You have to understand that during MOST of the game's playtest and balancing, we DID have god powers be multi-use. You just spent Favor and used the god power. The designers must have tried a dozen different ways in hundreds of playtests to make it work out and be balanced.
It was only in the last months of the game's creation that god powers became one-use. At first there was opposition even at ES. Hell I'll admit that I was one of the people who opposed god powers going one-use. I was wrong.
The one-use free god powers were so vastly superior to any previous system that we stuck with it.
Why are one-use god powers better?
1) we actually saw MORE god powers being used, not fewer. Now that they were free and didn't cost precious Favor or heroes, you didn't have to make the choice between a god power and a useful myth unit.
2) god powers became more powerful. When Meteor Storm (for instance) was reusable, it kept getting weaker and weaker every playtest, because it was potentially so abusable. But when you only get one (1) Meteor Storm, then it can be made very impressive.
3) using god powers made MORE strategy, not less. Now you had to think for just the right instant, and use your brain.
There were other reasons too but these were the biggies in my mind. Sure you can surmise that it could have worked some other way, but we tried. For over a year of intensive testing we tried. One-use powers are just plain better.
[This message has been edited by ES_Sandyman (edited 11-15-2002 @ 01:28 PM).]