[rdonj]

Amadamus - You are saying that assassination spells are too easy. But are they? Let us take earth attack as an example. This is a level 8 spell, so you're not going to see it until pretty late in the game unless someone is making a pretty concerted push up conjuration. And then you actually have to find someone who can cast it. With only one real earth booster in the game (unless you're playing vanilla) getting to level 5 earth magic is no easy task for most nations. There is pretty much no good way around at least 1 empower no matter what nation you are playing, and for most you'll probably need to summon troll kings to do it. That's over 100 earth gems, with little chance of cost reduction. So it's a significant investment you're putting into the ability, derailing your ability to build hammers, equip thugs, or cast other earth spells. All this, and you can stop them pretty easily with just a bottle of living water. Manifestation is basically the same, but with more boosters and a 50% chance of you being attacked instead unless there's a horror marked commander you're sending them at. Disease demons are the only ones that are *maybe* too easy, but I think those are a lot easier to stop with bodyguards than the other two.

Unrest spells are a bit different and can be very powerful in the early game, but are easily stopped by domes....

And I'd rethink the gem gen global replacement thing. For one thing it's not any better. In fact it is worse, because no one knows you have the gem generating thing, and can't do anything about it until they figure out where it is. Then they have to march an assassin all the way across the map to *attempt* to kill it? That is ridiculous. And there's nothing you could do about it now with the assassination spells gone. It then becomes a nearly perfectly safe investment, unlike gem generator globals which are clearly visible, show up in the score graphs, and can be taken out via a dispel or an assassinate. They are much more of a gamble as they are now.