LIFE Realm

[Nelphine]

Ghouls are absolutely worth buffing as if they were your final late game stack, just due to undead creation. Buffing is also why I always feel let down by late game death units. I can spend a lot of books, and a lot of time and power, and get a shadow demon, or wraith, or demon Lord.

Or I could spend all those extra books getting buffs for ghouls, and all that time and power getting more ghouls with buffs, and get a unit as strong as wraiths, that has auto undead creation.

Given that undead creation is not only super powerful, but also super fun, I just can't play more than 2 death books anymore, because everything else has to go towards making my ghouls as strong as possible.

[Seravy]

You shouldn't count how many spells you actually use, you should count how many you COULD use. I'm not going to include spells that are only partially replaced (like, Resist Elements vs Elemental Armor, or Guardian Spirit vs Unicorns) but still have unique properties the other spell does not.

Nature
C War Bears - by Spiders
U Great Lizard - by Behemoth, Regeneration
R Stone Giant - by Colossus
R Earthquake - by Seismic Mastery

Sorcery
C Resist Magic - by Magic Immunity (not really, due to cost difference RM remains useful)
C Floating Island - by Flight, Wind Walking (if using Flight on a ship)
C Guardian Wind - by Invisibility (although against illusion immunity it remains useful)
C Nagas - by Water Elemental
U Water Elemental - by Djinn
R Banish - by Creature Binding
R Storm Giant - by Djinn

Chaos
C Corruption - by Raise Volcano
U Lightning Bolt - by Warp Lighting+Doom Bolt
U Fire Giant - by Efreet
U Chaos Channels - by Doom Mastery
U Gargoyles - by Efreet (questionable, cost of gargoyle makes it a better garrison unit)
U Fireball - by Warp Lighting (multi figure units also have low defense)
U Raise Volcano - by Armageddon

Life
C Holy Weapon by Holy Arms
C Heroism by Altar of Battle (or Enlightenment for heroes)
U Exorcise by Holy Word
U Prayer by High Prayer
R Angel by Archangel

Death
C Skeletons by Lycanthropy (except garrisoning)
C Life Drain by Syphon Life (although LD can be more cost effective on extra low res targets, those are unlikely to appear late in the game)
U Lycanthopy by Shadow Demons (questionable but based on my past 4 games I never needed more wolves after I had SD. Maybe against Magic Immunity you do.)
R Drought by Pestilence (killing pop is effective at also removing production)
R Wraiths by Death Knights


special notes :
Hell Hounds aren't listed because due to their low cost, they are a viable spell to cast once you have Blazing March and Chaos Surge. You can pump their attack up to chimera proportions and they only cost 40 each so you can get a full stack in a turn. (they also have fire breath which Gargoyles do not)
Healing and Fire Bolt not included because they are more cost effective than the higher tier spells (but they are less turn effective)

...and to my surprise Nature is the winner here with the fewer spells that get obsolete. Was expecting Life to be honest. But most realms are fairly even with having minimal amount of spells that become useless. (on the other hand, spells that are less useful in the first place, like Warp Wood, are not included, so this doesn't mean every realm has equally good spells. Which might be why Life seems better than others.)

[Nelphine]

And my list only includes spells you could use, that still are relevant. Cockatrices fly, but there are 0 scenarios you would ever summon them after you get gorgons - and that's the same for every single other nature summon before very rare (and I'd argue,even some very rares).

Hell hounds, no. If you can still use that combo then spearmen plus doom mastery is even better. So hell hounds are out. Every single chaos summon is obsoleted by a very rare chaos summon except efreeti.

All the common combat chaos spells, or lightning bolt? Lightning bolt makes them all useless. And if not lightning bolt, mystic surge.

Etc. I literally can't use any of the spells I didn't list without being worse.

So no, your list isn't remotely accurate. Your criteria for obsolete is spells that are horribly bad - my criteria is merely bad.

[jhsidi]

If we're measuring the relative strength of schools of magic, why wouldn't I measure the spells I actually use? I get it if you're taking a measure of how elegantly the schools are designed; how satisfying their spell list is, when considered in sum; and whether any spells should be removed or added to the game. But it doesn't seem to have much bearing on an actual game playthrough.

Nature may have fewer spells that become obsolete, but that doesn't make it a better school in any real way, if your giant spiders and cockatrices bounce off buffed Life units like ping pongs off a stone wall.

Also, I wonder if some of the feeling of imbalance comes about from the difficulty level played on. Playing at Expert+ against a Life wizard who hasn't been smacked around, there's a point when you're running into multiple stacks with Endurance + Holy Weapon + Bless + Prayer on multiple units, and it just feels more overpowered and less interesting (to me) than what other schools bring to bear. In general a monotony of powerful things just feels bad, and that does pop up in other places in the game (like Sorcery wizards who spam Naga and Water Elemental stacks, because they have nothing else).

[Seravy]

Cockatrices fly, but there are 0 scenarios you would ever summon them after you get gorgons

I rather have 4 times save at -4 than at -3 once IF I want to petrify things. Gorgons are only better if you're after the brute force, not the petrify effect. However it's true you usually need Non-Nature spells for the Cockatrice to reach its intended target (invisibility, endurance etc), so if it's all nature, Gorgons might be better as they have the durability. It's also questionable whether there are things you want to petrify but can't beat by the high attack gorgons. So maybe you're right here.

If we're measuring the relative strength of schools of magic, why wouldn't I measure the spells I actually use?

Because we were measuring how much weakness each school has from spells getting obsolete. We weren't measuring the whole relative strength of schools (which is entirely too subjective to be even possible to do - sure I have my own spell ratings in a table somewhere, in those Sorcery wins, Life was I think second, but pretty much every realm ranked between 3.5 and 4 our of 5).
Since spells getting obsolete wasn't the thing causing the problem, it means Life is more powerful in general, and spell redundancy has nothing to do with it. (Which is a good thing, if that was the problem it would have meant we need to improve all 4 other realms by cutting down their redundancy)

(assuming it is more powerful, did we even agree on that? I'm not sure.)


One idea : we could swap the "+2 armor" and the "+1 To Def" between Holy Armor and Endurance.

Pros :
-Holy Armor and Holy Weapon will mirror each other, more flavorful.
-Powerful +1 move and +1 To Def effects separated to two different spell picks
-Summoned creatures can no longer receive the +1 To Def effect and instead gain a less powerful +2 armor that doesn't scale up

Cons :
-Might need to adjust the MP cost and maintenance of both spells.
-Might need to adjust AI targeting rules (which can have space issues)
...can't think of any other. It's still worth buffing the same creatures with Endurance even if it's 2 armor instead of 1 To Def for the AI - they pick those targets for the movement first and foremost.

Might make Life AI capitals too easy to crack? Not sure how much having Endurance on Archangels contributed, but I suspect it was a big deal.

[zitro1987]

I think that would work better and will help early summons or units better by granting +2 armor fairly cheaply (I assume the cost will be dropped to around 60-65 mana?) without the stacking problem with giving + to defend to units like archangel (on top of everything else).

I assume +2 armor is better early on for any units of 5 or fewer armor. If lower cost than to defend, it may then be better early on for any units of 6-7 or fewer armor.

[zitro1987]

As far as spell redundancy or
spells that get less useful later in game,

This is my interpretation (I'll stop at uncommon) but it sums up to a concern that Nature and Sorcery have too many spells that become less useful as time goes on (or obsoleted by better spells). Life does have some redundancies so one could argue Sorcery is the best at this.

Nature:

Major:
War bears - get obsolete by nearly all other summons
Fairy Dust - simply gets obsolete over time
Call Centaurs by much better combat spells (unless you like doing the city run-away strategy when losing … which I don't like doing)
Ice Bolt - unless weakened and cost lowered to 20 for magician usage, this spell also gets obsolete by better combat spells, such as  earth elemental or if resistance applies - petrify. Not to mention if dual-wizard, this gets replaced.
Earth Lore gets obsolete by Seismic Mastery
Construct catapult gets obsolete by call lightning
Giant Spiders - poison gets obsolete, use gorgons instead for resistance-based
Change Terrain - kinda gets obsolete by Gaia's Blessing
Nature's Cures get obsolete by Herb Mastery
Great Lizard gets obsolete by 5 later summoning units
Earth to Mud -> Entangle  (but entangle has too much rp to be a major problem)
Some rares get obsolete by very rares

Lots of redundancies here. I wonder if we can address this.

Sorcery:
Floating Island gets obsolete by windwalking (sort of)
Guardian Wind effect granted by Invisibility in most cases
Phantom Warriors get obsolete by Phantom Beast in 75+% of cases
Nagas get obsolete by Water elementals/Storm Giants
Water elementals get obsolete by Storm Giants
A couple of rares get obsolete by very rares

Pretty good, not many redundancies

Chaos:
Disrupt - by flying uncommons and rare creatures
Fire bolt by everything later
Hell Hounds by Chimeras and Doom Bats (later, you have the economy to build armies for blazing march)
Corruption by Volcano
Wall of Fire by … I don't know, it is not useful later in game
Shatter by … flamestrike? (just kill 'em?)
Fire Elemental by time
Lightning Bolt by Doom Bolt and warp lightning (or disintegrate)
Fire Giant by Efreet
Chaos Channels by Doom Mastery
Gargoyles by .. hydra? or they simply become useless once we have rare summons
Fireball by more advanced damage spells
Chimeras by Great Drake or maybe Doom Bat
Volcano by Armageddon

A high number of redundancies and early-only spells, probably as bad as nature

Death:
Skeletons probably fine (it can be a quick morale booster)
Weakness by time and better resistance spells
Summon Zombie by Syphon Life or Zombie Mastery (for over 75% of cases)
Cloak of Fear by time (but may stay useful with black prayer)
Ghouls by Syphon Life (though I think a few death experts will disagree)
Life Drain by Syphon Life
darkness by a very rare global
Reaper Slash by maybe annihilate?

that's about it Death not bad in this regard, maybe slightly better than sorcery and much better than chaos and nature


Life:
Star Fires by Holy Word (in most cases)
Holy Weapon by Holy Arms
Healing by Exaltation (75+% of the time for me)
Heavenly Light by prayer-type spells
Heroism by Altar of Battle
Exorcise by Holy Word
Sanctify by some very rare globals and rare city spells that are better for economy (but sanctify not exactly obsolete)
Altar of Peace by time in harder difficulties (are you really gonna be in peace?)
Maybe just 1 rare gets obsoleted by very rares.

Again not bad, but not any better than sorcery.

My Conclusion - I think Sorcery and Life are tied with death slightly behind. One could argue Sorcery has the fewer redundancies or spells that stop being useful.

We need to consider strategies for limiting this problem for nature and chaos instead of harming life/sorcery (Seravy's suggestion about life common spells is reasonable though and WILL help early game).

[jhsidi]

Shifting the to-defend roll to Holy Armor sounds like a smart idea to me.

OK, I get what you're going for now in listing which spells become obsolete. Although a lot of the "spell X is obsolete by spell Y" doesn't make much sense. Fireball never becomes obsolete as it remains cost effective for a specific case: high figure units (in particular halberdiers). I think the costs of, say, Warp Lightning are balanced to keep fireball effective. Nagas don't become obsolete because of Water Elemental, they're melee / cheaper / still pack a decent punch even once you have Elementals; like War Bears they can help beef up a garrison even in mid game.

It makes more sense to me to look at spells becoming obsolete due to power curve in mid-/late-game. My point about Endurance was that it runs in the opposite direction: it becomes more and more effective as you get more powerful units. That's unique in the game (besides other to-hit / to-defend spells).

Here's my view on a handful Chaos and Nature spells becoming obsolete:
Shatter -- pointless in mid-late game
Disrupt -- my units are flying, or ethereal, or just too tough to care, by mid game... and few towns even have walls in early game
Fire Elemental -- weak summon for a relatively high cost, even units without magic weapons frequently wipe it out, pointless by mid game

Fairy Dust -- unlike Fireball, it can't do much in mid - late (as zitro pointed out)
Call Centaurs -- quite literally a mid-tier city units *without* the effect of Alchemist's Guild. Would you use a city unit that didn't have the +1 to hit? Utterly useless in mid / late game.
Construct Catapult -- same, no way this is worth 30 mana

These are never great spells. They start off at "meh, decent" and decline to irrelevance from there.

No Life spell becomes obsolete. Bless is annoyingly effective at blocking Chaos / Death no matter what point you are in the game. Holy Armor is so cheap it feels free in late game, always great for high figure units. Holy Weapon and Endurance both become more and more effective as the game goes on, and I may never get Holy Arms. Heavenly Light declines, but it's still cheap and stays on forever. Same for Just Cause. Heroism is pretty much the closest Life gets to a spell that becomes obsolete, and it's still useful in late game.

[zitro1987]

Life: yes, the swapping of +1 to defend to holy armor is a great idea and I certainly recommend it.
Now a remaining problem might be the 'cheap' (as in unfair) counter to death. Life is already pretty effective against death and this spell essentially negates most of their best attacks.
*What if? Bless becomes solely a direct damage counter? Something like direct damage spells deal 50% to this unit? I think a counter against chaos (instead of death) might make realm more balanced overall. This spell idea is hardly overpowered, but does counter spells, particularly flame strike. However, unit can still be targeted with warp creature, etc.

Ways I can think some of said early spells could be tweaked to be more relevant later in game:

Fairy Dust
*a unit finisher - deals 2-4hp damage if unit has 2-4 or less hp left (cost of 10 to 20 depending on hp damage)
*a guaranteed damage multi-figure attack - a 15+ cost spell that deals 1hp per figure, maybe with a limit of 4hp damage.

Shatter:
*changing resistance-based spell to a spell that eliminates magic weapons from a given unit (early on, can help when having weapon immunity, later on it can deal 1-2 attack/defense reduction if mithril/adamantium).

Disrupt:
*A global combat spell that breaks all front wall spaces instead of selecting 1 spot. This might even benefit flyers if they can't afford to fly around to the back.

Fire Elemental:
*Unsure, but is there any ability that could help in mid-game against limited targets?

Call Centaurs / Construct Catapult:
*The global enchantment of summons in nature could also grant magic weapons to call centaurs and construct catapult

Ice Bolt or Lightning Bolt (preferably the latter):
*Make one a 20mana cost spell so it could be spammed by magicians, therefore useful through late game and only obsolete if cast by a wizard.

Great Lizard:
*Remove 1 to hit and compensate via added melee. Once you get the rare global that grants +1 to hit, great lizard can still compete against rare summons.

Corruption:
*Removes effect of 'road' for that spot … hurting a player's trade economy

Weakness:
*Change -3 melee to -2 melee plus -1 to hit
or *remove resistance roll altogether and make it always work

[Bahgtru]

I just can't play more than 2 death books anymore, because everything else has to go towards making my ghouls as strong as possible.

Well don't forget darkness - that strengthens ghouls. So 3 death books