Magic Spirits are OP

[Catwalk]

This has been a pet peeve to me ever since I started playing MoM. Magic Spirits are broken. A cheap spell that everybody starts with effectively removes exploration as a meaningful challenge. I think convenience is the only good reason why they're so mobile at a low cost, it's game breaking. In my current game I summoned 4 early on and 80% of Myrror mapped out in year 1403. At minimal cost I now know all about how to expand and can keep track of my enemies' expansion. I really like the new Earth Lore spell, but it's rendered irrelevant by Magic Spirits. It's a good spell for lazy people who don't want to move units around, but that's about it.

Magic Spirits should have a movement speed of 1 and normal movement. If the AI would be able to utilize this correctly, I think that's vastly preferrably to the current system. You can change summoning circle for 0 mana, so it's not very difficult to get one closer to a conquered node. And at 30 mana with an upkeep of 1, it's easy to have 1 or 2 running around if you know you're shopping for nodes anytime soon.

 Does anyone else feel that Magic Spirits ruin exploration?

[zitro1987]

Not really, because another good strategy is use up all the mana at your disposal for a formidable stack of war bears or ghouls

[Nelphine]

Move 1 wouldn't match the updated speeds in the mod at all. Also, later game you really need to escort magic spirits. Noncorporeal is probably required by AI, though conceivably water walking by itself would be enough.

I admit they fundamentally change exploration. I'm not sure I like them, although I've never tried 4. I'd actually suggest just changing upkeep to 2 (guardian spirit as well). Leave it as an option, but make the opportunity cost a bit higher. (Although my 4 book strategies will hate that, even if they aren't primarily for exploration for me. I really don't start with a lot of power generation.)

[Seravy]

While they are good scouts, they aren't any better than what other realms have - aside from having a lower cost.
Nagas also have a movement of 2 and water walking - as long as you only step on ocean, shore, river, swamp and tundra tiles, they are equally good. Hell Hounds are limited to your continent, but have some military power so using them is not wasted power. With their 3 movement they can usually move 2 tiles on land. Skeletons are not very fast but they are dirt cheap and have no upkeep, so you can easily use 8-10 of them - unfortunately they are limited to land. Guardian Spirits are identical to Magic Spirits but much more expensive. Nature has Sprites - while they cost more, they can and will get you some treasure on the way so they are worth it.
And my preferred way of scouting : ships. It's not that early, but a ship, sailing around enemy continents can do a lot, thanks to its high scouting range. It won't tell me contents of lairs but that's not something I need to know in enemy territory anyway.

There is however one thing about exploration that probably never existed in the original. Overdoing it is a threat to you. It makes contact with wizards and some of those wizards might be hostile. Not a problem on its own if they are far from your territory but they might also make alliances with others and spread the war. The 3.03 changes in diplomacy mitigated this threat a lot I guess. And of course, if they have ships, they might go for it and unload hordes of units on your continent anyway, regardless of distance.

Also, Earth Lore is vastly superior to spirits, as it reveals an entire 10x10 area plus all lair contents to you - including secondary monsters, which even spirits can't tell you. It will cost you more mana to explore the map using that, but it will take lot less time and there is no risk of losing the spirit to someone attacking it.

[Nelphine]

I think (for me) the problem with spirits is that you get them off the bat, and there's (almost) never a better choice for your very first spell.

Regardless of all the other options you listed, that first (or second/third/fourth) magic spirit makes every other scouting option in the game obsolete. Even playing a four book game, I have enough power to summon a magic spirit quickly - I'd have to wait a lot longer for a sprite or naga, and those units would be split - they can explore, or fight, not both (not seriously anyway).

I don't think I've ever used anything other than magic spirits - while I'm not sure that's a bad thing, it also means the exploration portion of the game is much more limited than it needs to be.

IF that's a bad thing, that's why I suggested increasing the upkeep of spirits (and thinking about it, I would change my original suggestion, and not increase guardian spirit). When you know where they're going for a node, the upkeep doesn't matter. But holding onto such a weak unit, that IS outclassed by many other scouts, would encourage the use of other scouts, while still allowing magic spirit to be used by those with no better option.

[Seravy]

If we really want to change this (I don't think it's needed), giving Magic Spirit an actual research cost instead of starting with it is the best way to do that. I feel the problem is the player has access to this earlier than any other spells useful for scouting.

It would mean however that
-(actually never mind this one, I realized this is no longer true, if the AI wanted to summon but cannot, it falls back to using a unit buff instead)
-Getting an early node would require the player to actually research the spirit. This could get annoying, though it might make Guardian Spirit a more popular starting pick.

...a related idea :
What if each player started with a random common Arcane spell from this list :

Summoning Circle, Magic Spirit, Dispel Magic, Heroic Shout, Detect Magic, Enchant Item, Disenchant Area, instead of always Magic Spirit?
Doing so would open up a lot more early trading possibilities - in fact it might open up too much of them?

[Catwalk]

Requiring Magic Spirit to be researched at a cost of 100 (and I like the upkeep 2 idea as well in combination) would be a perfect fix for this if you can do that easily. That encourages you to get other means of exploration, but keeps it as an option.

[Nelphine]

Recently ive seen AI conquer things with triple magic spirits a fair amount. I think it would weaken the AI, but since early game is already heavily in the AI favor I don't think that's s bad thing.

At the same time, I think of all those spells only nsgic spirit can actually be used at the start. For many strategies, magic spirit is the only spell worth casting for a fair amount of time. I'm not sure losing that is worthwhile.

I also wouldn't want to see heroic shout as a starting spell.

[Domon]

What about increasing the upkeep? They are not units meant to stay around a lot, after all.

[Seravy]

What about increasing the upkeep? They are not units meant to stay around a lot, after all.

They are for the AI. (though it gets a discount on upkeep)