Magic Scale

[Cainehill]

Yvelina said:
I was talking about drain being suicide... now, if you are saying that Magic 3 is not worth the 40 design points over Magic 2, that may be perfectly reasonable. When I decided on magic 3, I mostly did it by comparing the loss of research to the loss of gold from death/sloth, and decided that magic 3 made sense. It is also the difference between getting to Alt2 in two turns, and having to take one more turn before sending my pretender on a rampage.

I've taken Drain 1 with Vanheim and done very VERY well, when the game ended from lack of interest (4 AIs, including the Caelum Norfleet had started) I think I may have been the only one holding my own or advancing against the AI'd nations.

I went with the assumption that Helheim can afford ... Skull Mentors, is it? Good death income, earth income, and dwarven hammer capable mages.

No doubt it wasn't optimal (nor was having Astral 3 or 4 on my Ghost King pretender), but as an experimental whimsy, it worked quite well. First through the use of skull mentors (yes, there are much better usages of death gems, especially at conjuration/summoning 6 and 9), and also by conquering past my dominion and setting researchers outside the area of drain - easy enough for any Vanheim theme to manage.