Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?

[K]

Being a Power, in my mind, means not having to do anything crazy to be good at it.

Fire for example, is a Path that you just don't get into except by straight empowerment, which is wasteful in the extreme.

Death and Nature are very easy to get into, since summonable mages are available that let you "walk up the ladder" to powerful amounts of those magics.

[Sombre]

Air is only useful if you have 4s and 5s in it? Huh?

What about arrow fend, thunderstrike, wind guide?

[K]

Arrow Fend. A3. Costs a gem, but its great for the value. You want an air 4 or else your mage is knocked out.

Thunder Stike: A3, and is 50 fatigue. Cast two, then get get knocked out. Compared to Falling fire or Falling Frost, its underpowered and overpriced.

Wind Guide: A2. Cheap, but costs a gem.


Sooo, thats three spells, one of which is a loser and others two cost gems. Do you seriously expect anyone to build an army on that?

Look at the best Air spells:
Mists of Deception, A6, 200 fatigue
Wrathful Skies: A5, 200 fatigue
Fog Warriors: A5, 300 fatigue

Considering that the AI often won't cast high fatigue spells and overspends on them if it does cast them, you are spending Air gems at a very fast clip.

Add in that the Bag ogf Air needs an Air 4 to make(20 gems), and a Wind Helmet is A5(25 gems).

So lets say you are Lanka and you best Air mage is A3, and you want to ever cast Mists of Deception. You spend 60 gems to empowered youself to A4, then another 55 gems to get yourself to A6. Now you can overcast the spell with an extra gem and only knock yourself out(total spent: 115 gems).

[RamsHead]

Or, in the case of your mists of deception example, you can use a sabbath.

[K]

RamsHead said:
Or, in the case of your mists of deception example, you can use a sabbath.

Sure. Anyone can use a Communion or a Sabbath to make up for weak magic, and some nations even get those options on recruitables. What's your point?

Setting up a Sabbath is difficult and easy to foil, and costs blood slaves, and its not going to help 99 out of 100 castings of spells you need to cast over the course of the game. Even implying that it makes up for weak magic is baffling to me.

[Micah]

Erm...doing a bit of setup for a BE (especially one that doesn't kill your mages) is pretty bar for the course...

Even without a communion it's pretty easy to drop a single booster onto your caster, cast summon storm power and then burn an extra gem while casting to get mists off.

The one time empowerment cost to get to A4 for the boosters (assuming you can't get there some other way, via trading, etc.) isn't THAT steep. You're also flat-out wrong about the helms being at A5.

Thunderstrike is also an incredible spell. It's lower research level than falling foo and has 50 range. A single caster with each spell might fall in favor of the bigger AE spells, but if you bring along a whole squad of mages the range advantage of thunderstrike will become obvious, since the army getting pounded by it will be well on the way to routing before their mages even get in casting range. If you commit enough mages to a fight you'll find that 3 casts of it per mage is generally enough to do the job. It's also never rendered obsolete against troops. Army of Niefelheim completely shuts down cold damage and army of gold makes fire magic pretty worthless...the best you can do against lightning is a 50% resist from storm warriors.

[Agema]

I personally consider magic skill of 1 in any path to be virtually useless. However, once you're at level 2, you can boost with constructed items to 3 or more, and it's at level 3 (and the then attainable level 4 battlefield) spells where a mage becomes really effective.

I've played ME Vanheim, and a series of A3/4 mages pounding a battlefield with thunderstrike is devastating; similarly Arrow Fend is incredibly effective if you're up against any enemy with lots of archers.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

To original poster: certainly, some nations are definetly stronger in some paths of magic than others, and your choice of two thanks to Pheonix Power and Earth Power, pretty spot on. Your distrubution is interesting.

However, there is a middle-range between weak and strong, particularly with those two paths- and nations with matching national gem income. A nation with lots of/only fire one mages and small starting gem income can easily and cheaply afford to spend one gem as a temporary booster to get their fire path up high enough to cast Phoenix Power and still be useful afterward thanks to the low 20 fatigue cost, If I Remember Correctly.

With this, fire magic isn't cheap enough to throw around all the time like it may be for abysia, but it can help you get out Flaming Arrows in a pinch (F1+gem-> Phoenix Power = F2 -> F2+gemcost+gemboost -> Flaming Arrows of fire 3, fatigue 100). It also enables repeat casting of spells occasionally useful such as Fireball, Firebolt (facing an immunity to your main path?), Pillar of Fire, and Rage for no additional expense beyond that first gem.

It doesn't make them strong, but if I've got the right income, I make sure to keep a stash of minor path gems in hand for emergencies. Not regular use, though.

RE: K
Actually, I think the focus on air boosting items is greatly overrated. There are definetly some times when they're valuable, but I can find other more effective ways to spend them - albeit as a short-term loss, not an investment like conjurations or forging.

It is worth mentioning that valid as keeping them awake is, my strategies for big battles often revolve around knocking spare mages unconcious. Spell-casting fatigue is capped at 200, after all.

"Arrow Fend. A3. Costs a gem, but its great for the value. You want an air 4 or else your mage is knocked out."

It only costs one 100 fatigue. If you've got a nation without access to storms, but ready access to air two, then why not have one knock themselves out? An air two mage can spend one gem to temporarily boost their casting level, and another to cover the base cost. For the price of one of those air boosters, I could use this spell ten times. It certainly has a greater effect than one lone air mage spamming lightning bolt.

Oddly enough, I view Fomoria as somewhat weak in air magic. Generally, getting regular combat magic for them involves some signficant sacrifice, be it gold, staff of the storms, etc. Sure they can bust out a few big spells, but their druids are utterly unreliable, and your captial only one recruit a turn. Fomorian Kings are a very limited resource, and using them for the big spells renders them melee-useless.

"Wind Guide: A2. Cheap, but costs a gem."
A gem? that's cheap. You're not hitting a single target, you're getting a battlefield enchantment.

There are a lot of spells that have a path requirement of A4, but only a fatigue cost of 200- or less. This means your A3 mage can spend two on the cost, and one to boost, IIRC.
Phantasmal Army, Living Clouds, Mass Flight, Storm, but not Fog Warriors or Wrathful Skies. However, with just air one, you're kind of stuck for anything useful to do.