No, I'm not hostile, and I wasn't attempting to be hostile, Agrajag. I was just trying to explain, in an easy to understand and obvious manner, that you haven't expressed any ideas in this thread, since you seemed to think you had. I also am excited, I admit it. No need to make threats, I'm well aware of forum rules, and I'm not your enemy. I appologise if you took it as an attack. If I were your enemy, I wouldn't be exercising my patience trying to debate you.
I have 4 cousins who are Jewish. I personally think of myself as vaguely Buddhist, formerly Christian. I don't really see your point here at all, but I'm willing to play along. I'm not saying that you as a Jew know everything their is to know about Jewish culture, faith, history, identity, etc. Maybe you recently converted to Judaism, and are a Jewish Newbie. I don't know. I will say that, as a vague Buddhist to a newbie Jew, that I respect your right to interpret the Jewish faith in any way you see fitting your own personal belief about a higher power, the greater Cosmos, and the reality in which you/we find your/ourselves. I respect your recent choice to become a Jew and consider you to be a full-blown Jew with all the privelages and responsibilities that come with the designation.
The question about the code is and remains hypothetical, unless Illwinter decides to gift us with the source-code, which would be a very nice present, but I'm not holding my breath. Still, I'm making educated guesses here. You could be right, I could be wrong, about the code that is.
As for magic paths, you don't need to be more or less aware of them than you do the units in the game, because the units and the spells are both integral parts of strategic planning. Sure, you don't have to be aware of every single unit in the game, but the same can be said of every single spell. Their are 50 (and growing) nations in the game, plus independents, and when you decide what kind of strategy you want to play (or what flavor you want), you decide what nation you want to play, and you do your homework on that nation. You don't have to use every single spell or path in the game, plenty of people play nations which don't use blood at all, for instance. I personally don't like to use air magic, that's just my preference. It's no easier or more difficult with a similar number of magic paths, it just requires thinking about them in a similar manner.
If you don't like my ideas, and you seem to be acknowledging that the game does need to grow, then why not suggest some of your own?
What we're talking about is Dominions, not any other games. I reiterate: please feel free to express your own ideas, or even changes to mine.
I didn't really take it personally
I think their are reasons, and my reasons are 1: flavor, and 2: because astral and nature are not life. Astral and nature imply star nature or alien nature, combining the natural environment with the essence of the stars, or something along the lines of Illithid life, maybe: illithid dogs, illithid cats, little illithid bunnyrabbits, illithid bees making illithid honey, etc. Ofcourse, there's lots of things you could take from the concept of a combined astral and nature magic, but I don't think you'd get the very essence of Life Itself, all life in the universe, out of astral and nature. What about plants? nature and earth? fish? nature and water? instead of simplifying things, dual paths instead actually add complications and render things much more ambiguous and confusing in many cases because they more intensely involve personal opinion. This thread is becoming an example of that point. 3: because throwing new ideas and new concepts and new paths of magic leads people to think ALONG those paths, to think in new ways and come up with new spell ideas/strategy ideas/things we can mod into the game or the designers can add down the road. Multi-path spells don't do this job nearly as well, because they require people to think in unobvious ways, new ways, to come up with creative ideas, and it's harder to get people to do that. New paths mean new directions, the word "path" nicely implies this. Now I'm not saying that you're not a creative person with good, exciting ideas, but you are a fine example of my point here.
I'd like to know what your take is on interpreting the magic paths I've suggested as dual-paths.
And lastly, thank you very much for your time and effort! This is a fine exercise in determining whether or not my ideas are actually worthwile, and your input is strengthening my convictions enormously.
I edited this a bit to take all the ANGRY HOSTILE typos out
I probably missed the kind, gentle, understanding, tolerant ones.
Can't we all just get along?