Fighting Commanders and Equipment.

[Endoperez]

I haven't, either... in DomII. I did, in Dom:PPP, when I played Caelum in multiplayer...

I mainly used Air Elementals, as they could be summoned without gems. SoS offered quite a nice protection. However, my most active offence force were my hordes of Caelian Scouts. They must have captured dozens of undefended provinces. And I had a sneaking, flying, teleporting Archfiend with Boots of the Planes capturing one of the magically rich provinces every turn, thanks to the one-turn Eyes of the God I had cast before. Ah, good times... But the game did take at least half a year, probably closer to a full one.

[Arralen]

There is a very simple solution to the low-level item problem:

They are too expensive. As we can't change that, simply make all summoning spells 2 times as expensive.
As long as you get one or more summons for the gemcost of the lowliest items, no-one will ever make those as the summons give much more "bang for the buck".

PS: I like dropping some Stinger and Black Tower Shield on indie commanders. Not really cost effective, but fun

[sushiboat]

I make use of only a small percentage of summoning spells, so increasing the cost of them all is overkill. Besides, I get to Construction 4 around Turn 15. Construction 0 items just can't compete. You can't make me forge them. I won't do it (with rare exceptions), no matter how much summoning spells cost.

I like the idea of indie commanders owning magical trinkets. Perhaps even commanders you recruit should have a chance of owning a trinket.

[shovah]

but if you manage to get out the forge of the ancients and ( dont no if it stacks but it does in unpatched domII ) play ulm with their smiths you can seriously crank out items and give them to every1 ( 75% forge bonus )