How to use mage in a battle
 

As far as I understand Dominions now, in the middle/late game, army are mostly either SC/thugs or mage army.That is there are surely other things in the army, but what it makes victorious will be one of this two, so as there are plenty of Posts about SC, it is fairly easy to experiment the suggested strat and to learn how to create these. But I still don't understand how these mage army function. What are the composition of such army's? how early do you create them, how many mages should be in them to function?
As an example, how early could I as pythium make such army's, how many Theurgs or Archtheurgs should be in them to win battles, what troops or summon should go with them, what spell would you cast? every time I experience I have the feeling I will be either defeated or I have an way to much as it was necessary.
thanks Skolem

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

A pythium mage army is quite good i found out in my first pythium game . I made lots of errors though .

I recommend the following army core :
- Mechanical men as troops
- A wrathful sky caster
- 15+ theurgs
- 2-3 relief casters at least

Good optional additional components :
- Storm demons
- Fire mages
- Scs / thugs
- communion slaves
- Arch theurgs
- Earth mages

Of course such armies are expensive . You won't be able to field more than 1-2 such armies for a long time .

Equipment :
- 1 banner of northern star
- 1 staff of storms
- Shock resistence rings for every non-lightning resistent mage/commander without air magic , if you can afford for your airmages also , frees 1 spell
- quickness items for your more important mages , especially the non-water mages

Scripting :
-The wrathful sky caster :
Wrathful skies on turn 1 if all your mages are 100% SR , if not wait until they are buffed , this can Last 2-3 turns when you use communion slaves .
He can further cast these useful spells : Arrow fend , Fog warriors , Wind guide ( helps mages precision as well iirc ) .

- Your nature mages :
Consider especially mass protection , mass regeneration with one of your nature mages .
If possible equip them with a jade armor . Use best Ivy kings for this . 2-3 are enough , scripted to plain 5x relief , cast spells .

- Your theurgs :
Lots of possibilities here , mainly depending if using communion slaves or not .

Without slaves :
- Quickness , soul slay x4
- Quickness , frozen heart x4

With slaves :
- Quickness , falling frost x4
- Quickness , thunder strike x4
- Quickness , enslave mind x4

- A good astral mage can do the following :

- Master enslave , good vs. hordes of rather low MR troops , like AE undeads , most national troops , most summoned troops expect blood ones .
- Antimagic , especially helpful for your mechanical men
- Will of the Fates


After the scripts run out all your Air mages tend to spam false horrors , ghost wolves + phantasmal warriors + they will cast buffs first .
If the enemy gets near them then they consider though damage spells again .

Fortunately the spamming is not so bad because the false horrors can fly during a storm + they keep the enemies away from your mages .



Such a mage army is imo "best" used to take out the enemy capitol + his forging/summoning centers .

The key on the battlefield is to quickly wipe out the enemy troops . Then your troops + mages can concentrate on the enemy SCs and normally defeat them rather easy .
With Charm/Enslave mind you can even hope of stealing them .


Your mechanical men are very good troops . Only beware before Mr - Negate spells with good area effect like nether darts , astral fires etc. .
They can block most enemy SCs quite long too . With the right buffs they can even kill them on their own .


There are 2 big counters though :
- Remote artillery spells
- Assasinations

Unfortunately as pythium you can't really protect against those dangers , so within 2-3 turns your e.g. 50 mage army will be reduced to a 10-20 mage army if you are not covered by domes .


A good mage/troop army easily beats enemy SC/troop armies on the battlefield . But it gets slowly killed by the above listed indirect tactics .

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Thanks a lot!
It gives me some Idea how to do it, now, this was a rather end game tactic, or I am mistaking? My big problem is to survive the midgame, because if I can not achieve that I will not be able to use such tactics. Is every mage army who wants to be effective condemn to have 15 mage as a minimum, what do you do if you don't find nature mages? how usefull are maybe 4 Theurgs casting soul slay and the likes, i never was able to make any difference with these spells, I don't have the feeling they change anything in the outcome of a battle.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

I've had fine success against independents by using lots of mages who cast "Body Ethereal, Luck, Communion Slave". Put one of those mages in a square with either two man-sized unit or one cavalry-sized unit, where the units are on "hold and attack". Of course, you want one or two mages who cast Communion Master instead of Communion Slave.

I'm a newbie -- this could be a useless tactic against actual enemies, but I managed to conquer a level-7 independent province with heavy cavalry without losing any mages, so I'm happy. I had two mages casting False Horror to slow down the Cavalry and two Grand Masters of Marignon, who cast Communion Master, Summon Earthpower, and Phoenix Pyre.

I hope my enemies don't read this thread and learn all my secrets.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Yeah my army was a lategame army .

In Midgame as Pythium you though field big theurg armies as well .
Nature is normally never an issue for pythium in lategame . One arch theurg should then have the N random , + ring of wizardy/sorcery = n3 . Then forge thistle mace = n4 , then just cast lamia queens or Ivy kings for more Nature mages . More likely you found somewhere druids or jade sorceresses or similiar already though .


In midgame Pythium is often a bit weak because they lack good SCs / summoned troops normally in that phase of the game . A theurg / communion slave army is the way to go then though .

use about 5 communion masters + about 5-10 normal theurgs for false horror spamming to block the enemy + about 35 communion slaves for your main army .
If you have relief casters as well already you can make more mages communion masters .

For scripted spells mainly chose the following :
-Thunderstrike
-Falling frost
-Enslave mind

Try to have 1 staff of storms

As troops you can use either something like 50-100 principes or if you already have rather 50-100 mechanical men .

Such an army is extremely hard to beat on the battlefield midgame .

Use this main army to attack the enemy capitol . Your biggest enemies are Fires from afar / assasins at that stage .

Against weak defended provinces 1-2 theurgs with a few guards spamming false horrors are enough to beat most PDs / Small guarding forces .

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

I would say that attacking anything with that army is quite risky. The opponent opens with rain of stones x 2 (or more) and your army is no more.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

I am always amazed by some people who keep giving advice that presumes that
their opponent is brain dead. The reason you will not see armies of 50 mages
except in artificial winner-takes-all battles, is that big armies cost a lot,
require huge upkeep, move glacially slow, and are decimated as soon as they show
up outside a dome.

Not by remote spells, but by battlefield wide spells like rain of stones, flame
storm, astral tempest and wrathful skies. Watch how the mega army fights one
turn, and on the next, teleport in a few mages that will cast the most suitable
of the above mentioned spells. Do not forget to also:

1. Provide some cannon fodder with 'Call of the Wild', 'Call of the Wind',
or 'Imprint souls', so that your mages survive the first enemy turn.
2. Garantee a retreat province for your mages (no, they are not supposed to win
the battle, just cripple the clumsy behemont.
3. If possible, garantee that there is nowhere for his routers to retreat.

This is not to say that remote spells or assassins are not to be used if you
have them, but as Boron said, they will only inconvenience the enemy. A nice
astral tempest will ruin most armies. Armies are for defense and mopping up.
The enemy's back is broken with carefully targetted surgical strikes executed
by a few specialist mages...

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

So does this mean that mage-based armies designed for using communion generally don't work in practice?

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

there is no general rule. it depends upon game settings, players, and who you're fighting. multiple small communion squads, w/ a relief caster, are probably safer, though.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

And may I ask how they are like? this are the kind of army I had thought about, and which I do not bring to function. Something like 3 to 5 mage, (with some normal troops or not?) and maybe a summon or two, what should this guys cast?

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Good points Tuidjy .

Your post showed me that i still have to learn a lot in battle tactics .

What you and Alexti said is true .
Almost any nation has rather fragile mages , especially for pythium this is true .


If you play e.g. Vanheim/LoT do the mirror images help against earth quakes , wrathful skies lightnings etc. or not ?

These spells make most national mages in quantities >5 rather useless .
Vanheim , Pan , Jotunheim + LoT are at least partially exeptions but all other nations should have extreme troubles there with their national mages .

This shifts then in lategame the balance more to SCs + Strong summonable mages ?

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

The way I see it the point of using mages is to ensure you inflict more damage to your opponent than you receive. With SCs it's a bit of a win/lose situation, with mages and troops there's more shades of gray.

As to using mages in battles, I'd think you should never put mages in the field unless you have a specific purpose - especially in the early game they're more valuable researching or sitesearching.

What uses mages have, then? The way I see it, several depending on who they are. Also, nearly all the mages are going to need a screen of troops who protect them and do the fighting.

Boosting your troops: This helps your troops to overtake an enemy force with less casualities than without boosts - always good on a long run. Spells like Body Ethereal, Regeneration, Protection, Flaming Arrows and so on help either to minimize the beating they take or maximize the beating they give.

Supplementing your troops with summons: Raise Skeletons, Phantasmal Warriors/Wolves, Summon Imps and so on. Have battle summons do most of the work wearing enemy down (and taking most of the beating from their mages) so that your troops can mop up later on.

Cracking the toughies: In case there are some tough units in the enemy's army, try to find out the weakness they have (low MR, missing elemental immunity) and exploit it. Spells depend on the weakness.

General fire support: Ease the work of your troops. The spells can range from direct damage (Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Soul Slay) to scary stuff (Terror, Agony, Panic) to debuffs (Paralyze, Rust Mist, Entangle).

And of course there's the role of lone mage casting battlefield-wide destruction spells, not to beat the enemy but to inflict maximum pain.

As a general rule of thumb I'd say forget about personal buffs other than Quickness and those that boost either Precision or magic levels. The point is your troops are supposed to protect your mages, and if they rout your mage is anyway either routing or unconscious - fire shield won't do any good then. The first few rounds are crucial: less friendly fire, more time for summons to reach the front. Of course this is conditional, use protection spells to counter your enemy's attacks and so on.

So I'd say the question to be asked shouldn't be "what do I do with mages?" but "what do I do with mages x,y,z put against situation n or m?" The big advantage mage/troop army has against SCs is that they're usually much more expendable.

But, this is just an opinion of one guy, so take it with a grain of salt. And all the other usual disclaimers.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Not totally useless, just useless in offsensive. Defending their own castle under the dome, they can be quite efficient. You only need to plan on opponent casting mass destruction spells and script your mages to cast all vital protection spells in the first round. Alternative/additional plan is to send some force to distract the enemy in the magic or break siege phase. If they're numerous enough, the enemies will likely spend their gems limiting their ability to cast mass destruction spells in the fort battle.

In other cases you may use more than 5 mages too, but you should be prepared to lose them, so it's rather a complementary force to your army.

I think that shifts the balance more toward balanced armies: few SCs, few strong summonable mages, few regular mages, some strong summons and regular troops and some fodder summons/troops.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

first thanks for the answer. I was aware that it was a highly situational problem, but i though maybe there are a few rule of thumbs, or basic techniques which one could build upon. That was what I was interrested in. the problem that I am still overhelmed by the multitude of spells that are posible, and most that I experiment with either weren't succesfull (I suppose I use them in the wrong case, and or my army wasn't build around such a spell or there was just something else) or I just forgott how I use them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif. how you use a SC is fairly situational to, but you find a lot of builds, with explanations in the forum, I though maybe one of the wise, old and mighty players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif , could give an advice in how to create army's with mages and how to use them effectively, as I IMHO found is maybe the greatest lack of strategical discussion in this forum.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

So maybe one answer is: you should do lots of scouting and other reconnaissance against your enemy before giving orders to your mages.

This seems slightly different than with Super-Combatants, where, I presume, you would give your Super-Combatant more or less the same orders, with perhaps slightly different immunities or something depending on the enemy.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

You've been asking for help with communion and Pythium, well, that's one of the things I haven't really figured out either so can't help you there, sorry. I've used slaves in order to get magic boost for big spells, but they always seem to die... With Pythium I've read on these forums about using Body Ethereal, I'd assume with quickness - direct damage (star fires, mind burn/soul slay, stellar cascades) you'd go far, I've seen even communion-based Smite-spamming happen.

I'm by no means old nor mighty, but I'd think the problem with mages is that their use is much more situational than SCs. Scout the weakness, exploit it. And it really depends on the mages you have at your disposal. So generic strategic discussion would be a bit hard. I think that thread "Alexander's ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge" had some good tricks in it, though.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

I play exclusively Vanheim, so what I say may not apply to most nations, because the majority of Vanheim's mages are extremely mobile, sneaky, and anything but fragile.

I seldom use more than five or six mages in one task force. The majority of my force is Vanjarls, which are usually set to horror spam. I usually have a one vanadrott who casts warthful skies, and then summons air elementals. Sometimes, I will send a specialist, who will be hand-tailored (selected and equiped) for the task. She may be an air queen scripted to attack the main target, or a dwarf who will petrify a dangerous enemy, or a fairy queen that will charm a valuable enemy, or a Tartarian that will hold the enemy hordes while the wrathful skies destroy them.

These armies are teleported on top of their target, and their scripts reflect my latest knowledge of the enemy's script. Usually, after the victory, the Vanir hide among the local population, while the dwarves or Tartarians build a lab. This way, the enemy's retaliation is less costly. In any case, the idea is that the cost of the inflicted losses exceeds the cost of your task force.

Recent examples:
In my current game, I teleported three vans and one air queen on top of Anya (Abisya's pretender) She had just taken a province of mine (the local warden and his lone bodyguard died gloriously) and I knew exactly what her equipment was. She had, of course, a chest wound - these are surprisingly common when you have pissed off the Vanir. She was equiped and scripted as a standard SC - life drain weapon, lucky coin, boots of quickness, starshine cap, anti-magic, etherial cloak. I used my vans to summon horrors for five turns, while the air queen waited until Anya had tired herself with buffs and by killing the lifeless horrors. When Veni attacked, Anya was at 84 fatigue. After her first hit, Anya went to sleep, and never woke up.

Later, in the same game, I sent three vanjarls and three vanadrotts to contain a Caelum mamonth/seraph army inside a castle. It was important that the birdies did not get loose inside my lands (they had just jumped me) so I also cast 'Imprint Souls' on the province. The jarls and one of the drotts spammed horrors, and the elephants spend some time chasing the chaff around. Meanwhile the other two drotts buffed themselves, and at the end of the five turns went elephant hunting. One elephant escaped. The battlefield was in flight range of Caelum's capital. So on the next turn I teleported Vidi (Air Queen #2) scripted to attack rear on turn one, in case Caelum counterattacked. But on that turn, he had lost his pretender, two armies and a temple... he has stalled since.

In another recent game, I teleported a army in the middle of C'tis lands, right on top of a castle bursting with troops. The original detachment was just a wrath squad, but each turn, I was adding some surprise for the lizards who tried to break the siege - a Tartarian or two, an Air Queen, an empowered magma dwarf, devils, a nature mage with Mass Regeneration, etc... The purpose of that army was to hold a province with about ten neighbors, provide some intelligence on his troops in the neighborhood, and tempt C'tis into attacking.

What do these armies have in common? Not much really, except that they were tailored for a specific task, and that they arrived by magic on top of an expensive enemy asset.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

well it seems that horror, undeads or phantasmal warrior summoning is quite common.
when I set mages to this spell after two/three turn most of them stop because of fatigue, do you every mage in armys recuperation items? or how do you solve the fatigue problem if you have no nature at our disposal?

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Booster items help to keep the fatigue costs down. (Note that I'm not much of a fan of phantasmal warrior, but it can be a way to produce minor amounts of chaff.) For nations with sacred mages (Pythium, Vanheim, etc) an earth blessing is always nice - 2 or 3 fatigue back a turn isn't much, but it helps, and stacks with normal fatigue recovery. A positive magic scale also helps lower the fatigue costs.

And no, I don't usually give fatigue recovery items to my mages - I think a booster generally gives more of a benefit (halving the fatigue cost for an 80 fatigue spell like bladewind, etc) than spending gems on a recovery item. Hopefully, by the time the mages go unconscious they've done enough damage to win the battle, or at least given the other person a pyrhic victory.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

Well,

I'm not the greatest mage user, but I have gotten stomped by several different configurations of mages casting different spells.

One constant I've noticed, people tend to build armies around spells, rather than look for spells that compliment an army.

By this I mean, find a useful/damaging spell (or set of spells), Yvelina gave 2, wrathful skies and horrors, but there are others especially if you play modded games. And then find a country with national mages who can cast those spells with minimal buffing. Then for the army just throw in some 'blocker' type troops to keep the mages upright long enough to do your damage.

I haven't really explored this part of the game thoroughly yet, but I have been on the receiving end of several very effective firing lines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Crash

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

As I understand it the use of the Relief spell is commonplace to reduce fatigue. Just get yourself some Nature mages and script them to cast Relief x5 or something. Should put a major dent in your other mages fatigue without the need for equipment or boosting.

Re: How to use mage in a battle
 

I think Man is one of the easier nations to learn how to use mages right: you have powerful N-A mages (although limited in number) that can Cloud Trapeze, cast lightning spells (armor negating, not resistable and no racial umminties present) and summon chaff (wolves/dragonflies/false horrors). They also have the mages for cheaply summoning masses of Vinemen and even Ogres if you have gems for a few Thistle Maces, and sneaky Bards who can cast Soothing Song (AoE relief available from turn 1).

You also have the option of Cloud Trapeze - Wrath with Call of Wilds/Winds, so that the battle Lasts long enough for enemy to take damage. You could also cast Storm after the hawks have attacked, so that they with their low movement score will prolong the battle even more.