[cleveland]

Not sure if the research difficulty discussion was ever settled...

I'll preface it by saying I'm a proponent of Very Hard Research: on a map this large, somebody will undoubtedly take a huge number of forts early on, accumulate a large number of forts, i.e. mage recruitment centers, and finish all research by turn 50.

But, I also appreciate the need for certain nations to access magic to be competitive early on.

Simple solution:
Set research=Very Hard, but move all level-2 spells into level-1.