[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
What? A 9th level spell overpowered? In all my PBEM and SP play in Dom1 and 2 I've never got to cast a 9th level spell. If I ever do I hope its seriously overpowered!

Never? Strange... I found games with shifting alliances to often Last longer. The Last game I played with 6 players on a small map had enough resources to research to 9, despite resource depleting global spells. It wasn't a terribly fast game, but it wasn't slow either, with constant warfare for me from before turn 20.

I'm curious, do you tend to play on small maps with permanent alliances? That's the only way I can imagine games consistently having such low research.

Bigger maps with more players inevitably Last long enough to see high level research, in my experience.