Battlefield spell + retreating?

[Tifone]

Mmmh. Now this seems to me finally a good point. Possibly, because I'm not so expert to find counter-arguments to your one But as the *instants* you talk about are legit to me, being the game supposed to have high-end late game spells rendering big armies useless (a very nice feature of this game IMO) the problem of the BEs could in fact be a balancing issue - even because the paths you mentioned are surely less popular for late game than the astral, blood and death ones we always hear about.

Someone more expert than me can find a good answer? ^_^

[thejeff]

The only one widely considered to be a serious problem is Mists of Deception. The others can all be beaten, but once Mists of Deception is cast and the caster escapes, his side wins the battle.

"I win" spells are bad.

[Tifone]

So maybe shall we drop the entire BEs+retreating combo and just say that the problem is only, if Mists of Deception is cast, the phantasms need the caster to stay on the field, or they stop appearing? For me it's ok, and it should possibly be very easy to resolve ^_^

P.S. It seems to me there aren't so many "I win" spells. As far as I remember, Tartarians have been one of the main things people used to complain about, now they have the shattered soul trait and you must micromanage them a lot or after the insane turn they continue pillaging or heretic preaching or so. Master Enlave only works with large armies of low-MR enemies, MR can be boosted by Antimagic or so, and a SC can make short work of the casters of the Enslave... what else? I hope we don't get to the point that everything must be *perfectly* balanced in this game, or it will lose a lot of personality IMO

[chrispedersen]

Hear hear.

I find the whole thing kind of funny.

Those that play tartarians/wish spamming complaining because MOD beats em.

PERSONALLY, I wish there was a high level Battlefield dispell, that first dispelled all extant spells and then protected the battlefield. Any succeeding spell would have to penetrate MR in order to be cast. Each succeeding cast would lower the protective value a small amount.

AND I wish there was a spell that allowed the supression of magic items for a time.

In combination, these would allow regular armies to be effective again.

[K]

thejeff said:
The only one widely considered to be a serious problem is Mists of Deception. The others can all be beaten, but once Mists of Deception is cast and the caster escapes, his side wins the battle.

"I win" spells are bad.

It's not an "I win" spell by any stretch of the imagination. It can be beaten by killing the caster before he retreats on round two. Battlefield spells like Earthquake, large area spells like Shimmering Fields, or just sending squads of flyers on Attack Rear are all perfectly viable counters.

Considering that you have two turns to kill the caster, it's actually less powerful than other battle-winning instant spells like Master Enslave.