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Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:
Thats funny, because I played in pbem a rainbow mage with astral 2, and was quite happy with him.
Whats the problem in having astral 2 on a rainbow mage? He is not supposed to see any battle (and he never saw any battle), unless besieged in his castle, an occurence which anyway is the sure thing you are doomed in a matter of turns.

More generally, I often saw rainbow mages pretenders in my pbem, perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of players.[/QB]

Interesting. Did the Rainbow mages do well? What was the advantage? Their high cost, low Dominion, fraility, and huge loss of magic skill when they die seem like severe drawbacks to me. All I can think of is their edge in site searching -- but is that really worth all the downsides?

If I were playing a Rainbow mage, I would intend to use them in combat later in the game (e.g. after researching Enchantment 7 for Phoenix Pyre, and stacking on boosting/reinvigoration items). Adding Astral 2 seems like little gain for a potentially serious drawback, and I'd rather raise something else to a 3 instead.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper:
Interesting. Did the Rainbow mages do well?

RM perform well in pbem which dont emphazise on rushing behaviors, that is you have to play on medium to big maps, and with independants or scripted provinces which prevent dashing toward the enemy capital. I'm not saying that they do well in all conditions.
With the aforementioned restrictions, yes in my experience, they do well.

Quote:

What was the advantage? Their high cost, low Dominion, fraility, and huge loss of magic skill when they die seem like severe drawbacks to me.

they dont die, as you shall not bring them into battles. They are of the archmage sort, ie 10 HP. Only Ermor can have solid RM.

Quote:

All I can think of is their edge in site searching -- but is that really worth all the downsides?

depends also of the magical sites %. Sure, if you play with 20% sites frequencies, youd better focus on something else. Aside that they help in research early, search for some provinces, and then revert to items forging, or special rituals. Just an example amongst others, with their ability to forge nearly everything, you can add +1 magic items to your mages, so they can start searching for sites in any Category (that is if you have a nation with random pick, but most have that).
RM are really affordable with nations which have more than 500 design points, Abysia, Caelum, Jotun. True, I have rarely seen RM with nations without this extra boost in design points.

Quote:

If I were playing a Rainbow mage, I would intend to use them in combat later in the game (e.g. after researching Enchantment 7 for Phoenix Pyre, and stacking on boosting/reinvigoration items). Adding Astral 2 seems like little gain for a potentially serious drawback, and I'd rather raise something else to a 3 instead.[/QB]

This is where we differs. RM have low levels everywhere, and are fragile. In the end game they are even more busy than in the early game, as they are always needed for a special forging purpose. They are often the bottleneck. I never found taking astral 2 a problem, as they never see battle (for me).

edit : jasper, I realize my tone was perhaps not friendly enough, sorry for the wording, it must be a bad french to english translation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ October 06, 2003, 09:16: Message edited by: Pocus ]

I'm also a fan of Rainbow Mages, primarily for the following reasons:

� lots of gems early, if you're playing on a relatively magic-site-rich setting.

� lots of gems early means that come later in the game you'll be able to a. empower mages if you want to, and b. do lots of ritual summonings

� a boost for research early (i.e. the first couple of turns), and later on if there's nothing better to do.

� as Pocus said, you can forge just about any magical item - for those who like forging a lot this is nice. Particularly important are those items which boost magic levels.

� able to cast (with enhancing items) a lot of rituals

� very unlikely to lose pretender/get afflictions

Here are the disadvantages, as I see them:

� in Dom II, blessing will be less powerful

� RMs tend to be expensive

� as a result of the Last point, RMs tend to have weak dominion

� you don't get the big plus that a combat pretender would add to your war effort

� some high-end spells/rituals you will probably not be able to cast without empowering

To me, the blessing thing is the biggest reason why I wouldn't want a RM, especially if I'm playing a nation with sacred troops I actually use.

[ October 06, 2003, 13:21: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

Most rainbow mages are cheaper now, some have additional bonuses. Like the crone, she has four misc item slots.

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Most rainbow mages are cheaper now, some have additional bonuses. Like the crone, she has four misc item slots.

How much cheaper?
I don't want to sound rude, but how much do they cost in Dominions II?

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Like the crone, she has four misc item slots.

Quote:

Originally posted by st.patrik:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by johan osterman:
Like the crone, she has four misc item slots.

That's kinda cool. Do all pretenders of that general type (archmage, freak lord, druid, great enchantress, etc.] have the same thing, or do they have different advantages? If so, what other advantages are there?<hr /></blockquote>The crone is the only humanoid with 4 misc slots. The Master Lich has 3, while 'common' Liches still have 2. There are a few of these changes spread around among the item slots of the different pretenders. As for the cost most are 50 or so cheaper, but it depends on the archmage.

[ October 06, 2003, 14:59: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Most rainbow mages are cheaper now, some have additional bonuses. Like the crone, she has four misc item slots.

aaaaah, I just spilled my coffee on my screen!!

very good news for us rainbow fans!

Originally posted by Pocus:
RM perform well in pbem which dont emphazise on rushing behaviors, that is you have to play on medium to big maps, and with independants or scripted provinces which prevent dashing toward the enemy capital. I'm not saying that they do well in all conditions.

I disagree. The main value of a strong early combat pretender isn't rushing to an opponents castle, but the increased expansion and thus _exponentially_ increased income.

This benefit is seen on any sized map, and IMHO is actually greater on a larger map, where the exponential growth can act for a longer time.

Plus early conflict is often a bad idea, as it leaves you vulnerable to a bystander who instead spent his time picking up independent provinces.

As I read the Last bost, I realised that the problem is not what Magic Duel does to the loser, but the fact that few mages can easily kill many others weaker in Astral. Then it occured to me, that maybe rising the fatique of the Mind duel would help. Of course, with Astral 4 mage even fatique of 150 would only be 150/(4-1), that is 50 points. But that would slow them down, atleast.
Still, it is quite hard to lose your perfectly good mage to a spell directly targeted to him. I'm not sure should MD be toned down, but it IS the only spell that targets magic-Users.

If we knew what IW meant it for, I think the comments would be more helpful to them. Did they mean it as a mean to Pythium/Arco kill off weaker mages of other races? Was it meant to disable astral mages? Kill communicants with one pick of astral? A way to kill that mute sphinx?
Killing a pretender is quite hard. I think losing in a mind duel should (only) give enough damage to kill most mages, not all big creatures who happen to have a pick of astral!