The next patch

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Murdering winter is not particularly useful. It requires you to cast several wolven winters in the same turn to do enough damage to kill even normal troops, and in a heat dominion this gets even worse. In heat 2 it will routinely only kill 10 troops out of over a hundred. It is also completely useless against Caelum, Jotunheim and Ermor.

You're the first person I've heard say this, although I've heard quite a few chime in (although not I) thinking Murdering Winter is broken... IMHO the burden clearly rests on your shoulders to show that Murdering Winter is weak. Your argument above rests on exactly the wrong context to use Murdering Winter, and so isn't very convincing.

Whether it works in heat 2 or not is moot, as even if it were only usefull in one's own cold dominion it would still be powerfull. Domes offer limited protection because they're not mobile, and in practice heat dominion similarily isn't a practical defense. And this is without taking into account that one can indeed enforce cold dominion with Wolven Winter (which is usefull in it's own right), or the tactic of blowing through domes with cheap rituals.

[ April 06, 2004, 07:03: Message edited by: Jasper ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
Why do the magic paths need to be balanced? If water is seen to be weaker than the others, that doesn't mean it won't get used. If your national mages have water, and you get water gems, you'll obviously use them for one of the uses that have been listed in this thread.

It's true that all the paths don't need to be balanced, as you could balance nations with water magic in other ways (e.g. I wouldn't call Atlantis, R'lyeh, or Caelum weak).

However, IMHO the game would be more enjoyable if they were more balanced. I also think it wouldn't take much change to make water more interesting at lower levels of research, and so this would be an easy way to improve the game. As it stands the only reason I can see to take water on anything other than a Rainbow pretender is for the nice Water 9 blessing.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
As it stands the only reason I can see to take water on anything other than a Rainbow pretender is for the nice Water 9 blessing.

I take water 2-3 on my combat pretenders quite often.

[Yossar]

Water is great on pretenders for:

1) Quickness, one of the best combat spells in the game

2) To mix with blood for easy access to ice devils.

Breath of winter is really good for taking independents too.

If you're going to be doing any fighting with your pretender, a few points in water is never a waste.

[Jasper]

I used to do that a bit as well, but found I got better battle results out of Fire, Earth, Air, or Astral. Mostly because Water's main benefit to a combat pretender is quickness, which can be easily received from Quickness Boots. Being able to go underwater is nice too (unless R'lyeh, Atlantis, or Ermor or playing), but this too is available through Construction.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
I used to do that a bit as well, but found I got better battle results out of Fire, Earth, Air, or Astral. Mostly because Water's main benefit to a combat pretender is quickness, which can be easily received from Quickness Boots.

Many pretenders haven't the required appendages to put boots on.

For battle magic, my own Favorites paths are Water, Earth, Death. With Air and Nature as outsiders.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasper:
I used to do that a bit as well, but found I got better battle results out of Fire, Earth, Air, or Astral. Mostly because Water's main benefit to a combat pretender is quickness, which can be easily received from Quickness Boots.

Many pretenders haven't the required appendages to put boots on.

For battle magic, my own Favorites paths are Water, Earth, Death. With Air and Nature as outsiders.

---

I like air, especailly air 2 - I often take it of my SC pretenders. Mistform+mirror is quite efficint combo.

[ April 06, 2004, 10:32: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]