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[Roboson]

For me it goes:

Flare -> Animal Enhanced Soldiers -> Revision -> (possible more animal stuff, but probably not) -> Mage Gems -> Undispellable Crystals -> Crystalworks -> ? Revision.

If we just give all of our soldiers and mages and thanes super human sensory abilities and increased reflexes, they can just dodge their projectiles.

[RAM]

But that doesn't work, because the projectiles are not falling on them, they are falling onthe point that they will be after they dodge a different one and trip over onto thepath of one that never semed like a threat. Because luck is reciprocal...

Also, if they are fast enough to dodge a ballista bolt then they are fast enough to dodge, well, all of the spears, which is pretty fast, and may take a while to achieve...

[evictedSaint]

Revision: Flare [4+2]

Based on our extreme knowledge of the PSF, we can quite easily manipulate key elements of the fireball to our own specifications.  We strip out the explosion, heat, and weight from the spell and incorporate brighter light and color.  It's actually pretty easy to do!

The end result is a room-temperature, glowing, multi-colored fireball that slowly falls back to the ground once shot into the air.  We make a rudimentary signal system that uses various colors to relay information.  This lets our BLOS artillery hit with reasonable accuracy, and also gives our commanders a very rough way to relay basic information.

Our mages will have to stay in range of enemy artillery to perform spotting duties, however.  Normal Cost.



Please decide what troops to send to reclaim the fallen star.

[Chiefwaffles]

Awesome! Great rolls and great use. Cheap and does exactly what we intended for it to do, which is surprisingly (and understandably) rare.
Also, out of curiosity, what kind of things would we have had to sacrifice if we got just that 4 without modifiers?
Future Design: Enhanced Senses
Our soldiers just aren't good enough. Our mages and mundane troops alike are victims to ambushes, ballistae attacks, and more. What if they could "sense" this beforehand? What if in combat they had superior senses allowing them to react much better? Our troops could hear ballistae bolts while they still have time to run. Our soldiers could see ambushes before their ambushes see our soldiers.

Taking from our general experience in life magic and the Hunter Falcons project, we can devise a method to accomplish this. Initially starting with a small pool of test subjects, we can attempt to "modify" the subjects' main senses such as primarily hearing (ears) and vision (eyes), but also smell (nose). We modified Falcons' brains to skip training, so we can logically move onto modifying a soldier's senses. Once we find a suitable procedure to reliably enhance the senses of anyone deemed fit for it, we can move onto the main subjects.
The procedure is done completely when it's started, meaning it can be done to both mundane and magic-users, and isn't inherently a magical trait - it's just a natural trait brought about by magic. The result is simple - soldiers with greatly enhanced senses.

The first candidates are the mage hunters. Enhanced senses would aid them the greatest, as they can make full use of the enhanced vision and hearing to better accomplish their job of hunting mages. Then the elite mages, then our thanes (officers), then apprentices, then finally the rest of our soldiers. Those manning artillery would be able to better locate targets (perhaps even find targets from afar) and would be able to evacuate at the sign of anti-artillery fire. Our thanes can lead our troops with their enhanced senses, exposing Moskurg ambushes, finding targets, listening for Moskurg chatter, and more. Our apprentices and mages can stay out of danger much better with better senses, and the rest of our soldiers benefit from all of the mentioned positives for this project.

TL;DR: Superhuman senses. Helps our soldiers avoid artillery fire, spot things like carpets and ambushes, helps them in the skirmish face, and potentially helps our artillery thanks to better target acquisition. Also helps ranged in general since they have a better idea of where to shoot, like our anti-mage hunters.

Future Design: Beastlike Strength
Twenty years ago, in the more primitive days of magic, we may have though to make a spell essentially "enchanting" a soldier, greatly increasing their strength. But now we can do it the proper way. Using our experience in life magic and the Hunter falcons project, we can give our soldiers superhuman strength permanently without it being based on a magical effect.
First, we determine the proper safe and reliable procedure to grant our soldiers this strength in a pool of test subjects. Then, once this is done, we can begin giving it to our officers then the rest of our soldiers. The procedure is the only magical component - once they have the beastlike strength, then it's simply as mundane as any other trait.

The Beastlike Strength is exactly that - beastlike strength. Our soldiers will be far stronger than any unenhanced human could hope to be. This would only help in straight-forward infantry melees, but perhaps also in skirmishes. Our men will simply overpower those of Moskurg. A single enhanced soldier could be worth numerous Moskurg soldiers, and just imagine what the state of our army would be like if we could deploy this en masse!

TL;DR: Superhuman strength. Straightforward. Makes our infantry much much better at their job.

Future Design: Quick Healing
Healing is a troublesome prospect for our men. Every year we have many coming home with permanent and disabilitating injuries from Moskurg artillery or other combat injuries. Our soldiers are taken out of commission for way too long because of simple wounds taken in combat of all types. But like all things, this is fixable through Genemagics.
Basing the traits off of general experimentation and the traits found in animals with faster healing capabilities and the ability to regrow lost limbs, we can (through test subjects) derive a procedure to grant our soldiers extreme natural healing capabilities. Of course, the procedure is the only magical part, meaning our soldiers won't suddenly stop healing in anti-magic fields.

Our soldiers would no longer be restricted to our field "hospitals". The most serious of injuries would heal within days. Limbs can be regrown, permanent damage disappears. Though we have had some complaints from the test subjects about disappearing scars. In the field, soldiers that would normally have life-ending injuries would be able to stand back up or at the very least remain stable where they can be brought back to camp for rest while they heal. Stabbed in the gut with a sword? Simply walk back to camp where you can rest for a day and wake up to find the wound gone without a scar. Missing limbs and possessing permanent facial damage from a ballista strike? Rest for a week or two at camp and you'll be as good as new, though watch that new skin!

This could change the battlefield. Our soldiers could keep on fighting with more simple wounds and their survival rate would drastically increase in all scenarios as well as their time to get back into the battle.

TL;DR: Super-healing. Lets our soldiers shrug off minor wounds and survive + relatively quickly regenerate more serious wounds. Super helpful for just about everyone.


OR: Genemods. Have you played XCOM: Enemy Within? It's just that now. And I'm calling it "Genemagics" now. We should start relatively small with this stuff, as it is a new field.
I still think our next design should be Magegems.

I'll let other people come up with the basic "starter ideas" for what troops to send to the star. Maybe we can send all our jungle forces there instead of trying to retake the jungle?

[Andres]

If we had done something with the frost towers this turn, I'd say "Send all of the troops we have in the Mountains and Myrak", but as it is there's no guarantee they won't be able to take the Mountains if we do that.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[RAM]

I do not believe that we know anything at all about modifying living creatures. All we got was taming wild ones. So those future designs are not so likely. And given the prevelance of heavy ordnance and incendiaries, I am not convinced that rapid healing or simple senses would help much. We could go for dynamic healing, things like a once-per-week restoration from a single foot or something. And night-vision /infra-red/electroreception would be useful, again, for dynamic senses, at night or in fogs, but superior senses only go so far. At this point we would be better off going for time magic to accelerate their numbers, but that seems like a poor investment right now.

[helmacon]

If they do take a chunk of the mountains, it would be easy to re take. Plus, I think it is exceedingly unlikely that they would attack the mountains. I say send the bulk of our mountain troops, and leave a token garrison to keep appearances.

Guys... Mind magic. Training falcon instantly....

Magic singularity. Using mind magic to greatly accelerate the training of our mages. It shouldn't be "too" difficult, cause we are basically doing the same thing, just with humans instead of birds.

[RAM]

Hrmm, yes, taming does feature many aspects of teaching. We could spend a design on adding learning circuits to the academies, allowing information to be imparted swiftly and relegating the academy to mostly refinement rather than basic teaching, or just throw a revision at it to add an indoctrination effect to the campuses...

[Chiefwaffles]

Did you read the design result? We directly modified their minds instead of lengthy training. In fact, that was the main breakthrough of the design.

[RAM]

It sounded more like enhanced training to me, sort of putting the whammy on them so that they just went along with our taming procedures. More like a clamness spell than anything...

[Chiefwaffles]

Regardless, it's experience in intentionally modifying animals.

Alternative design future idea: Warbeasts. Use genemagics to enhance beasts + tame them. Would be easy to do (basically upgraded spell that we used for Falcons)and serves as definite stepping stone towards human modification.

[FallacyofUrist]

I'll expand upon that magic singularity idea.

Spell Imprint: Our skilled mages can implant the skill of casting some lower-level spells directly into an apprentice's head. While this won't make them better at learning or understanding what they're casting, it will let them learn to use spells better. May make it harder for them to advance in skill level if they don't learn the theory involved.

[Chiefwaffles]

Anyways.

Meteor Plan A:
1.) Send our entire Jungle army. Give them a break from the jungle for a bit and not just waste them on the meat grinder hell that is the jungle.
2.) Put the Jungle army's mage hunters on the front, using their falcons for scouting. If/when we encounter Moskurg, it'll probably be with their carpets first.
3.) Send a small amount of men from the Mountains
4.) Don't bring artillery, so we can increase speed; if we get into a fight without artillery slowing us down, then the enemy probably doesn't have artillery. If they do artillery, we should straight-up outrun them.
5.) If this wasn't already obvious, put a focus on speed. Marches, light on supplies, whatever. The goal is to get their before they get us. But if we do fight, we still have the whole jungle army.
6.) (Edit) Unless they too try to maximize speed for no reason whatsoever, we'll get there first. And if they do something silly like sending only carpets, our mage hunters will make short work of that.

Plans
1 - Meteor Plan A: Chiefwaffles

[helmacon]

Why not get more ambitious? Standardized spells. As part of military training, we could imprint a few spells on even our basic soldiers. Simple stuff, like flares or streamlined fireballs.

[RAM]

Why not get more ambitious? Standardized spells. As part of military training, we could imprint a few spells on even our basic soldiers. Simple stuff, like flares or streamlined fireballs.

I would say that would be a second design into the field, rather than a first.