I've been wondering about the balance of retorts as it feels it's always the same ones getting used while others are not. So i'll try to summarize my thoughts here.
Warlord and Tactician - Being the only two pure military retorts in the game, and military being the most trivial thing to go for (basically the only thing you have in all other 4X games, which do not have summoning and heroes, plus even here you always have cities that make normal units, and can rarely play a game without relying on at least some) these definitely see a lot of use, but mutual exclusivity will improve it - at the very least you have to play one or the other instead of both, which leaves more picks for other retorts or books. (see the discussion in the Life thread for details on that.)
Famous and Artificer - These are pure hero retorts that you will only pick for hero strategies, but hero strategies are not as commonly played as normal units and even with hero strategies, you don't always pick either of these retorts - but you do pick them often enough. So these see a reasonable amount of use for their role.
Alchemy - This is likely overused. The military effect is not very powerful anymore - Alchemist Guilds only cost 100 so it's merely a +200 gold per military production center - but the convenience it offers is very tempting, as you can't know in advance whether you will have a balanced flow of resources, or need to convert regularly due to having bad luck on either gold or magic power. I don't think we can do anything about that, human psychology, fear of the unknown. I do think the cases where alchemy is picked because a large amount of conversion is part of the strategy are probably a reasonable share of the games, and not the problem, so while this retort does see above average use, it's not a balance problem and not something we can do anything about (nor do we need to - while it's a tempting retort, it's also the first one to drop if there is no room for it in a strategy)
Myrran - This is really a game mode, not a retort in my opinion, so I'll ignore it for this thread.
Guardian - Definitely underused, partly because it's 2 picks, partly because defense is usually not a desirable tactic for human players, and maybe also because it relies on having strong units in garrison which is a strain on your economy. We still haven't decided on how to improve this retort, it's been on the "open problems" list for like 2 years.
(idea : what if it also reduced maintenance costs on patrolling units? Yes that's useless for the AI (do they even patrol their garrisons? Or just not order them to move...), but the AI picks it for the defense and it's pretty good for that, it needs to be improved for humans, really. We also had that idea of somehow improving spellcasting in city defense battles, that would also help AI. Considering how expensive the retort is in picks, we might even want both effects added...)
Sage Master, Conjurer - These are used very often but reasonably so, no change needed.
Channeler - This feels underused, and I blame the range penalty changes for that, see the other thread posted today.
Archmage, Spellweaver - Used often but not always and Mutual Exclusivity helps, like the Warlord/Tactician case. I think the current Spellweaver is actually good as is, it was nerfed enough to be no longer a "must always pick" retort even for spell strategies.
Omniscient- Most versatile retort in the game that outright allows otherwise unplayable combinations to win, while it doesn't seem to be picked excessively, definitely sees enough use.
Cult Leader - A bit overlooked but definitely a strong contender for games that rely on magic power. I think it's fine as is. Only retort that requires you to pick a race that can build certain types of buildings btw.
Charismatic - Only diplomacy retort. I'd say it's underused because "kill everything that moves as soon as possible" seems to be the trend nowadays. Not really a problem with the retort itself, if we succeed on our goal to make longer games more viable and shorter games harder to pull off, this will also start seeing more use.
Specialist - This kinda feels too good as it's basically allowing you to have a 11th pick in you main realm and it also encourages single realm play (which is already strong enough and doesn't seem to need that.) - I think it's both overused and a somewhat poor game mechanic. Would be sad not to have it, though, being very good at one thing is a strong element of flavor in a game. I'm tempted to say toning down the numbers is a good idea but it's not that simple because it can't be worse than picking +1 book - it has to be viable even if you haven't maxed out the books in the realm, and books do give cost and research discounts.
Astrologer - Node Mastery was popular for a reason, not only is this a pretty good effect, but treasure hunting is also popular. While not a mainstream retort, I don't think we need to worry about it not seeing enough use either.
Runemaster - I'm definitely worried about this the most.
Faster Spell of Mastery is a big deal, but for 2 picks you could just get Sage Master and something that enhances magic power and probably be at the same position or better. This effect might need to be much more powerful to matter, like +100% instead of 50.
Double dispel power sounds great but Sorcery gets it by default, and others...don't get dispelling wave. Being resistant to city curses and globals is a big deal but city curses were recently nerfed and this doesn't even cover them all, only those 5 that stay on the city and can be dispelled, and not every enemy will have strong globals, in fact it's quite likely only the last enemy reaches them and they might end up not getting any. So this is a nice extra but no one would actually pick the retort for it.
Dispel resistance is the big selling point, but it's not always necessary, specialist also provides it, for less picks, and Spelweaver is also an overlapping effect (you get to recast them 33% faster when dispelled - far less effective but also works if there were no dispels!)
So it's overall a package of 3 not very desirable effects for a very high cost of 2 picks, and all 3 are late game effects, too. (ok dispel resistance can be useful even early, but Dispel Magic isn't that much of a threat. Dispelling Wave comes quite a bit later, in the midgame only.)
Warlord and Tactician - Being the only two pure military retorts in the game, and military being the most trivial thing to go for (basically the only thing you have in all other 4X games, which do not have summoning and heroes, plus even here you always have cities that make normal units, and can rarely play a game without relying on at least some) these definitely see a lot of use, but mutual exclusivity will improve it - at the very least you have to play one or the other instead of both, which leaves more picks for other retorts or books. (see the discussion in the Life thread for details on that.)
Famous and Artificer - These are pure hero retorts that you will only pick for hero strategies, but hero strategies are not as commonly played as normal units and even with hero strategies, you don't always pick either of these retorts - but you do pick them often enough. So these see a reasonable amount of use for their role.
Alchemy - This is likely overused. The military effect is not very powerful anymore - Alchemist Guilds only cost 100 so it's merely a +200 gold per military production center - but the convenience it offers is very tempting, as you can't know in advance whether you will have a balanced flow of resources, or need to convert regularly due to having bad luck on either gold or magic power. I don't think we can do anything about that, human psychology, fear of the unknown. I do think the cases where alchemy is picked because a large amount of conversion is part of the strategy are probably a reasonable share of the games, and not the problem, so while this retort does see above average use, it's not a balance problem and not something we can do anything about (nor do we need to - while it's a tempting retort, it's also the first one to drop if there is no room for it in a strategy)
Myrran - This is really a game mode, not a retort in my opinion, so I'll ignore it for this thread.
Guardian - Definitely underused, partly because it's 2 picks, partly because defense is usually not a desirable tactic for human players, and maybe also because it relies on having strong units in garrison which is a strain on your economy. We still haven't decided on how to improve this retort, it's been on the "open problems" list for like 2 years.
(idea : what if it also reduced maintenance costs on patrolling units? Yes that's useless for the AI (do they even patrol their garrisons? Or just not order them to move...), but the AI picks it for the defense and it's pretty good for that, it needs to be improved for humans, really. We also had that idea of somehow improving spellcasting in city defense battles, that would also help AI. Considering how expensive the retort is in picks, we might even want both effects added...)
Sage Master, Conjurer - These are used very often but reasonably so, no change needed.
Channeler - This feels underused, and I blame the range penalty changes for that, see the other thread posted today.
Archmage, Spellweaver - Used often but not always and Mutual Exclusivity helps, like the Warlord/Tactician case. I think the current Spellweaver is actually good as is, it was nerfed enough to be no longer a "must always pick" retort even for spell strategies.
Omniscient- Most versatile retort in the game that outright allows otherwise unplayable combinations to win, while it doesn't seem to be picked excessively, definitely sees enough use.
Cult Leader - A bit overlooked but definitely a strong contender for games that rely on magic power. I think it's fine as is. Only retort that requires you to pick a race that can build certain types of buildings btw.
Charismatic - Only diplomacy retort. I'd say it's underused because "kill everything that moves as soon as possible" seems to be the trend nowadays. Not really a problem with the retort itself, if we succeed on our goal to make longer games more viable and shorter games harder to pull off, this will also start seeing more use.
Specialist - This kinda feels too good as it's basically allowing you to have a 11th pick in you main realm and it also encourages single realm play (which is already strong enough and doesn't seem to need that.) - I think it's both overused and a somewhat poor game mechanic. Would be sad not to have it, though, being very good at one thing is a strong element of flavor in a game. I'm tempted to say toning down the numbers is a good idea but it's not that simple because it can't be worse than picking +1 book - it has to be viable even if you haven't maxed out the books in the realm, and books do give cost and research discounts.
Astrologer - Node Mastery was popular for a reason, not only is this a pretty good effect, but treasure hunting is also popular. While not a mainstream retort, I don't think we need to worry about it not seeing enough use either.
Runemaster - I'm definitely worried about this the most.
Faster Spell of Mastery is a big deal, but for 2 picks you could just get Sage Master and something that enhances magic power and probably be at the same position or better. This effect might need to be much more powerful to matter, like +100% instead of 50.
Double dispel power sounds great but Sorcery gets it by default, and others...don't get dispelling wave. Being resistant to city curses and globals is a big deal but city curses were recently nerfed and this doesn't even cover them all, only those 5 that stay on the city and can be dispelled, and not every enemy will have strong globals, in fact it's quite likely only the last enemy reaches them and they might end up not getting any. So this is a nice extra but no one would actually pick the retort for it.
Dispel resistance is the big selling point, but it's not always necessary, specialist also provides it, for less picks, and Spelweaver is also an overlapping effect (you get to recast them 33% faster when dispelled - far less effective but also works if there were no dispels!)
So it's overall a package of 3 not very desirable effects for a very high cost of 2 picks, and all 3 are late game effects, too. (ok dispel resistance can be useful even early, but Dispel Magic isn't that much of a threat. Dispelling Wave comes quite a bit later, in the midgame only.)
