Military "power"?

I would not go so far as to call it "retarded". However, I think the feeling that the weapons in the magic tree are generally significantly better than the weapons in the warfare tree is not uncommon on the forums. Just remember, though, that all the magic weapons cost a fair amount of crystal to field, whereas the weapons in the warfare tree require metal, and in my experience you're more likely to have lots of metal than lots of crystal (though this varies from game to game and depends on your luck in starting locations). Beyond that, several of the weapons in the Warfare tree do not cost any resources beyond a bit of production time, which makes them a good fall-back weapon (spears and maces; boar spears additionally are cheap in metal if I recall correctly).

It really depends on what you want. Large armies? Warfare/Civics is probably better for you, because lots of crystal can be hard to get. Elite armies? Magic tree - but remember to either get the armor techs from the Warfare tree or specialize your units for dodge, because magic armor doesn't have a very high defense rating until you get to the end of the tree.

imo the warfare tree is overall better for straight warfare. the huge downside of the magic tree is the crystal cost of the items. of course an enchanted longsword or a lightning hammer is better than the mundane warfare -tree version of it, but it's also more expensive.

i guess you shouldn't reduce the trees to the unit equipment they unlock - the warfare tree also gives you all the fortress buildings for more efficient unit production. and the warfare equipment is based on metal with backup options for when you don't have much metal either. leather armor and spears/hammers don't require resources, and bows and higher tier spears are fairly cheap metal wise. the armor bonus from fortress buildings means that your troops will be somewhat well protected even if you don't have enough metal to afford mail armor in the mid-late game.

The magic tree can be viable, but only if you are lucky and get several crystal nodes you can harvest. otherwise it will take forever to get enough materials to build troops. by the time you can afford a few squads of mages and some melee units with magic weapons etc. to cover the front lines, you could already have won a few wars with mundane leather+spears or leather+hammer+wood shield troops without worrying at all about resources.  

The magic tree lacks (early) armor, armorer and barracks. Therefore one cannot go one sided into magic.

The magic branch is always the one I hit last. Even then, the first things I research in it are the techs to hire heroes (and get tireless march and titan's call at the same time).

I think it's pretty cool how there are things that can improve your military (in different ways) in all three branches. Yet--to me at least--the  military tree is the most effective way to improve my military, which is as it should be.

Going into Military for just a few techs in the first few tiers (namely, basic weapons, basic armor, horses, early training facilities, first army expansion) is enough, you can get the rest of the warpower through magic and economy bonuses. I never said you should completely ignore military, but military bang for research buck, other than a choice few techs, it's not the most efficient tech tree.

Yes, I agree that it is very cool that there are techs for improving military might in all three tech trees, but I feel like they're too efficient when your goal is conquest, NOT just defense. Tireless March and Call of the Titens, for example, are INCREDIBLY USEFUL spells, and the military tree gets nothing like it.

Actually, I'd say that the magic tree grants about the same armor benefits early on as research in the Warfare tree. The Monk's Robe might not be the best from a pure armor perspective, but if you are willing to train troops whose defense is based around dodging attacks, it can be at least as good as leather armor. The downside is the resource cost of the Monk's Robe.

I usually go for Civics and Warfare, though.

The equipment in the magic tree is very good; but I think its balanced by the insane crystal cost. I've never had a full army with champion armor and end game magic weapons. By the time I've got that much crystal I could have won the game several times with cheaper units.

Its great for champions because you can buy it with gold; but for regular units I just find crystal far too precious for such units until the game is already decided.

OK, once again, I am NOT talking ONLY about the magical weapons and armors. They are part of the issue, but they're not the whole of it.

A Magic/Civics strategy always requires a lot of crystal, and crystal production upgrades don't come hand-in-hand with regular production upgrades unless you happen to have lots of cities with lots of essence. Moreover, crystal production is only half what metal production is for an equivalent research investment, and crystal costs for equipment aren't any less than the metal costs for Warfare equivalents. Beyond that, there is a wonder for metal production which is sufficient by itself for most metal needs unless you want to field full-chain or full-plate armored units, and there is no equivalent to that for crystal (unless you make every city a conclave and take the crystal production bonus at whatever level that's available at). A Civics/Warfare strategy only requires metal if you choose to use the equipment that has a metal cost, and even then you can pick and choose how much is sufficient. With Magic, you're stuck with only one or two armors that you can choose between for most of the game, both of which cost crystal, and you also don't have any weapons which are crystal-free. You can limit your crystal use by using fewer accessories, or smaller troop sizes, or worse equipment, but if you do that you haven't really gained anything compared to what you'd have in the Warfare tree, and might be behind since if I remember correctly Maces don't cost any metal at all, and are decent mid-game weapons. With Civics/Warfare you have access to a larger army (in both unit size and army size), you can have lower resource requirements while still making use of the latest equipment from your research, and the strategic resource you require for your units is relatively abundant compared to the one required for Civics/Magic militaries.

Beyond that, a Warfare/Civics military strategy gives you access to decent units even if you don't have any access to any resources other than gold, which is something which cannot be said for Civics/Magic military strategies. And the resource-free units that you can get out of a Warfare/Civics strategy are also much easier to replace than the crystal-heavy units of the Magic/Civics strategy, and are more effective out of the gate since they rely on armor for defense rather than on dodge and a per-level dodge bonus (at least, until you get Champion plate, but Champion plate costs a fortune in research and crystal).

one thing i really don't like about the warfare tree is the placement of the ranged weapon techs - it seems a bit silly that it takes less research overall to get fire/frost staffs than short bows. i think there should be an earlier ranged weapon in warfare - maybe slings or something similar. they could be unlocked early on - maybe even in tier 1. they don't need to be super powerful either, maybe 4 attack and -4 initiative or something. 

Again, not reading. I am NOT saying you can IGNORE the Warfare tree entirely, but beyond basic armors, weapons, horses and the first army size upgrade, the bang for buck just isn't there.

Why does the NOT MILITARY TREE AT ALL get bonuses to both physical damage AND defense as capstone techs!? Why does the NOT MILITARY TREE AT ALL get to move an entire army from wherever to almost wherever whenever? Why does the NOT MILITARY TREE AT ALL get to increase an army's strategic movement speed? Why does the NOT MILITARY TREE AT ALL get to increase the size of a military unit?
I could go on...

Basically, I understand how mages and economists need something to defend themselves and what not, but they get too much of the wrong stuff. Guardian statues are a perfect example of a strong defensive option. Make a unit perk that has piss poor stats basically, but huge bonuses when on home turf and even better when defending a city, and you'd have a great defense option. Also, your fortress grows faster, and the city level-up options are fteen thousand times better than almost all military-only training structures.

Also, crystals are somewhat scarce, but you know what you get for researching economy and magic? Economy and magic. Sell the stuff you don't need, buy the stuff you need, then use the stuff you needed to build armies that will easily wipe out the guy who sold you the stuff.

Do you guys have any ideas that would help improve the Warfare tree's strategic options?

I was thinking of limiting Call of the Titans to only affect one stack and one city, instead of throwing everyone off to anywhere. That could leave some room for more unique things in the Warfare tree. 

Also, a mid-game warfare tech that gives +1 to strategic move speed of unmounted units is, I think, a must. Ofcourse, this is based on the assumption that there will be some cons associated to mounted units implemented somewhere down the line.

First off, I think that the various enchanted weapons should require that you be able to produce the mundane version of the same weapon before you can produce the magical version, and I think the magical version should require metal and crystal. I might also include enchanted versions of each level of armor, available when both the Warfare tech unlocking the armor and the Magic tech unlocking magic armor have been researched, which have crystal costs in addition to the resource costs of the mundane versions. The enchanted armor and enchanted weapons should be superior to the base items, as well as to the magic weapons and armor at the same tier as the base items for the enchanted equipment, as a reward for the greater research and resource costs to the enchanted items and to reward delving into both the Warfare and Magic trees.

Then, to make up for the loss of weapon availability in the Magic tree as a result of that, I'd add improved versions of the Monk's Staff and intermediate versions of the Fire Staff and Ice Staff, as well as a set of Lightning Staves, perhaps including melee versions of these (though I think that the improved versions of the Monk's Staff would probably be good enough here), and I'd also expand the magic armor robes (including giving the second robes at least the same dodge bonus as the Monk's Robe).

As far as end-game repeatable techs go, I might give Warfare a set of techs which boost dodge, defense, and accuracy, as a kind of complement and counter to the late-game repeatable Magic techs which boost damage, although I'm not sure about that, since late-game elite units sometimes seem to have too much health as it is, if you can get a few levels on them. Might also consider going for a paired set of techs, one in Warfare and one in Magic, that increase Spell Resistance and Spell Mastery, but again I'm not really sure about that.

If the tech trees were to be significantly revised, I would like for each of the weapon types (both magic and mundane) to be split out into separate lines of development - one line each for swords, axes, hammers, spears, bows, fire staves, ice staves, lightning staves, and monk's staves. Possibly also separate research lines for armors, as well - a line for magic armor (the current robes and cloaks, plus perhaps additional higher tech versions), light armor (leather and further development of it), medium armor (current chain and masterwork chain), and heavy armor (current light plate and plate), although there are currently too few armor types to really justify this unless everyone gets to have all four forms of mid and late game armor (light plate, chain, masterwork chain, and plate). Then have an enchantment line that, assuming you have access to mundane weapons and armor of a given tier, grants access to enchanted versions of those weapons and armors. Each of the weapon lines would then get a repeatable damage-bonus tech associated with its damage type at the end of the line (swords and axes would share the cutting damage booster, spears and bows would share piercing damage booster, hammers and monk's staves would share blunt damage booster if possible, magic staves would have fire/ice/lightning damage techs at the end of their lines). Similarly, there would be defense-boosting techs at the end of the armor lines - magic and light armor sharing a dodge boosting tech, and medium and heavy armor sharing a defense boosting tech. Note that the damage and defense boosting techs would have an "either or both" prerequisite, rather than a both prerequisite, so if you wanted to boost cutting damage but didn't want axes you could just research to the top of the sword line and ignore the axe line.

As far as the once-off strategic movement increase tech, I think it would be useful, but I don't think that the game currently allows for distinguishing between mounted and unmounted units when deciding who gets the bonus. It would still benefit infantry more than cavalry, and the relative speed difference would be reduced, so it might work well enough anyways.

joeball, it's like you're reading my mind.

Basically, increase the number of parallel lines in the tech tree to something like six, from the current three or four. More granular research will make civs that aren't tech-focused to not be as weak by giving them a minor/more specific boost more often, as opposed to researching every tech for twenty or more seasons.

I agree as well.  I think enchanted gear should be based on normal gear rather than just have arbitrary artifacts.  Would be cool if you can research different and increasingly powerful enchantments to apply to your mundane gear and i definitely agree with more granular tech trees as well.  The artifacts can still be available in stores as well as found in the world to be used by champions.