Why are Sages fair? Opinions wanted!

[The Panther]

Question for all: At what cost would you have to think twice about building sages in the first 40 turns of a game?

Like perhaps:
80 gold - Of course, build them by the boatloads!
110 gold - Probably build several when the gold starts coming in, for the research gets so much harder to make it to the higher and higher levels.
140 gold - Build a few because all you need is the lab to boost your research, but much prefer other choices.
170 gold - Never build one.

Any opinions?

They are still useful for the one random pick regardless of the research bonus. It is especially nice to get a blood sage when you are not a blood nation.

One other thing is that the other neutral mages sure seem FAR less common than sages. I would guess libraries have a higher probability to appear than other type sites.

[Kristoffer O]

Interesting last post (earlier ones as well, but particulary the last one).

Not less common, but library is not hidden. That makes a huge difference I believe. Hiding it would give astral nations a great advantage though.

[Scott Hebert]

For me, it's not so much the gold cost as the research and the gold I have available. To answer that question 'properly', I'd have to say, 'If I were Ulm, A; if I were Pythium, B; etc.'. That doesn't really help.

One way you could answer that question is to look and see how much 7 RPs costs, by the tabulation method given by Illwinter. That comes to 5 magic picks. 5 magic picks costs at least 110g (30+20+10+10+10 for the magic, 30 for the commander). (Yes, the Master of the 5 Elements is horribly overpriced, by this method.) A more reasonable 2/2/1 split comes in around 200g, IIRC.

Of course, those Mages are much more useful than Sages in a non-research role, so you couldn't cost him that high.

OTOH, you have the indisputable fact that you can recruit them at a lab-only province (no Fort needed) in their favor. In here you would also have to weigh the fact that they're not tying down your capital's commander production.

On balance, I'd have to say... 130g, probably. That puts in on about an even keel with most independent mages (site or non-site), while also charging something closer to the price of a mage that can research that high and do better magic.

Now, this means that the Wizard and Loremaster would have to have a commensurate raising in their price. But that is only fair.

Anyway, I hope that this answers your question.

[Edge]

What about eliminating the Magic Level from the Sage, and give them strictly the research component? You wouldn't build 40-50 of them because once everything you want is researched they would be useless.

[Scott Hebert]

In this event, I probably still would pay for them, because it gets me my spells quicker, and I can always dismiss/kill them to avoid their upkeep when I'm through using them.

Bottom line, if I have money I can spend to get a researcher, I'm going to use it, given any reasonable amount. More research is more research.

[Endoperez]

Hey, I like the no-magic Sage! That fits them as it fits Philosophers! In fact, their description could be changed so that they follow in the path showed by the ancient Philosophers of the Golden Era of humankind, when rationality ruled...

[Chazar]

Nobody commented on my suggestion about just giving them 40 points resource cost so that they require a fort to be built each and every turn?! Is that too far off?

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I do not see the problem with the random pick: It is incredibly useful for sure (allowing non-blood-nations to go bloody; making 1-path items in abundance, etc. --- BTW, which nations lack a native random pick?), but it just never felt wrong to me. However, as they are right now, I think I would still pay the 110 gold without much doubt, but I might stop producing them after the first dozen...rasing merely their gold cost would still allow to built up research at an amazing speed...

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I also think that the Philosopher should remain a unique boon to Golden Era and not something everybody has good chance to have access to...

[The_Tauren13]

Kristoffer O said:
Hiding it would give astral nations a great advantage though.

That's a silly thing to say. One could just as easily argue, say, fire nations have a great advantage because of, like, the High Temple of the Magii.

But even so, you could just make it less common but still level 0.

[Huzurdaddi]

The_Tauren13 said:

That's a silly thing to say. One could just as easily argue, say, fire nations have a great advantage because of, like, the High Temple of the Magii.

No he's quite correct. If it was hidden and you needed ( for example ) astral-1 to find it then sage sites would be a huge advantage to astral nations.

[Huzurdaddi]

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