any genius-like discoveries lately? I was sure you would have been promoted to "VFB" by now.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

its not a waste of gems. if you target a mage could get killed or get +5 encumbrance wich is damaging for a combat mage.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

To the OP:

Yes, we agree. Why is that important? To me, an uneven distribution of type adds character.

-Jeff

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

This is correct. There are different types of magic prevalent during the different eras. Fire is less common in all three IIRC, as is blood. Not sure, but IIRC earth is more common early on. Astral gets more common later on.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

It's all about your opponent's nation. Do they have lots of unarmored 9/10-hp human mages? Then Seeking Arrows can do you plenty of good. Otherwise, not so much.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Some of the nations get path combinations that are very rare outside of them.

E.g., EA Atlantis is one of the few that can pair Fire and Water magic. The only others I can think of are Jomon, EA TC, and Arco. Fire and Air has a similar very small list, which is more or less the above, minus Arco and Atlantis.

Earth/Blood is very rare as well, with Pangaea and IIRC Vanheim having the best access to it.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Seeking arrow is like all assassination spells a very good situationnal spell.

Your opponent has a 120 units army lead by only 3 commanders threatening to renforce his main army ? You spam 5 or 6 seeking arrows and all the leaders are dead, the army don't move (and perhaps won't move next turn, if he had no leader moving to the province).

As well killing a key mage can change the result of a big battle, and the spell is particularly good to achieve isolated mages after a retreat (or for surprise attacks on researchers when dome spells aren't available).

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Ooo. That saves me from going to count all the eras.

I'm curious, though, whether the unequal distribution is a design decision or whether it just turned out that way after you guys made a bunch of different nations.

And is there any plan to even them out? Because sometimes I open up the game and just think to myself, "I want to play a Fire nation today," but realize I dislike my options intensely.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

HotNife: I believe the common answer to that is, 'Mod your own.' I actually have about 3 ideas for mods right now, one of which I'm surprised no one else has done yet.

Re: Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?
 

Agreed. In most MP cases seeking arrow won't be used too often, but once in awhile a barrage of them in a sensitive province is very much worth the investment.

I've used them to really disrupt large armies that rely on communions. 3A to probably/possibly kill a support mage is a pretty good trade - especially if it makes that army vulnerable.