[UncleYee]

I totally agree with the OP. Indep mages are a complete waste of money. The only reasons you'd ever possibly bother recruiting these bozos would be if:

You need them to branch into a magic path your nation lacks, thus opening up a trillion new strategy options for you.

Or, your best stuff is capital-only, and now you have the option to recruit mages without interrupting the flow of your capital recruiting.

Or, you want more mages to craft more items. Or do more research. Or cast more summons. Or cast more site searches.

Or, the province with the indep mages is nearby, and a castle is farther away.

Or, you want more mages with your armies, for varied casting and/or redundancy just in case.

Or, even if you do have access to A2 in your nation, maybe it's on a 350G flagship mage with 2 (or 3) other paths, and you'd prefer to just buy a much cheaper illusionist if you only need him to cast Air spells.

Or, you think variety is fun.

But other than that and any other reasons I can't think of right now, I don't even know why indep mages are in the game. What a waste.