Your favorite spell

[MaxWilson]

What is your favorite spell? The one, that when you finally research it, your heart leaps like a gazelle? Perhaps one which affects your choice of nations or pretenders, just to be able to cast it? It may be a summoning spell (Lords of Civilization), a battlefield arty spell (Cloud of Death), a battlefield enchantment (Fog Warriors), a ritual spell (Mind Hunt), or something else (Utterdark). What is yours?

-Max

[KissBlade]

Body ethereal.

[Dectilon]

I love high precision, so Eagle Eyes has a special place in my heart now :)

That combined with various 'cloud'-spells is just awesome. It goes from you having half the cloud on your own army to the enemy taking the full force :)

[Endoperez]

Summon Earthpower. The other booster spells are also good, but if your mages can cast it, the combination of less fatigue, better spells AND reinvigoration is too awesome to pass.

[Gandalf Parker]

It used to be Wind Ride but thats kindof broken now.
So I would have to say Charm

[lch]

Cloud Trapeze.

Though there's a couple of others, as well.

[Tifone]

Never gonna forget the surprise and joy of the first unexpected unscripted casted Blade Wind. :happy:

[DonCorazon]

Rain of Stones!

[Taqwus]

Gift of Health, methinks.

[MaxWilson]

It's fun seeing these selections and inferring people's playstyles. :) My fav. (though it's not the most effective) is Cloud of Death because of how well it scales with pathlevels. For me, there's nothing quite like seeing a D9 Master Lich killing dozens (sometimes hundreds) of troops each turn, with screams and little red numbers floating up from the 40-odd squares of affected enemies. Yes, I know Master Enslave and/or Earthquake would be more tactically efficient.

I also love Flame Eruption for related reasons.

-Max

[tgbob]

Never gonna forget the surprise and joy of the first unexpected unscripted casted Blade Wind. :happy:

This one, right here. Blade Wind on militia made me love earth nations.

[Lingchih]

Gift of Health. I love it when I see that my normal troops now have 20-30 hp each, and all my afflictions are getting better.

Nice late game too, if you can keep it up. Heals those Tartarians much better than the Chalice.

[Meglobob]

Forge of the Ancients for me.

All those lovely magic items and so cheap!

[hunt11]

Construction level 4, all these nice options open for you.

[vfb]

AC! Adds a whole new level of fun to the game, plus mucho weirdo monsters.

[sum1lost]

Thunderstrike!

Zap!

[calmon]

Cloud Trapeze

[jimkehn]

Call me stupid....I LOVE Gift of Reason. So much fun to make Tarrasques leaders, and elephants and the like!!!!

Doesn't do much for winning the game, but it is just fun.

[HoneyBadger]

I like the acid artillery spells. Maybe because they're so hard to get.

[Taqwus]

Call me stupid....I LOVE Gift of Reason. So much fun to make Tarrasques leaders, and elephants and the like!!!!

Doesn't do much for winning the game, but it is just fun.

Indeed. And it IS a game, not a job. :D

[SlipperyJim]

Divine Blessing! ;)

Seriously, though ... I like many of the spells that have already been mentioned. Blade Wind, the Forge, and Gift of Health are all great. I also have a real affection for the commander-killing spells. Mind Hunt, Infernal Disease, and Earth Attack are loads of fun. And the Looming Hell is the icing on a devillish cake....

[Agema]

I have a sneaking admiration for Frozen Heart. It's small, but it's surprisingly nasty.

[Kuritza]

Mind hunt, lately. :)

[Humakty]

Gift from Heaven, Eat that you meatbag !

[Tifone]

If Alteration came before on the research tree and was a bit more decent I'd love it :p /enddaydream

[Ylvali]

Astral fires

[fungalreason]

Communion Master / Slave

[Evilhomer]

Acashic record - just need to know whats out there....

[Bwaha]

Master Enslave... It just too much fun to watch someones army self-destruct. I love the new troops as well. :D

[Makinus]

Gift of Reason (just for the fun).

[Conq]

I like earth attack, just because I like the idea that I can kill an enemy commander with a few gems.

[Kristoffer O]

Winged Monkies, but I don't think it is very useful :)

[Tifone]

Hey!! A programmer shouldn't favourite among the others one of his sons... I mean lines of code :D

[JimMorrison]

Gift of Reason (just for the fun).

I couldn't decide, but I'll have to concur with you. I love seeing what slots something weird ends up with, and trying to come up with interesting gear sets to compliment whatever special abilities that unit comes with.

[Illuminated One]

Transformation.

*prays for the Dragonfly in MP* :D

[AreaOfEffect]

Stellar Cascades. No MR check. No precision needed. No reasonable defense.

I suppose Petrify is a close second. Succeeding on a MR check never hurt so much.

[Huzurdaddi]

Drain life. 100 Precision. Does a good amount of AN damage. Does fatigue damage, gives back fatigue and heals.

Skelly spam, Drain life, and Shadow blast make death awesome (not to mention the various battlefield spells life darkness).

[Tifone]

If Alteration came before on the research tree and was a bit more decent I'd love it...

Ups, I meant Trasformation :rolleyes:

[Dectilon]

Winged Monkies, but I don't think it is very useful :)

I propose a buff for Winged Monkeys:

- The theme of The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz is played during combat.

[Gandalf Parker]

With Wind Ride broken I would LOVE to see Winged Monkeys improved. It would go so well with Charm. :)
I know that Charm is considered a "waste" by some but I love to gain enemy commanders that I cant recruit PLUS their equipment AND THEN get to see their old army rout in combat for lack of leadership. Sometimes even get to see their old commander force them to rout. I picture him switching sides then turning and yelling BOO!
MUAHAHAHahahahahaha (evil laugh)

[Tifone]

Wind Ride is broken? :confused:

[JimMorrison]

Wind Ride is broken? :confused:

I meant to tell you, Tifone. :o


Charm is lovely, but I usually just go with Enslave Mind for my dirty deeds. The range, and communionability, just get my mojo going.....

[Meglobob]

Wind Ride is broken? :confused:

Many patches a go I was in a MP with a 1 province strip of land, half a dozen provinces long, next to a huge sea. I had a castle on the NW shore with a mage casting wind ride at enemy commanders coming up north along the land bridge. Using wind ride I dragged commander after commander to a instant watery grave in the deep seas.

What seeems to happen is wind ride can no longer bring a enemy commander more than 1 or 2 provinces so drops them along the way...:D

[Tifone]

? Wow, huge nerf it seems. Still yeah, used that way sounds like a true instakill :D Not to mention on enemy researchers' provinces...
Maybe still useful to grab the enemy commanders about to enter your province and organize them a meeting with your PD before their troops? :happy:

[Lingchih]

With Wind Ride broken I would LOVE to see Winged Monkeys improved. It would go so well with Charm. :)
I know that Charm is considered a "waste" by some but I love to gain enemy commanders that I cant recruit PLUS their equipment AND THEN get to see their old army rout in combat for lack of leadership. Sometimes even get to see their old commander force them to rout. I picture him switching sides then turning and yelling BOO!
MUAHAHAHahahahahaha (evil laugh)


I just use Charm to get new mages from my allies. Never really use it in battle, although I have had it used against me in battle (with limited effect). I was Niefel. Opponent Pan took about 5 jarls off me using spam charm.

[Gandalf Parker]

I never use it in battle either altho a mage with blink or sandals might do ok.

But I LOVE giving it to assassins or seducers. People who get into 1-on-1 combat. If an assassin charms his target then the next message is a combat in that province between that commander and his old army. Much fun.

Giving it to seducers can vastly improve their effectiveness. They try their seduction, then if that fails they end up in combat where they can try charm once or twice before fighting.

It also works great with spells like Winged Monkeys to have a small group of Charm casting mages ready to greet the new arrival. Setup a lab with no PD and turn it into a recruitment center.

[Amhazair]

It has to be ghost riders for me. There's nothing that compares to the feeling of taking out several enemy provinces each turn without even having to move out of your cozy castles. One casting is enough to take out any decent amount of PD unless it is equiped with magical weapons. If your oponent tries to retake your newly acquired provinces using small forces of his own you destroy them with two castings. If he sends out a reasonable force or thug, you can teleport something really big and nasty on top of him. This spell helps tremendously to take and hold the initiative in the decisive lategame wars. (coupled with more traditional raiding tactics. )

Of course, if you don't have native D4 mages it does require a rather serious investment to get yourself a stable of casters ready. (Lich+skull staff+skull helmet = 54D with a hammer. If you do have D3 mages you can give them the hardly inexpensive RoS for the same effect) On the bright side, these are the same guys you want to summon your tartarians (with a RoS on top of the above equipment) so you'll want to get as many as you can afford anyway. They can chain-summon Tartarians for you to Gift of Reason the unafflicted ones until the war begins, and then seamlessly switch to Ghost riders. My current game is the first time I didn't manage to get a nice number of casters ready before end game.

:mean: Of course, this time I have access to send horror casters, so I can hopefully accomplish the same thing. :mean: