[Scott Hebert]

I am aware that non-standard mages are supposedly there for 'balance purposes'... but having played the game for some time, I have to question this. Let's take for example the most likely culprit, the High Seraph of Caelum.

It is RIDICULOUSLY under-priced. As I recall, it is 3A2W1?, correct? By my calculations, the price for its magic ALONE is 257.75g. Then add the base price of 30g for a commander (though I'm working on refining that), and you get 287.75. Then, let's take into account that it flies, and is cold-immune. Say another 20. That's 300g.

Caelum gets this for 175g, instead.

Well, then, I would expect to see outstandingly bad troops for Caelum (ignoring, for the present, the fact that magic always outstrips troops). Well, they're certainly fragile, for the most part. However, that is to balance that nearly all of their troops fly, and naturally have magic weapons. What non-flying troops they have are quite good, so I don't see how Caelum's 'good mages' are balanced by their 'bad troops'.

Well, what about their priests? Maybe they just have no good priests? Nope. Their only priest(ess), the Seraphine, is Holy-3 AND Stealthy. No, you really can't say they have bad priests in the least.

Well, what about bad scales? Are they balanced there? You look, and no. Far from it, in fact. They want Cold-3, which is another way of saying that they get 120 free points. Now, even if 80, say, of those points go into upping their Pretender's Dominion so that they naturally spend time in their Dominion, that's still more points than the average nation gets, and that's a higher Dominion. As it is, Cold is better than Heat because most Undead/Underwater nations take it, so it's more likely to be a Cold world than a Hot one.

So, personally, I don't see where Caelum is all that hampered by other factors that they deserve to have a mage on the order of the High Seraph, that cheaply.

For myself, I do not think that the ideas espoused for balance should work that well. Balance each part of the game against themselves, and you end with a balanced game. Balance does NOT mean equal, though. Ulm has good troops, yes... except against Undead/Magic/Giants/Armor-Piercing attacks, etc. Ulm also has a good mage, if a limited one. (The Master Smith, by ANY calculation, is undercosted.)

In any event, if/when I release a mod for the mages in the game, people who don't feel there's an imbalance in the mages don't have to use it.