>1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine.
Said like a person that never had a Sphinx dropped on their capital on turn 7. The abuse can get a lot worse than the loss of a 100 HI.
I'm glad to hear that Dom II may have worked towards limiting this. I hope to see the new game balance in action during the upcomming months.
>Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.
I'm always concerned when players have control of a resource that ramps up, such as blood slaves. I hope Dom II really has addressed this.
>3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon.
C'tis and Jotunheim also often field mages that have astral-1. Even the astral-2 mages are dangerously behind the astral-3 nations. The tricks that can be done to pump astral are available to everyone. The astral-3 nations are always ahead of the curve on this, and as such it makes life hard on the lesser astral nations.
It's something you must always consider when playing with astral magic.
>4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean?
This is a reference to players showing up with large numbers of summons such as Summer Lions. It can ruin someones day for sure.
>5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough.
This shouldn't be a big issue in Dom II (I hope).
In Dom I, Groups of mages could often take down conventional armies at no loss.
Massive summons of lesser air elementals was single handedly corrupting the game, IMHO.
>6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others?
Combo's like thunder ward/wrathful skies, or poison ward/foul vapors. This sort of spell combo could often dissolve entire armies. The way IW has altered wards in Dom II will probably help lessen the frequency we see this stuff.
>8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual.
Not too expensive by the time it's in play. Much less "expensive" than allowing the 600 troop army to stroll into your area. If your enemy has a stack of mages in there, knocking out 20-40% isn't shabby. You can't protect them all...
Once MW and FFTS start getting thrown about, conventional armies with mages become much less important. You must start to rely on super combatants and larger summoned creatures. I'm not a big fan of this kind of endgame. I much prefer it when things resolve before this much magic becomes available.
>9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them .
I never said it was a "problem" as in bad for Dominions. It's a "problem" in-game for the player who is getting slammed by repeated spells.
>10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance.
I was talking more about assassination spells than assassin characters.
If you have never been the victim of a serious Arco 'mind hunt' festival then count yourself lucky! (arco can use their priestesses to undo afflictions from bad results)
I can't wait to see what goodness Dom II will bring to the table.