Teach me how to use mages!
 

I have been playing Dominions 3 nonstop and loving every minute of it. But to be honest, the arcane is very arcane to me.

I dabble in magic, summoning creatures from the conjuration line. My earth mages cast bladewind, and my wind mages cast lightning bolts, but I feel like the true power of magic in dominions eludes me.

My games against the AI atm usually result in me massing troops I have been creating since the beginning of the game and beating my opponents with superior numbers (and or) better troops.

I would love to branch out strategically and learn how to make mages that can truly rain death on my enemies, or groups of mages that can accomplish these goals.

So if you would, tell me what mage/spells you like to use to make a powerful mage or force of mages! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Well, if you're using the demo the game doesn't really give you a chance to do much meaningful with magic, since most of the stuff is higher-level. (In fact, I'm convinced from reading the spell list that the really cool spells start coming at level 5.) I find the main key is experimentation. At the moment, I'm trying to create an army of pure dryads (Ethereal and Awe mean that few would dare hit them, or so my theory goes) using Call Wood Spirits and Gift of Reason.

As for mages that 'rain death', you'd be amazed at the destructive might of five mages casting Raise Skeletons, though that's all I really know as far as combat magic goes. Off the battlefield you can get a lot from casting Twiceborn on all of your Death Mages and sending them to suicide. That gives you Wight Mages, which can 'train' 8-10 undead units each for no cost each turn. Get five or so Wight Mages, and it adds up. Especially in the demo, mages aren't much on their own. A large chunk of mages that know Call of the Wild or Arouse Hunger can launch surprise attacks from halfway across the map. Blood Magic has some really powerful summons and really fun ways of messing with your foe, but none of that comes in until post-demo levels. Astral also has some really cool stuff, but again not in the demo. I don't really know anything about Fire, Water and Wind, (Though they seem pretty useless in comparison to the others) and only a bit about Earth. (Though they seem pretty solid)

Yes, I know, lots of 'in the demo's. I'd give you a wider range of information if I could. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Thanks for the tips! I think I am looking more for strategies to blow stuff up than summoning. That is pretty much all I use magic for now is summoning and late game enchantments/armor crafting.

For once I would like to play a game where I mass mages and reign some sort of magical death on the battlefield.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Well, 5-10 mages who a casting Bladewind (Evo4, E3, 42 projectiles from each cast IIRC) with some precision are a sight to behold in the early age (due to fairly low armor on most troops).

CharonJr

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Blood Magic gets some sort of tough attack spells before the demo ends, but that's all I can think of aside from your generic attack spells. As for less attack-y options, Earth Magic has a spell that stops enemies from moving, and one that can boost the strength of an entire bunched-together army. I think they're Enchantment.

EDIT: Oh! How could I forget! There's a nature/death (I think) spell that causes a rain of toads to fall on any province, within the demo limits. Literally, raining death! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

If you have the full game there are spells affecting the entire battlefield and doing dammage to non protected troops.

In example you can give a staff of storms to an air mage (or cast a storm spell) and make him cast resist lightning then wrathfull skies. It's the best spell if you want to see a mage destroying an entire army (but it will affect all troops not having a resistance against lightning, including yours).

There are also the same kind of spells in other paths, fire storm (use fire fend/warriors of muspelheim to protect your troops before casting it). Foul vapors for poison, grip of winter for cold (doing stun damage).

All these spells are the best way to win assymetric wars (especially against the AIs), a mage alone (or better with a little army of troops immune to his element) can with some gems destroy hundreds of unprotected soldiers.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Well, if you want to rain death on your enemies, just research some Evocation.
Try Nether Darts, its really fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Banefire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

To use mages correctly, you must learn range and placement on battlefield accordingly. Then recognize how spells such as buffs target, for example, body ethereal seems like it only targets the caster but it actually effects troops close by as well. Then learn which ones are magic resistable, armor negating, etc. This way you can script the most effective spell against your armies accordingly. Different nation's mages fulfill different spell needs, for example, Ryleh focuses upon Soul Slay, Enslave Mind while remote assassinating with Mind Hunts and Dreams. Caelum uses Lightning Bolts and Falling Frosts, Ermor, Nether Bolt, Nether Darts, Summon skeletons. It's hard to just give one overall general strategy for mages other than evocation has the bulk of battle magic. However,battle magic isn't always the most important school to learn, just as often you'll need buff spells, summons, boosters, etc. Which nation have you been using currently?

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

I think the bottom line that a lot of new dom players don't get is that outside of a few very specific strategies there isn't much of a place for mages on the battlefield. Just tacking a mage onto an army without a plan is basically worthless, which is counterintuitive for people who are used to mages being badasses in other fantasy games.

Mages are generally only useful if you have a battle plan built around a specific spell or two, and a good supply of gems for the commander.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

I've had this experience myself actually heh. The best way to learn how to use more mages is to play more people. You'll learn how scripting works and also magic strategy quite effectively from this.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

It also helps to check what type of damage the spell does. Type as in whether it is normal, armor piercing (good) or armor negating (priceless). Bladewind does normal damage and thus can be blocked by armor. Fire spells do armor piercing damage (generaly speaking) and are more effective against armor, but armor still effects the damage it does. Some spells like Astral Fires and Mind Burn do armor negating damage that ignores armor.

Checking if the spell can be resisted by magic resistance is also useful. Don't try to use Astral Fire, Mind Burn or other Mr-resistable spells against high-MR units.

Having the mage cast path and/or precision boosters can be VERY beneficial. Especially Summon Earthpower, which gives reinvigoration. Aim and Eagle Eyes can make the mages substantially more accurate with spells.

To put it shortly, know what tools you have been given and how to use them best.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

As said, placing is very important. Here are a few good spells from each path:

Fire:
Fire Darts can make a high (f9-10) fire pretender into a nice early game artillery mage (number of shots scales with level)
Fireball, its good range, damage, has AoE(1 square but still) and ap.
Falling Fires is nice, decent range, nice damage and a fairly big AoE
Pillar of Fire is a monster, huge range, massive (AoE 1) damage and can set alot of units on fire

Water:
Falling Frost has good AoE, nice damage and can freeze, need i say more?
Frozen heart has great range and precision and does some very nice damage

Air:
Orb lightning does lots of damage and has alot of shots, its very close ranged though
Lightning bolt has good damage, range and precision. good all round spell
Thunder Strike has nice range, AoE and great damage. Quite high fatigue though.

Earth:
Bladewind, the king of EA. Any mage with some sort of precision (a bladewinder who can cast eagle eyes is godly) can decimate almost any EA army with this spell. Try a marveni communion with this (4-8 slaves, 2-3 druid masters with earthpower and eagle eyes can rain bladed death)
Petrify, the holy grail of SC destruction. If the target fails a mr test they are gone and thats that, even if they pass they get paralyzed so you get another shot.

Astral:
Mind burn, great range, precision and nice damage. MR negateable though.
Soul slay, an instant death spell if they fail a mr test, whats not to like.
Paralyze is like soul slays little brother. it wont kill the enemy on its own but can give you plenty of time to finish them
Nether Darts is another beast, it has alot of shots all with good AN damage and a chance to feeblemind the enemy

Death:
Raise skeletons, this spell is another very powerful (and over used) spell. Fairly easy to cast, a couple of death mages can raise an army in a few turns and, with a few relief casters can keep it up for the whole battle
Plague, nothing says i love you like a single spell dooming the enemy army to a terrible plague.
Cloud of death, does nice damage, has AoE and lasts for a few turns
Desintigrate, read soul slay
Dust to dust, the ultimate (sort of) anti undead spell

Blood:
Agony is great for routing conventional armies
Bloodletting, a few castings of this can decimate entire armies, with each casting hitting the whole battlefield
Life for a life, 1 slave lets you hit a single target for 40+AN unresistable damage

These are all just battle spells, not including any buffs or spells requiring gems (although the blood spells need slaves) and is nowhere near a list of all good spells, just those that came to my mind.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

As for Death, Shadow Bolt is a nice spell and Shadow Blast is good even if the gem cost means microing.

Nether Bolt/Darts are superb Death/Astral spells. MA Ermor and LA Jotunheim as well as Early/Late Tien have an acces to it.

Banefire is a terrifying Fire/Death spell. Only Late C'tis has an easy acces to it though, from what I remember.

Gifts from Heaven won't hit the dead center of an Ermorian horde unless you cast a precision booster but does amazing damage. There's really nothing in the game that won't escape a hit from GfH unharmed. Earth/Astral was very rare, but now it's quite the fad. Marverni and Patala excel at GfH casting since they can also easily boost their accuracy.

Magma Bolts is nice and Magma Eruption is superb, but can be shrugged off with armor. The Earth/Fire mix is pleasantly common.

Acid Bolt is a potent spell and Acid Rain is the acid equivalent of Falling Fires/Frost but earlier on research tree and the added bonus of armor destruction. Fire/Water mix is very easily accessable to Early Atlantis and somewhat easy for EA/MA Tien.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

You guys are starting to talk about Dom II with some of these replies. For example, MA TC has no access to acid spells at all. (heck if they did, they wouldn't be so crummy) And there's no point in having multiple relief casters since it's now a battle enchantment that costs gems. I find Mind Burn actually a very poor spell btw.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

I thought they could get the Water/Fire combo? O_o

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Eh, it's not a bad spell. It hits almost every time and usually kills human sized units and smaller when it does. Plus, there's really no too much for an S2 mage to cast that early in research, I'd take it over Star Fires. I usually go to Thaum 2 for site searching spells anyway, and that comes as an added bonus.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

But that mostly only works in blitzes done via IRC, where you can get immediate chat answers (sometimes). Just playing more people doesn't help much - for instance, the most _basic_ stumbling block is that you can't leave them (mages, commanders, or troops) to their default retarded position / orders. Somewhat counterintuitive to most games where units act like they have at least a 50 IQ. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

(Example why I'm so harsh : Bad *** one-eyed pretender who starts with great strength and protection. Without orders, he _casts spells_ instead of attacking, even if his magic ability and precision sucks, and he really should be going melee.)

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Heh, I've had situations where my priests actually ignore the script I set for them, and cast bless despite the fact there are no holies on the battlefield.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Besides themselves, of course. Generally mages only ignore their script if they CAN'T cast the scripted spells, most often because there are no legitimate units in range.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Your priest are holy themselves, it's probably a self bless (and as morale spells are now not cumulative, they ignore sermon or fanaticism scripts when all units have the morale boost). They just act like mages who love to cast fireshield or astral weapon just in case... when the closest ennemy is at 40m.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

The ignored spell was Smite, and I know foes were in range.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

I scripted 5 blood/other mages to cast 4 spells (they were all self enhancement spells or troop buffs), then Reinvigoration, cast spells. Give each 1 a single blood slave, checked the fatigue paths of all spells involved to make sure they were ok. Idea being they could do my script, then do there own thing with 0 fatigue.

What happened?

They all cast summon imps using the 1 blood slave as there 1st spell...arrrrgh...why? Summon imps was no where on the script, all 5 did the exact same thing. Of course because they ignored my carefully crafted battle plan, I lost a very tight, important battle. After summoning imps they did nothing because they were too fatigued...

It's very frustrating when the computer does it's own thing ignoring yr orders...

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Did you check the range on that? It seems like they cast other spells when there's no available target, and Summon Imp happens to be the one they cast every time if they have a slave.

I'd prefer that the AI wouldn't use gem spells unless you script them to do so, it's especially annoying when they go through a bunch of gems summoning elementals or boosting to cast Fireball.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

And then there are the other times, you know, when you give your Wraith Lord full equipment of path boosters, 20-30 death gems, script him to 5xShadow Blast, look deep into his fiery eyes and tell him that you rely on him - and you can actually pretty much count on him continuing to devastate the enemy with shadow blasts even after round 5 instead of going into skellyspamming mode (so long as your army contains enough chaff that he doesn't feel personally threatened - and, even if he does, he'll likely just blast those who threaten him).

Sometimes gem use by the AI is vexing - sometimes it is truly great. Personally, I'd love one or both of these options when giving commander orders to be available: a) "Repeat this spell for the rest of the battle" as a terminating order, and/or b) "Allow this commander to freely use gems yes/no" radiobutton - but I'd hate having the current system with commanders absolutely prohibited from using gems on their own initiative. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Everyone here has been talking about the straighforward, blow them away, kind of magic. Also experiment with some of the other spells. Body Ethereal was mentioned, a very nice spell. Also look at Destruction (in the demo) which turns enemy armour to mush. Protection has a long range and can help, though it is not as powerful. Strenght of Giants can also help your forces hit a lot harder, while Fear can make your enemy run. The power of this type of spell is not so obvious, but if you are suffering less causulties and scattering your enemy, you will end up on top after a few turns.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Weapons of sharpness is a very nasty buff spell, its not too easy to cast but making all your troops weapons AP (within the rather large AoE of course) is well worth getting a mage up there. Casting it on a group of knights (they have deadly lances, broadswords and hooves, although i cant imagine a horse with a sharpened hoof) they can just charge in and slaughter anything. Also if you can cast it you can also protect them with legions of steel.

Re: Teach me how to use mages!
 

Weapons of Sharpness + Strenght of Giants + Flails = http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif