Summons to build a strategy around....

[Crafty]

Yeah, I use Earth attck, very cool spell.And yes the elemental royalities are good.

But A lot of the sugguestions here (Tarrasques etc) are very high level right? I play medium maps mostly now, so waiting for lv 8-9 spells are a bit slow.

I'm more in the market for good summons at lv 6 or below (lv 6 seems to be where they get really good)
They don't have to be game breakers of course, just standout good ones.

I could be wrong but the very low level conjurations are just good for dark knowledge, the various "Summon X powers" for battlefield casting.

[Methel]

Level 6 summons?
Id go for EA or LA Mictlan.
Those flying jaguars tear through anything the ai will throw against you.

[Rytek]

One of my favorite nations is LA Atlantis. I use the winter wolves with them alot. They make good flankers for the ice armored atlantians which have 75% cold resistance. Add in some ghosts and banes and you get a very tough force.

[Meglobob]

I like, 'free stuff', which is basically anything that can summon (useful) allies.

A few have already been mentioned but:-

Wraithlord can summon 1 ghost/month. Its not too hard to get 5-10 wraithlords summoning 5-10 ghosts/turn.

Mound Fiends can reanimate free undead.

Call of the Wild Werewolf can summon 3 wolves/turn.

Faery Queen can summon 3 sprites/turn.

The 2 fire kings can summon magma men/fire elementals.

Water Queens can summon water elemental/ernyies.

Draconian Chief can summon 1 Draconian.

Also it easy to spam vine ogres, corpse men and remember to cast carrion reanimation after big battles.

[Baalz]

Oh, you missed the best one Bob:

Onaqui (?sp?) the Mictlan national summon who auto spawns holy beast bats (number dependent on dominion) every turn. With a good blessing they're more than worthwhile, and they auto summon so the Onaqui (a not insignificant mage) can do something other than "summon allies".

[Meglobob]

Baalz said:
Oh, you missed the best one Bob:

Onaqui (?sp?) the Mictlan national summon who auto spawns holy beast bats (number dependent on dominion) every turn. With a good blessing they're more than worthwhile, and they auto summon so the Onaqui (a not insignificant mage) can do something other than "summon allies".

What a game, after 9 months playing, I had no idea this existed! Cheers Baalz.

[HoneyBadger]

Elementals are crazy cool. They're just there, and they just pound on stuff until it's *all* elemental

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Not the attentive statues (enchant 3). I'll see if i can suggest any low level summons.

Summon Cave Drake -
Got soft, fleshy humans who can't take arrows but can dish out some damage? Summon an earth drake or two. They have a good strength value, though the low attack means you won't summon them for their damage. They have a whopping 58 hitpoints, 22 protection, and a nice 14 MR. Add in the size, and they make a lovely distraction. When they do get in close combat, they are capable of killing puny human things, when they hit.

Reanimation: Not worth building an entire game strategy around, but I've used them succesfully in some short term raidingstrategies. They can raid from water provinces, and with a Revenant you can cast them there, too.

Black Servant: If you've got the gem income, summon one, give him a rod of the leper king, and give him some shades/shade beasts. Voila, EA Ctis now has a stealthy attack force. With a follow-up force of real troops, I've used this to win wars. Even the easy AI will be able to adapt fairly quickly, but on a cramped map, it can be a devastating and unexpected strategy, that will cripple a small nations economy, and make it much tougher for them to counter-attack.

The whole wight-banelord line is generally thought of in terms of super combatants, and the lowly wight is usually ignored, because something much better is around the corner.
However, the wight jumps in value with certain nations, such as LA Atlantis.
The normal weakness of the wight strategy is that they are hard to mass, don't play well with friendlies (thanks to that chill), and despite their 17 morale, its rather easy to rout a small group.
If your nation has built in cold resistance, you don't have to worry nearly as much about what happens when close combat occurs and everybody joins into a big clump. With some units, you can even group them in the same squad with your mundanes. Throw in water magic, and a captain perpetually spamming nothing but Numbness with an Ice Pebble Staff, and most temperate nations will start dropping like flies to fatigue. Mages would be a good replacement, but the ones I need with LA Atlantis are too much on the pricy side, and capital only. And I don't have much to spend water gems on.

There are some I really want to try out as Atlantis. Hidden in Snow (conj 6) looks even better than Wights, but pricier. The Winter Wolves (conj 4) are ethereal with a chill of 6. The Ice Drake (conj 2) is available for some early muscle, though I haven't tried it out yet.

While I haven't figured out even a loose strategy yet, but Streams from Hades is practically begging for a strategy to be built. I mean, a stealthy, recuperating, fear causing, amphibious, dark vision, dddwwww mage? What's not to like, other than 0 protection and 10 hitpoints? Though as Atlantis, the Kokythiad is magically redundant.

[HoneyBadger]

Those sea serpents you get at the same time you get the drakes are really good too, especially if you have the capacity to heal the afflictions they seem to accumulate

[thejeff]

Don't forget about the Black Servant thug.

Black Servant with a couple cheap items (black steel armor, maybe lucky pendant or horror helm) does well solo against PS and some indies. Stealthy, ethereal, no fatigue.