[En Forcer]

Hmm...I wonder about Tuna's strategy. All those mages while great at research will soak you on upkeep.

I typically go for a mass of druids because they are sacred (and I seem to find them all the time).

But also sages, witches, gnomes, alchemists, whatever random finds I can get.

National mages for some reason seem to be less cost effective for me so I only get just a few of them. Maybe it's just my situation I'm in for my current SP game.

To answer your question, I shoot for 10 dedicated researchers equiped with lanterns and quills by turn 30 or so. Sometimes it's just quills because fire mages are hard to come by (as Jotun). that's my early plan. Than I slowly up to 15 or 20 researchers and swap out the quills for skull mentors.