Magic Items in MP

[Darkstone]

As a novice to MP,... I'd like to hear from some of the veterans about your thoughts and opinions about magic item trade.

I was also wondering if any of the (non-artifact) magic items are treated in a special or unusual way in terms of value or trade (such as Dwarven Hammers or anything else that's good).

[OmikronWarrior]

Trades (excluding aid and tribute) come in two froms: one way or two way. A one way trade is somebody needs something you've got, so you can name your price. Two way is a mutually advantageous trades, like finding a bunch of death gems and trading them for a horror helm from Ermor when you have no death mages.

Aid is something different, its when you basically give something away to help another player out. A classic example is giving anti-undead equipment to a player going up against Ermor so you don't have to.

Obviously, tribute is a demand for resources in exchange for not anihilating a player.

As for individual items, here's my list of items worth trading for if you can't get them naturally:

-Any gems that you don't have an income for, but do have mages capable of casting the site searching spell for.

-Fire Brand and Frost Brand

-Horror Helm

-Various elemental immunity rings

-Amulet of Resiliance, Messenger Boot, and Girdle of Might

-Rune Smasher

-Luck Amulet or other Luck items

-Boots of Quickness

-Magic Path boosters and will let you build the boosters

OK, most of those items are for thug and SC chasises, I guess that tells you where my playstyle is at right now.

[Xavier]

questions for you then re: thugs/SCs - at what point in a game do you look end up transitioning from the armies needed to break out against indies into SCs to take out individual players? how do you balance construction research versus (e.g.) conjuration?

[Tuidjy]

I have an awake SC Pretender in 90% of my games. I expect him to be _ready_ to
start busting heads by turn five. This does not mean that I will use him for
combat unless there is a pressing need. Sometimes, site searching is just as
important. By ready I usually mean Alt2 + Const4, but if someone comes knocking
at the door earlier, he'll go to war with an ice sword and a raw hide shield.
Without a good subset of Fire Shield, Body Etherial, Mirror Image, Mistform,
Personal Luck, Quickness, Ironskin he won't do much, of course.

As for secondary thugs/SCs, it depends on the race. Niefel's Jarls are fearsome
at the start. At Alt2/Const4, they are quite the threat to anything not cold
immune, including other SCs. So are Tir-Na-Nog/Vanheim/etc... mounted mages,
LA Atlantis Angakoks, Jotun's were-Skatti, Fomorians, etc...

If you are playing a race without recruitable thugs, then you rely on Conjuration.
Pyhthium, Marignon, among many others have great national summons. Death races can
use some great standard summons, up to Wraithlords/Tartarians. Blood races have
the Ice Devils, etc...

But my rule of thumb is that unless I play a very strong death/astral race, I will
start using at least thugs by the first year. I always leave 1-2 indy provinces
that will give my first solo unit 50xpt (two stars)

[Karlem]

And easy question Tuidjy: why Jarls are fearsome against non cold inmune SCs? Because of the frost brand or is there anything else?

[llamabeast]

Probably because the non-cold-immune SC will quickly fall asleep to the Jarl's strong cold aura, I guess.

[triqui]

does breath of winter add up with the jarl cold aura?

[OmikronWarrior]

I think so, but it might just make the area of effect bigger as oppose to increasing the damage done to those inside the area of effect. Regardless, I think that it maxes out at 25.

As for the "timing" of switching to a more thug/SC strategy as oppose to national troops... that depends. Basically, you want to have the best armies possible as soon as possible. If thats achieved by equiping jarls, then thats how its achieved. Or, if you have great air, fire, or water mages, then maybe you should focus on battle field evocation spells instead. Another consideration is what your opponents are using. If you're up against Marignon, then you can expect the spell flaming arrows and massed crossbowmen, which you can easily counter if you research the Enchant-6 spell of Arrow Fend. Of course, thats a high level spell and can't just be "researched" over a turn or two.