Is Sorcery too OP lategame?

[GMBarak]

For example, AbsoluteZero started a new Caster of Magic Let's Play on Youtube two weeks ago. About 1507 he found a Power Link spell in a dungeon and cast it. His power income shot up:

Nodes 604 power (with Astrologer retort)
Cities: 90 power
Units: 30 power
Power Link: 2614 power
total power: 3338

Yeah, Power Link made quite a difference. Power income went up from 724 to 3338, which is a factor of 4.6 . And that was with only 8 opponents.

Next turn:
Nodes 604 power (with Astrologer retort)
Cities: 100 power
Units: 30 power
Power link: 3095 power
total power: 3829

Power Link income went up to 3095 power, other sources being 734, for a total of 3829 power. Thus, Power Link increased his power income by a factor 5.1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FBPML15UXc

yea, when he found that spell, we was like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg14jNbBb-8

[Seravy]

For example, AbsoluteZero started a new Caster of Magic Let's Play on Youtube two weeks ago. About 1507 he found a Power Link spell in a dungeon and cast it. His power income shot up:

Nodes 604 power (with Astrologer retort)
Cities: 90 power
Units: 30 power
Power Link: 2614 power
total power: 3338

Yeah, Power Link made quite a difference. Power income went up from 724 to 3338, which is a factor of 4.6 . And that was with only 8 opponents.

Next turn:
Nodes 604 power (with Astrologer retort)
Cities: 100 power
Units: 30 power
Power link: 3095 power
total power: 3829

Power Link income went up to 3095 power, other sources being 734, for a total of 3829 power. Thus, Power Link increased his power income by a factor 5.1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FBPML15UXc

yea, when he found that spell, we was like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg14jNbBb-8

Wait, very rare? In 1507? How? That shouldn't be possible even on the highest difficulty I think.

..checked the script, it should be 1512 for very rare on Phantasm. 1516 for Advanced and below.

Oh...check video description.

(Edit's made)
Go to Master of Magic\Master of Magic Caster Windows\Data
Open TreaSpell.CAS in wordpad or a text editor
Change K=16; to K=0;
This makes it so you can get rare or very rare spells from towers / lairs / nodes without having to wait till a particular turn ( should be this way by default IMO, bad nerf )

Basically he broke the game on purpose. Which is fine as long as he enjoys it more that way of course, that's why the options are there, but it's outside the scope of balance discussions of the default game.
Power Link, Armageddon, and some summon spells were the main reason why that turn restriction was added in the first place. It might have been Suppress Magic still back then, making it even worse.

[Seravy]

Oh, also, isn't there a limit of 2500 power gained per turn on Power Link now?
..oh he is playing 1.4.7 I see.

[Suppanut]

Oh, also, isn't there a limit of 2500 power gained per turn on Power Link now?
..oh he is playing 1.4.7 I see.

Before you put the limit on it, it was pretty much "I win" spell if anyone get this spell before others have Disjunction. Wizard who have it would get carried away with power. Perhaps you should make this spell to have highest disjunction priority due to it would counter all disjunction that not target on it.

Also now Armmageddon is not better than Root of Genesis as rate of volcano decay would be at equilibrium with rate of volcanoes raise at some point (I have never made serious calculation but equations of both made this seem to be the case) which different from CoM for DOS as in its last version Armaggedon could turn most of the world into active volcano on smaller map with rate of power generate twice what I get from Armaggedon at its highest on maximal map of 13 opponents (6000+ compare to 3000+ power from volcanoes in game that I left Armaggedon unchecked). While Root of Genesis has much more stable output while the enchantment is active (it seem to peaked around 3600-4000 power in maximal map, it is not decay due to most of wizard would leave forest alone and not try to destroy it, and potentially more if someone also has Armaggedon as tundra will gradually turn volcano in previously tundra area into forest). Root of Genesis is also in synergy with other Root of Genesis, it is not in competition with others as Armageddon would. Root of Genesis is also seem ot be on low end of being target for Disjunction and not cause diplomatic outrage. It is also in synergy with all other Nature economy spells too. I would say that in long term Root of Genesis is the best overall power generation spell in game with next to no bad consequence from it as it is so easy to left unchecked by AI and give very stable income.

As all of these spells would be scaled up by number of opponent in some form or another, here is ranking of them based on power generation....
1) Power Link (before nerf)
2) Armageddon (if also own Power Link) (higher power peak as map get bigger but more opponent means more attempt to disjunct it, this could be mitigate by Power Link)
3) Root of Genesis (higher power peak as map get bigger, no diplomatic consequence)
4) Power Link (after nerf)
5) Armageddon (without Power Link) (due to its high diplomatic consequence, it is prime target for disjunction, so it is unlikely to grow that much in maximal map with more opponents)

[GMBarak]

Apart from being hard to reach the endgame, I believe the "big 3", Spell Binding, Power Link and Time Stop are all "win more" type spells that help you only if you're already winning. Time Stop due to the extreme mana cost and casting skill requirement to provide a significant advantage (you pay 2000 casting skill up front so you'd need to gain more than that over the extra turns gained to break even and much more for it to be a worthwhile invetsment...of course this is only from the economy perspective, the logistical advantage is significant but Sorcery already excels in that area), Power Link because it relies on there being other wizards in the game who are left behind in spell research and cannot switch over to using high cost (very rare) overland spells instead of lower tiers yet aren't banished or eliminated from the game (the elimination mechanic puts that on a quite strict timer), and Spell Binding because the cooldown is so long you'd need be in a good enough position to be able to wait several years for gaining those spells.

but you can so easely work around that by lining up so you can take pretty much every city of an opponent in the same turn.

This is exactly what I mean by being a "win more" spell, if you already have enough armies to take a dozen cities on the same turn, you can probably win without Time Stop.

But yes, Sorcery was definitely the most difficult to balance and it's the most dangerous in the hands of a runaway AI or at least on par with Chaos.

If I had to point at spells, I'd say the most powerful ones are likely Magic Immunity, Spell Blast, Mass Invisibility, Spell Ward and then the "big 3" mainly when the player who obtains them already has an advantage to abuse them.
Djinn and Sky Drakes are pretty hard to stop, too.

After having more experience with the game, I agree that spell blast is one of the top spells because every time they try to disjunction my powerful global spells or cast a global spell themselves I just spell blast it, so spell blast allow you to keep your powerful global spells while denying others from casting powerful global spells themselves.

Edit: if they have researched the Spell of Mastery, you cannot spell blast their spells, but in that case they would prefer casting the spell of mastery than disjunction your global enchantments so it doesn't matter, it becomes a game of: Banish them before they cast the spell of Mastery.