Magic scale

[MaxWilson]

Question about the Magic scale: is it a good idea to take it for the -fatigue and -MR effects instead of just +research? It appears to me that both friendly and enemy troops suffer from the MR penalty, and both friendly and enemy mages benefit from the fatigue reduction. That makes it look like a wash once my opponents figure out that my provinces have +magic--they'll be able to customize their armies to take advantage of my magic dominion as much as I will: use more death/astral magic, etc.

Comments on this board led me to believe initially that positive scales would only benefit friendly provinces/units. Did I misunderstand or is Magic different?

-Max Wilson

[Meglobob]

I take drain-2 with some of the really tough bless nations, so I can benefit from the +1 MR and spellcasting +10% fatigue.

In fact I often look to taking drain-2 now if I need some extra build points, -1 research is no big deal, especially when tough bless nations only need to research a limited amount of magic early on.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, I can see situations where Drain-2 isn't a big disadvantage. Low MR troops, for instance. The penalty to research might or might not be a problem; I'm playing C'tis with Magic-3 at the moment and those shaman researchers are really nice (6 rp/turn for 100 gold, sacred = 1/2 upkeep). If I'd taken Drain-2 my best researcher would be Sauromancers (6 rp/turn for 200 gold, normal upkeep) with Skull Mentors. Either double the cost in gold (4x the cost in upkeep) or a lot of death gems. Since I plan to use Cloud of Death quite frequently I think Magic-3 ended up being a nice investment, which maybe answers my own question about investing in Magic. Still, I was hoping that my troops wouldn't take the MR hit from my own dominion.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Except that barbarian hordes are so incredibly weak that they won't slow any invasion worth worrying about (well, except against the AI). 10 medium infantry and 30 archers will destroy a barbarian horde with the right scripting.

Bogus is a nice chance to get unique items, though. Or even hard-to-forge non-uniques like Rune Smasher.

-Max

[Xietor]

Well,

the barbarian hordes etc cannot beat your army, but they can beat pd, cutting off your army and slowing it down.

[MaxWilson]

Yes, they can inconvenience the defending nation, but the attacking nation can only move one province per turn anyway. If a barbarian horde replaces a very weak PD (say 6 or so) I can see how you'd view it as a small advantage, but it also means you can't reinforce that province easily with more PD or regular troops, and as you point out yourself it can disrupt the flow of reinforcements. Overall net negative for the defender except in the quite early game where 120+ barbarians still look threatening.

-Max

[Meglobob]

MaxWilson said:
Yeah, I can see situations where Drain-2 isn't a big disadvantage. Low MR troops, for instance. The penalty to research might or might not be a problem; I'm playing C'tis with Magic-3

I have never played C'tis personally, but those that have mostly say its not suited by a bless strategy. This usually but not always means its a magic nation, so I would not have drain but probably magic 1 or 3.

Marverni for example, having drain with this nation would be madness as you need magic and plenty of it to survive. So magic-3 is a must for the extra research.

However, Neifelheim drain-2 suits very well, as the sacred giants only weakness is magic, so anything that counters that is a plus. Also you personally need very little magic yourself, construction being the only really crucial path needing research. Antimagic spell is highly useful as well.

[Xietor]

I am not sure i agree that enemies should suffer with negative misfortune that a player takes.

Misfortune can actually help you when barbarian hordes etc are slowing the enemy advance into your realm.