Quote:
Originally Posted by krpeters
I measure it as gold cost for mages vs. skipping magic altogether and just hiring more troops. Obviously that's a fail for any long term strategy, but I expect to be out of the game long before L9 spells are being tossed around anyway.
So my thunderbolt slinging Theurgs have to convince me they're more valuable than a squad of principes.
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Even in the case of battles alone that doesn't work very well. A squad of principes suffers from significant attrition in basically every battle, mages hidden at the back don't. Granted, neither do small scale hydra squads and such (unless it is a battle you lose), but the mage is basically worth principes and their replacements for as long as the mage survives. When you look at the sort of kill counts these mages get, in troop cost alone they usually pay for themselves.
On a side note, there is also the matter of being able to turn mages into much more temporary thugs that will suffer attrition at higher rates, but be more more dangerous while they last. Mistform and a series of Shock Waves can do a lot of damage to an enemy army.