How difficult is this game?

[Nikolai]

> So you're telling me that you can research all these powerful spells and have no one capable of casting them?

That is very often happening. Each nation has strong magic paths, weak magic paths, paths on pretender, and paths on independant mages. First two are fixed, third you design, and fourth is random.

Some people will go out of ways to make sure that their pretender covers all path nation is missing. Others make sure that he can forge boosters for strong paths of nation. Others concentrate on making sure he can summon other mages that complete the nation. Others forsake some paths completely.

As many strategies as players. In MP, trade can close holes.

Example: MA Man has many, many air mages, but no one has solid chance of getting Air magic at level 4. But that is level required to forge items that make air magic stronger, and many awesome air spells need much more than level 3 air magic.

So some players will forget that, and really hurt. Others will make sure their Pretender has air magic at level 4 or more. Others will look at nations list in an MP game, and say "Cealum is in game, and he will want to trade air boosters for nature boosters". And then the game starts, and Cealum is closest neighbor, and only wants to trade daggers, blade first.