What use is death magic?
 

To non death nations?

I took Arcoscephale and the Great Sage. Well for some reason I went D3 for him. Now I have 81+8 D gems I am trying to figure a use for.

I have started building a death mage force from summons. However I am leery of sending any summons into battle with out any unholy bless powers. I figure it would be a waste of gems.

I was thinking of converting them. I am 22 Fire gems short of a Eternal Prye that produces 20 fire gems a turn due to the cost of flaming arrows.

Any Ideas?

8 soon to be 6 out of 10 pretenders left. I totaly rule the research end. I found a 3 lvl Fire mage site and then a sage site early on. Pulling down 200+ RP a turn on a difficult(?) research game setting. Anyway 60 RP for lvl 1 and 1096 RP for lvl 7.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Banes. Or then a skull staff and then Bane Lords. Hmmm, I don't play death nations that much but Death magic is considered powerful last time I checked it.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

What you could do is summon other death mages to expediate the process of building an undead army. Another thing is death probably has the most stealthy unit summons of any path, so you could build a respectable raiding army that can handle PD.

Or, empower your pretender to be able to cast the more powerful death spells. Can't go wrong with a Wraith Lord or Tartarian.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

I can be rolling in piles of different gem types, but always seem to be running short on death gems. I spend them almost as quick as they come in. I also tend to (almost) always have at least 3 levels of death magic on my pretender regardless of the nation that I am playing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I typically summon mound fiends to help with spending the death gems. Skull Face, Skull Staff, Standard of the Damned, Wraith Sword, Horror Helmet, Skull Mentors, to name a few items. If there are any gems left over they go to summons. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What use is death magic?
 

There's too many uses for death gems, I can tell you what are some things you shouldnt' cast with them (at your stage of the game). Any summonables below level 5 research. If you cant' decide how to spend your death gems just pick random spells from level 5 or higher. It's almost impossible to go wrong.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

The skull mentors are always _very_ handy, especially considering the increased research difficulty.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Death magic...

If your nation lacks magical lowlevel diversity, summon spectres [they had D?2]. (And start out by using them to sitesearch all your land with Dark Knowledge). These also make decent upkeep-free researchers. And with a few pathboosters, they'll be able to make other pathboosters [and remote sitesearch to 9 by spells], and before you know of it you've got a spectre summoning a troll king or sea troll king, and you've got access to 4-5 E or W spells, and....

...Admittedly, that particular aspect is less important for magically diverse nations like Arcoscephale, but spectres are a real strength of death magic for "focused-magic" nations - depending on game length.

If your nation is short on cheap researchers or you just want better research, forge skull mentors. [Using a dwarven hammer, of course]

If you'd like a strong thug chassis, summon a Bane Lord. And while he does come with the powerful Bane Blade, he really deserves a better weapon... Like a Wraith Sword... Which also takes death gems.

If you desperately need something to trample the legions of cheesy infantry your opponent is fielding but cannot recruit any trampling units? Death magic provides the answer in the Behemoth.

If you want some very, very, very nasty archers against an opponent that uses tough troops, the Banefire Archers are your friends. Of course, they are fragile and high-cost, so don't field them without many lowerlevel undead to absorb the banishments.

If you need an instant cavalry force that's not particularly tough but does good damage on the charge, just the thing to break an opponent's lines, death magic will provide it in batches of 20+.

If you want to bootstrap to higher magic in a long game - death is the way to go, only nature is somewhat comparable in strength. The skull staff, helmet, ring of sorcery, and ring of wizardry all boost death and the higher death magic you get on the way, the higher level death mages you can summon, which means that they, using the items used to boost death enough to summon them, can summon even better leaders, until you reach the spot in the late game where you've upgraded from D2 pretender through (possibly skipping some steps) spectres, mound fiends, wraith lords, demiliches, and into hardcore multiple tartarian summons per round [or massive ghost rider devastation or legion of wight spamming] while trying to keep your Well of Misery up in its place in the Global Enchantments. In principle, you just need a pretender with D2 to get this started - once he has summoned his first spectre, if you focus on bootstrapping death magic it will happen.

Additionally, though that's for the very, very, long game... There's something inherently cool in being able to summon powerful immortal commanders like wraith lords and demiliches, units you can cheerfully send to their death wearing minimal equipment [a few death gems, nastily scripted orders, and flying boots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif] round after round so long as the fight is in your own dominion. Probably not cost-efficient in most cases, but cool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I've often sat around with gems of other types unused because "there's nothing really useful to use them for at this level of research". That reasoning seldom, if ever, occurs with death gems as soon as you have your first D2 unit. Sure, you may save them, but only by a conscious decision to forego something truly useful in the now for something potentially more useful in the future.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Death magic is VERY useful. Use arco's magical diversity to summon banelords (very nice thugs, i like to send them out in groups of 3 when not facing pd/indies) and black servants (very cheap, stealth, ethereal and lifedrain. Give them luck, fear, heavy armour and strength boosters and you have very nasty raiders) or even harvesters of sorrow which, aswell as spreading disease have very nice stats.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

For the low levels, I like getting a couple Revenants going so I can search all the other provinces for death sites, and then hopefully have enough paths to summon a Spectre. Spectres are quite versatile, and can even be used as thugs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Death magic is one of the most useful magic paths. When searching for magic sites you might get lucky and find a location where a death mage can recruit free shades or banes or mummies! Most other magic paths don't have sites where units can be recruited... and some of these death units are mighty powerful.

You don't want your pretender to spend his time casting death spells, so have him summon a mound fiend or two. The first mound fiend should then take a hammer for forging a death staff while the other mound fiend takes a hammer for forging some skull mentors. The mound fiend with the death staff should then summon a spectres to help with summoning. The mound fiend will summon pale riders while the spectres summon spirit mastery. Once a solid army has been developed the mound fiend should either summon a banelord or another mound fiend to lead the army.

Summon some revenants to keep looking for death magic sites to supply the growing armies. You can never have too many death gems.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

The most common death summoning site is probably the Ghoul Cave, which is a far cry from mummies or banes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Thanks you have given me much to think on.

I am lvl 6 on construction and evocation(?)(for the eternal prye) and 3 on everything else. Devoting all research to Summoning for now. To get the good death units.

I was about to build a force of ten nature mages with ethreal bows and boots quickness backed by a couple of air mages. Astral and water are Arcoscephale's strong point. I think I can field it in under 10 turns. I fiqure set them for large monsters and see what happens. I hope they will make short work of a stupid dragon pretender and all those bears he summons.

The whole death thing will kick off when I give my revenants some boosts. Which requires my pretender. Dang he is busy.

Any ideas for boosting nature mages when all you have is lvl 1's and +1 nature gem per turn? I am realy sucking wind in nature and blood.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Blood isn't usually something you can just tack on to the nation. Don't worry about it with Arcoscephale.


You should have lots of Priestesses. Send them site-searching. That should give you something before or later. Once you have 30 gems, you can empower one to N2 and:
1) forge Thistle Maces, +1 N for anyone wielding it
2) start casting Haruspex, which finds ALL Nature sites in target province.

Nature 1 mages can cast Eagle Eyes, so if they don't have anything else to do they could do well as a bow-squad. Ethereal Crossbows are nice, but MR negates their special effect completely. Try combining them with few Black Bows of Botulf (Death item). Feeble-minded commander have worse magic resistance... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
If you get Death/Air mage, Vision's Foe is wonderful. A crossbow with armor-negating damage, that also causes lost eye afflictions?

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Thanks for the heads up.

I had heard they don't hit the way they should and that explains it.

I was planning to use shamen for bowmen as the National Nature priests cost like $70 more per man. They also give me +10 food each. With a nice 2 lvl air mage site I found they should boost to at least 18 precision.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

So how about:
7xShaman with Ethereal bow, eye of aiming, boots of quickness
3xShaman with Black bows, eye of aiming and boots of quickness

Let them cast eagle eyes and, if possible get some-one casting wind guide.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

That's an awful lot of gems poured into something that can be wiped out by a single blade wind if unfortunately positioned, though... Useful if you face nasty magicusing thugs or SCs, but against regular troops it is hard to imagine that there aren't other substantially better investment possibilities for the gems.

Let's face it: a mage with 20-30 gems worth of equipment who's able to kill one soldier every 2nd turn (if the soldier fails a MR) had better kill one hell of a good soldier to be worth the cost of equipping him. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Forget everything i said in that post, im confused.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

A version of that which _might_ be worthwhile is those guys equipped with Bow of Wars, if you can send along someone to do the flaming arrow spell.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

No Peter it fires EVERY turn. That is the reason for the boots. Otherwise it would only be 5 or 10 gems.

So you are saying that the Etheral bow is worthless? It's not a good giant killer? I have militia to hunt rats with.

I have tons of archers. I have Flaming Arrows.

I want a Dragon killing assasin squad. I want those charging giants to fall like flies.


Lets see a $110 shaman for eagle eye, Ethreal crossbow 5 Pearls, Boots of quickness 10 water gems, Eye of aiming 5 Air. NOTICE no Fire or Death which are in high demand.


So for 20 gems and $110 I get a ....18 percision archer that fires EVERY turn and that kills ANYTHING that fails it's MR roll. It looks cheap.

Throw in a $110 air mage(stealthy) for aim and the Group percision goes up to around .....22.


I was not going to add the Eye of aiming, which is cheap. None the less these guys could last 30 battles if I am lucky and pick the enemy right. Maybe much longer if I put the right armour on them.

What do you have for killing big bad nasties for 20 gems and $110? No death or fie gems. Make it 10 more gems for armour.

The only question in my mind is the MR roll and how that degrades effectiveness. Does that MR smashing pendant work with this crossbow?

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Good point.

Well, your stated problem was killing a stupid dragon pretender and all those bears he summons, not giants. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Ethereal bows are incredibly useful on assassins - but much less useful, even when set to fire cavalry/fire large in larger battles since (assuming a standard mixed army on the opposing side) you'll quite often hit the wrong target and take out some cheap unit instead, even with high precision - less mistakes when the targets get close to your archer, of course, but cheap nature mages are not the sort of casters who should ever risk being close to an enemy as they die easily.

Which should do the trick without your sniper squad.

Ah, if that is your desire, then go ahead and build your sniper squads. It will be fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Heh - a significant change of mind (which I applaud) from the first post, where the question was what to do with the darned death gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So long as it hits the right stuff and the right stuff doesn't have high MR, and so long as the enemy doesn't have archers hitting the general area your nature mage is in, it'll do the job. I'm not denying that it can do the job, but cheap?

You aren't talking about making one of these to be effective in an army but a group of these - say 5-10 for a 100-200 assorted gem cost. Add to that the forging time cost (3 items each), and that's 15-30 mage-turns additional cost to be factored in.

What could you (potentially) get for 100-200 assorted gems and 15-30 mage turns, that aren't fire or death? Disregarding your exact research levels now but looking at it in general, that's several elemental royalty (you can get two fully kitted out air queens at the high end of that range, each able to kill almost any army an AI can put together without help if most of the gems are air/earth), or it is a band or two of moonblade wielding ethereal giants and their even nastier leader (if lots of astral gems to burn), or it is two separate global enchants adding to your gem income each turn, or it is a dozen clams making astral gems, or it is an army of vine ogres, or... - any of which will likely contribute more over time to defeating a red dragon and his stupid bears and your next opponents than 10 archery mages will do.

...But it might not be as fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Go build your sniper squads and regale us with tales of their usefulness. There are many things that aren't strictly speaking "best", but which are immensely fun to try out.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Have they still true random paths in dom3 or are they restricted to a few paths like other mages with random magic ?

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Peter, I stopped asking about Death gem use because I got my questions answered.

Your answers hint of great things but are a little to general to be of use. Lets narrow things a bit.

Race: Arcoscephale
Gems: Water 171, astral 61, Air 35 (I had plans for the air)
Mages: Water 2, Astral 6, Air 3, The water and astral combined. Can go a level or two higher on the water. I can throw in Fire 5 and death 2+ and 20 to 40 gems each in a few turns. All that combined if I throw in my Pretender.

Near term figure 6 or under research.

So what would you do?

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Would a antimagic amulet help a Bane Lord resist banishment?

Does a sword of swiftness and boots of quickness mean 4 attacks?

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Yes to both, unless things have changed since Dom2.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

That's because it is nearly impossible to give specific advice without a save game on hand. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif To give good strategic advice (which is what we are talking about when it regards forging/summoning/army construction over multiple turns to meet a threat that does not spell imminent doom), you need to know more about the world than is expressed by "my nations is this, I can do this stuff". One can attempt to give general advice, of course, but the more specific it gets, the more likely it is that there's some snag to the actual situation that makes a good counterargument.

I'm a cautious player most of the time, so unless I urgently needed to improve my armies' fighting abilities to be able to survive, I'd not use them on the spot. (It is not clear from your description whether this is the case)

If not the case...

I'd probably beeline for conjuration 8 saving air gems [though that'll take considerably more research than you are outputting now] to summon one or more queens of elemental air (you have the construction to make path boosters to get an A5 mage to perform the summoning) equip them well [as many of regeneration, quickness, reinvigoration, luck, anti-magic, scripted with air shield, mirror image, mistform, attack rear - possibly given a wraith sword, possible a good 1H+charcoal shield combination if you have a mage for that at the time, or perhaps go the Staff of Storms route and make it an summon storm power, wrathful skies, air shield, mirror image, mistform, attack rear queen - depends on what you face, really] and have 2-3 super-combatants that the AI is practically defenseless against.

Then again, if I had any sort of nature gem income at all (and if I didn't, that means I made an error in pretender design or had monstrous bad luck sitesearching http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif), then, given the large number of water gems you have available, I'd want to forge/empower my way to a single W3N mage to contact a Naiad (W3N3) for 35 water gems. The Naiad could then contact other Naids (same price), and they could start hammering out clams - a worthy use of water and nature gems - or sitesearch further for nature gems. It is always good in long games to be sure to cover all paths of magic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I'd definitely put up Wrath of God if not done already with a few extra gems since the AI is crap at dispelling - say a total cost of 90-100 astral gems. It not only easily pays off in the long run, it is also damn satisfying.

If I needed help in the short run, I'd probably consider burning some gems on Sea King's Court and Draconians (this does feel like a bit of a waste, though) as army boosters.

You talked about giants in one place and summoned bears another. In case of magical creatures, you have the mages to destroy them with opposition. In case of a few big and dangerous creatures in general, you have the mages to cast soul slay, enslave mind (or just spam them with paralyzation). And, though a bit expensive, you do have mages you can use as communicants allowing you to cast these with really high penetration and low fatigue. Might be worth it, might not, just like those independent fire mages you talked about could, if you have just a single guy able to reach E2S2 get a crystal matrix and thus become able to cast the big fire spells as part of a communion.

If the opposing nation doesn't have astral mages, I'd use my astral gems on extensive mind hunts whereever his forces gathered. You've got the mages to pull it off. If, however, the opposing nation does have astral mages, and if they are low-astral they use in combat, I'd probably want to build a mind duel master to pick them off one by one.

Sorry, I really cannot suggest anything but generalities like these based on what I know of your situation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I must say that with so much astral/water/air lying around, it would be terribly tempting to start churning out well equipped Bane Lord thugs.

Re: What use is death magic?
 

I summoned tons of Spectres in a recent SP game, and I can pretty much answer that - they have D1, plus two 100% randoms, which can each be any of WESD (Water, Earth, Astral, Death).

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: What use is death magic?
 

Thanks to you all.

Peter you have given me much to chew on. I will be changing my plans.