DEATH Realm

[Kaiku]

If you could cast multiple spells a turn, yeah Wrack would probably find itself a slot. But you can only cast one. Black Prayer is a turn one cast already. Turn two, there's a bit of competition (Terror, Mana Leak, Direct Damage, etc.), and Wrack just doesn't cut it for anything but those hide-and-seek low tech battles. Anything later, and Wrack won't be worth it at all anymore, since it needs to be cast as early as possible for maximum effect.

It needs too much to make it work, but when you have all those requirements, it's too late.

[Seravy]

However, what if it also (at a higher casting cost) causes life drain damage?

I actually have "maybe make it deal undead damage" on my todo list. I was afraid to even mention that, as I worry it might be so insanely overpowered. It is likely a bad idea.
I mean, I've killed 300 berserkers with this spell alone in several games. If those were on my side as undead, omg.
But it does the same to almost any city troop except the few top resistance ones.
So it would be pretty much no different from "all units on the map with resistance 8 or less are now mine. You just don't know about it yet."

Evil Presence - Maybe with a different name it could target more things, or cause a production loss like 'cursed lands' on top. What if it also negates alchemist guild and amplifying tower?

Definitely not the Amplifying Tower. We removed Cruel Unminding on the basis that losing casting skill is not fun. Albeit, Chaos and Nature gets to outright destroy it so...why not.
By Alchemist Guild I assume you mean the magical weapons. That would be...an interesting thing. It would literally make troops from that city useless against you because almost every Death creature has weapon immunity.
I think I like this idea. It even makes Terror stronger (units without the +1 Hit from alchemy are hit twice as hard by a -1 To Hit effect).
But in that case we might need to reconsider the "no power from religion and/or no unrest reduction effects. Having all three sounds too much. In fact, just having it disable the Amplifier and the Alchemist is plenty good.

The best part is, even the human player finds a good use for disabling enemy magic weapons.

Oh and reduced enemy casting skill is a huge synergy with Evil Omens.

However if we lose the unrest reduction, it stops being a combo with famine and it won't be possible to starve cities into shrinking. (Albeit Pestilence is meant for that, anyway.)

Eternal Night - We could simply remove the power-building negation, and allow room for a permanent -2 armor or -1 to defend nerf on top of the -1 resistance. If it's 'night', enemies can't see well and fail to defend as well.

I'm tempted to keep this spell as is if we remove the power disabling part on Evil Presence. Otherwise the -1 armor is not a bad idea.  I do like that it hits Heavenly Light directly.

Pestilence is very powerful, I'm happy with that spell. Even better with the slightly slower pace of the game.

Dark Ritual, as is, adds +12 per city. That's barely worth the 150 casting cost, let alone the research. Probably needs a larger buff than just removing the unrest (wasn't it already removed?)

[Seravy]

I think Wrack is beyond repair then. Seems people hate the mechanic of damage over time, not the spell itself.

[Kaiku]

I don't hate the mechanic at all, and think it's a spell that suits Death perfectly - much more than spells like Massacre, etc. Concepts like these are what I enjoy most about Death. I just don't think it's very useful with its current stats, but I pretty desperately want it to be worth it.

[Seravy]

How about this for Evil Presence :

Disables the effect of Alchemist's Guilds, Magic Markets and Wizard's Guilds in the enchanted city.

Then this can disable that part of power, and eternal night halves the religious part. Nice combo.

[Seravy]

I don't hate the mechanic at all, and think it's a spell that suits Death perfectly - much more than spells like Massacre, etc. Concepts like these are what I enjoy most about Death. I just don't think it's very useful with its current stats, but I pretty desperately want it to be worth it.

You pretty much said you want the spell to be worth it even without having to stall for 25 turns and called that an "exploitative behavior". But that's what damage over time means - more damage over more time. So stalling is what it aims to reward. It's a mechanic that is designed to reward stalling. It's not an exploit, it IS the normal use for the spell. What you call "regular combat" in the same post is exactly what it is not meant to be useful for. Because regular combat is short.

[Nelphine]

Eldritch markets!

I don't think eldritch markets should be included in evil presence. Suppressing magic weapons will give the spell an actual in combat effect that will be pretty awesome; but also removing 19 income per turn is probably too much. I'd leave it as just alchemists guild and wizard guild. We're specifically adding eldritch market as a baseline building to make basic math work, so I don't think we should remove that.

[Seravy]

Do we also not include the Amplifying Tower? I guess so...

[Kaiku]

So stalling is what it aims to reward. It's a mechanic that is designed to reward stalling. It's not an exploit, it IS the normal use for the spell.

In that case, you're right. I think that mechanic sucks and has an extremely limited use.

[Seravy]

Having some second thoughts about disabling Alchemist Guild.

On one side it's overpowered - cast it everywhere and all of the AI's troops are pretty much no better than spearmen. Because you have weapon immunity.
On the other side it's completely useless - the AI defends most of the cities with magicians, and those are unaffected by Alchemist's Guilds.
Same for the human - they can just produce their magicians there and melee troops elsewhere - if they even care about having melee troops at all.
I also don't like how it effectively makes it easier to conquer the city (as the defenders will be unable to fight back without magic weapons), as killing city garrison with overland spells is Chaos's domain. Death is about attacking economy without conquering the cities, until economy fails to support the maintenance of defenders.

Some other possible ideas I had meanwhile :
Halved gold
Disable Barracks/War College (maybe even Altar of Battle?)
Reduce research

Reducing production and increasing maintenance would not work, I considered those too.

...or just leave it as is. Idk.

(Current effect is removal of religious power, unrest reduction, and adding +3 rebels btw. So it's already better at hitting economy than halving gold would be. Main problem is not even being too weak but the redundancy with Eternal Night.)