[Tuidjy]

I voted, of course, no. Some of my reasons:

1. Sages are only marginally better, as researchers, than many other indies.
2. Sages are rather common and available to everyone.
3. Sages are rather underwhelming in combat.
4. Sages are quite vulnerable to pretty much anything.

Sages of course have their good points - they are useful for death and astral
searches, low level item forging and blood hunting. And of course, they can
provide a nice early boost in research.

But do sages decide games? Hell no. I save all my turns. Here is what sages
did in my last three big games (more than four people)

Game number I (Pythium)
I built a total of 14 sages, between turns 15 and 22. I was rolling for blood.
Theurgs are close to sages for research, and make awesome combat mages in mid
game... as well as in late game, if you can build enough slave matrices.

Early sage provinces - turn 7 and turn 12.

Game number II (C'tis)
No sages. Shamans are better researchers, and they are more useful in combat.
They do not get sick in miasma, either, but that was not an issue, I had
Gift of Health running most of the game.

Early sage provinces - turn 8.

Game number III (Abysia)

Here is one game in which I was glad to have found sages. The game is only on
turn 56 right now, but I can say that I have about two dozens sages, and that
they do not account for even half of my research. I have not built any for
about 20 turns, because I prefer recruiting fighters as opposed to bookworms.

Would I have been dead in the water without sages? Absolutely not. On turn 8
I found a lizard province. By turn 20, I had found mages that give me 6 RPs and
cost only 60 golds to recruit. I also have a druid province. Had I needed to,
and had my neighbors left me the time, I could have also taken a blood druid
province or an amazon one.

Dominions II is full of options, but it is very shortsighted to think that any
strategy is a game winner/breaker. Yes, you will lose if you neglect casters,
castles, research, mobility, hoarding, supercombatants, diplomacy... but neither
of these will garantee you a win. And yes, you will also lose if the RNG takes
a dislike to you. If your temple and lab burn on turn 2, you prophet gets nailed
by a random event assassin, and your pretender gets decay'd by an indy, you are
toast. Not finding any independant mages is a drag, but it can happen. As for
having a pretender design that requires sages, sorry, but that's your problem.