I've been trying to perfect my abysia strategies most of which depend on how things go in the map. I almost never go with soul contracts, vampires are hard to use on big maps and small maps, your fire is predictable so you try to use something else. A lot seems to depend on finding libraries as most of abysia's mages seem to be fighting or patrolling.
So a couple games ago against the AI I found over 7 libraries and even a place that had the citidel of the lore masters and an academy of high magics. That's a lore master 150 4? 12RP, a sage 80 1? 7RP, and two wizards 140 3? 10R. Of course the lore master is the only way to go so the others are a waste, but still I could have been spending thousands a turn to crank out some serious research. I only produced research at a couple places so I could protect them under nearby flaming domes. I've played a lot of games and 1-3 libraries is typical for a map, but this game I had only 20% of karan and access to so many libraries that I could have dominated even more than I already was. OK, enough with that game - the next game is where things got interesting.
I created a game on karan with 11 players, all human (i'm using the conceptp172 mod). I played all 11 races w/o biased decisions as much as possible. I focused on starting fort construction at a strategic spot if possible. I would start the fort and turn the computers to AI. I think that with 10 AI on karan, each with 2 forts this might make for an interesting AI game. So I try Abysia and actually have slow expanision. I do some site searches with my rainbow warlock in a third of my
15 provinces and find some pretty cool stuff other than just gems:
2 onyx amazon provinces
good for death and some earth forging
1 library
The temple of the raging god. 3 recruitable cmdrs, 2 fire/turn. I'm not sure I've seen this one before!
1. High Priest 3H (cool but I'm abysia so no biggie).
2. Pyromancer 60g 1F 3R (again I'm abysia bleh)
3. Fire lord - a sweet knight with 2F! Awesome for abysia, too bad it doesn't have innate fire resistance.
Castle Arcanum. Castle fortification found! I think I've only seen this site once.
1. wizard 140 3? 10R. Cool forger/researcher
2. Warrior Mage - Another knight mage with 2?. Super sweet...
I've decided this game's strategy for abysia will be:
Lots and lots of knights that cast their own buffs. I'll probably spend my blood on demon knights, something which I rarely do. This will most likely never ever happen again in my hands of Abysia
I'm amazed that I've been playing Dominions 2 for many months and each game can still really differ.
I've attached screenshots of the 2 knights that will be the driving force for my nation.
Tried something cool, found some cool magic sites!
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