Some suggestions for improving SP (and perhaps to a lesser degree MP)

[Taqwus]

1. Handicaps might be interesting.

Heck, the most obvious way to do this would be for the host / game setter-upper to specify how many design points each player gets (which would be made known to all players). Other modifiers might be interesting as well, but possibly harder (for instance, how does a global hp modifier interact with enslave/charming spells?).

Additional areas that shouldn't cause too much complexity later on would be starting gold, extra gems (e.g. X times initial gem income), extra troops (e.g. 1.5x starting).

In theory one could have a system in which design points get spent on advantages, but balancing would be enormously hard.


2. Algorithm problem, I think. Fortresses are mostly pretty expensive, and placement may be tricky (chokepoints? protecting certain magical sites? protecting researchers? high-resource areas? interesting indy troops?).

Starvation issues might be alleviated somewhat if it placed higher importance on nature magic / construction / supply items. A few Cauldrons of Broth or Summer Swords goes a long way.


3. Perhaps, hard to tell for me how much they're searching as I don't know the levels of the different magical sites. I wonder if it's using the divination spells.


4. I've seen 'em try, but not too often. They probably should more, although hm -- maybe it's considered futile if your gem income dwarfs theirs? Wouldn't know.