Magic For Dummies?

[Rytek]

I know you don't want to hear this. But what you research is really based upon your nation, your pretender and your gem income.

For instance in one of my multi player games I am MA MAN. I had 1 major goal, and that was to get gift of health up before the second winter so that way I could coninue recruiting witches every turn without fear of disease from their severe old age. My nation has misfortune 2, combined with order 3. I get some very tough random attacks from knights. Not even PD 25 can stop these random knight attacks. But I have created a reactionary force of Avaonian knights with gift of health up they have incredible hits and can take out the knights on the next round with few if any losses. I actually researched alteration 5 first in order to get the great oak up and then raced to enchantment 5 to get gift of health up. That goal was reached on turn 21, before the second turn of winter.

A solid magic strategy for Niefelheim is researching constrution to 4 right away. Use your gems to outfit your 500 gold Niefel commanders. Give your Pretender a decent bless like Earth 9, Nature (6-9). Then concentrate on getting certain spells for your commanders: Quickness, soul vortex, breath of winter, cloud trapeze and mist form for those rare A2 giants. Once you have your base spells covered then you want to look at your situation. Look at your gem income and random sights. Have a large death gem income? You could start going up the conjuration tree looking at Well of misery. Large nature gem income? Gift of health is great to heal of your wounded commanders. Not to mention the health bonus they get fighting in your dominion. Large earth gem income... Forge of the ancients is a win spell if you can keep it up for any amount of time.

As for MA ULM-this is not the best way, just one way to show you how to plan your magic. Take an awake Cyclops with E6,N2. On turn 1 Cyclops forges blacksteel shield, On turn 2 use the smith you bought on turn 1 to forge a sword of sharpness. On turn 3 send your Cyclops out with your Sword and Shield and conquer indep. Meanwhile your army is heading another way. Recruit a smith every turn and head for Thaughtmaturgy 2 for the sight searching spells. when you get it, make sure you search every province for Earth.This whole strategy centers on focusing on earth. Next you want enchant 2 in order to give your Cyclops the regeneration spell.Then switch to construction 2 and fill out your Cyclops' equipment. After that you want conjuration 3 for summon earth power. Finally, head to enchantment 6(or is it 7?) in order to have your Cyclops cast Earthblood deepwell. This will give you a large earth income. Have your cyclops start spamming enchant statues while heading for construction 9 for your final goal of spreading mechanical dragons everywhere. This strategy is very effective because all your efforts are focused. But, most likely you lose the end game because you are not diversified enough.

LA Jomon: Again, this is not the ultimate strategy, just something to show you how to develop a magical plan. Take a sleeping Phoenix with A4,F4. Recruit and expand with nothing but Samurai Archers. research to thaut 2 for your sight searching spells. Next goal is ennchantment 4 for fire arrows. When your pretender awakes take your archer army and attack one of your neighbors. supply your phoenix with enough gems to cast fire arrows multiple times and watch the carnage. research up further and get arrow fend then switch to alteration 5 for wind guide.