[tinkthank]

Originally posted by djtool:
your only consisten magic lvl 2 is water. Other wise your searching with magic levels of one unless you have a ton of mages and are lucky enough to have a lvl 2 for each discipline. I suppose you could replace those nice mages you need for research with master of the ways if you fail to find a library early on. however I find it hard to balance purchasing mages and setting up a castle or two.

S&A gets 2 randoms on their CMs. I find I get a
2-fire
2-astral
2-air
3-water
before too long, and I use Dark Knowledge with my Ancestors. (Sometimes you get lucky and get exactly this combo with only 2 CMs.)

I find this exceedingly good for early game, way before I could ever even research acashic. Sure I miss the biggies, mais c'est la vie.

I happen to enjoy and have decent success with an Earth Mother as well -- quelle surprise! That gets me covered well in everything but blood without acashic.

But hey, it's your game and your build -- but you did ask.