Magic Scale

[Graeme Dice]

I can remember discussions about Dom I where some considered it to be standard practice to take drain 3, as it had very little effect when you could boost you research just by spending more gold.

[Yvelina]

Speaking for myself, I consider magic 3 a no-brainer. Dominions II is won through magic, and research is vital to the war effort. While it is true that you can buy more research with more gold, it is hard to do so in the beginning, and your maintainance cost shoots through the roof. Maybe it could work for some nations. For my favorite nation, Vanheim, it would be insanity.

Vanheim has four mages that can be used for research. In Magic 3 the research per maintainance cost is 1.2, .8, .83, .75. Note that I start by buying the worst researchers (dwarves), at least until I get enough random picks for my casting and forging needs.

Now, lets consider Drain 3. The points/gold become .2, .2, .33, .16, We are talking an average of six TIMES less research per mage. Even the best researcher is a full four TIMES worse. Yes, if you have four times as much gold, this may make sense, but you will not.

The mathematics may be different for independants and other nations, but I doubt they are that much different. Drain for anyone but base Ulm is suicide, unless you intend to somehow win the game without magic.

[Graeme Dice]

Yvelina said:
Speaking for myself, I consider magic 3 a no-brainer.

I don't, since it has severely diminishing returns over magic 2.

I'm also referring to Dominions I, where there was more than twice as much gold in the economy.

We are talking an average of six TIMES less research per mage.

You can always use owl quills on dwarves.

Even the best researcher is a full four TIMES worse. Yes, if you have four times as much gold, this may make sense, but you will not.

A better comparison would be to look at magic 2 vs. magic 3, and to include the purchase price where you'll notice that the difference is very small.

Drain for anyone but base Ulm is suicide, unless you intend to somehow win the game without magic.

Ermor can get away with a drain scale quite nicely.

[Zen]

In Dom1 you could also convert Astral to RP.

[Yvelina]

I was talking about drain being suicide... now, if you are saying that Magic 3 is not worth the 40 design points over Magic 2, that may be perfectly reasonable. When I decided on magic 3, I mostly did it by comparing the loss of research to the loss of gold from death/sloth, and decided that magic 3 made sense. It is also the difference between getting to Alt2 in two turns, and having to take one more turn before sending my pretender on a rampage.

I can believe that for even slightly different pretender designs, magic 2 may be better than magic 3. But I have trouble imagining how drain can be a good idea. Do you mind explaining why you would take drain with Ermor? Even without drain, you can easily afford a monster pretender. Investing 6x40 more points in it will not allow you to do two things per turn, while it would deny you 6 more research points per mage.

As for the suggestion tha I use quilts of dwarves, I will just assume that you were joking. There are better uses for air gems in the early game, especially for Vanheim.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Yvelina said:
As for the suggestion tha I use quilts of dwarves, I will just assume that you were joking. There are better uses for air gems in the early game, especially for Vanheim.

If Graeme is joking, then count me in the jokers bandwagon as well.

[archaeolept]

well, construction 2 vanheim gets a hammer; 3 air gems for +3 research, pretty darn early, if you wanted to go that route. Perhaps you haven't found a library...

as to early uses, air is pretty weak (though wyverns have been improved in zen's mod) until the rush to queens.

[Yvelina]

I always have my first air queen before turn 20. I hardly use air gems for anything else while there are air queens left, and I would go as far as trading hammers for air gems. I am frankly surprised that any air nation would use air gems before this... but that may explain why I have always ended with at least two air queens in every one of my Vanheim games, even when Man, Caelum and Pythium are in.

[archaeolept]

you might be under very difficult research; in which case investing in air gems might actually speed up your acquisition of the queens.

or there might be no other air nations; in which case you can be a bit lax in the rush.

[Turin]

drain 1 for ermor seems to be pretty resaonable.
your units get +1 mr, you will be behind in research anyway with ermor, but you mostly need only conjuration and construction anyway.

In one ermor game I´m in, I chose magic 3 and so far it has only hurt me. My undead are far easier to banish(-1MR compared to +1MR), my pretender could have 1 more 4point magic paths , I can´t research anyway, because it´s with very hard research settings and I must pump every death gem into wraith centurions just to stay in the game.

Taking drain2-3 though doesn´t make sense