Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

No, no blood vengeance actually. But amazing stats and magic. Plus he/she has inbuilt fire shield, blinding-on-strike, and high awe. Good resistances too.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

How do you get one of those? I know you can wish for it.. but is there another way? I usually play Early Era and Choose Tien Chi all the time so I dont know if I am missing the way.... :S

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

MA Pythium has a conj 9 spell for 133 pearls that summons the seraph and a bunch of other angels.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

That is odd it costs 133 pearls to Summon it and 100 pearls to wish it... :S

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Well it doesn't require a mage with S9, it brings a group of weaker angels that can be used as blockers and it brings the Seraph in as a commander - meaning no Gift of Reason is required.
Not too odd.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

And you can GoR the harbringers for some more good commanders.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Marignon also gets the angel summons, both in Mid and Late. Late Marignon has acccess ot about a zillion awesome summons - all of blood and some crazy nationals, not to mention Fallen Angels from reascendance.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Months after I first chose Construction as my first choice, I would now choose Blood Magic. I think my game strategy changed a lot. I now use blood even when playing non-blood nations.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

This thread was silly.

"I had a Seraph that could solo 40 Abominations!"

Well, not without Cons8 you didn't. And with Cons, you didn't have Seraphs (going by the question posed here). Somehow I doubt a naked Seraph is soloing 40 Abominations.....

I think it depends on the nation though, for a giant nation, you'd think it would be best overall to go Cons every time. Anyone who builds communions, has to go Thaum. Blood nations, really need the Blood. So..... I think a more interesting question would be if you only got *2* schools. Then you can play with synergies a bit, like Thaum+Evo for Jomon artillery communions.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I thought all the domes are from the Enchantment school?

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

There's a Blood dome, probably the only exception.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I voted for Blood. The most universal path that also focuses on one school only, and suits certain nations like any other path.
- Stable blood slave income (even without SDRods) lets you use your magic, actually. Compare it with crappy gem income for other paths/nations.
- No problem casting high level spells. (just empower your mages, you have the slaves!)

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Construction without gems is pointless.

There are a few pretty standards ways the game ends. SC victories. Wish Victories. Surprise teleport victories.

Armageddon/BoT everyone dies kind of victories.

Alteration is a pretty useless school, except
Wish. Utterdark.

I *think* if I have 20 turns with you having Con 9 - and I have 20 turns of me having Alt9 and then combat starts.. And we both have 100 gem income divided as we like ...


I think Alt 9 wins that fight.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I don't recall, because 1) I rarely use Blood magic, and 2) the description of possible attacks to caster probably scared me away from ever considering using it! :)

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I am so surprised Baalz hasn't entered the discussion to talk in favour of Blood yet :O

Anyway, I picked Blood - not only for his power but because of his *versatility*, which would be the most important thing IMHO if you can have only one path. Blood has everything from communions (aka Sabbaths), nice summons for every level of research (from the beginning to the late game with the infamous Heliophagi), nice (but maybe not exceptional) battlefield spells and great rituals - oh, and think about the globals: expecially if, as it has been done, you want to put 1vs1 paths in a game, Astral Corruption would be a 90% I-win-card no matter what for everybody not having the ability to dispel it. ;)

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Blood is very nice alone, but I was thinking along the ines of which school would be best for the majority of nations, which I think has to be construction. In particular for any nation with decent recruitable thugs, like the giant races. An rainbow pretender would pretty much be a must to get the gem income happening

It would be interesting to have a game to test this, say 12 players, each randomly assigned a research school (so 2 of each), who then go and choose a nation (any age) to suit. On that basis blood could well be a winner with mictlan, but it would be interesting to see what other combinations would challenge.

It would also be interesting if with the lack of magical options normal troops played a bigger part in the game. A strong soldier army like ulm or abysia with alteration for buffs and excellent scales could be a goer. Elephants/hydras are probably even nastier with fewer magical counters.

I think you'd need to have dead seas though, it would be impossible for most nations to enter the water

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Enchantment is my favorite school, but I always have to do construction first so my mages can use enchantment spells.

Thus the foundation is more important.

Of course, without construction one could always empower, but that stacks too many ifs into one question.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I put down Thaumaturgy as it is one of my favorites and scales nicely as you progress through the game. Here is the break down of the paths viability:

Communions, fear effects, sight searching, super combatant counters, elephant counters, and teleportation are all within the first few levels. Let's not also forget horrormark and curse. You even have access to the most effective assassination spell in the game, so worry not about the SC.

Further down and you get spells like melancholia, leprosy, and beckoning to deal with large armies. Once cut down to manageable numbers your communion can take care of the hardier units.

Continue and you get more teleportation, more undead counters, and much more enslavement. Black Death allows you to hit the enemy where it hurts, in their income. Let's also not neglect Gale Gate for an improved gem income.

Ultimately I would say that it is a viable tree, as most paths are in reality. You could easily make an argument for alteration using the buffs as a substitute for magic items and Wish as your catch-all. I think the spirit of the question is to determine which path a player actually favors. I believe that the poll incorrectly depicts how people tend to research.

P.S.: It would be possible to set up a game where each player only got spells from one path by using a mod. The mod would essentially make all spells in a tree the national spells of the nation that choose that tree. The real "problem" is that you can't make forging into a national spell. I suppose this would be good in that no player has to make a choice between construction and some other magic path.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Area,

Could you tell me what SC-assassination spell you are referring to?

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Mind Hunt I think.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Vengeance of the Dead.

Mind Hunt is evocation. Vengeance is just as good if not better as Mind Hunt backlashes when the enemy has an astral mage present. Besides, Mind Hunt would be useless if you couldn't research Mind Burn or Soul Slay.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Hmmm. I thought Vengeance of the Dead won't kill a really high-powered SC, as long as his Endurance holds out...

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I've seen a lot of complaints about this spell as it can force a SC to retreat by reaching the 50 turn limit. Retreat from an assassination attempt is always death. Therefore you could somehow kill the SC without putting a scratch on him.

I'm unsure, but I believe that the units killed in the attempt adds to the units encountered in a follow-up casting. The only real defense is high MR, but damn that spell is so cheap to research.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

I see. I will have to mod out the spell then :)

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Yes they do, I believe it has been deeply discussed around in past threads, as it's quite controversial if this feature of the spell is thematic... :)
The spell itself seems quite balanced in power nonetheless to most people IIRC - a good counter to SCs and a nicely thematic idea. To counter it you surely need high MR on your SCs (and it is necessary anyway), a special care in using SCs where the enemy can spot them, and b*astard Domes when possible ;) -(sorry 4 the OT)

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Now I recall being puzzled over losing several uber-Niefel Jarls to this spell v. the AI, even though my Jarl was unhurt. Now I know!

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

High MR doesn't actually seem to help. At least, I have lost several SC's with MR's in the 27-28 range. Despite what the spell says.

Re: Most Usefull Research Path...
 

Assassination spells like Mind Hunt and Vengeance of the Dead will get past MR in the mid-20s rarely, but often enough to make your SCs vulnerable.

The biggest problem with Vengeance of the Dead is that the casting requirements in S/D mean it isn't readily available to many nations.