I think these ideas are just too good to be overlooked. About spells, I think there should be more mid/end-game spells about changing the world: earthquakes, floods, twisters, making tundras, glaciers, deserts -maybe fire could spread on trees/fertile land?- etc... something like the spells of "populous", that are "epic" in all sense. Also diseases could be a great addition.

(Sorry for not putting all the details but im on work and just cant)

1. Spell Name: Wall of wood
2. Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge: 8
4. Mana required to cast: 2
5. No.
6. Creates a wooden wall on the map. With some troops on walls. Combat ratting 10
7. Spell Book: Book of Combat
8. Note: Simple wooden wall

1. Spell Name: Wall of stell
2. Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge: 12
4. Mana required to cast: 4
5. No.
6. Creates a wooden wall on the map. With some troops on walls. Combat ratting 20
7. Spell Book: Book of Combat
8. Note: A wall made of stell, tough object to cross

1. Spell Name: Wall of Fire
2. Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge: 15
4. Mana required to cast: 6
5. No.
6. Creates a fire wall with some fire imps protecting the crossing. Comabt ratting 25
7. Spell Book: Book of Fire
8. Note: Fire wall. with magical guradians that can use basic fire magice in combat

And any other wall thing . . .

Ice wall, Root wall, Corpse wall, Wall of light, Lighthing wall, Wall of spikes, Great Wolf Pasage, Marvelus Wall of Crystals.

1:  Undying Devotion

2: Strategic 

3. ????

4. ????

5. Life+Earth

6 Units killed in battle in or around enchanted city resurrected as Ghost Warriors with very low combat stats

 but have no upkeep, no fortification bonus. Give morale bonus to accompanied troops, vanish after combat.

7. Life

8. Last ditch spell really. Would be harder than most to make function correctly, but seems the AI would be able to make use of these easily if they have a city under siege.

===============================

1. Enslaved Dead 

2. Strategic

3.????

4.????

5. Death+Earth

6. Same as above, but with a morale penalty to the enemy.

7. Chaos/Death/whatever

8. Same as above.

This spell might be complicated to pull off or maybe even plain out impossible, but I think it's a cool idea none the less, so here goes..

Time Travel:

This is a End Game Spell, Very High Level, Very Ultra Rare, but it has a very interesting feature behind it. Before I get into what the spell does, I need to side-track to compare this to something else.

System Restore Points...and/or Auto Saves. Think about when you create a "Restore Point" for Windows or when the game Elemental makes a "Auto Save". For this spell to work the game will have to make "hidden auto saves" and store them in memory, say every 25 to 50 turns or so. Now for the Time Travel spell description...

When you cast the spell "Time Travel" it brings up a pop-up menu that asks "To Which point in History would you like to Travel?". Then it will show you a list of the hidden "Auto Saves" that it made but it won't list them by turn number. Instead it will list them by whatever the most recent event at the time the save was made that happened in game was. The player then chooses which point in the game's past to travel too even as far back as Turn 1. The Spell MUST NOT go back to anytime that would be considered "Recent". In fact, I don't think this spell should even be Allowed in Any Game that was less then 500 turns old. This way the spell has Serious Ramifications when used and isn't just the same as re-loading the game and only loosing 25 turns or so. The Spell MUST go back a 100 turns or more. This spell will only be useful in Large, Epic Games, that take days or even weeks to complete. The Spell will then reload the game at that "save point" or "auto save" but it will the load your Sovereign with his Stats, Skills, Learned Spells, and Personal Items that the Sovereign had when he/she cast the spell "Time Travel". Perhaps also make it possible for the Sovereign to take one or two units with him (maybe even a dragon if he has one).

Why Is This Spell Useful for Game Mechanics? :

Imagine that it's near the end game and you realize you're going to loose after spending 10 or 20 hours on the same Huge Map (or even Medium Map). Maybe you left a powerful enemy alone for too long and now they are about to win the game with the "Spell of Mastery" or they are about to roll over your last city with their "Stack-o-Doom". Either way, it's painfully obvious that you're Not going to win. Rather then restart the game or re-load the game lets give the player another option. By casting "Time Travel" you can travel back to a much earlier part of the game with a Powerful Sovereign (and maybe a unit or two). You can alter History its-self by going straight after the enemy that you now know will get super powerful if you let him.

The spell "Time Travel" has Serious in-game ramifications how-ever. It doesn't let the player go back only by 10 or 20 or 30 turns. It goes back Hundreds of Turns meaning the player now has a LOT of work to do Over Again. Still, it's better then losing or having to start over and it gives the player the advantages of having a Powerful Sovereign to do everything over again with plus the knowledge of where resources are located on the map as long as the player can remember (FOW will be back).

Another issue this spell addresses is the fact that we all know players (and have been guilty of it ourselves) who like to Re-Load the Game every time something doesn't go their way. Perhaps they loose their favorite champion or loose one of their main cities or just realize they aren't going to win this game and decide to start over. With the option to Time Travel they might not simply re-load the game or start over. It gives the player a incentive not to "cheat" by re-loading and instead gives them the chance to go back and fix mistakes they made.

As a Reward for finding the spell or using the spell the player gets the advantage of being Very Powerful when all his enemies are much weaker, which is why I think the spell should be Very Rare to be "fun". It's almost as close as a "I Win" type spell as the "Spell of Mastery" is. Casting the Spell of Mastery is the Magical Tech Tree way of winning the game so the player is about to Win Anyway. This way the player can have even More Fun on that same map/same game by going back in time to really humiliate their enemies by stomping on them being leveled up. To add even more Fun imagine if the player is allowed to time travel and take that Dragon they just recruited with them. Sure, the player would face the "possibly" boring idea of having to play the exact same map with the exact same enemies again, but this time the player would be able to have fun owning them with End Game level spells and maybe a couple Powerful End Game units. As I said it's almost as much of a "I Win" spell as the "Spell of Mastery". In a way it's just an excuse to have fun on a map you were Already About To Win Anyway....or Lose Anyway.

Balance:

This spell needs to be Super Rare and not appear on anything but Medium Maps or Larger. Perhaps it should even be considered a "Epic" spell or come from one of those items you'd only see once every 400 games or so like "Frogboy's Diamond Golem Quest" idea. This spell is also for Single Player Games Only as it would be very unfair and un-fun for Multi-Player. Seeing as how this spell could save a player from losing the game just as casting the Spell of Mastery would before you were about to be conquered militarily, this should Definitely be Very Expensive to Cast using Most of or All the casters resources. Also when the player Travels back through time, if they take any units with them then in the Time the player travels too he/she must be able to have the incoming resources to pay what-ever upkeep those units have. This means that if the player travels back in time and takes a Dragon with them, and that Dragon eats 100 peasants a day, then in the time the player traveled too they need to have enough cities to be able to provide those 100 peasants a day or the Dragon would leave.

I can also think of another version of Time Travel that doesn't work anything like the above version. The Second Version would still be Super Rare and Expensive but instead it would only allow the player to go back in time by One Turn and ONLY Once, Period, and then the spell could never be cast again during that particular game. I think I'd rather see the above version implemented if either of them are considered though.

Thoughts or feedback?

I like unit enchantments so please make lots of those.  Haste, regeration, enchant weapon, stone skin, giant strength, shield, invisibility, mirror image, true seeing, life drain, fly, etc. 

More importantly though I hope you have your schools feel distinctive and have specializations.  Maybe earth is more defensive and summoning oriented, fire offensive and chaotic, life is healing and unit enhancement, air is movement and illusion, water is anti-magic and order and death is curses, damage over time and life-sapping as some potential examples.  Just don't throw every cool spell in there that comes to mind.  It should fit the theme of the school, though not exclusively.  It's ok to have lightning in air even though fire is the offensive oriented school but the offensive options in air would be much less for instance.

Sorry, I got carried away:

Book of Ice:

1. Spell Name: Ice Barge
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical? Strategic/Summoning
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire: Low
4. Mana required to cast: Moderate
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled?No
6. Spell Effect:Create a Boat made of magical ice. Units aboard the ship will take slight damage while they are on it (Due to cold). Can unsummon the boat at anytime, so if an opponent finds your boat and decides to use it, you can sink it in the middle of the ocean.
7. Notes: I see that a lot of the summoning spells summon monsters, so I thought it would be interesting to summon something other than a monster. I think AI could use it's already existing AI for boats and seafaring, and I think it is unique and offers more than one way to use it. It could be used for in replacement of researching boats, or in situations where harbors aren't handy, or as a deceptive death trap for the unweary.

1. Spell Name: Freeze Metal
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical? Tactical
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire: Moderate
4. Mana required to cast: Moderate
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled? No
6. Spell Effect: Target a specific area in combat (Arcane knowledge will increase the size of the spell) The spell will effect every unit with metal equipment, armor, or weapons including your own. Those units will recieve damage proportional to how much metal they have. So for example if a unit has a metal sword, shield, and helmet, they will take 3 times as much damage as a unit with a metal shield only.
7. What Spell Book would it be part of? Ice
8. Notes: Again I like ice, and I am trying to offer some suggestions that would offer spells that have multiple uses depending on the player and situation. This is a combat spell yes, but it offers so much more strategy. It could be used to help an ice player focus on different research besides war yet still have a military prescence despite having wooden weapons. Also, mix this with a book of summoning where your army doesn't have weapons and you are a force that your enemy would be hard pressed to face. If they build metal weapons they are in trouble, but if they don't then your summoned monsters will make short work of them. Also by hurting your own units with metal as well, the spell doesn't seem to unbalanced. As far as AI is concerned, I think it could do a simple check, will this spell hurt my units more or less than my opponent? If more, then by how much? Will my troops survive and my enemy's die? Things of that nature.

1. Spell Name: Ice Prison
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical? Don't Kow
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire:Moderate to high
4. Mana required to cast:Moderate
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled? Maybe, Ice
6. Spell Effect: Surround a unit in a large ice crystal. That unit can not move or act; however, it also can not be attacked unless by fire. The spell takes mana to upkeep past a certain turn otherwise it will be dispelled. Can target enemy units and your units.
7. What Spell Book would it be part of? Ice
8. Notes: I imagine this spell having multiple uses as well. You could cast it on a strong enemy during a battle, pick of the weaker units, then unfreeze the strong unit and finish him off. You could cast it on yourself, so for example if you are being slaughtered and you don't want your hero to die, simply cast it on them and wait till after the battle. You army may have died, but your hero will be in stasis (with a mana upkeep) until you dispell your spell. Thus the opposing army has to consider if it is worth guarding the heros position or moving on. AI could be set to cast it on strong units, or on heros that are badly wounded, I think.

1. Spell Name:Sleet
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical?Strategic/Enchantment
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire:Moderate
4. Mana required to cast:Moderate
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled?No
6. Spell Effect:Lower food production of target city.
7. What Spell Book would it be part of?Ice
8. Notes:Simple enchantment, help cut off enemy's food supply

1. Spell Name: Counter Fire
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical?Tactical
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire:Moderate to High
4. Mana required to cast:Varies
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled?Maybe, Ice
6. Spell Effect:Cast during a strategic battle for very little mana, it will then last the remainder of the battle or until you run out of mana. From that turn on, any fire magic cast will be immediatley countered by taking an equivalent amount of mana from you as it cost your opponent to cast their spell.
7. What Spell Book would it be part of? Ice
8. Notes: This spell could theoretically be used to help a wizard being pummeled by a fire wizard level the playing field and allow them to resolve conflicts the old fasioned way. You would first have to know that your opponent was a fire wizard, so I imagine it would be used in more of a reflexive/defense position, than one of offense, but you never know.

I just saw the other magics getting so much love, I couldn't leave little ol' ice magic out.

I've always liked WARD spells for their utility and fun animations.  Essentially you should be able to "mine" your territory.  WARDs could be as simple as an alarm to notify the player.  For more mana/shards you could do damage to the stack or paralzye them to allow time to respond to their advance.  For damage WARDs please program them as a flat amount of damage based on spell power.  That way larger stacks split the damage while smaller stacks or scouts could be destroyed by them.

2Frog:  These could be interesting from an AI standpoint.  Defensive "personalities" would focus on these while Agressive AI would largely ignore them.

Some last thoughts of mine:

Loving all the spells I am seeing, I, however,  espescially like lwarmonger's suggstions on page three.  His ideas are not only very unique, but well thought out and would make me want to consider playing death magic or fire magic, which I usually never play.

Here are my thoughts about his spells and encouragments to make them a reality:

Spell Name: Plague bearer
I love it, a champion bringing ruin to their own society just seems awesome, but i like the flip side of the coin as well. No more trading with that city, and why not cast it on one of your weak heros and waltz them into an enemy settlment to start a war of with a bang! Love this spell

Spell Name: Empower Champion
I thought that this was so rational that I thought it was already in the game.

Spell Name: The dead rise
50% maybe a bit high, but then again, maybe not. I love the idea that war is just making me stronger and you weaker; thus you have to find another way to win than just brute force because that just helps me out.

Spell Name: Mass sacrifice
I love spells that require you to give something up for something better. It makes the spell a strategic gamble. I would add onto this spell the ability to use it on smaller cities for a less glorius result though. I might also think that there could be a certain requirement for how long a city has been under your control, because if you sieze an enemy city than blow it up and get essence ontop of that all in one turn, your opponent might be a little put out; but then again it might be fun to laugh at their plight as you go on to crush them. Cool spell.

Spell Name: Fireship
I love this spell idea as well, giving a unit an ability that it would not have had otherwise is always something that adds to a game. I love spells being so unique yet so game changing that you always are left wanting to be able to use all the spells, yet required to choose only a few; and this would be one that would tempt me to get a tomb or two of fire. I think it would be such a nice strategical advantage, and I love the idea that a boat which is related to water is being used by fire.

Now on my last thought, I go now to Raven X's spell Time travel on page three: I love it and hate it at the same time, let me explain.

Raven X is always thinking outside of the box (which is a good thing) and has added so much to the beta already, and this spell suggestion is no different. There is no game that I can think of that has this type of spell because I think people would argue; it is too hard to program, or it just isn't practical, or whatever. I think it is a very plausible spell; however, the only reason I wouldn't want it in the game is because of the following two reasons.

First: If I am playing a game and about to lose I just load an old saved game, if I am playing with a friend and am about to lose well then we just play again and I make sure I beat him the second time around.

Second and more importantly however: I don't want the AI to get the spell. Chances are if I am about to beat them, and they use time travel, I will be able to beat them again by following my same course of actions as I did previously, thus it would be a boring win to me. I will have to do the same quests, and kill the same ogre to get the same magical dagger that I used to slay their champion, and it would just fell redundant.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a good idea but maybe not practical for me. But that is just the oppinion of one person.

Things I do like about it, besides being strategically unique, is how he said the spell was ultra rare. I love the idea of spells, monsters, items, and the like that only show up once and a while. That way you can have owned a game for a year and still not have seen all the subtle treasures hidden throughout.

I am done rambling on now

Edit: Raven said only in single player games, so I guess that botches my playing with a friend argument.

1. Spell Name: Teleport Enemy
2. Is it Strategic or Tactical?: Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge required to acquire: 30
4. Mana required to cast: 10
5. Does it require any shards to be controlled? : Air or none
6. Spell Effect: Teleports enemy either closer
7. What Spell Book would it be part of?: Wind or none
8. Notes: Has no chance of fail, but cannot be done on enemy sovereign or multiple units and can only be done once a turn; while that unit is within sight range.  This would allow the teleporting of an enemy (or enemies)  away for extra time of recuperation or bring an enemy closer to be killed.

1. Spell Name: Blades/spears
2. Tactical
3. Arcane Knowledge: 10
4. Mana required to cast: 5
5. No.
6. Spell effect: Summons Floating blades/spears as one unit to fight along side your army
7. Spell Book: Book of Life/Book of chaos
8. Note: Book of life summons blades, book of chaos summons spears (or vice versa), this can only be done once on a tactical battlefield and each has it's weaknesses.  Blades have high combat speed, but low in everything else while spears have high attack rating and yet low in everything else;  this would be suitable for being deadly early game, weak mid game and very weak late game.

1. Spell Name: Improve relations
2. Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge: 50
4. Mana required to cast: 30
5. No.
6. Targeted faction's will demand more improved relations with other faction.  
7. Spell Book: Book of Life
8. Note: Can only target cities, this would both affect AI Players and Human players as each would gain a message of people (From place A) desiring improved relations with faction B (This could be fulfilled in any way); if the player or AI chooses to ignore it, then gold input would drop by a very low amount.  Has chance to fail based on level of charisma and intelligence thus lowering relationship and promoting war through the citizens demanding revenge for such audacity.

Hope I didn't repeat anyone and I apologize if I did.

1. Summon Rabbit
2. Tactical
3. 25
4. 10
5. No
6. Tha caster pulls a rabbit out of his or her hat
7. Life
8. The caster must be wearing a Tophat

1. Unleash
2. Tactical
3. Arcane Knowledge: 15
4. Mana Required: 7
5. None
6. Target Summon becomes hostile NPC/Barbarian for 3-(wisdom) turns
7. Spell Book: Chaos
8. Note: (Wisdom x 3)% chance of succeeding

1. Summon Revenant
2. Strategic
3. Arcane Knowledge: 17
4. Mana Required: 10
5. None
6. Summons a Sinister Revenant
7. Spell Book: Ruin
8. Note: Revenant has 40% magic damage resistance, Units killed by revenant transform into an Undead copy of themselves, at 1/3 HP and -1 defense.
9. Note(2): Uses an enchantment slot, can only have one Revenant at a time.