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.

[DonCorazon]

Thanks everyone for all the thoughts. Rytek your advice is very helpful, especially as an illustration of how to think about planning. The tough part as a noob is knowing what is worth aiming for and your tips will help.

[Sandman]

If you have a nation with a strong focus in a particular magic path, a good strategy is to aim for one of the gem generator spells. For example, Mother Oak is only Alt-5, and if you research nothing but Alteration, you can get it well before the end of the second year. No-one is likely to dispel it. Best of all, you can pick up protection and swarm on the way.

[lch]

Sandman said:
If you have a nation with a strong focus in a particular magic path, a good strategy is to aim for one of the gem generator spells.

That's a turtle strategy though. If somebody sees that global go up he might consider attacking because he knows you haven't researched anything useful in combat. IMHO site searching is more useful long term than wasting gems on those spells, too.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Not always, Ich. For a few nations, there is a certain easily countered overlap. MA Agartha needs enchantment for Earth Blood Deep Well and their golems. As soon as your opponent sees Earth Blood Deep Well go up, they'll make opposition a priority (if astral nation). Late era Agartha has all its undead conjurations, and Well of Misery is conjuration also. To counter that, all they need is Dust to Dust (though Sepulchrals and Cave Wights are tougher than regular Wights), or Wither Bones, not to mention Undead Mastery.

[Baalz]

Yes, the gem generators are spread out. I wouldn't consider it to be a sign of weakness to show a strong evocation or conjuration research level, and those are two of the better gem generators.

[shard]

To carry on with the subject matter....

In a battle, how do you determine the order in which the mages cast spells? Is it from the top mage down in the battle settings? So that you can make, say for example, your very first mage to be the one casting storm so that the rest can benefit etc...

[Rathar]

I think that is exactly the case. Top down. Note the use of the word think.

[Shovah32]

The top-down thing can be annoying when you want to have a lower mage casting first(ie, you have a mage who can cast storm and a load who would benefit, but your storm capable mage is near the bottom).

[Rytek]

Alteration 5 for man seems to be a no brainer for me. Mother Oak, Wind guide, that dragonfly spell in huge numbers as well as phantasmal army spells. Not to mention the buff spells for your pretender if you have one awake... The trek up the enchantment tree is a vulnerable period. But its too late once you get the gift of health up. And then you are just one level away from arrow fend.. You also get fire arrows, which is very hard to make use of, unless you have fire on your pretender or perhaps a lucky enchantress...