Making magic more magical...

[Saxon]

Having been playing for a while, using EA a lot, I find that magic does not play a huge role. The early game is all about troops and magic does not become a trump card for quite a while. What settings do people suggest to make magic more magical? More like Dom II, to pick a game at random… Boosting research? More gems? Anything else?

[calmon]

The main problem is that most of the Magic Level 1-5 is crap. There are exceptions but the rituals aren't really useable. So you save your gems for better spells later and just research.

Combination spells like summon bog beast (which needs 2 nature, 2 water) should be better for example.

[Twan]

To make the magic more dom2 like...

1. Change randoms or add recruitable mages giving to all nations a limited access to all paths ( like in this mod http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1 ) and/or mod indie mages to give them back their old power

2. Play with a low ressources/supplies multiplier and/or very high site frequency, to have a more dom2like balance of number of gems vs number of troops (edit : I've said low income but low income would reduce the number of castles and so of recruitable national mages)

3. Eventually mod some items to be more cost effective (air boosters to a2 or 3, most skill 5-6 items -1 level, clam of pearls to w2 n1) and some low level spells to cost less gems or summon more creatures

[Endoperez]

You forgot at least one important change:

4) Play with Magic Research set at Easy.

[Saxon]

With respect, I disagree about the low level spells. You can do quite a bit with the lower level spells and a good team of mages can make a huge difference. My concern is different. With the much lower frequency of Libraries and Sages, combined with the doubling of magic research costs, it is much later in the game where you see magic playing any role at all. Like many expansion based games, the early turns are critical. With the higher costs of magic, it seldom seems to have much of a role in the early days. Unless the map is really big, most games seem to be settled before magic has an impact.

My question is for those who are interested in seeing more magic in the games. Making research easy is a good one and I will fiddle with the other settings as you have suggested. I do not like playing with mods (call me a Ludditte), so I will try the other ideas first. I did boost the gems earlier and found an interesting pattern. I get a lot of gems built up, then a surge of spending when I hit the moderate construction and summoning levels. This leads to a surge in power and in several games I soon break the back of the enemy. In Dom II, I did not get such a surge, as I was spending earlier.

On the other hand, I may be inept with my research, so let me know what ideas are out there for boosting early magic research. Quills and Skull Mentors are wonderful, but come a bit later in the game. I struggle to balance getting magic users in the field and in the lab, so your theories and methods would be of real interest.

[Gandalf Parker]

It would seem to have made magic in early game, and fast games, less of a factor. But didnt it make the new large and many player games into something abit more desireable? Any change to improve one type of game play needs to be something that doesnt affect others unless the devs just want to change the game into that type of game.

[Saxon]

Based on the various suggestions, I have tried some games with easy research and lots of gems. It seems that was all that I needed to do! Easy research takes the research points back to the Dom II levels, if my memory is working, which is great.

As for the effect on large multiplayer games, I can not say. I would be interested to know the proportion of the large sales of the game that end up playing multiplayer. I suspect (on the basis of no evidence!) that the large majority of people play single player.