Global spell tactics ?

[Yvelina]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
Burden of Time is merely a mild nuisance for living nations.

I disagree. When you have very expensive, well equipped, and very fragile mages, like for example Pythium, Burden of Time can cost you thousands of gold in one turn. In a MP game I am still in, Arcocephales cast Burden of Time after he lost a major battle, I guess as a way to get back at his enemy.

The Burden of time got dispelled the next turn, but no less than two artifacts appeared for forging in that turn. Some of my expensive Drotts were diseased as well, although they survived long enough for my Fairy queens to heal them. I had a pact with the player who had Gift of Health up, so I could not take it for myself.

Burden of Time is so devastating for some nations, and such a pain for every living nation, that anyone casting it in a game I am in can not only expect to have it dispelled in one turn but also to be destroyed as a matter of principle in the next few turns.

I do not expect to see it cast by anyone who is still in the running... unless he is firmly on top of the heap.

As for how many gems I put into globals, I usually invest only the minimum if I have no enemies, and the global is not too powerful (i.e. not Forge of the Ancients, Arcane Vortex, etc...)

If it is a gem generator (Gale Gate, Well of Misery, etc...) I throw it with as much gems as I can afford when I research it.

If it is one of the game winners, then I wait until I have at least 500 extra gems before I throw it. After all would you throw a Arcane Vortex with 150 gems, so that someone else has an even chance of dispelling it with 30 pearls?