Why are Sages fair? Opinions wanted!

[The_Tauren13]

Kristoffer O said:
Hiding it would give astral nations a great advantage though.

That's a silly thing to say. One could just as easily argue, say, fire nations have a great advantage because of, like, the High Temple of the Magii.

But even so, you could just make it less common but still level 0.

[Huzurdaddi]

The_Tauren13 said:

That's a silly thing to say. One could just as easily argue, say, fire nations have a great advantage because of, like, the High Temple of the Magii.

No he's quite correct. If it was hidden and you needed ( for example ) astral-1 to find it then sage sites would be a huge advantage to astral nations.

[Huzurdaddi]

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[The Panther]

I have finally discovered exactly why libraries seem much too common. Other then the copper/gold/silver/iron mines, there is exactly ONE site which is:
1. Level 0
2. Common
3. Available in ANY terrain

Yep - the Library.

[Boron]

The Panther said:
I have finally discovered exactly why libraries seem much too common. Other then the copper/gold/silver/iron mines, there is exactly ONE site which is:
1. Level 0
2. Common
3. Available in ANY terrain

Yep - the Library.

How did you check this ? What about the Arena e.g. ?

[Alneyan]

The Arena is, I believe, not available in all terrains (water provinces, swamps and the like), while the Library is available virtually anywhere (I haven't seen one in a swamp yet, but I seldom bother with swamps to begin with).

[Endoperez]

Also, there might be multiple sites named "Library". How would we know?

[baruk]

Personally I don't find sages much of an issue. I tend to take magic scale +1 to +3, and I usually find superior independent mages to build, such as jade sorceresses, loremasters, wizards or enchantresses, as I'm more interested in magical utility than pure research. I haven't played a hard research game yet, though.

Independent mages are another random element that has a large effect on the outcome of a game, so I can see why people might want to limit their effect in some way, though I would prefer to see this as an option in the game setup.

Perhaps this new game setting could consist of a sliding scale which would affect the cost of all independent commanders and/or troops. So that you could perhaps double the cost of all independent units, for instance, if you wanted a more nation-dependent game. Independent mages would be a less obvious build choice under these circumstances, perhaps making utility magical pretenders more attractive.

[The Panther]

Boron said:
How did you check this ? What about the Arena e.g. ?

Well, I put the arena with the group that included the mines, for you just get gold from it and nothing else.

The full list of level 0 sites that are common and available in any terrain:
Copper Mine - 10 gold
Arena - 15 gold
Silver Mine - 20 gold
Iron Mine - 20 resources
Gold Mine - 30 gold
Library - Sage

It is posible that the mines are not available anywhere, as the spreadsheet I used was ambigious on this.

The only significant site in the above list is the library. The mines are certainly not a potential game turning site like the library can be.