[alexti]

Unwise said:

But that compares almost directly to the Civ research system. Your mages are the "tiles" -- do you use them to research, site-search, cast rituals, or lead armies? Once you decide what you want your mage/tile to be, you can set it up as a "specialist" with the appropriate gear (quill for research, boosters for summons, combat items for leaders, etc.).

Well, in Dominions after first few turns you usually set a mage to research and leave him there (and maybe give him research booster once). In Civ you reshuffle the tiles every turn. So while in purpose they're kind of similar, in Civ you have much more options to micromanage stuff. For example, instead of cty building scheme you could just pay fixed gold amount/resources to get a bonus to research, commerce or production (maybe proportional to some research). But that again would make micromanagement more shallow.