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[Valerius]

Ok, I see. I really like this idea, it seems to cover all the bases. Thanks for the info.

[Valerius]

I've been thinking about this idea and a potential loophole occurred to me: empower in astral and if you've managed to get either the Dimensional Rod or the Forbidden Light you could Wish for magic power and then the boost would apply to all the paths you just gained.

[quantum_mechani]

It's true, but honestly if you have paid 150s, plus other misc expenses, I think you've earned it. It is in some sense the ultimate magic diversifier but I think one tart with 4 in everything is actually far less useful than a half dozen tarts with an assortment of paths.

[Valerius]

Hmm, maybe so. I see your point about one very powerful unit being a bottleneck - only able to forge one item, be in one place at a time, etc. And I really like the idea of seeing magicless, possibly afflicted, tarts on the battlefield as troops and thugs. But I'm always wary of loopholes.

Another thing I was wondering about is which paths would be likely to be empowered. The main one that comes to mind is astral, not just because of the possibility of wishing for magic power but also because it would be the only way to get an S4 summon and strong astral is such a useful late game path. Maybe also air, earth and fire and blood (because it's so cheap to do so). Water, nature and death don't seem likely choices since there's other, cheaper, options.

[Dimaz]

For me the problem with using feebleminded tarts as units/thugs is low MR/high hp combo which makes them the target for all the mr resistable spells which means they don't stay long enough to be useful.

[Valerius]

Good point, I had forgotten about the hit to MR. I guess you could equip the thugs with MR boosting gear but the troops would still be on the low side even with antimagic cast.

[Executor]

Well you can get a very good MR with undead, and other fatigueles commanders.
Lead Shield, MR amulet, Rainbow Armor, Astral Cap, that's +12 right? Quite commonly used items.
I used all that once on a siege golem, seemed like a really good idea until I realized he had no arm slots. But still, he was able to soak up a nice deal of damage. I think a siege golem would be a pretty good and widely used summon if he had arms.

[Valerius]

Yeah, feebleminded tart commanders could be equipped to get respectable MR. It's the ones that you didn't GoR that would be in a more difficult situation. For instance, without magic it's almost certainly not worth GoRing a monstrum - but they are useful troops. A feebleminded monstrum would be at 13 MR, that you could only boost as high as 17 MR with antimagic/iron will/army of gold (excluding magic scales in this of course). At the same time its high HP would make it a target.

But perhaps a way around this would be to give the monstrum in particular a starting MR higher than 18? If it weren't feebleminded and were GoRed this still wouldn't be a problem since it has such limited slots compared to the other tarts. In fact you might have to give it a perk like exceptionally high MR to convince anyone to GoR a monstrum without magic.

Interesting idea about the siege golem, I'd never considered GoRing one. Those attack/defense stats look pretty horrible (just the kind of target I like to send my glamoured thugs after ) but I guess it's not much worse than a golem and if they had hand slots you could get that looking a little better.

[WraithLord]

I personally don't care much for the new suggestion re. Tartarians. I agree that they're too common by far so would like to put another suggestion on the table:

How about tartarians become nation specific spell for nations that have a strong thematic connection to death and/or that need such a uber spell to compensate for innate weakness. So for example, make tarts available only to:
- Ermor (yes, LA Ermor don't need tarts but this is the nation that thematically should have them)
- MA Machaka
- Sauromatia
etc.

That way you kill two birds with the same stone - reduce tarts from very common status and grant or not grant the spell as a further tool to address nation balance issues.

[WraithLord]

QM could you also kindly post the things that are currently on the table for 1.8?- This way we would be able to provide feedback. Even if only a fragment of this feedback would end up being useful it's should still be worth it, right?