What's the best 100 gold National mage?

[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.

[Blitz]

I'm quite surprised at the votes the Witch Doctor has garnered. Perhaps a few of the people who voted for him could explain their reasoning. I'm not a Machaka player, and when I do occasionally play with them I don't use him much. What's the appeal here?

[PvK]

Machaka has Blindness as a pre-researched national spell, which the Witch Doctor can cast. Takes out many tough things awfully easily.

Daughter of Avalon can do some things that Master of the Way and Seithkona can't, since she is Nature 2 and they never are, without help. For example, she can make her own Thistle Mace early on and so become Nature 3. Another example is she can be part of a cheap Vine Ogre industry. Per my answer to the whole poll, I won't argue any of them are absolutely better than any others. In fact, I tend to argue that the question can't fairly be answered. Each offers unique things to unique nations.

PvK

[Teraswaerto]

Daughters can cast spells such as Sleep, Panic, Haruspex and Sleep Cloud. All useful, though being capitol only is a big hindrance.

[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 ]