Recruitable Mage Rebalance - seeking comments

[Scott Hebert]

It's hard to argue with a mage that is just as good as your national mages in research (and combat), but cost no upkeep or even gold.

[Oversway]

Nah, gems are a rarer commodity than gold with nearly all settings/maps.

[Turin]

It´s easy to argue against him. A spectre costs 10 death gems, which is worth at least 300 gold to me.
A caelum seraph costs 100 gold and is just as good at researching. So factoring upkeep in it takes 30 turns until the spectre is cheaper than the seraph. That´s a pretty long time, so you are usually better off using national mages for research.
And if you find a library it´s a nobrainer to buy sages.

[Scott Hebert]

Except that a Sage is rather useless once you've researched everything. Or, at the very least, is much less useful.

And, well, if you think a Spectre is worth 300g, I'll just say I disagree with you.

And don't use the Caelian mages as a baseline, as they are woefully undercosted.

[Endoperez]

He didn't say that Spectres were worth 300 gold. That was the value of 10 Death gems, which could have been used on Wraith Swords, Tartarians, Bane Lords, Ghost Riders, Legion of Wights, Army of the Dead... Easily 300 gp, especially after you can choose from all of these. Having a choice is very valuable on its own!

[Scott Hebert]

If he did not say it, he heavily implied it. Unless the Spectre is worth the whole 300g, then his math is off.

Using appropriate math (a 3-research mage of the Seraph's paths costing 140g), even using the whole 300g as a starting point gives a 16-turn turnover in RoI. And I dispute that a Spectre is worth 300g.

Another issue is one that other have brought up, in that you are not limited to a mage-per-lab with summoned mages.

Wouldn't that be funny? It can't be modded, but if only one mage could use a lab per turn... that would drastically change the nature of magic in the game.

[Huzurdaddi]

Perhaps I should have said "gems are made for cracking heads" instead of "summoned casters are made for cracking heads."

In any case you will rarely see gems ( especially death gems ) being used to summon casters that will primarly used for research in multiplayer games. There are just too many good things to be doing with gems.

[Turin]

Well, I will happily trade 30 gp for 1 death gem in every mp game after ~turn15-20.
I used the seraph, because almost every nation has a special research unit, so it make sense to take an above average unit.

Usually the restricting factor when it comes to recruiting is lack of gold/gems, not the lack of usable labs. If you have to much gold to spend you can simply build more labs.

[Scott Hebert]

If you could trade, perhaps. Unfortunately, death gems are worth 15/4 gold each (strictly speaking).

And, of course, if you're saying that you'd spend that much to get 1 death gem... wouldn't that be an argument in favor of death gems being too valuable?

And, should you wish to use a 'research unit', try the Seithkona or any other 1/1/1 mage, since that's actually better for your argument.

However, a Spectre is worth more than any 1/1/1 mage.

And finally... no, it makes absolutely no sense to use an 'above-average' unit unless you want everything to be above average, in which case I suggest you play with all magic at research level 0 and all spells costing a maximum of 5 gems.

[Turin]

Well it seems it makes no sense to discuss this further.

Mass spectres to your heart´s content, I´m sure soon there will be dozens of threads calling for a nerf to this overpowered unit.