Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

I'm new to D3 and have started my first game past the tutorial. I've read the manual and believe I have a beginers grasp on this game....

I'm playing Vanheim Early Age.

I invested some early research into conjuration and boy was I disappointed... I'm hoping you experts can show me the error of my ways...

1) What useful strategies are there for these early ritual and battle summoning spells?

I'm currently Conjuration 3 and none of the units really seem all that worth it. I've revived wights, banes, scorpions, wyverns, Hawks, and other ritual beasts... none seem much better than the units I can buy enmasse at my captial. If these were free I could see their uses but they require quite a few gems which means you can't summon to many of them until you are completely out of gems...

thanks in advance for the tips!

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

Well early summons aren't necessarily going to be so incredibly hot, but summons in general are a potent (some say too potent) force, for several reasons:

• they don't cost upkeep (in most cases)
• many of them are more powerful than recruitable troops/commanders
• you can summon units in a castle under siege but not recruit units
• gem income is not affected by unrest or negative events (unlike gold)

there are probably more advantages, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.

However summons, like all troops, need to be used thoughtfully in order to be effective. Many of them have niche uses, like the Hawks summoned by the Call of the Winds spell - very useful for attacking provinces you can't reach with your armies, to sow confusion in the enemy's heartland.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

thanks for the reply. So if I'm understanding you right early summons aren't very useful... its more of a 'late game' strategy or higher tier strategy per say?

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I'm a definite MP noob, but have played quite a bit SP. The only summons i use frequently are the mini-army's - call of the wild, horde from hell, sea troll, earth troll groupings...occasionally call of the winds. All these usually under duress (or sea troll for amph usage).

My most frequent use is to get the bridge for another +magic item for bigger spells. i.e. i have a 3 earth + 2 boosters, get a 4 earth, so then have a 4E + 2 boosters, etc, etc.

Its SP, so I can usually do the initial land grab, then try not to annoy anyone till i've got my paths figured out - hopefully without using my pretender (so he's either taking indy's or forging).

Astral is a bit tough - who's the best bridge with no/low national astrals? ether mage/lord? Same with earth, bugger can't wear boots so need the book or a multi to get a good boost. A rare empowerment will make the jump as well, although I generally hoard my gems till someone annoys me.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

Yeah, you are basically correct, Jah. The low level summons are not cost effective, due to how easy they are to research and cost. I only use them in dire emergencies, when gems no longer have any meaning (ie. my capital is about to be seiged). Certain low level spells have niche uses. Call of the Winds, for example is an excellent spell because it can summon a horde of awesome patrollers to whatever province you want to root out those nasty spies. Another good low level spell is the one that summons a Bane. They make decent thugs.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Wights are not bad IMO, but not really cost effective either because they summon 1 at a time. Mage-time is an important resource.

Also, it's pretty much always best to save gems for high level stuff if you can.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

Many summoning spells are unbalanced... for the gem cost some are very good, some are very bad and some are very ugly. I didn't list all the spells... was getting tired.

The Good:
Black_Servant... for being level_1 these fellas are useful as scouts, assassins(with_heart), or thugs.
Sea_Dogs... good deal for a level_1 spell, allowing attacks of water provinces sooner.
Vine_Men... with the vine crown and/or Animist this is a good level_1 spell.
Sea_Serpent... this can be worth its cost... a few buff spells and this high hitpoint creature can be worth the 8 gems.
Summon_Shades: good deal for 4 ethereal troops early in the game. Even one by itself can be a great decoy for arrows on the front line.
Call_of_Winds: 20 patrollers to locate spies, scouts and assassins. Later on the commander can be used to quickly move fast troops to the front.
Revive_Wight/Bane: These fellas are tough especially if you have someone cast ethereal on them. Later on in the game death gems can be used elsewhere.
Corpse_Man_Construction: Good spell in combination with the items which provide bonuses to the spell. If you want to summon from your air gems then this is the spell for the early/middle stage of the game.
Summon_SeaLions: These fellas are very nasty in the water even without any help.
Awaken_Vine_Ogre: A good deal when using a crown, treelord or tree staff.
Summon_Summer_Lions/Fall_Bears/Winter_Wolves: Some nice ethereal units and the auras can be useful for bringing down tough calvary or worse. Many ways they can be used.
Summon_Shade_Beasts: Not a great deal, but still useful if you haven't reached pale riders yet.
Spirits_of_the_Woods: They have awe and ethereal... with some protection from arrows they can protect your archers very nicely. Bad side is they cannot leave a province so its good if you need a defensive unit.
Summon_Bog_Beast: Considering their poison spit and poison aura they can be useful if built into a special army.
Contact_Draconians: Not that great, but when compared against other air summons it's a good one. The leader can keep summoning more of his type. They're fast flying, poison attack and fair magic resistance... useful for sieging/storming castles.
Contact_Naiad: Good way to pickup a nature/water mage... clams anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Naiad_Warriors: Many good qualities for a decent gem price.
Spirit_Mastery: An all time favorite... very useful in many ways.
Revive_Bane_Lord: Good Undead Commander... fire bola keeps him near the front yet not too close. WraithSword is a good tool for him.
Awaken_Sleeper: Great Commander for leading troops, undead and magic units. He's built to survive a few swings and arrows.
Summon_Fire_Snakes: Good against SCs... the fire aura and poison attacks cover two vunerablities. If no SC threats are nearby it's better to alchemize those 9 gems for buying troops.
Summon_Great_Eagle: Only 3 air... the description SAYS this unit is sacred, yet the one which arrives is not sacred. The game does have a sacred great eagle yet for some reasons the developers recreated this bird and never changed the description.
Contact_Sea_Troll/King_Court: Good for marching into the water provinces and the King receives one water gem each turn.
Streams_from_Hades: Nice way to pickup a powerful death and water mage which means she can carry normal troops, undead and magic troops.
Contact_Troll/King_Court: Good units but they have a very high gold upkeep. The king is worth keeping around, but the place the normal trolls on the front line as soon as possible.
Summon_Spectre: This undead mage can arrive with a nice mix of different magic paths giving you access to items and spells otherwise not accessible for some nations.
Summon_Ghosts: Good spell... great with a very high death mage.
Contact_Lamia/Lamia_Queen: Good spell for a high nature mage and the Queen can arrive with a nice mix of different magic paths giving access to items/spells otherwise not accessible for some nations.
Construct_Mandragora: Nasty attack and many appear for strong nature mages, much better then the weaker manikins.
Mechanical_Men: Full immunity to all paths, strong weapon and protection as well. Good in many ways.
Summon_Catoblepas: 3 or 4 of these fellas side_by_side can do some heavy range damage... stick some ethereal undead around them and have fun.
Summon_Mound_Fiend: DeathMage/Priest and summons undead for free... sweet long term deal.
Call_Wraith_Lord: Immortal, death magic, good default equipment, and can summon ghosts for free!
Elemental_Royals: All very strong and worth the gems... it's too bad the AI opponents rarely summon these fellas. Even when you give the AIs lots of extra gems, libraries, and very powerful mages at the start of the game... it still very rarely summons them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
Faerie_Court: Good Air/Nature mage, will heal units and can summon sprites.
Golem_Construction: Good Astral Golem, many uses and one main weakness which is also a strength... its astral magic.
Call_Abomination: Strong creature, can enter water provinces and strong range attack.
Legion_of_Wights: Good deal for the gem cost if you need quick help.
Tartarian_Gate: Great spell in combo with gift of reason and gift of health or chalice


The Bad:
Bind Scorpion Beast... a better deal than the fire drake, but still it's better to alchemize the gems and buy good troops.
Summon_Animals: Not that good, but if you're in trouble early in the game and need an army now this can work. I recommend casting the vine men/ogres instead when possible.
Summon_Wyvern... not worth 8 gems for one fat bird. The beast seems weak and not worthy of being called a wyvern... so I call this thing a fat bird.
Ice_Drake... not worth the 8 gems for this ice cricket... save the gems for army of sea trolls or winter wolves.
Cave_Drake... not worth the 8 gems for this snail... better to save your earth gems or alchemize them for troops.
Summon_Horned_Serpents... Bad deal... just don't cast.
Summon_Amphiptere... not that great, but okay to mix a few with some short ranged archers.
Call_Kraken... an okay deal, but its slow, very low mg resistance and eats lots of food.
PrideofLions... an okay deal, but only useful if you need lots of fast units in one turn.
Construct Manikin: Okay spell, but it's better to wait if possible or summon vine men/ogres instead.
Summon_Spring_Hawks... they have too few hitpoints and 20 air gems can usually be better spent.
Summon_Kitharionic_Lion: I'm fond of this one, but for 6 nature he's not worth the gem cost.
Iron_Pigs: Better to alchemize the earth gems for buying troops then summon these pigs.
Ether_Gate: Great commander and good units, but way too expensive. If you have lots of extra astral and need troops then this is a fair deal.
Harvester_of_Sorrows: Expensive, but can be useful for specific situations.
Animal_Horde: Expensive for only animals... and keep in mind these units will need around 150 food supplies. Can be useful during a desperate moment.
Awaken_Ivy_King: LamiaQueen is usually a better deal unless you need a high hitpoint nature mage.
Awaken_Tarrasque: High casting requirement, expensive gem cost for one strong unit. At this stage in the game nature gems are better spent casting gift of reason or awaken sleeper.


The Ugly:
Fire_Drake... definitely not worth 8 fire gems. Better to alchemize those gems and buy troops.
ClockWork_Horrors... Nice troops, but they fatique way toooo fast which means their protection is basically worthless by turn_3 on the battlefield and they're passed out by turn_5. Previously a player could use the relief spell, but that's been nerfed where these units just aren't worth the gems.
Howl... Even though this is a battlefield spell it's so terrible it had to be mentioned.
Never cast this spell !! It's better, easier and cheaper to do swarm. The developers were drinking very heavily the evening this spell was created.
Call_Eater_of_the_Dead: For 50 astral gems it's not worth summoning one creature which will not only leave you and go beserk, but if another one is summoned the original vanishes. Even if the spell only costed 20 astral gems it still would not be used in multiplayer games... its one of the king ugly spells.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

My opinions/experiences (which I have little interest in arguing with anyone about, BTW, especially if the word "useless" is going to be exaggerated):

Banes can make good thugs if you use them carefully.

A few Wights can be good accent for some careful mixes of troops.

Giant Scorpions are easy for some mages to cast and are not terribly expensive and fairly tough & dangerous.

Wyverns I have always had bad luck with, and usually would rather use air gems on many other things, but they are fliers, which can in theory be used to good effect in some cases.

Hawks are good for the fast flying leader, for attacking very weak targets/provinces, immediate attacks anywhere on the map, providing air fodder, flying hold & attack rear light strikes, etc. I usually like to summon them to a friendly province so I can script and formate them before use. I also often separate the leader from the minions. Sometimes you have flying troops with know flying leaders, so the hawk can lead them for much improved map movement (e.g. indy Pegasus Riders).

PvK

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Why do you say think Howl is so bad? The wolves come from all sides, even behind, and can kill enemy mages and disrupt their troop formations. Swarm only hits the front lines, and doesn't kill anything.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful
 

Swarm is really nice at the start of combat and is instantly in effect whenever cast. It holds up lots of troops so you dominate when the ground troops clash or it stops missile fire or it stops spells. Or it holds troops longer so you can cast spells or hammer with missiles. Sure, the bugs get killed of in a round or three, but the impact is almost always felt in a positive way.

Howl takes a long time to do anything and, aside from the occasionally killing a commander or two, tends to be too diffuse to really effect the battle. The longer the battle the more it does, while Swarm tends to be all at once.

On another spell, Troll King’s Court does produce pricy to upkeep units, but they come with an earth mage who can buff their protection and hit the other army’s. I find the trolls are damn fine infantry who are very durable and effective, particularly when the commander casts appropriate buff spells on them. I put them on the front lines not to kill them off, but as first class infantry who I want to keep around.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Howl is a great spell, especially on mountain and forest terrain. Anything that can disrupt casters is worth a look.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I'll also use Call of Winds for sieges. If I've taken a fort's province with a small army, SC or a few bless troops, the addition of 20 flying siegers can help alot in knocking the walls down.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Unless desperate I just find the gem usage more appropriate to crafting and dominating the globals. Although it seems what usually happens is that i dominate the globals, and by that point I don't really need summons any more unless its a specific magic type. Although trolls are great if you can afford em. Cast 2 earth and 1 sea in a province and you have an army that'll go for quite awhile.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

vinemen can really supplement an army early in the game. They dont eat, and they have high morale. Vine Ogres can be even better.

Wyverns can be handy as a flanker. Set them far to the sides of the combat (the top and bottom of the formation screen). You can have it attack archers immeadiately or set to hold-and-attack rearmost. I generally find that having my archer-attackers at the top of the screen and my attack-rearmost flankers at the bottom seems to work best against the usual AI setup.

The spell "awaken sleeper" can give you a great commander at a time when you might really need him. He leads alot of troops, of any type (including magical and undead). He has good hitpoints, strength, just about any stat. I like to give him the Thunder Bow because it specifically uses his strength.

Generally, the summons need to be used for their best attributes, not as replacements for regular troops. The stealthy ones are great to add to a stealthy army, the fliers can help add some variety to flying armies or other places that you need fliers, the mages can be very useful to fill in magic areas you dont get otherwise, and the ones that can be dropped into provinces you dont own yet are great for suddenly taking areas that you find the enemy has weekly defended.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

thanks for the tips guys!

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I love Fire Drakes! They rock mixed with mechanical men. For an off-fire nation, or one with fire-immune troops, they offer some nice short ranged support. That doesn't mean you're not better off using those gems for somethign else. Generally i raise them only in emergencies.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Howl costs 2 nature gems and requires 2 nature to cast. Howl provides very very few wolves which usually retreat after a few are killed.
Swarm is cheaper to cast, easier to cast, and the units will all fight to the bitter end not retreat unlike the wolves. Their flying works great for stopping the fleeing units as well. If you cast one Howl(2_gems) against one swarm the swarm will win and you'll have an extra gem.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Fire Drakes would be great if they were just willing to let someone else do the melee fighting for them. (same problem as Giant and Agarthan Rock Throwers)

As Abyssia, a nice mass of fire drakes is wonderful right up to the point where it charges into melee and gets cut to ribbons. Would be totally worthwhile if you could script them to stay behind another group of troops and snipe.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

How about just setting them to fire closest with a fire resistant unit infront set to attack closest?

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I like howl a lot better than swarm in several situations. One big difference is that the wolves appear all around the battlefield, while the dragonflies from swarm are clumped. The implications of this is that the wolves are vastly superior for being decoy targets. I've had several battles I've won thanks in no small part to the fact that the enemy mages were casting all their best spells at the wolves which spawned near them while my mages obliterated their army. Try that with swarm.

The wolves also have a much better attack than the dragonflies. Its certainly not anything special, but the dragonflies essentially are there just as warm bodies while the wolves can actually do some damage against some troops. For instance, if you're storming a castle with a bunch of enemy mages and a few elite gate blockers, casting several howls can bring an easy victory, while the dragonflies are much more likely to get hung up on the blockers up front.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

In other word Wolves is better for flanking, and Swarm for an instant front-line attention getter. So if I didnt have units that I preferred for front-line distraction and I didnt have units I preferred for flankers, then Id do well using those spells. It doesnt sound like it would be a this-or-that choice.

In fact, it sounds as if a combination of the two would be great. Maybe with a slight pause such as both of them being scripted to be the second or third spell to cast.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

My experience with that(EA Abyssia and Agartha) is that they gleefully outrun their supposed blockers in their excitement to get into firing range -- usually ending up just far enough ahead to be finished off just before their "protectors" catch up.

I'm sure there's a way to tweak starting positions/etc to get it to work, but it seems trickier than it should be. And any mistake means they are toast.

An AI tweak to force short-ranged artillery set to "fire closest" to try to stay [range] squares behind the "front" would potentially "fix" a lot of units that are only marginally useful now.

Failing that -- adding a "hold and fire ___" command would probably accomplish the same thing with less dev effort http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif -- give the lines a chance to form, and then step in and throw your fireballs/boulders/etc.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Just place the drakes a little further back or the blockers a little further forward(and with fire resistant blockers make sure they are attacking rather than holding and attacking)

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

yeah, I've probably been too excited about making sure they don't "loose rounds" getting to the fight.

Next time I play Abyssia, I'll try starting them even further back and see how that works for improving longevity

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

If you have enough melee troops in front the drakes will never get a chance to engage the enemy even if they are close to the front line.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

True, a wide line of melee troops should prevent the drakes passing them.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I have a problem with a couple of the Nature summons. Summon Treelord gets you a static N4 commander with no hand slots. Summon Ivy King gets you a mobile N3 commander, who you can give the staff which gives you a N2 bonus, so he should be able to reach a higher level than the Treelord.

I've never had any joy with Ivy Men, and I'm not much of a fan of Ivy Ogres. They have protection of something like 3, and they just drop like flies beneath any sort of ranged attack. I might give them another try, using the Ivy King with the Crown of the Ivy King (and there may be another magic item as well which gives you bonuses, I forget). But one of my main goals when building an army is to have troops which will last. The experience helps, but it's just so much more effective if you can build an army which is capable of capturing a few provinces without having to stop and wait for reinforcements. Vine Men/ Ogres rarely last more than one or two battles (in my admittedly fairly limited experience). I experimented a bit using them in an army which used a lot of poison, but most of the time I'd prefer to have undead, if I want poison immunity. I tend to think there are better uses of your gems and mages' time.

A couple of comments I would make on the list of 'Good' 'Bad' and 'Ugly' summons: playing as Oceania against a nation with a lot of missile troops, I used just about all the Ethereal spells I could get my hands on, including Ether Gate. Yes it's expensive, but in the circumstances where you have lots of gems and very few troops you can fight with on land, it can be worth it. Once I'd established my beachhead, I then used Summon Animals/ Summon Pride of Lions/ Summon Animal Horde, as I had plenty of nature gems, and you can't really build an army around Mermen and Seatrolls on their own. I even cast Horned Serpents a couple of times. They're not great value for money, but they're the only animals with reasonable protection, so have some staying power against arrows.

The Animal Horde consumes an enormous amount of food, and the low protection means they tend to only last one or two battles. But it's a very cost effective use of nature gems if you want to build an army fast. You can have 100 animals for 30 gems in one turn, and I'd take that over almost any number of Ivy Ogres.

I guess what you may have gathered from this is that almost all the summoning spells can be of use in right circumstances, it depends on the nation you're using and what your needs are for gems vs. money at any one point in time.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

If you find vine men/ogres too vunerable try spells like mass protection, mass regeneration, will of the fates and other protection/survivability boosting spells.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

you could say that for anything though shovah. put those same spells on a less vulnerable unit and instead of going from bad to ok, you go from ok to good.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

The power of Vine Ogres is the mass of cheap HP they provide. Their staying power depends entirely on HP instead of protection, and their speed-of-output is slow compared to animals. But if you have time to accumulate them, they're very cheap; even if you only have an Ivy Crown, you're getting >100 HP for only 2 nature gems, and that ratio goes up to 200-250 once you start getting Treelords' Staves and Ivy Kings.

I agree that the Treelords themselves suck, though. I've never found any particularly good use for them, except as a side course during an Enchantment-school rush.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Animal horde can be made more effective by breaking up the results into squads that make the best use of their abilities. Sticking everything you get into one mass of animals doesnt do very well in battle. If you look at the speeds, morale, the hit points, the special abilities.. and then divide them up to use them as flyers, stealth, boosting infantry, flankers, emergency fills of front-line armies, etc... then I think people would be abit happier with them.

I try to never use vinemen/vineogres alone. They are free, dont eat food, and have high morale. But I find their best use is that if I mix them in with my 30 spearmen then my spearmen take less hits, stay in the fight longer, and can get more stabs in on the battle because they arent the only target on the field. If I did an AAR Id say something like "OK men, be sure to use those moving bushes I mixed in with you. Hide behind them and stab around them."

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Mass regeneration is good on high hitpoint creatures like the ogres. Not that good on low HP units

Mass protection is good especially on the ogres too because it mainly brings up protection from 5 to 10, which is an increase of 5. In case of a high former protection it only add 1.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Yeah, the trick to using vine ogres is to understand what not to use them for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif They're very cost effective against armor piercing/negating attacks, but you have to think more along the lines of longdead chaff. They're great for fatiguing people out, they're not undead so those counters are out, they're cheap to mass, and they buff a lot better than longdead because of the HP. Still, they don't have good long term survivability no matter what you do, so I tend to just mass them as reserve troops which slowly accumulate until there is a decisive battle I can throw them in. They don't have an upkeep and don't eat, so just leave them steadily ammassing rather than using them for general expansion where they'll quickly dwindle.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

One of my biggest complaints with Vine Ogres is how slow they are to summon. I think best case (Vine King + Crown of Vine King) is 3 ogres a turn? (I'm open to correction on this.) Early in the game, 2 ogres a turn is more like it. 2 or 3 vine ogres couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

So you can have your mage sit there for 15 turns and have 30 or maybe 45 Vine Ogres for 30 gems. 45 Vine Ogres is a chunky force, sure, but it's a painfully slow way of building an army. With Animal Horde, you can use lions as archer attackers, spiders can work with your poison cloud emitting troops, hawks can attack the enemy rear, and wolves can, erm, tire the enemy out a bit. And I'm not sure the army of vine ogres which took 15 turns to summon (without buffing magic) would survive much longer than the animal horde (without buffing magic).

I'm sure there are usable strategies with Vine Ogres. And yes, if you've got nature mages with nothing better to do, there are worse things to do than summoning a couple of them a turn. As Gandalf said, I guess they bulk out an army a bit, and it's nice that they don't eat. But by the time you had a decent number of Vine Ogres, I think Animal Horde would be a much better use of the gems.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I see Vine Ogres more as a mid to late game thing, despite the lowish research level. With lots of mages and lots of gems you can make armies of them.

They are not supposed to really kill much, but provide a wall of flesh for enemy units to run into.

Animal horde is much less efficient for that purpose.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Vine Kings don't have a head slot. In theory you could give them treelord's staff but practically this staffs are very expensive for a +1 bonus.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

No, merlinme, you arent thinking on a big enough scale. First of all, an army of vine ogres is like a million times better than what you get for your nature gems when casting Summon Animals. Not only can they take far more damage but they can dish it out, too. As for the scale tho: your problem here is your are thinking in terms of one or two mages summoning for 15 turns. What you really need is 12 mages summoning for 3 turns.

And now you are probably thinking to yourself "well, thats really excessive". But the truth is that its not. This is what is called a Summoning Factory and is a very common late game tactic. You set up a Factory like this that churns out 20+ vine ogres every turn (usually in combination with a spell like Mother Oak) and just watch as your enemies are crushed before you. The VOs eventually become your army core and your national troops fill out the rest of the space in specialized roles.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Well, maybe. It's true that Nature doesn't seem to have any really game winning summoning spells at the high levels, so maybe 2 Vine Ogres a turn for two gems is a good use of your average mage's time. A very large army of troops which don't rout and don't eat is obviously a good thing. I'd still prefer the Summon Horde as more bang for your buck in the short term, though.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Problem with early summons is that you can't get most of them in numbers that actually matter. In addition to paying the gems, you have to keep one mage away from research for one turn... and all that for only one fire drake or one wyvern?

It's sad not every single summon spell has it's higher level equivalent like summon wraith and summon legion of wraith. The later is much more useful than the first

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I play SP. It's a caveat worth mentioning.

Three pages in and no one has mentioned my favorite early summon spell in the game - crossbreeding. Granted, usable only by a small number of nations, and requiring particular scales to be really effective, but it's pure joy when it works (IMO, a basilisk alone is more than worth the cost of casting).

Sans Blood, often I find my early-mid summons are more driven by what I have that's disposable than what I really want. For example, in any game where I have death magics, I find that a serious chunk of my early game death gems are going to Skull Mentors. So I rarely think all that much about any death summons early on. Corpse Man Construction, on the other hand, is a great spell for those capable of using it, even early on. You pick it up on the way to Skull Mentors, you also grab the Lightning Rod on the way there as well (which doesn't use Air gems to create, so you're saving that resource for the corpsemen), and it uses air gems which aren't known for their great summons. LA Caelum loooooves corpsemen.

PrinzMegaherz - I watched your little animation all the way through, twice. Pretty funny.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I find myself using quite a lot of the summons that are noted as bad here, in some situations. Depending on my main stream mages and gem income and what kind of national troops I have. What summons are regarded the best, are usually those who fit in the best for some common cookie-cutter strategies. Agreed, some of them are a better option in almost any scenario.

Cave drakes and Scorpion beasts I tend to use to strenghten a line of "slightly" inferior infantry, so my mages and artillery gets enough rounds to kill the enemy.

All in all, I rate banes, naiad warriors and Sea kings court among the best. Mainly since I almost always use them if I have them available.

The eater of the dead though, is for SP only. And then only for the kicks of summoning something odd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

In Dom2 Vine Kings had a "built in" Crown of Ivy King (artefact) for +2 bonus so summoned 3 Ogres/turns. It could go up to 4 with a Treelord Staff.
I didn't use them in Dom3 yet so am not sure it's the same, but chances are.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

I've never actually summoned the eater of the dead, so can't really comment. He sounds kind of interesting, maybe I should give it a go some time. What's the problem with him? He attacks provinces at random? Do you ever have control of him, or is he random from the start?

I vaguely remember someone on the forum described quite an interesting strategy they stumbled across, where they followed the eater of the dead around with a bunch of stealth troops. I believe the way it worked was that because they were on hide, he never attacked them, and they could go in and take provinces which had just had their province defence and defending troops annihilated.

It would require a certain amount of luck, but it might be a viable strategy for someone who likes experimenting.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

The Eater of the Dead starts out under your control, but, as you might guess from the name, he eats dead. This makes him stronger. After some amount of this (I have no idea what the corpse count has to be), he becomes an independent terror, running around attacking provinces at random. I think the main strat for him is to Gift of Reason him (IIRC he starts as a rank and file), load him up with nasties, and push straight into enemy territory. That way, when he goes bonkers, his rampages will still work out in your favor.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

For 50 astral gems this creature has toooo many weaknesses to be considered worthwhile. Astral gems are more wisely spent on other summoning spells such as golem construction, juggernaut or ethergate.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Just to be clear - I wasn't advocating the Eater, just saying what he's for.

I think my favorite overkill late game use for astral gems (besides wishing for SC chasses and blood slaves) is something I saw in the Alexander's Tome. Golem + 3 astral boost items + Cloak of Shadows + Luck shield/faithful + Ritual of Return, tucked in a corner of the battlefield, scripted with Astral Tempest, Doom, and Astral Geyserx3 and loaded with 10 pearls, and teleported at a large enemy stack. Get 2 golems, switch the gear back and forth between them, one casts teleport every round while the other casts ritual of return. It's fairly effective at whittling away large armies of regular troops and slapping afflictions/horror marks/curses on tougher ones, and also has the silly fun aspect which eater of the dead has without the inevitable loss.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Behemoths are expensive, but very attainable in the early-game, and come just one level after raise skeletons at Enchantment 4. I like to mix behemoths in with my C'tis troops on my way up the enchantment tree. While early summons are rarely cost-effective when compared to their late-game counterparts, there are a few which stand out in the death tree. Outside of death, I rarely if ever use summons except the occasional seasonal while desperate and under siege.

Re: Pls explain how early summoning spells are use
 

Certainly, look carefully at nationals. Mictlan, Agartha, LA Pangea, likely others live and die by their national summons, even early on. I'd even go so far as to say that the whole reason to play EA Agartha is their ridiculously efficient and easily summoned nationals (well, that and the mix of Blade Wind and Magma Bolts that their Earth Readers can toss around).