Pretender Balance Mod

[Sheap]

I think the issue here is that you are not considering true rainbow mages. You are focusing on high dominion with strong magic in 2 or 3 paths, which just happens to be exactly the greatest strength of the titans. This is not what a human pretender should be trying to do.

If you have 4 points in each path you can find every magic site except holy/unholy. This will allow you to find on average roughly one site per turn, with average site frequency, as long as your army can keep up this pace of conquest (should be doable vs independents even of high strength).

If you have a rainbow mage you don't need so much dominion because you are not using it to boost your own strength in combat.

If you have 4 levels in each path you can forge almost any item. With an easily made magic item or two you can forge literally any item.

If you have a rainbow mage you gain more from your research in the later game because there are not very many spells you will not be able to cast.

During the early game you will not have the ability to send your pretender out busting independents. You also will not have the risk of getting your pretender afflicted. If someone stabs your 4/4/4 titan in the head, perhaps by standing on a tall ladder, and he gets feebleminded, you are toast. This will never happen with a rainbow mage.

In the midgame you can't take as aggressive a stance as a player with a combat oriented pretender. But you will have more gems, more and better summons and you will have them sooner. You could surprise your enemy with a powerful army of summoned units before he thinks you will have them. And you will have fewer gaps and weaknesses in your army because you will be able to conjure up anything.

The only downside to a rainbow mage, IMO, is that he can do only one thing at a time even later in the game, meaning that if he isn't searching or researching he is wasting a significant fraction of his power. But then a combat pretender wastes a significant fraction of his power whenever he is not actually turning the tide of battle. Every affliction suffered, every turn spent in a siege, every battle overwhelmingly won or lost, wastes the power of the combat pretender.

A lot of the decision is based on what your nation's strengths are. If you have a nation with strong troops that can handle independents with the regular army, but has weak mages, then a rainbow mage is an excellent choice for a pretender. If your troops are weak and depend on high dominion or blessing to fight well then the rainbow mage isn't so great. (Even then your blessing is likely to be not hopeless - a bunch of weak powers instead of one or two strong ones).

[ June 17, 2004, 20:38: Message edited by: Sheap ]