I had this whole post ready about what I felt was "wrong", but every time I reread it it just sounded like I was ranting, but that's not how it is. So let's try it this way...
I think, as another person mentioned with Create Artifact, that champions come far too late to be useful now. Usually if I see Summon Champion, for instance, Spell of Mastery is available right behind it. I feel like that's very odd pacing, and the reason why is related to nodes/lairs and Sorcery.
I mentioned it before, but I would really like an option to increase the difficulty of nodes and lairs and such. At first, I said for Myrror specifically, but I think it should be for the opposite plane the player is starting on. In my mind, it would be very nice to have the difficulty radiate from the starting cities where the closer they are, the easier they are with a random chance of them being a step or two more difficult than normal, and the further the harder they get. That way, when you're on the other plane, you're up against high count Sky Drakes, Great Drakes, Archangels and so on. Further, it should flip if you're the only one on the plane. So the most difficult plane would really be the one with less wizards on it. If they're even, then flip the table entirely - it's all difficult. Good luck.
Okay, so why? Because by the time you get a champion in most cases (you can get lucky to get one earlier, I know,) there's nothing left to send them at except other wizards. Usually that means without certain buffs on them they tend to die or sit and rot in some city for safety. That feels less like a champion and more like a burden. If you don't have heroism and warlord, it's harder. Fame is, also, fairly time consuming to get high enough that they start coming at higher levels. Those games don't usually end well because of Sorcery.
Sorcery is seemingly creating this additional problem on top of it. Things like Aether Binding causes not just a snowball, but an outright avalanche. You can see it in the history of most games - around 1510 everyone that gets to cast Aether Binding starts to rocket up in power. Everyone without starts to die off. 1510 means that's not a long game. 120 turns in, and you can spend the first 60 turns just building cities. It sounds like a lot of time, but it really isn't. When you have a high sorcery book wizard around, there's a looming danger they get a perfect spell roll for domination - Haste + Invisibility + Guardian Wind + Magic Immunity + Sky Drake. In my 200+ hours of playing, I've seen this combo far too often. It's extremely difficult to deal with, and almost always requires having sorcery books myself. The only thing I haven't really attempted is having Call the Void. The problem becomes you can't work "around" the problem by taking out lesser defended cities because where there's 1 stack, there's another - and it's probably heading in your direction. I mentioned it before, but most full on buffs for stacking gets eradicated because of dispelling wave (Sorcery) so that's out. Creature Binding can take out most high level summons, so that's also a risk.
It really is just not a fun time. I used to target Chaos wizards early. Now I target Sorcery, because they always end up far more dangerous than anyone else. Taking sorcery myself is easy mode. Now I don't even take Sorcery books unless I want a laid back game because it just makes things so much easier, and I think that's wrong.
So .. I think Aether Binding should be moved to a very rare spell, since it's just so ridiculous. That way there's time to actually do something before it snowballs so quickly being uncommon and easy to get. Or... it's benefit should maybe be halved. Something with it has to give, though. In addition, I think if you can be given the option of increasing node/lair/etc difficulty in some fashion, that would great help out the champions problem without doing anything to fame, ruining normal/fair play, etc.
Finally, dispelling wave moves to a combat only spell OR remove the ability for the AI to use it on things it should not be able to see. Either way, you then have a shot at moving in a fully buff army to make a go at it. The AI gets the chance, but the player does not (we cannot cast dispelling wave on things we cannot see!) Clairvoyance would allow them to use it anywhere just like now. That would seem appropriate.
I think, as another person mentioned with Create Artifact, that champions come far too late to be useful now. Usually if I see Summon Champion, for instance, Spell of Mastery is available right behind it. I feel like that's very odd pacing, and the reason why is related to nodes/lairs and Sorcery.
I mentioned it before, but I would really like an option to increase the difficulty of nodes and lairs and such. At first, I said for Myrror specifically, but I think it should be for the opposite plane the player is starting on. In my mind, it would be very nice to have the difficulty radiate from the starting cities where the closer they are, the easier they are with a random chance of them being a step or two more difficult than normal, and the further the harder they get. That way, when you're on the other plane, you're up against high count Sky Drakes, Great Drakes, Archangels and so on. Further, it should flip if you're the only one on the plane. So the most difficult plane would really be the one with less wizards on it. If they're even, then flip the table entirely - it's all difficult. Good luck.
Okay, so why? Because by the time you get a champion in most cases (you can get lucky to get one earlier, I know,) there's nothing left to send them at except other wizards. Usually that means without certain buffs on them they tend to die or sit and rot in some city for safety. That feels less like a champion and more like a burden. If you don't have heroism and warlord, it's harder. Fame is, also, fairly time consuming to get high enough that they start coming at higher levels. Those games don't usually end well because of Sorcery.
Sorcery is seemingly creating this additional problem on top of it. Things like Aether Binding causes not just a snowball, but an outright avalanche. You can see it in the history of most games - around 1510 everyone that gets to cast Aether Binding starts to rocket up in power. Everyone without starts to die off. 1510 means that's not a long game. 120 turns in, and you can spend the first 60 turns just building cities. It sounds like a lot of time, but it really isn't. When you have a high sorcery book wizard around, there's a looming danger they get a perfect spell roll for domination - Haste + Invisibility + Guardian Wind + Magic Immunity + Sky Drake. In my 200+ hours of playing, I've seen this combo far too often. It's extremely difficult to deal with, and almost always requires having sorcery books myself. The only thing I haven't really attempted is having Call the Void. The problem becomes you can't work "around" the problem by taking out lesser defended cities because where there's 1 stack, there's another - and it's probably heading in your direction. I mentioned it before, but most full on buffs for stacking gets eradicated because of dispelling wave (Sorcery) so that's out. Creature Binding can take out most high level summons, so that's also a risk.
It really is just not a fun time. I used to target Chaos wizards early. Now I target Sorcery, because they always end up far more dangerous than anyone else. Taking sorcery myself is easy mode. Now I don't even take Sorcery books unless I want a laid back game because it just makes things so much easier, and I think that's wrong.
So .. I think Aether Binding should be moved to a very rare spell, since it's just so ridiculous. That way there's time to actually do something before it snowballs so quickly being uncommon and easy to get. Or... it's benefit should maybe be halved. Something with it has to give, though. In addition, I think if you can be given the option of increasing node/lair/etc difficulty in some fashion, that would great help out the champions problem without doing anything to fame, ruining normal/fair play, etc.
Finally, dispelling wave moves to a combat only spell OR remove the ability for the AI to use it on things it should not be able to see. Either way, you then have a shot at moving in a fully buff army to make a go at it. The AI gets the chance, but the player does not (we cannot cast dispelling wave on things we cannot see!) Clairvoyance would allow them to use it anywhere just like now. That would seem appropriate.
