Master of Magic succession game!

[Catwalk]

Only reason for that is that while you were busy posting, I was busy playing! So I have 4 months of MoM experience on you (assuming that we've both been playing constantly since then and forum time necessarily takes away from MoM time). So, there.

[DaveV]

Touche'. Actually, I've only played a handful of MoM games in those seven years, so I guess I can't make any claims to having found the one true path.

[Catwalk]

I used to play it a whole bunch, but the games have been far and few between the last 10 years.

I still maintain that early economy trumps all in any setup. That said, Just Cause is indeed an amazing spell. It's probably marginally better than Shrine right away, and it certainly becomes a lot better as you get more cities and units. One of the main benefits of Alchemy is to be able to first boost your economy and then your spell casting through conversion, you need money more than mana early on and later you need mana more.