[PvK]

I made good use (for my own standards) of drakes, scorpion beasts, prides of lions, wights, etc.

Hoarding or using now depends on the situation: how soon I need things, what else I need the gems for, which free casters I have available, research expectations, opponents, number of gems available, etc.

I think many of these are good for early-research situations. I agree that later in the research tree, there are summons which are fairly easy to summon which tend to be better and not much more expensive.

My current mod effort in progress makes the more powerful high-research items more difficult to cast in terms of expense and magic power required. I'm really liking the results so far.

PvK