I really like the way mana works right now.  I definitely do not agree with those that think there's an unlimited supply of mana.  Like wwwolf123 I burn through it pretty quick when on an offensive push (although not quite as his 300 mana per battle rate!)

As Sarudak says it's an interesting system that forces making decisions on what to spend it on.  I think that's good.

I'm not opposed to seeing a system where each individual mage is limited to spend based on their intelligence as long as that's combined with a global mana pool.  But in general I see the global mana pool as a good thing.

I'm curious as to whether those with infinite mana are paying on the larger sized maps?  I've played several games to completion on small size maps, and there is always a shortage of mana for what I want to do.

For sure Haste is ridiculously cheap.  But the fact that some spells are too cheap does not equate to all mana is infinite, it simply means that some spell costs need to be further tuned.

I haven't played all that much with Air magic, but my impression is that while it has a fair amount of utility (Cloudwalk is great and Guardian Wind may be useful in some situations) it just doesn't do as much damage as Fire magic (Thunderstrike is just wimpy compared to its Fire level 3 counterpart Fireball).  As a result it's much cheaper.

On my last game my main character was a Fire mage and even with the -25% from Path of the Mage and Affinity he was still burning through mana pretty quickly when in tough fights.  We'll have to see how things are on the new patch now that "Mantle of Oceans" is supposed to be working.  While I don't disagree that some spell costs need tuning, I think the overall system is well designed and well thought out.

I like the mana system as-is, I just think spell costs and % mana cost reduction skills need some balancing.

Master of Magic, and I believe Age of Wonders 1 and 2 and Shadow Magic, all had not just mana pools but a limit on the amount of mana you could use per turn. Master of Magic had certain heroes provide boosts to the amount of mana expendable per turn in two different ways.

I usually say I like how MoM did stuff, but here I'm not so sure. I think it might end up being a balancing nightmare, but I personally enjoy being able to expend large amounts of mana each and every turn. It actually makes magic seem useful and integral to the game.

Maybe the answer, sort of like with the American Economy, is that we should just feed more mana into the economy. Have more uses for it. Maybe mana becomes a secondary currency?

The main tweak I would like to see is that they balance mana production based on map size like they just did for research.  .xx for small x.xx for large etc...

I mainly play small maps as I unfortunately have limited time, and by the time you have say 11-12 mana per turn, in every case so far the game is already won due to your melee units leveling like crazy.

So I vote for more mana on smaller maps at least.

It is not your imagination. Currently the game makes casting combat spells in the beginning of the game devastating, and later in the game inconsequential. They need to make a decision which way they plan to go with this. Either make combat spell costs inconsequential or keep the cost static throughout the game. You could even do both - Ei: lower firedart mana cost to 1 or 0 and leave fireball at 30.

Though personally I think 'limited use' is a very poor balancing method. Spellcasters in D&D 3.5 (or 2.0) could obliterate armies by themselves - if they still had spells memorized. The only issue was to make sure you ran into -one- army per day. It created this situation where as long as you kept your party's mage alive until level 9 or so, he could then wander off on his own to destroy anything. Prior to this he was as effective in combat as a beef merchant. Let's see fewer beef merchants and more spellcasters.

Additionally overworld spell maintenance costs seem a little out of place. One mana per turn for a single unit enchantment doesn't seem right, and right now makes it feel like I'm seriously penalized for using the spellschools I chose at sovereign creation. Not to mention, when new spells get added into the game, with the current mana system they are unlikely to see any use due to lack of mana production vs costs.

Big fan of mana cap per tactical battle based off some stat like int or something. It worked quite well in MoM as other posters indicated.

Maybe it would be better to base it on level of spells, or at least the full unassisted mana cost in combat.  If you can only cast 30 mana worth of spells that can mean 30 Obscuring Fogs or 2 Fireballs.  But I agree that Fireball and Blizzard need some other balancer - either you have to wait until every other surviving creature has had the opportunity of one action (ie. one full "round") or that the big hitter spells like Fireball and Blizzard need three or even four actions before those spells of death can be cast.  Imagine if you had to protect your caster for 1.5 or 2 "rounds" before you can get off that big "kill everyone" spell.  Adds some risk for the possible reward.  (And also enemy troops are less likely to be lined up perfectly to get all units smashed by an early mass damage spell, which is the case currently since Fireball at least only requires two actions to cast - which is easy with Impulsive.)

Limiting and capping are the equal to throwing sandbags at rising waters instead of fixting the hole in the dam. Right now it is just silly that a 8 point flame dart hits now for 95 points with a few shards and Evoker 3. If each evoker was only a 20% boost to the orignal value, not the shard tanked up value, then we are only talking a max of 16 points of damage at Evoker 5. The math needs to be looked at too. I think the 50% is not even close per skill right now. Next, dump the cost reducers. If the mana totals are raised there is not need for larger stacking discounts. Have the shards add points AFTER all other calulations for traits are done and scale them with the spell. 1 point per shard for Flame dart works. Fix the AOE spells so damage hits multiple targets in scale and is defended on a per target basis. Again I'm seeing 5 man units eat 350 points of damage. It's like dropping a Tac-nuke on a crowd.

If you fix the traits you also open up the game to more spells that have diferent effects and damage capabilites. The game needs a ton more spells. Flame dart, to flame arrow, to flaming axe, etc...now bring in the other elements and physical damages and boom! Lots of spells.

Fix the AI. IF an AI unit is about to battle a Casting Sov or Hero, spread out the initial formation. Same for my side. Every massive fight I'm in right now ends basically on the first shot as the mushroom cloud vaporizes the 9 targets in the main enemy force. Spread them out. Perhaps having X units on the map and Y in reserve that come on the map to replace lost units would help.

Fix the root causes and the band aids can go away.

I like the idea of evoker affecting only the base damage of the spell and shards providing small or unique bonuses (like 20% burning over time damage). Although perhaps that could be a talent added to fire mages specifically.

In any case in light of adjusting base values they should add a talent "Thaumaturge" that adjusts the base values of buffs/debuffs and also take a look at reducing the effect shards have on these buffs.

Additionally, while I understand it is for the purpose of reducing memory in combat, it can be a balancing issue for spells to last the entire combat. Perhaps any given mage can only maintain 'x' number of spells at a time, or (preferably) there is some time limit to their effect.

That's a problem with useless spells not the mana system! Some of the other problems pointed out are problems with balancing of bonuses , specific spells etc.

The fundamental system is fine! 

Why would you waste a whole turn casting such a useless spell?

1. It wastes your turn.

2. IF they fail a resistance check it wastes their turn too which means its a wash, but if they resist you are hurt more then they are (by wasting your turn)

3. It does no damage.

4. It pushed them only 1 square for skipping your turn. But you can move more then 1 square (if you need to escape) and they can move more then 1 square (if they need to close in on you)...

Overall its a horribad spell that is a waste of your time.

Simply make top level spells not "effectively free"? What's so difficult about that? You are getting effectively free cos traits and items have too high bonuses and to some extent the spell costs are too low. Sounds like a easy fix. But presumably you are a smart guy who knows are this, so I am wondering what I am missing..

I have no problems with cap on mana per turn like in MOM. Though part of me wonders why this is a problem if everyone gets the same advantage of casting several high level spells...