What are some useful strategies for construction?

[General_Jah]

Again I'm new to the game and as of yet don't see much benefit for this research path other than possibly tricking out your Diety?

1) Are making these items for tricking out your commanders a viable strategy?

2) Or is the primary use for tricking out your diety into a SC like the tutorial suggests?

Some tips/strategies in this arena would be great, thanks!

[Gandalf Parker]

For me its getting to the items that can raise magic levels so that my mages can cast the more powerful spells and summons. I also really need to make good items for my assassins.

[Twan]

The things to forge :
- boosters for your mages
- other useful items for your battle mages (reinvigoration items and things like eyes of aiming / of the void)
- ranged weapons for your commanders
- protective items for your valuable commanders once you know who you fight (especially if you fight someone using battle enchantmennts)
- once you can summon commanders with many hp (or ethearal) some armor/weapons/strength items to make them good melee thugs

[Nick_K]

For one thing, construction has few actual spells, but these include some good ones - it's quite a handy path for earth mages with battlefield spells, summons and global enchantments.

As for items, there are lots of uses for them. Off the top of my head:
- Path boosting items are often a far cheaper way than empowerment to cast more powerful spells in paths you don't already have a powerful mage in.
- Items can allow land units to go underwater. They get the poor amphibian penalties, but in some cases it can be very worthwhile.
- Supply items such as bags of wine allow very large armies to be fielded without starving

I'm not going to go into detail about SCs and so on because I only play SP so I doubt I'm very efficient there. SCs are a bit of a cheesy tactic in singleplayer: the computer cannot handle them so it more or less guarantees victory. It's about on par with playing the ashen empire... fun sometimes but not really a challenge.
However, equipping commanders with items is a fun thing to do which I really enjoy, even if these far-from-SC individuals might not live too long.

If you want effective uses of combat magic items, a SC does not have to be a pretender, any powerful summon will do. A tricked-out wraith lord or elemental noble can slaughter a huge AI army. I had an amusing battle recently where a wraith lord in friendly dominion with woundflame singlehandedly defeated an army of well over a thousand lanka troops incluing a dozen or so mages. However, equipping regular human commanders, even fairly elite ones, is unlikely to result in the same ridiculous effects; I find this makes it more fun, but in terms of benefit... not so much. A few nations (such as EA Jotunheim) have commanders who make good recruitable SCs when equipped with items but most do not.
Assassins can be equipped with magic items as well, which can dramatically increase their killing power. This can be important if you're hunting an enemy pretender in order to shut off a global spell, for instance.
Finally, if you can cast 'forge of the ancients' then you can potentially make items incredibly cheaply. Being able to equip every commander in an army with boots of quickness and a rod of the phoenix at negligable gem cost is quite a nice boost.

[danm]

Construction is cool (especially if you are not wow'd by summons and find yourself with a bunch of gems laying about - hehe)

1a) its always good to boost your commanders a bit. adding a low(to no)encumbrance shield, helmet, and armor, with luck, etherial, or similar boni to your mages makes a BIG difference once arrows start flying their way. Magic boost items also can make a HUGE difference in battle (spell fatigue depends on path level -- higher paths == more spells)

1b) SKULL MENTORS. +9 research for 10 death gems is about as good a bargain as anything in the game. (think 2 cheap researchers at 100+ gold each and upkeep every turn, vs 10 gems and an inventory slot) There are quite a few handy items of this sort. Again, spell path boosters can be amazing, allowing you to use cheaper units for rituals/summons, or enabling certain spells/summons in the first place.

2) I havn't had a lot of luck or experience building effective supercombatants and thugs yet (hihi im a nub too!), but word is they can be quite nifty. The Dom2 veterans will have this down to a fine science, as it was apparently a vital skill in that release. It's harder to do properly in dom3, but still handy if you have the inclination.

Items certainly won't win the game for you all by their lonesome, but I don't know of a strategy that isn't at least improved by the right items (and most depend on one or more key constructables)

[Aleph]

Also - fever fetishes (either on cheap commanders, be sure to get them back before the commander dies, or on undead, who produce less gems but don't suffer from being diseased), blood stones, or clam of pearls to drive magical economies.

Fever fetishes on undead, in particular, can also be a nice boost to your economy if you alchemize them for gold.

[Nick_K]

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the skull mentors. The lightless lantern at Const 6 is also very good: it's more efficient in terms of RP/Gem and the horror marking isn't actually a big deal... but those extra two levels of research needed are a bit annoying

[Taqwus]

Some items are rather useful, militarily. For instance...

Supply items: starvation really bites.

Staff of Storms: shuts down -most- fliers, really weakens missile fire, and ensures Summon Storm Power will work.

Sword of Aurgelmer: luck to all friendly units :O

Banner of the Northern Star: +1S to all astral mages. Helpful if you're astral-happy and they're not.

[Nightblade]

After the 1st time i encountered the rogue commander Bogus the Troll that single handedly routed a whole army of mine, i never underestimated the values in battles of good items anymore.

[BigDisAwesome]

yeah those guys are insane. i'm pretty sure i remember seeing a flying unit with a defense of 29.