[Scott Hebert]

Graeme Dice said:

S2 or less is worth less than most other paths. S3 or more is worth more. W is worth the least of all except if it's in combination with a path that is useful on the battlefield.

I would prefer, actually, if you could rate each path separately, and then give a bonus/penalty on what paths it 'shows up with'. If you could do that, I could recalculate the costs of the mages.

I've never seen anyone actually use hydras, so I can't comment on that.

Well, I like to use them, at least. I think that in MP they would be less viable, as apparently MR is about the only stat that is of any use.

The druid is very common, the Daughter of Avalon is not.

The Druid also has an opportunity cost of 400g for the Temple and Laboratory to make him. The Daughter does not. Shouldn't that factor into the costs as well?

They can only summon an endless horde of undead if you've also researched alteration 5 for drain life, and have also spent 10 death gems on a skull staff. Otherwise they only get to cast about 4 raise skeletons, which is not that scary of a force.

Hrm. I seem to do well enough with Enchantment-3 and the Raise spells (they can throw about 5 or so each before falling over). Then again, I never get to play against the cutthroat MP people.

Unholy priests are severely overrated. By the time you've summoned enough so that they will have a noticeable effect on your battles, your opponents should be able to deal with longdead without much difficulty. The summoned unholy priests are probably better off when used as combat platforms.

Mm. I have a question, Graeme. This is meant seriously, not sarcastically. Do you use non-summoned troops at all in your games?

That's your opinion. I'd say that Caelum's mages are a good baseline for what every nation should have.

That would require an entire re-write of Illwinter's magic cost formula to compensate. Would you like me to do that, and then report on what everyone's mages should cost?

True, but nobody would buy them at that cost.

At this point, I think you should talk to Illwinter about their costing formulas, then.

That does not work at all, as a single death means that all your commanders run away.

Barring other factors (like someone spamming troops), yes. Again, there is always a way to handle that issue.

I'd go the other route and decrease all site searching spells to 1 in the respective path.

Mm. Wouldn't that make Sages even better than they are currently?

You don't use a Niefel Jarl for its spellcasting ability. You use it as a full-fledged SC. This is a role that a Vanadrott cannot match as the Van does not have sufficient hitpoints.

I would think that with the spells a Vanadrott can cast, the HPs would not be as great of an issue. I would agree that the Hangadrott is a better example than the Vanadrott, but that would require me playing with a Death scale.

Why not ignore it? Is there any way to make assasination cost effective?

Apparently, you don't think so. However, if I removed the cost for being an assassin, you'd have a flood of them. Now, working on the 'diminishing returns' system, a mage-assassin wouldn't 'spend' as much for his assassination capability as the 'straight' assassin (to the point of 0, perhaps).

Personally, I don't use Assassins for the same reasons I am 'troop-based'. I hate having too many commanders to tell what to do (it makes the turns take too long, for me).

Acashic record costs too much to worthwhile.

Again, that is your opinion. If I have casters who can cast Acashic Record, I generally prefer to use that than the other site-searching spells.

If you have a 5S one, they you got very lucky, as you're much more likely to get something along the lines of S3W1B1N1, which doesn't have too much of a use.

Oh, it's very rare, I'll grant you. I wanted to know more from a 'did I use the correct formula to cost them' standpoint than anything else.

That's the worst of their problems.

Mm. Well, 'spread-out' mages cost less.

No, they are important because astral provides luck, and magic resist in the form of the lucky pendant, lucky coin, starshine skullcap and antimagic amulet, while death magic provides wraith swords and decent summons.

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And if they didn't? And what you term 'decent' I term 'overpowered', by and large.

However, I am not trying to 'mod' the game to what I think is fair or balanced. I am trying to see if I can come up with a rubric that calculates the gold cost of a commander accurately.

To that end, I am going to raise the 'first path, first level' cost from 30 to 50, and recalculate the mages. I will probably also have to make Holy magic the same as the first path magic (50,90,150), and it will again come closer to current costs.