Summons: Your thoughts.....

[llamabeast]

Call of the Winds is one of my favourite spells. Very useful.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

The Golem Cult's summons are pretty good, speaking from experience. Even five plain un-sacred, unbuffed Attentive Statues are pretty mean. At enchant three, you can get them pretty early on, and they just carve through most independents (beware cavalry, barbarians) because of their 0 encumbrance- not to mention +10% hitpoints per candle of dominion.

... Beware of astral nations, unless you've got antimagic,an astral bless, or drain scales instead of magic. "Opposition" is your enemy, as well as "Elf Bane" and "Moon Blade", I suppose. Mind hunts will leave your golems unled unless you've got spares/decoys.

Attentive Statues: Earth Might is Alt2, gives those swords extra bite, affects three at a time. I've had five take out 70 independent troops. They're still effective against other nations, but you need beware your weakness.

Enliven Sentinels: 10 dominion, 50 hitpoints. 0 dominion, 25. Less afflictions. Nature bless, earth bless do not apply. Strength boost irrelevant, thanks to 22 strength and Granite Glaives (10 damage).

Granite Guards- I haven't experienced a situation that calls for Granite Guards- but I haven't made it to a late game as Agartha (2 games played). Too expensive to use against Astral nations with Opposition (barring mr boosts of your own), they have 150 hitpoints in 10 friendly dominion. They don't have additional damage capacity, though, and in a square by square battlefield analysis, they're a half as effective as Sentinels, thanks to their largeness.

Enliven Marble Oracles - get your MR up, especially against astral nations. Encumbrance is not a concern, so a Lead Shield works well.

The biggest threat to your golems is not astral magic (though that's a mean second place), it's running out of magical leadership on the battlefield. You need spares, even if they're just Earth Readers to prevent dissolution. No leaders and all your golems go pop!

[HoneyBadger]

I think all the...shall we say "less cost-efficient" summons deserve a boost. You're not only spending the gems, you're spending the mage for a turn that could have been used for research, etc. Summons should be worth summoning, even if they're niche-national troops have a lot more room for superfluous "themed" units than summons do, especially non-nationals.

[FAJ]

I really like the blood summoned SCs like arch devils and ice devils. The heliophagii are nice for diversifying magic too.

I am trying to figure out how to spend extra fire gems late game. In a current game I have near 900 and gain 60+ a turn. I havent found a good use for them, so I have been splurging on seasonal spirits. But they really are lackluster for their cost. I remember when summer lions used to be worth the cost.

I also like mass summons like animals, cross breeding and undead. A nice way of building up instant chaff when under seige.

[Meglobob]

Yea, HoneyBadger has got it spot on. Most summons are not worth it because you are getting 1 or 2 units/per turn and missing out on RP's.

Its nearly always better to save your gems/blood slaves and research a higher level summon spell.

Sombre has gone through a load of summon spells and suggested generally increasing there numbers you get per casting.

[HoneyBadger]

I'll go along with Sombre, but if it weren't for the max unit limitation, I'd suggest having more summons come with leaders, or secondary units atleast, just for the sake of interest.

[sum1lost]

For the fire gems, use them in battlefield spells, and spam living fire. Also, boost your fire mages with them using empowerment. The only elemental in-battle summon I'm not a fan of is earth, or air against large opponents. Fire is pretty powerful, as is water.

[NTJedi]

FAJ said:
I am trying to figure out how to spend extra fire gems late game. In a current game I have near 900 and gain 60+ a turn. I havent found a good use for them, so I have been splurging on seasonal spirits. But they really are lackluster for their cost. I remember when summer lions used to be worth the cost.

If you're battling undead Purgatory is good for a strong domain. Fire gems can always be alchemized into gold if you have good or great units which can be purchased in mass numbers. Empower fire mages so they can travel with archer type armies to provide an extra punch via 'flaming arrows'.

[Baalz]

NTJedi said:
Empower fire mages so they can travel with archer type armies to provide an extra punch via 'flaming arrows'.

Better yet, empower thugs/SCs. Slap on a flame helm (which helps your protection anyway) and now you can phoenix pyre (and fire shield, resist fire if that helps). Very nice combo with soul vortex, on say a wraith lord. Heck, empower a second time with fire and stay in dominion for a heck of an imortal kamakazi with stock equipment. 80 fire gems isn't *that* bad considering you don't need to forge any equipment and it beats the heck out of alchemizing.

[Shovah32]

Umbrals. These guys, avaliable to all eras of Agartha iirc, are extremely good for their price. High health, ethereal, life stealing undead are one thing. But when you throw in national mages that can cast darkness and marble warriors or army of gold/lead and it's something else.