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[Andres]

Well, my number one want this turn is the Flare revision.
Next turn I'd be fine with revising Frost Towers though.

No dice.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Chiefwaffles]

Thought so. Still fine with revising them next turn assuming there's no major problem.

Current plan of support for me:
Giant Falcons -> Magegems -> Crystalworks -> Crystalclads.
Assuming they don't introduce gamechangers again.

I just want to do something new, really. This entire time we've been playing catch-up. This entire cannons thing is because they introduced ballistae, and now we're essentially just copying them in terms of air. Though I do have great confidence in non-awful rolled Giant Falcons being great counters to their carpets as well as unlocking future things.

Designs
2.5 - Improved Frost Towers: Andres, 10ebbor10 RAM.5
1? Dragon Micro-Cannons: Light Forger?
2 Magegems: Chiefwaffles, Generally me
4 - Giant Falcons: Chiefwaffles, Helmacon, FallacyofUrist, Roboson
1 - Flare Wands: RAM
1.5 Homing Fireballs: RAM.5 voidslayer

I added Generally me's vote to Magegems.


EDIT: To clarify on my plans... (Moskurger spies get out)

First, we get Giant Falcons. They serve as a basic air interceptor with limited ground support capabilities. I have confidence that assuming no awful rolls, Giant Falcons will last for quite a while with the occasional revision to keep them relevant.
Revision-wise, we should go for Flares. It's a simple spell that we know we can definitely do in a revision. It helps in skirmishes, it helps our HA1's spot, helps our ground forces be less useless against their carpets in the night, and helps in communication. In terms of the action economy, Flares are an extremely wise decision for just a revision.

Next, we get Magegems. This should be done as soon as possible, because Magegems are extremely useful for just about every design.
For the revision, I'd tentatively say Frost Towers. I don't like pre-planning revisions because there's always a good chance you'll need them to either fix that turn's design or to update a design to be relevant against Moskurg designs.

Then, Crystalworks. Crystal was a major advantage of ours and we still have designs based on crystal that while useful, we just can't use because of their dispelling. Making crystal permanent and easy-to-make will help us greatly in the future.
Revision will probably be needed to fix Crystalworks. It's a fairly ambitious design. Not over-ambitious, but ambitious enough that I'm sure there will be some problems.

Crystalclads should be possible with Crystalworks and Magegems. The crystalworks serves as infrastructure for most of the Crystalclad (Hell, if the Crystalworks goes well enough most of the Crystalclads can be made out of crystal due to its lightness). Crystalclads will be our gamechanger in terms of naval warfare. Crystalworks is immensely helpful in this regard, as it'll really help with the expense of the Crystalclad and make it so the crystal can't be dispelled. Magegems is essential for the design, but shouldn't add any complexity as with well-rolled Magegems, we can just say "plop some magegems in there" and it should work. Really, the main parts of Crystalclads are "make it a lot bigger and out of crystal". Crystalworks helps a lot with both.
Revision again has a decent chance of going to the Crystalclad. But if the Crystalworks and Magegems go well, then Crystalclads should actually be fairly simple to make.

After Crystalclads, I tentatively want to move towards antimagic and Walkers. Perhaps antimagic-proof circuits can be developed, allowing for our magegems + circuits to make designs such as the steam engine effectively mundane other than occasional recharging of the magegems. This may actually be able to be done in a revision to Magegems, as it can be reasoned-fluff wise and in terms of balance, it'd only be affecting our magitech stuff.
Once we can antimagic-proof circuits+magegems, we can make Walkers. Crystal armoring is provided by the Crystalworks, power provided by Magegems, and resistant to antimagic; making the Walker a surprisingly obtainable design.

Sheesh. Stupid browser spell-checking; that above edit is nearly unreadable while editing due to all the red squiggles.

[Roboson]

I know realism typically works against us, but until the 14th century, giant eagles capable of lifting 500 lbs existed here on earth. As a result, giant birds are 100% time period approved. Haast's eagle is probably the best candidate.

[RAM]

I appear to have massively failed thermodynamics, and I have no idea why. It just all made sense at the time and I didn't notice any problem with it... Involving heat at all would be a mistake. It would just swap with the cold, or, as in my initial plan, do pretty much nothing... What we want is a pillar of cold. We justify this as making the cold air fall down, as it has been observed doing amidst all our thermal warfare. In effect, however, cold air has a greater ideal density than warm air, so the cold air will suck in surrounding air, and a pillar will increase its surface area. The altitude's thinning of the air is a bit of an issue, but we probably won't go more than about twenty kilometers up, we have plenty of area to achieve that so it is just fighting against gravity, which shouldn't be too much trouble for an immaterial effect, although there may be some sort of magical coherence field which does the same thing or it is justdifficult because things being that high makes little sense and magic is based on belief, but we can use the shock of flying enemies to account for that.

So anyway, the cold sucks in air, and chills it, magnifying the chilling effect by multiplying the volume of air within it. It also causes a high pressure zoe, which causes that air to be too heavy for its surroundings, so it falls. At the bottom, however, there is less cause to fall, so instead it is just high pressure surrounded by low pressure, especially in warmer areas. The high pressure cold air obviously expands into the warm air creating wind, and the falling air from above also creates wind, and pushes air into the warm areas, increasing the area of the expansion effect, thus accelerating the wind-force.

Of course, to survive this wind we need stronger towers, so we need to install massive metal beams through the length of their structure. like a tent. This will, of course, attract all of the lightning, which is being drawn to the tower by convection anyway. Now, these beams will have a very large electrical capacity so their will be very effective lightning rods, so long as people don't stand next to them, it should mean greatly reduced effects of lightning, even while the massive increase in air-flow increases the net volume of lightning.

So, in short:
Towering Forever Frost towers
Extend the height of the effect to 15 - 20 kilometres and include heavy metal reinforcement. Use convention to create *MASSIVE!!!* wind flows away from the towers to an extreme range especially towards warmer areas.

[evictedSaint]

After a bit of a break, I think I'll give Wands Race another chance.  If you guys are up for picking this back up, then I am too.

That being said, I have a new-found intolerance of whining, so please respect Rule #2 in the Salt Addendum.

It seems like the wining vote is for Giant Falcons.  Unless that changes soon, I'll roll up the design for it.

[Chiefwaffles]

If you guys are up for picking this back up

What kind of question is that?
And while I completely doubt it'd come up again, but if I ever have a problem I'll just keep it to a single post and not argue it with others. Again, though, I don't think that situation will ever come up again.

Don't forget to give a -6 penalty to every one of Moskurg's rolls as reparations for the sins you have committed upon our side. _{/s of course}

[RAM]

For team consideration:
Grave of the Fireflies:
A quartz ball round for use in our cannons. Basically an antimagic gem amplified to an absurd degree. Disabled with a plug that interferes with the magical flow within it Using circuitry. we put the plug in the front to make sure it wouldn't fly out immediately, but that resulted in the accuracy plummeting to unworkable levels as the ball tumbled in the air as the plug came loose, so we revised it into a screw with a flag to pull it out gradually as it unscrewed, and found the screwing pattern actually increased accuracy and have hypothesized that causing the balls to spin would increase their accuracy Never mind, we cheated rifling, so let's use something else. We need to soften the blow to the quarts, so lets mount it in wooden covers and use them to hold the plug in, they will come loose when it launches... Back to the main point though, once the plug comes out it becomes screaming death for all magic. Anything that comes within about 50 metres of it gets its magic pulled out, and if it is moving past quickly at the time, the magic is pulled out with such force that the victim's magic potential is damaged and be it a person or an object it cannot wield magic for a few days and playing host to magic in any sort of controlled fashion also become impractical, thus rendering it temporarily suitable as a magical item or host of enhancement magic. Of course, these things are not cheap...

Just realised, that with their rate of fire dropping from lacking magic, their ballistae must be magical. So this would take them out over an area... It'd also drop their carpets by the dozen just by being in the vague area...

[evictedSaint]

Design: Giant Falcons [2+2, 1+2-1, 6+1]

Capturing falcons is hard.  After managing to capture a few, we finally have enough to start our own breeding system, ensuring that our Mathemagicians will never, ever, ever be sent out into the field with a few web-wands and be told to "catch a fuckload of birds".

Training falcons also proves to be really, really hard.  Each falcon requires years of dedicated training, and quite frankly we don't have time for that.  We instead develop a rudimentary "Beast Control" spell to assist in the taming, training, and imprinting of our falcons.  This spell is pretty tricky to get right, but nowhere near as hard as catching a wild falcon - luckily it's made easier by our forays into beast conjuring and plant growth.  The spell is permanent and doesn't require any further maintenance to keep going, instead altering the falcons mind during casting.  The falcons are then equipped with a small anti-magic "bracelet" that wraps around one of their legs in a leather strap.  It is relatively small, but it should keep them safe from any nasty magic that Moskurg tries on them.  As a bonus, it should also strip a mage of their magical ability once they start mauling them in the face.

Because of their high cost and mage-targeting role, our Mage Hunters are trained in falconry and given their own "falcon familiars". 

It is important to note that falcons are not immune to being shot with arrows, lightning, or large tennis rackets, but their small size, speed, and ferocity is more than enough to make up for their fragile nature.  Very Expensive.

[Chiefwaffles]

So are they enlarged at all or are they just the exact same size at regular falcons? And how effective are they in terms of anti-air? (I'd assume "very good" since the anti-magic counters the carpet spells and since mages are probably flying the carpets and they're anti-mage...)
But other than that, awesome. Solid roll with zero bugs. We can see how well they do this combat phase then address any issues or possible improvements in later revisions.

Also, fun fact: This spell paves the way to mindmagic and brainwashing.

instead altering the falcons mind during casting.

So we have experience in altering minds now.

Now, for the revision. Mostly copied+pasted from earlier post.
Revision: Flare
One night, when a bored mage was staring at the theatre from the top of a Frost Tower, he noticed the bright fires all over the theatre located where the fighting was thanks to the fire bombs brilliant Arstotzkan fireballs.
So, he thought - why not use that?

The idea is simple: Use our fireballs for communication. The Streamlined Fireball is taken as the base, then instead of destructive power, our Mathemagicians tweak the Fireball spell to create massive amounts of light and to allow casting mages to choose the color. Now the Streamlined Fireball can be shot upwards into the sky, where it'll provide illumination on the ground below and signal other soldiers in the area. Certain colors can also be interpreted to mean different things - for example, red could be used to signal for artillery strikes, blue could be used to signal enemy troop locations, and the illumination provided by the flare will light up the ground below at night, making it easier for our men in skirmishes. Some have even theorized that strings of different colors could be used to send "encoded" messages across troops. If there's anything in the sky, we can ignore the disadvantages at night, use our flares, then shoot any filthy aerial Moskurgers.
Our mathemagicians also hope that the Flare can blind any filthy Moskurger carpet riders that are too close to the flare, but it's not particularly a priority at all. Not even something we're particularly trying to do.

The extremely decreased destructive power of the Flare means it simply burns out before it can fall back to the ground.

How?
1.) Increase the brightness of the Streamlined Fireball at the expense of power. (While the flare is in a way a new spell, it's such a simple tweak (power -> brightness) that it should definitely be able to be done in a revision. )
2.) Add colors
Why?
1.) Artillery spotting. Flares can be used to signal for HA1 strikes at that destination.
2.) General battlefield communication - not extremely effective and not extremely secure, but it allows for basic communications.
3.) Skirmishing. We can create artificial light benefitting us during the night.
4.) Anti-air. Makes carpets way easier to see at night (and maybe day?). Also potentially can even blind them?

TL;DR: Revise the fireball into a much less destructive but more bright ball that can be shot into the sky as a flare. Also has multiple colors to choose from for various messages.

Votes
1 - Flare: Chiefwaffles

Why the Flare? It's extremely possible (said so by Evicted himself), and extremely helpful. It reduces their huge skirmish advantage, it acts as spotting for the HA1 and makes our extra-LOS ranged artillery much more effective. It lets our soldiers communicate in the battlefield. And finally, it helps against magic carpets even more than before.

[evictedSaint]

They are normal-sized falcons. 

[FallacyofUrist]

I've been trying to get flare passed for a while. Sign me up.

2 - Flare: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist

[VoidSlayer]

Revision: Beast Control: Wolves

Send our mages out with the web spell to get some wolves and revise the spell to work on them also.

Edit:Note: Our apprentices will hate us.

[Andres]

Cheaper Minor Frost Towers. Exactly what it says on the tin.

2 - Flare: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist
1 - Cheapr MFTs: Andres

Glory to Arstotzka.

[FallacyofUrist]

Wait, we have web wands?

[Roboson]

3 - Flare: Chiefwaffles, FallacyofUrist, Roboson
1 - Cheapr MFTs: Andres