Arcoscephole.

[Norfleet]

I, too, tend to eschew the use of mages in battle, relatively early in the game: Early on, you will have nothing really impressive that's worth casting: Even once you have something, you shouldn't commit mages to the field unless you have a plan in mind for what you want to cast with them: If you just leave them on default orders or spells, they probably don't belong there. In fact, overuse of mages early in the game tends to both get them killed, and greatly retard your research development. When the time comes to actually leave the labs, you have only dead mages.

However, once you *DO* have something hefty to lob into the face of your enemies, easy access to Communion and a wide variety of magical paths available to you will guarantee that you can lob just about anything at them. By all means, make use of this. But don't just blindly toss mages into a battlefield and expect them to do anything intelligent, as the spellcasting AI seems to have no understanding of purpose and is thus abysmally stupid.

[Huzurdaddi]

I, too, tend to eschew the use of mages in battle, relatively early in the game:

When I play Pythium I find that a pack of Theurg Acolytes casting body etherial make expansion rather painless. Not to mention that your pricipes tend to live for quite a few extra battles with when they are etherial and they quickly seems to get 17 defence which ain't shabby.

So I *think* that mages are decent almost right off the bat with Pythium. With other nations I do not know. I don't think ( but am not sure ) that my armies would do nearly as well without the body etherial.

Not to mention 5-6 theurg acolytes are pretty cheap.