Couple of questions
 

I'm sure these have been asked before, but these are stuff that are left after doing some digging on the forum.

1. I was thinking about trying some of the mods. Can anyone give some reccomendations on some good ones?

2. I haven't played for over a year, and have forgotten pretty much everything. Is there a guide or thread in particular that goes over the basic strategies of orders and such for the combat phase?

3. Playing as Ulm, I have a pretty good item production line going. I have no clue how to kit out the various mages/priests in my army. Any suggestions on some good item combos?

4. Quick question about supply. I constantly run into the problem of starving troops since I like big stacks. Do the various items that aleviate this problem work on the whole stack? Or just troops under the command of the guy holding the item? Can I give these to priests that I bring along for instance?

5. Commanders: Particularly combat oriented commanders...I was wondering if people recruited them with no intention of them ever commanding any troops. Hire a few commanders, kit them out, give them orders to charge and stick them with your normal army stacks?

6. The spell system is so complicated. Do you guys normally give your mages discretion to cast their own spells? Or do you micromanage them and give them specific spells to cast?

Re: Couple of questions
 

1. Conceptual Balance makes a good job in balancing the game. It's used in many multiplayer games.

Other mods haven't been discussed much. They appear, and then exist but are often forgotten. I'd recommend my Ulm Graphics Improvement - it makes Ulmish shields look a bit better, and does nothing else. Personally, I like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

3. I'm not so sure about item combos. It's the effects, not the items, I'm interested in. As an example, one could get Quickness and some protection with very different ways, e.g. Boots of Quickness and Weightless Chain Mail, Jade Armor and Girdle of Might (helps a little against the increased encumberance of the Jade Armor), etc.
Usually, you want your mages to have booster items (Earth Boots, Crystal Coin) or reinvigorating items (Boots of the Messenger, Girdle of Might, Amulet of Resilience), possibly protective items (Boots of Stone, Weightless Chain Mail, light shield and/or missile protection), and items which increase their abilities for combat (Boots of Quickness/Jade Armor, Eye of Aiming).
Human melee commanders aren't usually worth giving items. They can use things like Sceptre of Authority and Skull Talisman, though. The commanders who are tough enough to survive in battle are different, and sometimes worth giving items. Jotun Herses are a good example. Also, lots of summonable units are good. The important things with Thugs or more powerful Super Combatants is to keep them alive (high prot, def, regeneration and/or life draining, luck, etherealness, lots of magic resistance, as many resistances/immunities as possible) and causing damage (multiple attacks, Quickness, Fire/Astral Shield, Breath of Winter or e.g. Rime Hauberk), with as low encumberanace as possible and with reinvigoration if Encumberance isn't 0. If enc is 0, the unit will only get fatique from spells and spellcasting.
Wraith Sword is very powerful with Conceptual Balance Mods, Starshine Skullcap gives magic resistance to anyone, high-def weapons like Sword of Quickness are generally good.

4. Supply items affect the whole province. If the same commander has two same items, only one has any effect. Because of this, it usually is worth it spreading the items out to many units. However, Scouts are usually preferred, as they don't die as often.
Remember that Endless Vineskin is the most economical choice, and that Summer Sword also exists.

5. I sometimes do that, but they would have to be quite powerful to be worth the gems. Jotun Herses can be like that. Sometimes I recruit cavalry commanders and give them bodyguards (units with Guard Commander order) and try to use his slightly better combat commands to target the enemy commanders or mages.
With Ulm, Black Lords can be powerful, but are still weak against magic. While testing with Conceptual Balance, I found that the national heroes have much more potential as combatants.
Usually it's better to give them ranged weapons. Commanders can Fire Rear.

6. I usually script my mages. Usually it's quite simple, like Body Ethereal, Eagle Eyes, Nether Darts for my Seithkona. I don't script all of their five spells every time.
If you hover your mouse above a commander's orders and press Ctrl+number (0-9), that set of orders is saved. You can give the same orders for any other commander by hovering the mouse above his/her commands, and then pressing the number you saved the set of commands in.

Re: Couple of questions
 

Gosh! I didn't know that! Where have I been? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Couple of questions
 

I think that was added in a patch. I'm not perfectly positive about that, though.

It's surprisingly less known, considering how useful it is. And not that hard to grasp, either.

Re: Couple of questions
 

Heh, you guys have got too fast machines; I'm reasonably certain that one of the hints the game provides between turns is exactly that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Couple of questions
 

i have a fast(ish) machine, it took me atleast 4 times looking at that hint to find it all out (its not easy considering how rare it is) without it i would take almost as long doing my turns in blitz games as other people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Couple of questions
 

I don't remember either, but I think it was either added as last minute change before the game went gold (definitely after manual was printed) or in the first patch. Note that game shipped with version 2.02, not 2.00. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Couple of questions
 

Actually there are 2 tips in the game about that feature.

Re: Couple of questions
 

But a lot of tips that you can't read on a mid-range Pentium/Athlon unless you're playing on something like the Faerun map - really ought to be a 'pause' option, or an option to view all tips.

(So people don't have to know that the tips exist in text form on a web site somewhere.)

Re: Couple of questions
 

You can just write that down as a tip http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif