Why are Sages fair? Opinions wanted!

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
You can somewhat insulate yourself from the horror of not finding mages by taking magic-3 scale and playing one of the nations who has decent base researchers ( woe to he who plays Abysia, Nieflehem, or Ulm and does not find Sages).

I wouldn't include Ulm there. Sages in drain 3 are only slightly more effective researchers than master smith's.

[PvK]

I'm with thinktank on this. Sages are good, but you're not "already screwed", except by that very outlook.

Sages are not fundamentally better than other good provinces of many other types. Sages help research a lot, but they can be made up for in other ways.

Sage provinces can be taken from enemies, or fought over by multiple enemies who think they are super-important to have. They can also be hit by Fires From Afar, assassins, etc.

PvK

[Ironhawk]

I dont think sages are terribly unbalanced. But that said, I also like Chazar's suggestion to drop them proportionally from 4 to 3rp (and associated gold). It would allow them to keep thier place in the game but also more accurately reflect the differences in research abilities of the various nations.

[The Panther]

I believe sages are terribly unbalanced. They are FAR too cheap for the massive research bonus they give you. In fact, they allow some of the poor researching (but powerful) races/themes to go 0 magic or drain and take a chance on finding a library or two. If they take this chance and don't actually find a library, then there is always the next game! So what, it's just a loss!!! This really takes away from the inherent advantages of themes like GE Arco, TC (all), Man (base), non-Neifelheim Jontunheim (?), and SC Pythium (only a slight advantage over base though). Without sages, these races/themes become much more attractive than they currently are.

Obviously, the other approach is to take Magic 3 for a poor researching nation like Yvelina with her Vanheim. It seems obvious to me that she does not want to take a chance on being required to find a sage (by using zero magic or a drain scale) to be competitive. I say this ought to be the only proper way to respond to taking a strong nation with poor researching mages. Why should sages save a player from making that tough choice like the game is typically played these days?

Were sages properly priced, like maybe 150 gold, then this would serve to greater reward the themes that give you cheap researchers. More game balance for the races, in my opinion. More options for selecting the lesser used themes. Better all around for the game.

Furthermore, without cheap sages, you would find people actually building the artifacts that enhance research. I had to do this in my C'tis Miasmi game because the sages would not live in my dominion. But why bother building those things when you are relying on the woefully underpriced sages to produce the brunt of your research for you?

Just my opinion, of course.

[PvK]

Good idea.

[Scott Hebert]

Just wanted to make a few comments.

First, Sages are obviously one of the most efficient researchers in the game. As others have pointed out, the only better (as in, more efficient) researchers (generally) are the Daughter of Avalon and the Philosopher. These are both capital-only commanders for a specific theme. Thus, you could argue that the Sage is the most efficient commonly-available (with exactly how available subject to change) researcher in the game. The fact that it is available on a random basis tends to make me believe it is too powerful.

The other point I would like to make is that there is no price increase for a commander being sacred. If he has priestly powers, he is charged for them, but not for simply being sacred. I found this out when I calculated the projected cost/actual cost ratio of all the mages in the game.

[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.