Time for a poll. (The subject is abuse)

[K]

MaxWilson said:
It's partly an Outside Context Problem. MoD, for example, has no counter that an attacker can employ within the context of a particular battle. That makes people tetchy if they want a game of tactical maneuvering instead of strategic second-guessing--the counter requires shifting contexts. It's Mentok for the specific battle in question.

-Max

Sure there is. If they have magic rating required to cast MoD on round one, then you need to kill them on round one before they can retreat on round two. There are any number of spells that can do the job. It's not even a strategic "mentok" since overwhelming magical offense on round one is one of the best battlefield strategies.

You can also just send in a weak force that won't set off the AI's "cast my scripted gem spell" detector and then just let them retreat on round 2; if you've taken the adjacent provinces, then they lose a powerful mage.

Heck, even the worse case scenario of "dozens of mages in a castle" can be defeated by sending in one powerful SC and one mage who casts a damaging battlefield spell and then Retreats. By round 75 all those mages are dead or Retreated.

Strategic second guessing of other people's battlefield and other magics IS this game. Moving army men on the map is a small part of this game, and if that's what you want then I suggest playing a less complicated game like Risk.