[thejeff]

I've had the same problems with Pythium. It seems you should churn out communicants in large numbers, but they're only useful in certain battles and not much cheaper than Theurg Acolytes, who can at least research the rest of the time.

That said there are reports that communicants use less fatigue than would be expected of no magic communion slaves. I'm not sure how much less.

Fire and Air aren't that easy to boost with items. The base items for both require 4 levels to start with. Fire also has a fire/death booster, but I don't think either Marignon or Pythium have access to that.

You can only use 1 gem to boost the level of spell you can cast, and only as many total as you have levels. And the AI is not good at managing gem use in battle. It tends to spend them before you need them. You also need to have someone following along to resupply.

With enough slaves, very high levels can be reached and some of the nastier battlefield spells cast. Or boosts for the ones that grow in area and/or damage. Master enslave is the usual example. There was a thread about it not long ago.

Still I've never really managed to make effective use of communion either. Or had it used against me.