Mods for lower-powered magic

[PvK]

I've actually got quite far on that project, though I'm not sure how everyone else will like the balance levels I've chosen. I'll try to speed progress and make a version to share.

I don't think removing the low-level mages is necessary - I just simply made the level-1 spells apprentice-level effects, the level-2 journeyman/hedge-wizard-level effects, etc. I just wish the maximum spell requirement weren't level 9 in two paths, because Dominions really has a broader spectrum of power levels, especially when magic booster items can be used. But so far I am pretty happy. There are just so many spells and items that it takes a long time to do them all and keep them consistent. And nation balance is of course all shuffled around by this, but that's interesting too...

[Edratman]

I've stumbled across a out-of-the-box game variation, thanks to a prod by Gandalf, that dramatically alters the game play as I knew it.

In the game setup menu, I set resources and money to 50, indies to 9 and research to easy. The alteration in game play was quite astonishing to me. Large armies are pretty much unattainable, the ratio of mages to units is increased and early expansion is very slow, unless you go for an awake SC pretender. But you really need good scales with this setup and the pretender selection seems even more critical IMHO.