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.