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.