I've read about some interesting parallels between Mage Wars and games such as Go. I went to a friend's game night today and played a game called Power Grid. While we didn't have enough time to make to the later stages of the game, I was instantly enthused with the game's similarity to Mage Wars: Domination.

In Power Grid, there's a huge focus on how you make investments/balance costs while trying to earn enough points to pull ahead each round. Turn order also has a big significance, since it determines when each person gets to make these investments. This reminded me of how in Domination, you spend each round contemplating how you'll spend resources (mana and actions) to ensure you either tie in V'tar or gain an advantage. While Mage Wars provides you with more tools to achieve these goals, I had the same feeling of a round per round need to make smart investments to either tie or surpass my opponents. One difference I did notice is that Mage Wars offers more alternative ways to still win from behind, such as the ability to kill the enemy mage or gain a big advantage in one turn with a well set up play. Additionally, the cost of different items in Power Grid are more consistently variable, so long terms plans are a little less possible.

I really like making connections between Mage Wars and similar games. Has anyone else seen any interesting parallels with other games? Does anyone with more experience playing Power Grid have any interesting insights?

My friends and I played a 3 player Domination game yesterday, and one friend's horde of Bitterwood foxes raised the question of how passing works in a 3 player game. We played by the rule that only the player with the fewest active creatures can pass actions, but it might also make sense that you just need to have fewer actions than the player with the most. How is passing intended to work in games like these?

Hello all,

I threw together a simple excel spreadsheet with some neat features for spellbook building. The Companion App and Online Spellbook Builder are obviously both more advanced and require less work to use. That said, since my phone can't use the app and the sbb doesn't have Domination cards yet, I found this to be useful. It's similar to just typing your card list into a Word document, but you also get some neat stat information, sorting/filtering, and the ability to add comments. I doubt it will be supremely useful to anyone, but I figured I'd post it here just in case.

The document will open to an example book. An empty book (book1) is provided as a tab at the bottom of the screen.

(With the right settings, they also print to a great size for putting in spellbooks. Landscape and scaling of "Fit All Columns on One Page" seems to work well for most books that aren't too long)

I recently read through the Domination rules and, while Incapacitated creatures are unable to guard orbs normally, it seems that Sslak must be destroyed before an orb can be taken regardless. If this is the case, couldn't Turn To Stone be a strong interruption tool for orbs near your enemy? (albeit very expensive). Brace Yourself is probably a cheaper, more effective option since it won't prevent guards, but I'm just curious as to if this is legal.

This is a concept for an Ice Mage I've been considering. Any feedback/suggestions is highly appreciated!

Frostwarden 120 Spellbook Points/ 34 Health/ 0 Armor/ 9 Channeling
Chilled Plains         Creature:Ice Elf
====Training====
Trained in the Ice school of Magic. Fire spells cost triple during spellbook construction.

====Abilities====
Frozen Orb:
As a quick action, Frostwarden may summon a frozen orb.
Frostwarden may only have one Frozen Orb at any given time.
Frozen Orb is an incorporeal creature with 6 Health.
As a quick action, Frozen Orb may summon a blizzard within its zone,
hindering enemy creatures and blocking line of sight through all 4 zone borders.
During the upkeep phase, any living creature in the same zone as blizzard gains
1 frostbite condition. As a full action, frozen orb may teleport to the same zone as Frostwarden.


Coldhearted:
The Frostwarden has Frost Immunity. At the start of the Upkeep phase, Frostwarden
gains X armor, where X is the number of creatures afflicted with frostbite,
to be expended on the next attack or at the end of the action phase.

Ice Mastery:
Frostwarden maintains Line of Sight through blizzards and gains Ranged +1 for
range spell attacks traveling from or into a blizzard zone.

====Attack====
Frozen Touch
(Quick)(Melee)(Ice)[2]{d12}|9+ = 2 Frostbite|

====The Frostbite Condition====
Frostbite is a condition applied to living creatures by multiple ice spells. If at any time
a living creature has 6 total stacks of Frostbite, the Snap effect is applied. During the upkeep phase (after any
new stacks are applied), if no new stacks were gained since the last stack of Frostbite was applied, all stacks of Frostbite are removed. Defrost removes all frostbite conditions.
On Snap: Creature takes 3 dice of ice damage {d12}|5-7 = Chill| |7+ = Chill & Bleed|



====The Chill Condition====
Undecided, but maybe multiple chills can compound to a freeze?

====The Freeze Condition====
Undecided, but certainly an incapacitated type condition.

So basically, I want her primary goal to be using Ice spells and her frozen orb to apply many stacks of this temporary Frostbite condition so that she can snap them for damage and harsher conditions. In this way, I hope to make comboing her abilities and spells really important. Some interesting example spells include: ice attack spells with effect rolls applying progressively more stacks of Frostbite, incantations that allow her to manipulate her orb (like teleporting to it or having it extend icy spines), and boots that create an icy path wherever she walks (hindering enemies and giving her fast when traveling through it).

What do you think the chill and freeze conditions should do? Are there any numbers that need major tweaking or elements that might be too weak/strong?

*Note: I know The Chilled Plains and Ice Elves are probably not a thing in Etheria right now
* Example Mage Art: http://kelogsloops.deviantart.com/