[JimMorrison]

Well the way I looked at it is this (and maybe I should clarify in the first post) - early game is mostly indies, unless it is a nation that can do viable fast rushes in the first year, then you score accordingly. Mid game, you've researched first few key schools, cons 4 for blood nations, maybe fire arrows, mistform for SCs, whatever, the point being you've only accessed the first 2-3 pivotal spells for your strat, and you may be going into a real war at this point. Late game is not end game for sure, but would be the point where people are getting to level 9 in 1-2 schools (depending on strat and magic scale), and are starting to deploy late game summons, and introduce powerful rituals and whatnot, though such things are not saturated, nor commonplace.