Re: Recruitable Mage Rebalance - seeking comments
There often seem to be summonable mages with high enough paths to cast high-level spells using boost items... such that only a single mage needs empowerment, and then it can summon many upkeep-free mages who can cast the spell. Depending on the spell and path, of course.
One aspect of increasing path costs to very high levels is that it might make the best combat spells in ANY path only usable by Astral nations (through communion). I don't know what can be done about that, though.
Battle-mages using low- and mid-level spells seem to really dominate combat even in the early game, though... it seems to me that Dominions II needs more effective low-level troop-buffing spells, not wimpy things that increase the aim of 3 units. Regardless, while there seem to be many comments that specific spells are problematic, does nobody else feel that battlefield spells in general dominate combat to the point that the specific types of troops used on the battlefield to shield the mages is largely irrelevant? If a soldier is doomed to die of lightning, does it matter how much defense, what kind of armor, what weapon, or how much experience he has? If some soldiers get through, it sort of matters. But in my experience, the vast bulk of soldiers in player-versus-player combat die of hostile spells... making the price-per-hitpoint, MR / immunities (if any), and flight / movement (get to the other side before dying of spells) the only really important unit stats.
Compared to what I envision of fantasy combat, it's really strange. A mage blowing away 50 soldiers in a single battle? That's fine, some mages are that powerful. Armies of mortals where 10% of the units are such mages? THAT is insane. No book, no mythology, nothing is like that - that I know of. Excepting, of course, games. Feel free to correct me, though; I haven't read as many fantasy books or as much mythology as many people here.
Increasing the price of mages increases the price of research and (more importantly) the cost of battle-mage turns. I think a sort of ideal situation would be one where at least as many units die from weapons as from battle magic (at least, until the late-game huge-area spells), and where mages are precious enough that it makes sense to give even mid-level wizards a 50-man escort and several protective artifacts (missile resistance amulet, lucky coin, etc) to ensure their safety... the sort of things wizards in books always seem to be carrying around, and the sort of respect they get from ordinary people. Am I alone in this?
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