Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

If the person lost a battle because of mage support, then they lost it because of mages, not because of vine ogres. It's also not like there's a useful battlefield wide buff spell other than mist warriors and arrow fend for vine ogres.

Easy. 10 death gems for the bane lord, 20 slaves for the blood thorn (The equivalent of about 5-10 normal gems), 5 pearls for the luck pendant, 5 water and 5 earth for the jade armour, 5 earth and 5 fire for the charcoal shield. That's a grand total of 40-45 gems for the bane lord, or 80-90 vine ogres and 40 mage turns to summon them.

Those vine ogres have two fist attacks and a protection of 5, so they cause themselves 11 damage each turn they attack, and the bane lord causes 34 damage per turn. Over the course of the battle, the bane lord will kill 25 vine ogres by himself. The charcoal shield takes five turns to kill one, but since up to 16 will surround the bane lord, you can expect him to kill up to a maximum of about 160 vine ogres given optimum placing.

I've seen what fireshield does to vine ogres. On a dragon that's currently at F7 the shield killed 50 vine ogres well before the 50 turn limit. I also know from first hand experience that sea trolls, which are better meat shields than vine ogres will die to a similarly equipped ice devil.

Vine ogres were one of the few early research summons that had actual use, despite their expense, throughout the game, which is hardly a bad thing.

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

Mass protection and/or regen make vine ogres alot more survivable and weapons of sharpness (would it work even though they only have fists?) could make them deadly if they hit.

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

Mass protection only raises their protection to 10 as vine ogres don't wear armour, and makes them 25% susceptible to fire, so that's only a small boost. Mass regeneration is enchantment 8, so you pretty much deserve to have such a powerful spell by the time you research it. Weapons of sharpness is E5 which limits its access to only a few nations. Although to be fair, there are a couple of nations that have access to both N3 and E3 mages. However, I'd rather not spend 23 gold a turn to summon two vine ogres with a Pan.

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

You could always play an earth heavy nation and take nature on your pretender (he could then summon vine kings to summon vine ogres and lead them)

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

Because it's not always possible to use normal archers when advancing into enemy lines... disease, gold, morale, food supplies. Also not every nation has access to fire mages which can provide their archers with fire arrows.
On the same note not every nation can acquire the undead archers easily.

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

Units still starve in DOM_3 yet not as often because supplies are in greater number.

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

Talking of lamia queens...

What is their bonus to cast lamias? +1? +2? more?

Some EA pans may have N5...

Re: Best - worse magic paths
 

They used to get +2 and it still says so in the desc. Pan has no problems summoning the queens (you need to empower a Pan in death in EA, though), but you might as well use the Panii to summon the Lamias, since in Dom3 the queens cost a bunch and don't even start with the required nature levels (you need some luck with randoms or pathboosters --> easier and more effective to use a Pan). Maybe if the queens could call Lamias without using the ritual...At current gem costs they're just so not worth it, imo.