Why are Sages fair? Opinions wanted!

[Ironhawk]

Sages should be priced in the 100-120gp range. At that gold cost it will no longer be a *complete* no brainer to take them. They would be on par with the lowest level mage available to a lot of nations, which prompts the question: Do I want a pure researcher? Or should I recruit a mage who can research some, but also be deployed for combat should the need arise?

Certainly at that cost most nations will still buy many sages. And thats fine - the Library was placed in the game to be a research booster. But 100-120gp will make for some diversity of choice in play. In addition, they will have the desirable effect of making high magic nations more alluring without completely crippling the tactic of playing a magic-poor nation and gambling that you will find libraries.

The Panther said:
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.

[Tuidjy]

I voted, of course, no. Some of my reasons:

1. Sages are only marginally better, as researchers, than many other indies.
2. Sages are rather common and available to everyone.
3. Sages are rather underwhelming in combat.
4. Sages are quite vulnerable to pretty much anything.

Sages of course have their good points - they are useful for death and astral
searches, low level item forging and blood hunting. And of course, they can
provide a nice early boost in research.

But do sages decide games? Hell no. I save all my turns. Here is what sages
did in my last three big games (more than four people)

Game number I (Pythium)
I built a total of 14 sages, between turns 15 and 22. I was rolling for blood.
Theurgs are close to sages for research, and make awesome combat mages in mid
game... as well as in late game, if you can build enough slave matrices.

Early sage provinces - turn 7 and turn 12.

Game number II (C'tis)
No sages. Shamans are better researchers, and they are more useful in combat.
They do not get sick in miasma, either, but that was not an issue, I had
Gift of Health running most of the game.

Early sage provinces - turn 8.

Game number III (Abysia)

Here is one game in which I was glad to have found sages. The game is only on
turn 56 right now, but I can say that I have about two dozens sages, and that
they do not account for even half of my research. I have not built any for
about 20 turns, because I prefer recruiting fighters as opposed to bookworms.

Would I have been dead in the water without sages? Absolutely not. On turn 8
I found a lizard province. By turn 20, I had found mages that give me 6 RPs and
cost only 60 golds to recruit. I also have a druid province. Had I needed to,
and had my neighbors left me the time, I could have also taken a blood druid
province or an amazon one.

Dominions II is full of options, but it is very shortsighted to think that any
strategy is a game winner/breaker. Yes, you will lose if you neglect casters,
castles, research, mobility, hoarding, supercombatants, diplomacy... but neither
of these will garantee you a win. And yes, you will also lose if the RNG takes
a dislike to you. If your temple and lab burn on turn 2, you prophet gets nailed
by a random event assassin, and your pretender gets decay'd by an indy, you are
toast. Not finding any independant mages is a drag, but it can happen. As for
having a pretender design that requires sages, sorry, but that's your problem.

[The Panther]

Interesting post, Truidy, and food for thought. It just so happens that I have recently played those same three races in MP and behaved nearly exactly like you did:

1. Pythium. This is one of the races that simply does not need any sages. I think I built maybe 10 sages in my game by turn 40, mainly for the random pick. Normal research meant a zero need of sages for me.
2. C'tis Miasmi. I never built a sage. They die to disease and I always would rather have another shaman instead of a dying sage. This was set on hard research, but I still didn't need any sages to be the third nation to finish all research (Pythium was first, Caelum second to complete).
3. Abysia - I built sages by the boatloads from two libraries. I must have built 80 of them, probably more. I quit building them for a while, lost some to fires from afar, and then started building some more. But this game was very hard research and I really, really wanted to get to ghost riders after getting the blood 9 research done plus my needed construction and evocation research. The cheapest Abysian capitol-only national mage was much too busy with blood hunting to waste time on mundane tasks like studying.

Also, there is 4: Atlantis. I have built maybe 20 sages (turn 68) and only because of the very hard research setting. Otherwise, my 60 gold amphibous acolytes work just fine, thank you very much. Capitol only is a drag for the acolytes, though.

One thing is for sure, the need for sages is strongly dependent on your race and theme selection as well as the hardness of the research setting. The real problem with sages is that it evens out the research ability of the various nations and they take away the sting of hard or very hard research.

The drawback to nerfing sages is that it would just make the strongest race even stronger. Pythium is already too powerful as is and does not need any help by hurting the other races through limited sages.

[Chazar]

@Tuidjy & The Panther:What were the map sizes and magic site frequency in the examples cited?

Tuidjy wrote:Sages are rather common and available to everyone.

I really doubt that for lower magic site frequency (<= 40%) on smaller maps (50-120 provinces with 5-10 players)!

In my last game as C'tis Miasma on Inland map with 7 players, I built shamen with highest priority, but had no chance to compete in research and got swarmed by summons. Well, admittingly my fault was that I realized to late to go for construction and lightless laterns, but at least that gave me the feeling to catch up a bit... And, I have to admit that as well, the shamen where quite some fun on the battlefield as my nation got steam-rolled...

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Well, I am not on a crusade to nerf the sages! I just feel that there is something wrong with them under the settings I depicted above - and I am still wondering how to fix this problem with a mod for myself, for I am not aware of any way to fix them that would make me really happier about them right now! I am thus contemplating some ideas here to mod sages, and ask whether people would think that those are fair. After all a mod is only useful if I can convince my fellow players to accept it...

[alexti]

I've replied no to the poll. Before the poll I haven't even realized that sages are that important. While being efficient researchers, sages are not particularly good at other tasks. And in general research capability is somewhat overestimated. I often could research something nice, but I wouldn't have enough gems yet to benefit from it. For example, here's a bunch of my past games:
1) Jotunheim Iron Woods - no sages (didn't find them until very late, and then there was no point buying them). Instead I've found adepts of gold and iron order - that's nice for Jotuns - won. Key to success was early successful conquest.
2) Jotunheim Utgard - no sages (didn't find any). The only indies I've found were azure mages and shadow seers - about the last thing Utgard needs. Game crashed when I was one of the top contenders and in a good position to win. Key to success - diplomacy and finding Mount Chaining.
3) Pangaea default - no sages, until late (something like turn 50). I've bought some sages (because my research was still really low at that time), so they've been useful. I've passed that game to another person who has proceed to win (that other person was Norfleet though). Key to success - success in early wars resulting in a large empire plus diplomacy. Sages were somewhat helpful.
4) Caelum. Found sages, bought several (for random picks, rather than for research - I didn't have other indies with randoms). Won - the game was with very hard research and tough indies and that's very much to Caelum's advantage. Key to success - choice of nation
5) Caelum. Found sages (turn 20-25), bought very few of them for random picks, but few turns later I've found enchantress and stopped buying sages. Won. Key to success - successful early war, found enchantment+30 site, found Shamen and Druids early.
6) C'tis. Found sages early, bought plenty of them (around 2 dozens I think). The game crashed when I was in good position to win. Key to success - found crystal mages, sages and many good site in the early game.
7) Pangaea (default). No sages. The game crashed when I was in a good position for alliance win. Key to success - successful early conquest.
8) Pythium (default). No sages. Was top contender when the game stopped. Key to success - nation choice.
9) Machaka. No sages. Allied win. Key to success - early conquest.
10) Jotunheim Iron Woods. No sages. Win. Key to success - early conquest.
11) Pangaea (default). No sages. Win. Key to success - early conquest.

I've listed here the games I won or where I was in a good position to win when the game stopped (omitting those I've lost, where sometimes I had sages and sometimes I didn't, but the reason for the loss were various)

Only once sages has played really big role, in few other cases they only played a minor role. In half of the cases, I didn't use them.

The most important (though not necessary) key to success seems to be an early conquest. Doubling the size of your empire (including gold and gem income) really negates research benefits of sages, because you have twice the gold you can spend on mages. Finding some good sites (like Mount Chaining) can also turn the game. For many nations, finding indies with missing paths (like for Jotuns finding adepts of golden/iron orders) is much more beneficial than finding sages. So in my book, finding sages is a good event, but it's not the game decider. Starting position (which includes who are your neighbours) and finding great sites and indies fitting to your nation is more important.

Of course, my statistics come from a certain play style. I don't take drain scale, my usual magic scale is +1 to +3. I haven't played all nations equally and all my wins were with strong nations, sages or not, Ulm or TC is hard to win with.

Nevertheless, my point is that you can have strategy that won't crumble if you don't find sages and win with it.

[The Panther]

Chazar said:
@Tuidjy & The Panther:What were the map sizes and magic site frequency in the examples cited?

It was 50% magic sites in all four of my games cited above. The first two games were on a crowded Karan, a smallish map in which sages are not overly important because libraries are harder to find for everybody.

My Abysia game was on Cradle, and I had 83 provinces (more than twice the number anyone else had) when the game crashed. My need for sages in that game was extreme because of the very hard research setting. Plus Abysia is one of the races that most benefits from sages, as the cheap capitol-only mage has much more to do than research.

My Atlantis game is on the huge Faerun map. That map is so big that sages are not a big deal. I simply found a library and started recruiting a sage every turn with my infinite gold income just because I felt like it and I wanted Niefel Flames (very hard research setting). That game is using the scale mods where growth was changed to 0.5%, which is definitely too much. Using growth 3, my income is now gigantic (5K per turn). I have about 50 provinces and am in second place, I believe, though so many people have quit or gone AI that the game is mostly busted now.

But had I not found those two libraries in my Abysia game, I would definitely not have been leading the game when it crashed. The sages allowed me to get both Blood 9 and Conjuration 9 far earlier than would have otherwise been achievable on the very hard research setting.

[Chazar]

The Panther said:

It was 50% magic sites in all four of my games cited above. The first two games were on a crowded Karan, a smallish map in which sages are not overly important because libraries are harder to find for everybody.

Hmm, actually I am now considering Karan to be a fairly big map for anything with less than 8-10 players, but that is, of course, a personal thing. However, 50% probability and karan-sized maps certainly affect the perception of sages...

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baruk said:Perhaps this new game setting could consist of a sliding scale which would affect the cost of all independent commanders and/or troops. So that you could perhaps double the cost of all independent units, for instance, if you wanted a more nation-dependent game. Independent mages would be a less obvious build choice under these circumstances, perhaps making utility magical pretenders more attractive.

That seems to be a pretty good idea to me!