I would rather see specialization on a school level instead of individual spells. That's why I've been suggesting they add an Arcane or Sorcery school that would cover any spells that currently don't fit in elemental schools, life or death. That would include the mind/spirit type magic and counterspells.

Specialization could actually lower mana cost for spells. You could then freely pump more mana into them to make them more powerful a la Master of Magic. Range should also be a factor and make spells more mana expensive. So specialization would indirectly boost your range as well. The lower the initial cost, the more potential the spells would have.

I would rather have Intelligence connected to spell research and Essence connected to power potential of the Sovereign. I think there probably is one spellcasting attribute too many currently but Wisdom/Willpower could be related to Mana regeneration.

As long as a fireball spell cast by me has the potential to be different from the one cast by another Sovereign, I'll be happy.

Thanks for your comments !

As I said in my original post, the real idea behind this concept is to have the capacity to improve certain spells VS having the only straight forwarded goal to research everything.

If I have this choice, I’ll wonder each time if I should allocate more time/spellpoint to improve my chain lightning spell rather than choosing another spell from the list. This concept could really add a real level of strategy to the game.

In multiplayer, my adversary could for example decide to really improve one or 2 damage dealing ice spell, and begin to eradicate my troops. To react, I COULD decide to spend my next 40 turns to boost my RESISTANCE TO ICE spell, that may at level 0 create a 2 ice damage shield, but at lvl 10 for example, nullify the first 22 ice damage dealt to my army buffed with the spell.  

And last but not least, it can allow a mage with a low amount of spells books to have something to research and improve.  If we do so, nobody will end a game with the same spells, the same tactical possibilities, since most of us will chose to improve some spells rather than researching the whole potential spell book.

Again, I ask, different how? A Fireball is a Fireball. The only possible potential difference would be the power/damage output. A L3 buffed up FB is not different than a L4 buffed up FB...

I do not disagree that 100 Balanced spells would beat 300 that aren't but power levels is not a real gauge of spell differentiation...

how about we treat spells like the cap ships from sins? You can level them up in 4+ areas and choose to specialise or to generalise each spell with it being extremely hard to reach level (6) for an ultimate upgrade for the spell adding a massive boost. With maybe another ultimate at lv 12? so a fireball could gain an instant death effect, AOE and damage boosts... or simply be much cheaper to cast.

It depends if the spells are pre-made or if you can use "buffs" on the fly. For instance you can have 1 buffs on any spell you cast, then you cast fireball vs multiple target while in the meantime your opponent cast a fireball that burns.

It's the same "spell" but as you specialized in some ways you can alter them to your need.

If you want them to be really different you can add school specializations, or buffs that need some shards or buffs like phase-fireball (a fireball that disapear : you can't counter it) or a fireball so tiny that it can past through the best armors, or a fireball that is in fact a waterball, or a fireball that doesn't explode but follow it's target blinding it and making is more prone to attacks, and if the target move in the way of the fireball it explodes, a fireball that burns everything on its path.

Isn't that the potential to get different fireballs with different casters ?

I, too, am not trying to be difficult either.

If you want. But gameplay-wise it's really different. Because you know your opponent can cast a fireball, but you don't know if he will cast a fireball (that is in fact a waterball, so if you placed fire wards on your units you'll be sorry.) or a fireball with multiple targets (so should you put a strong magical protection on one unit or several weak protection on all of your units ?).

If spells are delayed and your opponent can see what you are casting then he would only see "fireball" and not "fireball that is in fact a water ball" or "firebstorm" or etc. It's not just about names, it's about what your opponent can know of your tactics, it opens a lot of options and mind-games "What will he do ? should I do this or that ? But if that fireball is in fact a .. ?"

The FireWaterBall is just an example of what could be done with feint, countermagic and the like. You throw a waterball that looks like a fireball. When your caster is waving hands, your opponent will see "AAA is casting a Fireball". So you cast a protection from fire, but it won't be any use because it's a "false" fireball.

Maybe we could use false spells that would cost no mana, in order to push your opponent to use its mana in protective spells. A high wisdom could let you know that the spell is a fake.

Strategic spells can take up some turns. And you could spy on them. In MoM you could. And if you know your opponent will cast a "volcano" then you start protecting every city you can. But if the opponent has cast a "fake" volcano, then you used up all your mana for nothing.

In tactical battle it would be interesting to delay magical casting. Most games (and not RPGs) have an instant system of casting spells. You could delay them and let player use some counter magic. I know it won't be in the vanilla game, but why not not in an expansion ? It is doable (and it requires a bit of work). It's not because it has never been seen that it can't be done.

Has anyone ever played wizardry 8? A good game for magic spells, you could increase the power of any spell at any time if you have the mana but it would be affected by your skill... so if you are skilled lv 1 is green, but unskilled lv 1 is yellow and above are red. Casting yellow and red can have unexpected and harmful effects (or simply fail). But the duration and power scales with mana use. However, each spell never changed it's functions. I'm still undecided if that was a potential limitation and extra power should have additional effects or if a fireball should always simply be strong or weak. (the change from single target to area of effect versions of spells increased the cost 5+ times, so it would be an expensive/ high point cost / high level upgrade)

Perhaps we could have infinite upgrades to most spells with a simple bonus to effects or to maximum additional mana supplied safely. I think that makes sense and would make the smaller attack spells more useful even late game... although for additional effects... They would have to be very special enhancements to spells, very expensive or a special choice moment. E.g.

Fire spit - low damage, single target, easy to resist, long range
+ to damage per level
once 500 (or x) spell points have been invested make a choice:
1. Increased damage
2. Reduced damage + become AOE
3. DoT
4. Hard to resist

Further levels increase the change, so make it do even more damage, more targets, more DoT and make it fairly irresistable.

Healing - low healing, single target, high cost
+ healing per level
Choice:
1. Massively reduce cost
2. Increase healing amount
3. Cleanse DoT
4. Buff any further healing to target
5. Decrease in healing amount but add AOE
6. Temporary regen effect.

I mentioned sins before because even with infinate research I wouldn't want every possible boost to a spell to be equipped/researched/selelcted... rather like sins starbases I would want one player to increase damage of a spell and another to focus on an extra effect in the way that two highly upgraded starbases could be very different... (even if both boost damage one could pick say regeneration boost the other a frontal shield, another a phase gate stabiliser...)

I like the idea of having to choose... I'm not sure if the choice should be permenant or specific to each caster... Like your illusion mage can boost all his spells to make them harder to resist, or reduce damage but make a phantasmal AOE to spells... your angry flaming destroyer can massively increase damage or cause DoT or give extra force to all attacks (causes terrain damage, knockback, can attack structures or + damage).

Either way I think you should only be able to equip them or have the effect if you've invested more spell points into that spell... so multiple levels of research and spell upgrades seem like a great idea to me.

I am not sure if leveling up a spell is the best way to differentiate one fireball from another (and i think 10 is way to many levels but I do like the idea over all).. here are a few suggestions (if some were already suggested  apologies in advance)

1) purely cosmetic differences for example effect color and animation.. again purely cosmetic but none the less a nice touch of customization.

2) as has been touched upon allowing the choice of different spell bonus effects for each rank of specialization. however at each level a choice of options that ate then not again available for that spell. for example in the fireball example at 1st level of specialization choice could be + to range, + to area of effect, or + to damage. then at second level of specialization choice might be added damage over time, reduced mana cost, of reduced chance of target to mitigate damage.... further each spell that can be upgraded (not all should) should have a limit of like 3 or 4 levels of specialization. potentially this could make for some real differences between casters fireballs with out getting to unwieldy.. (an i suspect this would be far more likely in an expansion/ update vs day 0 version of game.

3)exclusion of other spell type specializations. in this case say i choose to specialize in fire spells, which could reduce cost, extend duration, add to damage ect.. I would  then  not have access to for example opposite school spells, ice spells perhaps in this case..

just my ideas for this already potential nice touch to the game...