Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?

[Agema]

Maybe don't think about Air so much, and think of your mages more for unit buffing than damage spamming.

Okay, A2E1S1 (+1 AESF).

Early, you can easily access Wind Guide for your already awesome longbowmen. With a simple communion, you can add flame arrows with F. And you get arrow fend if your opponent has archers. That will make you very unpleasant in the early game, and your national troops are pretty decent anyway.

For damage spam, don't Storm-Storm Power-Thunderstrike and cripple your archers. Just 2 communioned guys will give A3 for caster and slaves. Use 4 and you'll have A4 casting half-price thunderstrikes, which means a lot of thunderstrike spam. Also note that Earthpower on a master will also reinvigorate your communion slaves. Mostly Use your earth magic. You get E2 mages. That means earth boots for +1E. You've got Summon Earthpower. That's easy access to blade wind. For E1F1 mages, earth boots + summon earthpower to get magma eruption.

You have access to earth's vast array of unit buffs and debuffs. Legions of Steel, Destruction, later on Army of Gold or Lead, and so on. All are in easy reach. You can set up Fog Warriors as well with communion via air. Finally, with E/A, you've got the massive combo of Army of Gold and/or Fog Warriors, followed by Rain of Stones/Earthquake.

Also bear in mind your E/S combo. With E2 mage make earth boots, give to an E1S2 mage, and you've access to all the crystal stuff: coins for +1S, slave/master matrices, shield (E2S3?) and so on. That gives you more leverage as well.

You've got 120 points from Drain. Maybe invest in a rainbow pretender for site searching to get income going. Your troops are hard enough to make you an unattractive rush target, so SC not required. Maybe invest to make you pretender high in a good late-game magic, like Death or Astral.

[Amorphous]

As I am rather new to Dominions, there are probably lots of things I am missing, but still I think the judgement on LA Man in general and the Arcane Magister in particular is a bit harsh here.

First off, a nation should reasonably be compared to another as a whole and not just on a unit-basis. Straight off comparing the Magister Arcane to the Staret is perhaps not entirely appropriate as the latter is an extraordinary and capital only mage.

The Magister Arcanes as is offer quite a lot. With A2E1S1 + 50%FAES they can craft Earth Boots, Starshine Skullcap and then Dwarven Hammers and Crystal Coins. 1 in 8 Magister Arcanes have A3, which means that if you provide one with an air booster, he can continue crafting boosters on his own. If you also provide a Ring of Wizardry later in the game, Magister Arcanes can craft elemental staffs, which together with the fact that 1 in 16 Judges have F1D1 and can craft Fire Skulls, mean that they can craft Flame Helmets as well.

Agema covered most about combat casting, but I think it important to reiterate that you have a lot of options even when using small communions. Since your Magister Arcanes all have similar paths they suffer very little fatigue in communions, so even small communions have no problems casting a couple of major buffs and then continue with things like Astral Fires, Gifts from Heaven etc.

A couple of squads of Magister Arcanes can be a major problem for your enemies and you can build them in every castle you have.


In line with Agemas thinking I think an SC something of a waste with LA Man. The troops are good enough to conquer territory at a steady pace while still providing a serious deterrent for anyone considering invasion in the early game. Consider that A4 gives your mages early access to air boosters, at least S3 makes Rings of Wizardry attainable and W3 and N2 lets you use some nature magic early and with conjuration 5 you can summon a Naiad to cover water and nature magic for you. A dormant Lady of Springs, Mother of Tuathas or any of the usual rainbow mages can do this while still having a decent dominion and quite healthy scales.