What's the best 100 gold National mage?

[Cohen]

Well, since I'm an Abysyan player, my vote goes to the Sanguine Acolyte, for 100 gold I've a sacred 1B blood hunter, that can make of its own lab, temple and rod too, if the situation needs it.
He can sacrifice the blood svales too, even if he's not very good at it.

[Scott Hebert]

Regarding the Sanguine Acolyte of Abysia, he's nice... but the small Mictlan priest is almost exactly the same for 20g less...

As for the Daughter of Avalon, I think something that a lot of people are overlooking is the fact that she's sacred. Meaning, upkeep halved. When you consider that a Seithkona is 90g+6g each additional turn, while the Daughter of Avalon is 80g+just under 3g per turn... the differences between the prices just keep getting higher. Another use for the Daughter is casting Haruspex, which most cheap mages can't do (use their searching spell). The Seithkona can, for Death and Astral, but I find that an aberration of Astral and Death magic, more than a point in favor of the Seithkona. (IOW, I see no reason why Death and Astral should get their site-searching spell for only D or S.)

Further on the economic front, the 'normal' national troops for the Seithkona cost more than the equivalent for the Daughter, which means the long-range concerns about the upkeep of your mages is more important.

Scott

[st.patrik]

daughters of Avalon rock - equipped with a thistle mace she can cast pretty much most battlefield nature spells out there, including the really important ones: mass protection, relief, charm, poison cloud. At the same time at 80 gold she is much more expendable than the 230 gold crone, so it's not the end of the world if you lose a few. She's a cheap researcher, and later on when you discover sages or something better she can be sent out with your armies to cast support spells while the crones are doing the really important stuff.

The Bard is pretty good too, but his more limited magic does mean that he isn't as useful when it comes to casting spells. However, as has been mentioned, he's got good precision, and is a great spy, and is useful in battle as a standard, so he's got a lot of non-mage type things going for him.

I don't know that either of the above are 'the best 100 gold mage' but they are for sure both really useful in context of their nation.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by st.patrik:
daughters of Avalon rock - equipped with a thistle mace she can cast pretty much most battlefield nature spells out there, including the really important ones: mass protection, relief, charm, poison cloud. At the same time at 80 gold she is much more expendable than the 230 gold crone, so it's not the end of the world if you lose a few.

A few what? Mace-wielding DoAs? How much is a Thistle Mace worth? If you, like me, assume a gem is worth 10 gold, it raises the DoA + TM combo to 180 gold, only 50 gold short to a Crone who gets 3 extra magic skills for the difference. I wouldn't say this combination is so expendable.

Re Mass Protection - you only need one per battle, so no reason to recruit DoA en masse, if at all IMO.

Re Relief - Man doesn't need it as dearly as other nations, it has access to spell songs as soon as turn #1. Actually I prefer to use Bards and Soothing Song, since Relief casters often 'forget' to cast what you want them to cast. OTOH, if you have Mass Protection up, mix Bards in your mage Groups and they won't have anything to cast but Soothing Song while the enemy is far, and they'll protect your other mages with Tangle Vines when he comes close.

There's another reason that makes me prefer Bards to DoAs: there's a great synergy between their Stealth +30 and mages who can cast Cloud Trapeze, since both type of attacks (unsneak/magical movement) will link in surprise raids.

[ June 07, 2004, 19:58: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by st.patrik:
daughters of Avalon rock - equipped with a thistle mace she can cast pretty much most battlefield nature spells out there, including the really important ones: mass protection, relief, charm, poison cloud. At the same time at 80 gold she is much more expendable than the 230 gold crone, so it's not the end of the world if you lose a few.

A few what? Mace-wielding DoAs? How much is a Thistle Mace worth? If you, like me, assume a gem is worth 10 gold, it raises the DoA + TM combo to 180 gold, only 50 gold short to a Crone who gets 3 extra magic skills for the difference. I wouldn't say this combination is so expendable.

Re Mass Protection - you only need one per battle, so no reason to recruit DoA en masse, if at all IMO.

Re Relief - Man doesn't need it as dearly as other nations, it has access to spell songs as soon as turn #1. Actually I prefer to use Bards and Soothing Song, since Relief casters often 'forget' to cast what you want them to cast. OTOH, if you have Mass Protection up, mix Bards in your mage Groups and they won't have anything to cast but Soothing Song while the enemy is far, and they'll protect your other mages with Tangle Vines when he comes close.

There's another reason that makes me prefer Bards to DoAs: there's a great synergy between their Stealth +30 and mages who can cast Cloud Trapeze, since both type of attacks (unsneak/magical movement) will link in surprise raids.

---

Well if you're comparing them 'out of the box' you're right - but I think the potential the DoA has to meet most all of your nature battlefield magic needs counts for something when you stack them against one another: potential does count for something.

Plus which, magic resources sometimes are plentiful when money is short, in which case mace-wielding daughters are a much better idea than non-mace-wielding crones for those nature spells.

As far as Mass Protection goes, you're right of course, it's a one shot spell. Relief I would argue is valuable even with soothing song available, since it provides more reinvigoration, and to a larger group (i.e. everybody).

If you're using a poison strategy much, poison cloud is a worthy use of DoA, and Charm is a pretty fun thing to have multiple mages casting at the same time.

In other words, what I'm saying is that Daughters are the nature magic workhorse of Man, and they do the job great IMO.

[ June 07, 2004, 20:57: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

[DLC]

i just like the marignon & abysian 1 B mages

[PvK]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by st.patrik:
daughters of Avalon rock - equipped with a thistle mace she can cast pretty much most battlefield nature spells out there, including the really important ones: mass protection, relief, charm, poison cloud. At the same time at 80 gold she is much more expendable than the 230 gold crone, so it's not the end of the world if you lose a few.

A few what? Mace-wielding DoAs? How much is a Thistle Mace worth? If you, like me, assume a gem is worth 10 gold, it raises the DoA + TM combo to 180 gold, only 50 gold short to a Crone who gets 3 extra magic skills for the difference. I wouldn't say this combination is so expendable.
...

---

An important consideration, but not entirely accurate, since the "virtual gold" of gem investment in items does not have any maintenance cost, while the actual gold cost of crones does. Also, if you win but lost someone carrying an item, there's a chance worth considering that you can recover the item intact. On the other hand, you could be handing it to the enemy if they win, although the value of that depends on who they are. I once had an Ettin mercenary who took a Thistle Mace as a war trophy and wouldn't let go of it, using it in place of his giant club... another classic pricelessly comical yet believable Dom II moment.

Anyway, good points on both sides. It boils down to play style - each approach has its merits and costs.

PvK

[ June 07, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: PvK ]