[Jasper]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Why do the magic paths need to be balanced? If water is seen to be weaker than the others, that doesn't mean it won't get used. If your national mages have water, and you get water gems, you'll obviously use them for one of the uses that have been listed in this thread.

It's true that all the paths don't need to be balanced, as you could balance nations with water magic in other ways (e.g. I wouldn't call Atlantis, R'lyeh, or Caelum weak).

However, IMHO the game would be more enjoyable if they were more balanced. I also think it wouldn't take much change to make water more interesting at lower levels of research, and so this would be an easy way to improve the game. As it stands the only reason I can see to take water on anything other than a Rainbow pretender is for the nice Water 9 blessing.