[Gandalf Parker]

1) A clam is an item that gives an astral pearl. Since that can be used to give you any other gem, or turn into gems which can turn into gold, its a very desired commodity. It is also the gem which casts some of the most desired spells in the game. Therefore clamming is concentrating on developing a factory for generating as many as possible. Whether or not that is just another game tactic or is too powerful to allow is an ongoing debate. Some games use a mod to downgrade or not allow its use.

2) Carefully choosing the first province to attack helps alot. Waiting until the first host turn gives you an idea of who is next to you. Unless you mean the taking of a province on turn 1 which some feel is very important. That requires careful choices in the initial creation of your nation and god. Other than that I can only say that eventually you will get a feel for what terrains in certain eras tend toward certain native populations in order to avoid making an initial attack on something like knights or elephants.

3) Many nations have elites which work much better if they are directly behind some flak units. Also some nations have very strong mages who could be susceptable to various attacks and can stand to have more bodies on the battlefield to take attacks. Also the ability to hire a sizable force when you are way out in the field, or need bodies to help break down castle walls, can be very important. Of course the ability to gain certain mages for early searching, or water units for an early entry to the water that you can build off of, can help turn the tide of a game.

4) Altho many swear by it, CBM isnt the community standard that some feel it is. And if you look at the games in the multiplayer forum, and on Llamabeasts server, and on my server, its not a majority of the games being played. It is not an easy mod to turn on and off since it makes many many basic changes to the way the game is played. It strongly affects strategies. IMHO it is best to learn the game as its written, and then learn it with CBM. That way you might have a comfortable grasp when joining games either way. However it is a great mod which has grown steadily since the early days of Dom2 so I tend to agree with many that it deserves more support than it gets.

5) With ANYTHING about this game some people have absolute answers. But do not be disconcerted at getting many different ones. Thats the wonder of this game. That years after its release people are still arguing about the "best" anything with it and are even learning new ways to surprise people. Also many of the absolute answers have many unspoken factors such as favorite nations and map size or mod choices. Focusing on "combat spells" OR "gem economy" would IMHO be workable strategies only in certain games with certain nations on small blitz style maps which are expected to end fairly quickly.

That said, in general, I like to grab a couple of levels of Evocation right away so that my low-level mages have something useful to cast. At that point I usually have some provinces so I like to shift to Thaumaturgy so I can get some spells for finding magic sites. After that it starts varying wildly depending on the nation, game settings, map size, number of players, etc. Some nations need Conjuration for a few levels due to important national spells, some need Construction to give equipment to their elite thugs. I avoid Alteration for awhile since it appears that the spells which most anger people for the mages not doing what they are told tend to be in that area. So in answer to your question my default would tend to be combat for 2 or 3 levels, then gem economy for 2 or 3 levels, then whichever is specific to that nations best abilities.


Gandalf Parker