Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Mages, you say? Useful only in late game and with good equipment. My favorite MA Marignon with their powerful Fire/Astral mages are really brutal and I use them as fast as possible (Research Alt/Evoc/Thaum 5+ and go)...but if nation has no mighty mages (or mages aren`t have high specialisation), I see no way to use them as main weapon - it`s just a way to spend money. There are no really effective spells <3 lvl..and spam with fireflies-like spells against large mid-game or powerful end-game armies looks stupid

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

That's just not true. Nikelaos and AreaOfEffect have made some good suggestions for low-level magic right here on this very thread. I can personally attest to the effectiveness of both Frighten and the venerable skelespam.

Other early-to-mid-game options include:

• Fire! Fireball, Flare, and Holy Pyre can all be good choices for immolating your enemies before they reach you. These spells work especially well when your troops are fire-resistant or fire-immune, so that you'll suffer less from friendly fire.
• Air! Lightning Bolt and Thunder Strike spam. Especially nice to stack with Aim (also Air magic), because that makes your firepower more accurate.
• Blade Wind. Super-killer in Early Age, and still effective in the later ages. Oh yeah....
• Eagle Eyes + Vine Arrow. No, it won't kill too many people, but it will break up enemy formations and allow your troops to battle their foes piecemeal. Defeat in detail, anyone?
• Buffs! Body Ethereal, Luck, Legions of Steel, Protection, Regeneration, and more. Just the thing to take a really good unit and make it nearly unstoppable. Ethereal Elephants, anyone?

In the late game, mages can decide a battle all by themselves. In the early game and mid-game, their role is more support. Still, battle magic can be an impressive addition to any army, even if you've only done a little bit of research....

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Buffs useful only on high levels: spend lot of money for weak buffer...only if you have no choice - weak Mictlans, small armies of Niefel, sacred but damn weak White Centaurs and other
Fire...I think, some rods in hands of your commanders looks better. They don`t require upkeep, can`t be cursed/diseased/killed - but delivers really good damage
Spam of skeletons - you think it`s good idea? In VERY early game may be, then flying units or archers can easily take down your "spammers" before they can change situation on battlefield
All mages become useful only when you research powerful combat spells. It takes time, right? Even with "Very easy research" and nation with powerful researchers it takes about 30-40 turns before you gain access to 5+ level spells in Alt/Evo/Thaum. I better research Conj/Const line with summons and artefacts - it will add me more power, than mages

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Sorry, but you're wrong. I could go into more detail, but if you have a nation with good researchers (like MA Marignon, who has several kinds of sacred mages) and planned for it, you can probably reach level 5 Evocation on turn 15 or so - on normal research - while still having conquered a good amount of provinces. In addition, when you reach level 5 in a single school, your research capability is powerful enough to reach level 2 or 3 in other schools in a turn or two.

I haven't tested this in a long time, but focusing on research can pay off really fast. I'm not sure if it's possible to reach level 5 by turn 15 and can't test it because I don't have Dom3 at this computer, but that's what you should strive for. Level 5 research isn't "middle or late game", it's when early game ends.

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Ehm, skelly spam has been quite proven to be a good idea. At all stages of the game, the only thing that really changes, is how many spammers you need to get the desired effect.

Granted, there are counters to it, but almost every tactic has an easy (though not necessarily obvious, or intuitive) weakness.

I'm not going to do a thorough breakdown of everything that you said, but I'll just say that if you accept you can be that wrong on that point, perhaps you might look at the usefulness of other buffs and such.

Oh and one other thing, if you wait too long, all those fancy toys (well, most of them) won't be all that effective against decently built SCs, so you'll have missed a lot of the good active lifespan of many very functional spells.

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Thunder Strikes, Shadow Blasts, Pillars of Fire, Falling Frost, Falling fires.

Those are the artillery I tend to use. Even a few mages can make a difference with those. Arrow Fend is important as well.

I just saw a fellow player of mine really spam thunder strikes and Pillars of fire with Lvl 2 air and fire (indies too, illusionists and fire lords) by having them first cast booster spells and then go at it. Half a dozen Pillars of fire and 4 Thunder Strikes can really mess up the opposing army's day.

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

It depends on the nation, obviously. In my current game, I'm using Edi's BI mod v2, and Helheim for example will throw 100 Hirdmans and 40 Longdead Horsemen at me. EA Arco will send in 300 troops including two ~80 troop wings of Myrmidons.

Also, I sometimes test my troop formations by inserting "phantom" troops into easy battles (w/ Ctrl + 'U')to see where the weak points in my formations are, and I usually pick elite troops for that.

As for the comment that this proves that Ashdod needs a nerf, well, I don't play MP so I don't know. I can tell you that "fun" != "overpowered". Ashdod battlemages are great fun, but in MP I suspect you'd let those mages do research and thug out recruitable commanders as much as possible instead. Certainly MP players don't seem to have much problem with playing the nations that I loathe, i.e. without decent recruitable-anywhere mages--and isn't that what this thread is about? Apparently battlemages don't get used much.

But Ashdod is tremendously flexible and fun in SP.

-Max

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Also, the battle AI is aware of friendly fire (tries to avoid it), so if your troops are resistant or immune there's a better chance of targetting the dense formations of enemy troops battling your own troops close by instead of scattered formations that are still moving further away. Precision depends partly on distance to target. Thus, immunity to friendly fire helps maximize effective precision, target density, and kill rate.

-Max

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Probably the biggest factor on the AI troop mix is the number of castles it builds and/or discovers by site search. The castle build rate appears to be based on a very low probability dice roll.

If the AI has only one castle, which is very often the case, then no matter what mod or version you play, the AI will have to fill out its forces with indys and the low level summons the AI uses. If you use Edi's BI (any version), then because of restricted choice the AI will be better. But these will never be as good as national troops it can get from a castle.

I've made mods where AI castles were the lowest cost one on the list for 1/2 the nations of a circa 40 nation game. The castle build rate between the two groups was the same, indicating that castle cost does not enter the AI decision making process.

Re: Do people underuse mages?
 

Other than very early on, I rarely see the AI not build castles.

Often they build more than I do. They may not build them very strategically, but they build plenty.