[Sombre]

I've decided I'm going to take an unusual approach with this mod and model the Colleges of Magic system (which is a major feature of the nation and perhaps the most original thing about it) before anything else is done.

To sum up the system. You recruit initiates who summon wizards who summon wizard lords who summon the unique patriarch (or supreme patriarch for gold) for each College of Magic.

Initiate - a 100% random in virtually every path. Their research to gold ratio isn't good.
Wizard - Each College has a different one with different abilities, traits, paths etc. Each requires 1 in the appropriate path to summon and their summoning depends on research in the appropriate school. Each has 3 points of magic total.
Wizard Lord - As the wizard, but their path requirements match wizards, not apprentices. They're also higher research. They have 5 points magic, total.
Patriarch - They are unique and have many powerful abilities. They require boosted wizard lords to summon. They have at /least/ 7 points of magic total.

So Empire get varied magic, yes? Well eventually they do. They are almost the polar opposite of High Elves or Slann - they are excellent at a single type of magic, but there are no 'rainbows' amongst them whatsoever. It will also take a long time to research and summon all the different schools and in fact Empire's research isn't that hot,.. unless they pick certain schools to pursue and are willing to find and spend a lot of gems.

I have posted a lot about the Colleges of Magic before. I have very detailed plans for how they will all work, but they will require a lot of balancing.

Thus it makes sense for me to release the Colleges of Magic as a sort of pre-mod, changing a nation like, say, Marignon, to have them as national summons and remove its innate mages. This will allow people to test them and me to showcase the idea and evaluate how well it works. This is absolutely my priority project now. It will be released in the near future. It will feature little in the way of new graphics, using placeholders (recoloured generic mages in robes) but it will have new spells fitting the magic of the colleges.