Sneaky Don.
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Originally Posted by DonCorazon
1. At Conj 6 and D3, Spectres can take a while to get - I usually don't go so far down the Conj path til I have a number of other paths researched. Usually find the need for combat spells 1st (I like to exercise my mages), site searching, then Const for boosters to be able to make use of Conj. So by the time you get them it can be pretty late to be trying to fire up a decent S economy.
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Conj is one of your most vital tertiary Research objectives. Conj6 is certainly no stretch for early-mid or mid-mid game. As Fomoria, the only things you really need from Astral are your quintessential Luck Item™ and Antimagic Ammy. And only some of your Kings need the Ammy, your casting Kings should all have Rainbow Armor on, and not be the focus of enemy mages, so you only need one big angry guy in front to soak the Astral spam, and then any Kings out on their own need one. Mostly you just want as many Luck Pendants as you can get your hands on.
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Originally Posted by DonCorazon
2. In line with that, some of the coolest sites I find are Astral and I'd rather get them early on as that will compound your leads in gems and research.
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There are excellent Astral sites with recruitables. But this is where arguing about Astral breaks down. You lose all of the bite of your giants if you do not have an Imprisoned pretender, to get the Bless you need without -3/all scales. So Astral on your pretender isn't going to expedite things, and so this is why my suggestion was to suck it up, and take fringe options like the Specter as your last resort, if nothing else pans out. You absolutely want your Astral searching ASAP, but remember, the "P" stands for "Possible", not "You Can If You Are Willing To Sacrifice Everything Else".
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Originally Posted by DonCorazon
3. At 20D, I don't find Spectres especially cost effective. Lot of valuable death gems to summon them, not all will be Astral, then takes a while to site search with them, etc. Plus they won't get you any Astral boosters - you are still stuck without access to RoS and ROW.
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Well they aren't "particularly" cost effective, sure. But in a pinch, they will do the job - and seriously, you are in no great need of a RoW as Fomoria. Certainly not every nation in the game has to insure access to high level Astral, and this is a sterling example, IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonCorazon
I read it as mainly W9 bless (a minor E bless appears in 1 out of 3 builds). W9 feels good when you see things getting motored down but is only beneficial when you use sacreds to fight whereas an E9 bless is useful in battle and magery. Fomoria seems to have such powerful combat mages with Death and Air, getting some reinvigoration / protection on them seems like it would be pretty effective. I admit I haven't messed around with Morrigans though and that sounds fun...
But the other consideration I had was making sure your nation has access to E magic and being able to cast / forge some of the big E ticket items later on. A pure W bless leaves you without easy / near-term access to E or S. That would scare me.
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Again, you really do not -need- those things on the scale that you are talking about. You -need- minor access to Astral, and the rest really is just gravy. If you can allow yourself to focus on the overt strengths (and some hidden strengths) of Fomoria, without getting too caught up trying to shore up their weaknesses, you will do very well.