[Graeme Dice]

Scott Hebert said:
Agreed, but if I had a choice, I'd rather put the Laboratory in a Sage province rather than a Druid province. (BTW, the Druid is overcosted, but the concept is the same.)

I think it's because nature 2 is very useful in general to a nation without nature mages, but not that useful to a nation with N3A2?1 mages.

25 Longdead, per Sauromancer. Spending money on Sauromancers instead of troops, and 'rushing' to Enchantment-3, seems a not too entirely bad early strategy with C'tis.

It's a very good strategy. You do need a screen of living troops to prevent being arrowed, and to prevent cavalry charges.

I'm just wondering where you get all the money to do everything you seem to think is able to do.

You don't do everything, you basically pick and choose which things you're going to concentrate on, and hope that your allies can help to cover the holes.

To outfit SCs?

I'd classify them as thugs.

I love Broken Empire Ermor. Pythium's troops with Undead armies?

I like them too, it's just that they are missing something to give them punch.

That's why you have a couple of commanders spamming your own lifeless battle summons, right?

You can do that, but you'll also need to bring a storm along to keep those commanders safe.

Everything is focussed around making unkillable SCs, isn't it?

Not everything, Vanadrott's are unparalled as a raiding force, and if you could make them fly would be nearly unstoppable.

Assuming I have access to all of the individual spells, yes. A lot of the time, I don't.

I always make it a priority to find and/or develop mages that are capable of casting those spells.

What, in your opinion, WOULD increase the number of options while also decreasing reliance on SCs?

Change the routing behaviour to allow one to force commanders to remain on the battlefield unless the commander fails a morale check. This would allow a nation like Ulm to take down many SCs using black lords with cheaply forged equipment. You could also use commanders like Firbolgs in large quantities without worrying about whether one of them will be killed and flee the battlefield.

Spells that can significantly improve the abilities of normal troops at easier to reach research points than alteration 9.

More games should be played on the rich setting as well, as it places the magic/might balance point at a considerably different location. Or just mod the game so that every province produces twice as much gold.

Change encumbrance and fatigue so that they are less granular, and so that stronger and larger creatures aren't as fatigued by their armour.