What's the best 100 gold National mage?

[PvK]

Other: there is no best. It depends on how you are going to play them, and how you play the rest of your forces. So there is no level field upon which they can be compared for "best-ness".

For example, Mictlan Priest is unbeatable as a blood hunter, and serves as an efficient and needed leader of FoD's into battle in Mictlan's early game, and a great sabbath slave, and other purposes, and it is 80 gold and holy.

PvK

[ June 04, 2004, 17:00: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
I voted Other, and I voted for the Daughter of Avalon. If you're looking for a mage, she's hands-down better than the Bard.

An 80g NN Sacred mage is very hard to scoff at. I'm appalled she's not listed.

I find Bards much more useful. Awesome stealth, spying, can instill unrest, standard effect, better stats. In battle I'd use both of these mages for the same thing: reinvigorate their colleagues with spell songs, or cast Tangle Vines, for which the +3 more precision on the Bard comes handy. All this for less than 3 extra gold in upkeep. When I need powerful nature magic I use Crones.

Besides Daughters of Avalon are capital-only, and I prefer to stick to recruiting Crones here. Although I may recruit a Mother occasionally for her specials skills, it's extremely rare. OTOH I really can't see a use in the Daughter.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
OTOH I really can't see a use in the Daughter.

As Man's best researcher, they're what I use most of the time in early game - when there's no chance of being able to buy a Crone each turn.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
OTOH I really can't see a use in the Daughter.

As Man's best researcher, they're what I use most of the time in early game - when there's no chance of being able to buy a Crone each turn.

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Man has cheap temples and cheap stealthy Monks, and thus is an excellent candidate for Ceremonial Faith. So when I can't recruit Crones I recruit Monks instead - and because they're so cheap recruiting one is an excellent way to save gold to buy a Crone the next season.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
Man has cheap temples and cheap stealthy Monks, and thus is an excellent candidate for Ceremonial Faith.

I am fairly sure that those monks will only get the +2 skill bonus when they are preaching in friendly dominion. This is still a fairly large bonus when they are so inexpensive however.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
Man has cheap temples and cheap stealthy Monks, and thus is an excellent candidate for Ceremonial Faith.

I am fairly sure that those monks will only get the +2 skill bonus when they are preaching in friendly dominion.

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I didn't say otherwise, but friendly dominion isn't necessarily limited to the provinces you control. And unfriendly dominion - even lowly monks can turn a red candle or 2 white, and once it's white the CF bonus kicks in to make sure it'll remain white.

[Blitz]

I voted Other, and I voted for the Daughter of Avalon. If you're looking for a mage, she's hands-down better than the Bard.

An 80g NN Sacred mage is very hard to scoff at. I'm appalled she's not listed.

You could make a case for a couple of other mages... but she didn't really meet any of the criteria I chose. She's obviously better than a few on this list, but I didn't anticipate anyone strongly considering her for the top spot. She's a pretty mediocre combat mage with limited forging ability... and while her research abilities are excellent, I didn't anticipate that being enough for most.

Take for example, the Master of the Way. Here we have a hasted banisher who can forge clam of pearls and jade armor. He can search for water, astral, and death sites. He can blood hunt sometimes. He can communion slave sometimes. He's just a better unit than the Daughter of Avalon for a bit more gold.

Or how about the seraph? She flies, she lightning bolts. She can cloud trapeeze. She can haste herself. Under the right circumstances, she can use summon storm power to lightning bLast the heck out of people. She's also a FASTER researcher at level 3 magic. Frankly I'm surprised she wasn't the runaway leader in this poll.

The seithkona is also a faster researcher than the daughter, and she can forge tons of great stuff and cast search spells for astral and death sites (arguably the most important). In combat she can cast both neither darts and healing light, plus body erthreal. Power of the spheres gives her access to a ton more spells, and of course she's a nice communion slave.

None of these three are my first choice (Fortune Teller was), and I think you would have a hard time arguing that the DOA is anywhere close to them in any area aside from cost. She's not a GREAT researcher... she's an efficient researcher. Given the choice of a 90 gold 5 research unit that can do a ton of other stuff or a straight 65 gold 4 research unit that is really quite limited outside the lab, I take the faster researcher and better unit over the econo mage.

What's the DOA's combat contribution anyway? Breath of the Dragon? Relief with a gem? Anything she can do the Seithkona does better, and for only 25 more gold.