Use of mages

[Edratman]

I also took considerable time until I learned how to use mages for something other than research and construction of items. (I attribute it to my extensive Civ experiences.)
You can win on medium sized maps without much magic.

But following some sage advice I received here I started making maps to allow 30+ provinces per player, set gold and resources to 50%, indies to 9 and magic research to easy. I started out getting crushed by the AI, but eventually learned to adapt. Instead of having 20 or more capitol only mages sitting in my capital researching spells that the field army commanders can't cast, I find I only keep about 5 there for forging, and most of my research is now done by indie mages (with skulls or feathers).