Which sphere of magic do you always want a few picks in?

[aldin]

I'm still trying to get a feel for good 'utility' magic, the stuff you can always use no matter which pretender/nation combo you have:

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm I thought it would be along the line of Enchantment or Construction.

This was difficult. You can always fill these in later in the game so mostly its early game bonuses. Fire adds nice items to add firepower to an army (bad pun), nature allows items to allow feeding large armys, astral for scrying though you never take a few in that, blood because its one of the harder ones to fill in and allows for useful summonings.

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
astral for scrying though you never take a few in that <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">For a rainbow mage who's never to see combat a few in astral work quite well.

[Endoperez]

Air as something that comes form Dom1... But still, I might not take it as a Caelum. Mistform would be good for a SC, and air has nice spells for mages... So it propably is air.

[Keir Maxwell]

Sorry Aldin but I can't answer your poll as you left out my choice. There is no path I think you need to have access to. Sure in Dom1 you could argue that not having access to air was too big a risk to take but in Dom2 I don't think there is a path of magic I would always take - as it should be.

Cheers

Keir

[PvK]

I agree with Keir on this.

PvK

[aldin]

Wow! Thanks for all the great responses. I rather suspected Air would be a favorite from the playing I've done. The three tied for second (as of this post) make sense too:

Water = Undersea
Death = Research
Nature = Supply

I was a little suprised no one voted for Blood, but I'm glad I'm not missing anything vital there. It's always good to have input from those who are more experienced than you are.

~Aldin

[PvK]

Blood is powerful, but surely isn't a thing to "always" do. Moreso than all of the others also aren't. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[Saber Cherry]

If it were not for druids, I would consider Nature absolutely essential except for Undead nations. However... Dominions II has higher supply (due to farmland provinces) and fewer troops (due to reduced income). Therefore, I still picked nature, but it is much less essential than in Doms I.

Water, on the other hand, is only essential on a combat pretender... to allow it early underwater access.

[Pocus]

I think that the superioty of air in dom2 is quite lessened, though a mistform on your pretender is a good protection. So... I wont vote because I have no clear mandatory path, but still if I had really to choose, I would still choose air.