Mages at home vs in the field?

[chrispedersen]

Yah everyone has their own styles. I tend to not like nations that need mage support for expansion. I prefer to hti research targets, and then support an army with just a few mages casting big spells, (darkness, life after death, relief etc).. rather than battle field things like magma eruption, fireball etc.

[Belac]

Everyone else is under the same constraints, so one must accept that research gets a bit slower once you've researched good battle magic.

Also, most nations are such that their weaker mages are more cost-efficient researchers. So once you have multiple forts, recruit cheap mages from most of them and battle mages from a few. Use the money saved by not recruiting lots of super-expensive mages to put up more forts, and eventually your research catches up.