Why are Sages fair? Opinions wanted!

[Endoperez]

Also, there might be multiple sites named "Library". How would we know?

[baruk]

Personally I don't find sages much of an issue. I tend to take magic scale +1 to +3, and I usually find superior independent mages to build, such as jade sorceresses, loremasters, wizards or enchantresses, as I'm more interested in magical utility than pure research. I haven't played a hard research game yet, though.

Independent mages are another random element that has a large effect on the outcome of a game, so I can see why people might want to limit their effect in some way, though I would prefer to see this as an option in the game setup.

Perhaps this new game setting could consist of a sliding scale which would affect the cost of all independent commanders and/or troops. So that you could perhaps double the cost of all independent units, for instance, if you wanted a more nation-dependent game. Independent mages would be a less obvious build choice under these circumstances, perhaps making utility magical pretenders more attractive.

[The Panther]

Boron said:
How did you check this ? What about the Arena e.g. ?

Well, I put the arena with the group that included the mines, for you just get gold from it and nothing else.

The full list of level 0 sites that are common and available in any terrain:
Copper Mine - 10 gold
Arena - 15 gold
Silver Mine - 20 gold
Iron Mine - 20 resources
Gold Mine - 30 gold
Library - Sage

It is posible that the mines are not available anywhere, as the spreadsheet I used was ambigious on this.

The only significant site in the above list is the library. The mines are certainly not a potential game turning site like the library can be.

[Chazar]

The Panther said:

It was 50% magic sites in all four of my games cited above. The first two games were on a crowded Karan, a smallish map in which sages are not overly important because libraries are harder to find for everybody.

Hmm, actually I am now considering Karan to be a fairly big map for anything with less than 8-10 players, but that is, of course, a personal thing. However, 50% probability and karan-sized maps certainly affect the perception of sages...

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baruk said:Perhaps this new game setting could consist of a sliding scale which would affect the cost of all independent commanders and/or troops. So that you could perhaps double the cost of all independent units, for instance, if you wanted a more nation-dependent game. Independent mages would be a less obvious build choice under these circumstances, perhaps making utility magical pretenders more attractive.

That seems to be a pretty good idea to me!