Astral magic seems overpowered

[ghoul31]

You can basically enslave the entire enemies army.

In a game I was in, on turn 23, the guy had 40 astral mages casting enslave on me. I had 50 guys, with 14 magic resist, but they all were enslaved before I could touch him.

And soul slay is even easier to get. Its only a level 5 spell.


And then there is control, to enslave the mindless units.

And of course, master enslave, where one guy can enslave an entire army by himself with one spell.

[Kuritza]

Well astral is strong. Perhaps THE strongest magic in the late game.

But on turn 23... imagine 40 death mages spamming drain life? Your 50 guys would've died just the same. Or 40 air mages spamming thunder strike. Any 40 mages spamming something nasty.

[ghoul31]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

Well astral is strong. Perhaps THE strongest magic in the late game.

But on turn 23... imagine 40 death mages spamming drain life? Your 50 guys would've died just the same. Or 40 air mages spamming thunder strike. Any 40 mages spamming something nasty.

Yes, but at least I would have killed some of his guys. With enslave,my guys immediately start attacking each other. So his guys never got touched. And after the battle, he now has his army and MY ARMY to attack me with. So enslave is 10 times better than thunder strike.

[Omnirizon]

I think for early game, death magic wins out; with raise dead. It is actually feasible to have 20+ mages who can spam raise dead (not really possible for any nation to have that many mages who can spam thunderstrike or enslave, maybe confusion, but not enslave, which brings up another point: confusion > enslave.)

With, say, just five mages spamming raise dead, a heavily outmatched army can beat back another.

[HoneyBadger]

Astral magic is good (and yes, overpowerful if you're not using CBM with the clam nerf), but it does have several weaknesses. One is the vulnerability to Mind Hunt/Soul Slay type spells that Astral leaves you open to. The other is that it's seriously lacking in Summons, whereas other Paths are heavily balanced (perhaps even overweighted) towards Summons.

I think one of the major issues of Astral Magic being overpowerful, is that it has great, efficient combat spells, which other magical paths tend to lack. Twist Fate, Personal Luck, Body Etherial, Resist Magic, and Astral Shield are all available within 2 schools, and 3 levels. A unit with just those 5 spells is nearly invulnerable to many of the threats presented in the game.

Even Nature doesn't offer the same comprehensive personal enhancement, which is a little scary, considering the esoteric/ellusive character of Astral (concerned as it seems to be with stars, the mind, distance, and fare). Astral even has healing magic (Healing Light), which I consider particularly odd and out of place.

So yes, I would consider it atleast somewhat overpowered, as well as somewhat overreaching it's intended purpose.

But then, I've wanted to have the ability to heavily mod/edit the Magic system for some time now, and this is one of the reasons for that.

[Illuminated One]

Yeah, Astral is very strong but very expensive also.

Just consider that your 50 units against 40 enslaving mages example he was outnumbering you probably by 10:1 or more in terms of gold.

I don't think the enslave the whole army spell are really that much better than kill the whole army spells - because of the mr+4 tag they get mostly chaff, the elites can continue to fight for the enemy.
Consider trying to master enslave an army of demons (14 mr) buffed with army of lead or antimagic (so they have 18 mr).
With an s9 mage and max pen equipment (+5 - 4 master enslave penalty) that costs you incredible amounts of gems, and is paralyzed after spending 8 gems to cast the spell, you'd still loose the battle because the 2 or 3 devils that are enslaved make no difference.

Now consider blood which has cheap spells for destroying SCs with no way to defend against it (claws of cocytus or life for a life), kill armies (there's a spell that casts life drain on the whole battle field for example) or summon SCs and armies + the ability to generate income at will, and I'm not really sure that astral is so powerful in games without clams.

[ghoul31]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

Yeah, Astral is very strong but very expensive also.

Just consider that your 50 units against 40 enslaving mages example he was outnumbering you probably by 10:1 or more in terms of gold.

I Don't know where you are getting that from. My guys cost 150 gold and 88 resources each.
His mages cost 150 gold and 2 resources.

[Juffos]

There are ways to increase troops' magic resistance.

[Kuritza]

Oh, somebody mentioned that astral has no summons...

Not true. Some nations also have astral summons. Angels (Marignon, MA Pythium) and monkey indian weirdos. Also, Golems. Not as good as they used to be in Dominions II (I even believed they became not worth the trouble for some time), but still one of the best summons you can get.

But without clams, astral just took a very heavy hit in the groin.

Originally Posted by ghoul31

I Don't know where you are getting that from. My guys cost 150 gold and 88 resources each.
His mages cost 150 gold and 2 resources.

Ah. Ashdod, is it?
Think of it the other way. He had to send 40 mages to counter your summons. Where did he get so many on turn 23 anyway? Probably had to hire indie lizard shamans or sages as well. He had to stop researching completely just to counter recruitable sacreds. It was a desperate move.

There are ways one can counter enemy communions; you could meet him with some turn-1 earthquakes, for example. And retreat, just to be sure. Fenita la comedia, all his mages are dead, his nation has no hope anymore.
Better luck next time.

[Kuritza]

*sacreds*, not summons.