[RedRover]

Having read and considered the posts so far, here are a few more thoughts:


1) Generally I like the idea of some sort of additional cost for summoned units. The more variety in how the costs are configured, the better.


2) On the idea of gem availability, how about the following?

Make gems “sticky” and mages “grabby.” Each turn, all mages in labs fill to a personal limit before any gems go into the general pool.

Say the limit is one gem per level per path. The “pool gem” command ignores these gems. Unless you want to shift them manually, they are used only for tactical combat or a few special orders like Blood Sacrifice. Maybe allow a “sticky on/sticky off” toggle.


3) Give gem-producing items a “shelf life” of 20 gems.

After that, the device fails and is automatically discarded, even if cursed. Basically make some sort of #maxeffects mod code for items. (This makes gem-producing entities correspondingly more valuable.)


4) One idea to limit the “free troop” aspect of summons would be to stress the caster more.

Say a summons costs 1 hit point per two spell levels (round down) that never comes back.

So a 10 hp mage casting a 5th level summons loses 2 hit points that cannot be restored by any means. A fifth summon of this type would be fatal to that mage, and you probably wouldn't want to commit the mage to battle after the second or third such summons.

Likewise, leaders that summon magical being allies might lose a hit point or more per creature summoned—this represents the loss of personal vitality as it is transferred to activate the ally. The exact number might vary according to the creature summoned.

If this doesn't go into Dom3 proper, maybe the modding commands might allow for its incorporation for purposes of further testing.


5) Start certain summoned creatures with experience levels and adjust their base stats so there is effectively no change in their initial numbers.

For example, the Arch Devils might already be at 5 experience levels—further experience for them is irrelevant. Maybe the Draconians summoned starts at 2-3.


6) Limit ritual summoning spells to one per laboratory per turn, in the same way that Blood Sacrifice is limited to one per temple.

[This is the idea I'd most like to test.]


7) Maybe make resources a little easier to come by.

Allow Alchemy to produce Resources from Earth gems as well—maybe 5 resource points at that location per gem. These would, of course, have to be used or they go away.


On empowering national troops with magic abilities.
I’m not sure I like the idea of giving troops intrinsic magical special abilities (such as fire resistance or regeneration). That’s too much like magical crossbreeding, IMO.

I think that the option to equip entire units with magical weapons and armor of various types is worth investigating, though.


On a 250%-300% income increase:
This looks like an interesting idea to me. The mad castling issue can be dealt with simply by increasing the cost of castles and other structures in direct proportion to the income increase.

Other adjustments might be needed, though—for example, province supply capacity might have to be increased, as might the supply effects of Nature magic and certain magic items.


On "blitz" games
Advice to play more blitz doesn't really solve anything, IMO. Also, some of us like the 80-to-100-turn solo games, and desire to have a better time with them.