Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?

[HotNifeThruButr]

I was thinking of investigating this while staring at list of nations and wanting to weighing which nation has the best magic for me to use. It seems to me that there is a far from equal representation of each magic type in the whole game, that I'll be attempting to put down in writing, with brief analysis.

I'll attempt to consider every aspect of the nation's magic before giving it a classification as one or two very accessible types of magic, but it will be a generalization. I wouldn't want to type out every nation's individual analysis, but I'll give my justification if anyone wants to discuss/dispute a nation. I'll leave a note if anything appears

(I will use brackets to note what magics exist for a nation but is not their strong suit.)

(I'll also be throwing out any magic that's unreasobly rare, like the Nahualli's 1/40 chance of Death in Mictlan, Reign in Blood or the magic found on Caelum's Amesha Spentas.)

My guess before actually counting all the national magics is that there will be a disproportionately large number of nature and air users and a disproportionately small number of fire and earth users and rainbowy nations will show up in surprisingly large numbers.

Early Era -

Arcosephale: Nature, Air [astral, fire, water, earth]
Ermor: Death, Fire [Astral, air, earth, nature]
Ulm: Earth [nature, fire, water]
Marverni: Astral, Earth [nature, water]
Sauromatia: Death [blood, nature, water, astral]
T'ien Ch'i: Water [all but blood]
Mictlan: Blood, Nature [water, astral, fire]
Abysia: Fire, blood [astral, earth]
Caelum: Air [Water, Death, Earth]
C'tis: Death [nature, astral, water]
Pangaea: Nature [blood, earth]
Agartha: Earth [death, fire, water]
Tir'na'nog: Air, nature [water, earth]
Fomoria: Air, death [nature, water]
Vanheim: Air, Earth [death, blood, fire]
Helheim: Death, air, earth [blood, fire]

Niefelheim: Death, Water, Blood [astral, nature, air] (Air comes on a little more than every 3 Niefel Jarls)

Kailasa: Water, Earth [Astral, nature]

Yomi: Death, Fire, Earth [nature] (Air could come on a little more than every 4 Dai Oni)

Atlantis: Earth, Water [Fire, Astral]
R'lyeh: Water, Astral [Death, Earth, Nature]
Oceania: Water [fire, nature, earth, air]
Lanka: Blood [air, death, nature]

count of strong magic

Fire:2 (Abysia and Yomi)
Air:6 (Caelum, Tir'na'nog, Fomoria, Vanheim, Helheim, Arcosephale)
Water:6 (Niefelheim, Kailasa, T'ien Ch'i, water nations)
Earth:5 (Ulm, Agartha, Vanheim, Helheim, Atlantis)
Nature:4 (Arcosephale, Mictlan, Pangaea, Tirnanog)
Death:7 (Ermor, Sauromatia, C'tis, Fomoria, Helheim, Niefelheim, Yomi)
Blood:3 (Mictlan, Abysia, Lanka)
Astral:2 (Marverni, R'lyeh)

I'm going to stop at Early Era because that's all the time I have right now.

I've tried to be fair by keeping in mind how high a mage should be in a path before being useful in a magic, which I realize is debatable, but FYI, I usually rank a nation with easily attainable fire 2 or earth 2 casters as being a strong nation in fire or earth, due to the easy accessibility of Phoenix Power and Earth Power to allow them to count as rank 3 in a battle. I was also more lenient on Blood because you don't need spectacularly high levels of it to bind the soldier demons and blood hunt, and the pretender can be tailored toward the really big projects like demon lords.

As it turns out, fire and astral were barely represented, and nature didn't turn out very big in Early Era, which surprised me, while Death had an extremely large following for some reason.

Keep in mind this is of course only an analysis of Early Era, which possibly skews the representation of certain magic as a design decision, since, for example, the armor pierce that's iconic for fire evocations don't function well in an era where most units have low armor. I'll have to wait until I can analyze the Middle and Late eras to really make a statement about what magic is underrepresentated or over.