MP Research strategy help

[Schmoe]

All those Skull Mentors, Quills, and Lanterns cost a lot of gems. 10 Skull Mentors is 100 Death gems. Usually by turn 30 I haven't even accumulated 100 Death gems, much less 100 Death gems that haven't been used for something else (Dark Knowledge, other items, summons, etc).

How do you manage such a strong commitment to research and still maintain an effective army?

[En Forcer]

Well my first priority is get some Earth weenie making Dwarven hammers. Then I have a dedicated forger for each school of magic. So within the first 20 turns I have at least 1 quill and 1 lantern being made every turn. It's slow but eventually everyone is upgraded and researching.

So my fire guy and air guy, cranking out quills and lanterns, each equiped with a hammer, use less gems to make the goods. Capiche?

[Schmoe]

Originally posted by En Forcer:
Well my first priority is get some Earth weenie making Dwarven hammers. Then I have a dedicated forger for each school of magic. So within the first 20 turns I have at least 1 quill and 1 lantern being made every turn. It's slow but eventually everyone is upgraded and researching.

So my fire guy and air guy, cranking out quills and lanterns, each equiped with a hammer, use less gems to make the goods. Capiche?

So you plunk down 40 Earth gems in the first 20 turns for a chance to save 1 air gem on each quill and 1 fire gem on each lantern? So in 20 more turns you have recouped your cost, after spending a total of 80 air, 80 fire, and 40 earth. It shifts the cost around a bit, but it still doesn't get around the fact that it's a huge investment of gems. I guess maybe I'm not site-searching effectively, but I rarely seem to have the sort of gem income to support those costs.

[En Forcer]

Mmmm....a little different than that.

1st forging = 1 dwarven hammer 20 earth gems
2nd forging = 1 dwarven hammer at 15 earth gems
(earth weenie gets 1st hammer so all stuff is now 25% off)

The quill drops to 3 air gems I think?

But the lantern drops from 10 fire to 7.

I TRY to get a dwarven hammer built first...but if I start a game and don't have a bunch of earth gems then obviously I pay full price.

Mind you, I don't statistically track gem usage or effeciency. There are better ways to do this. But during all this I'm probably fighting a 2 front war and using up huge amounts of gold on troops (and believe me I alchemy A LOT).

So that's pretty much it....

[Cohen]

I'd never forge Quills, since 3 ResPoints are too few for 5 Air Gems.

Skull Mentors are good only for certain Nations, while Fireless Lanterns are very good.

Usually many players goes for Magic Scale too, that is a far better enhancment than forging research items.

In a long stand a bonus research for every mage will prove very useful, not to count that depending on Nation enemies fighting in your dominion will lose 1 point in MR (this is good especially against Undead Ermor, or if you count on mass Soul Slay or such things).

In the firsts turns try to get the best mages you can since you need to unleash your Pretender with spell buffs asap to get provinces (so more gold, to better mages).

[Inigo Montoya]

A Few Corrections...

Lightless Lantern: 5 Fire Gems, 3 with a Dwarven Hammer

Owl Quill: 5 Air Gems, 3 with a Dwarven Hammer

I'm with Cohen. Consider Magic 3 if you want to be a researching superpower.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Cohen:
I'd never forge Quills, since 3 ResPoints are too few for 5 Air Gems.

Skull Mentors are good only for certain Nations, while Fireless Lanterns are very good.

You're missing an important point: Quills are available at Construction 2, Lanterns are available at Constr 6. If you're in dire need for research boosters, I assume you probably picked a drain scale. Then you can still research Constr 2 in 5 turns or so, while researching Constr 6 may take you, say, 30 turns. In a game that Lasts 60 turns, a Quill you forged in turn 10 will net you 150 research points over time. A Lantern you forged in turn 35 will be worth 150 research points too. More, you get the Quill research bonus earlier, which is an advantage you shouldn't underestimate (think about it as a 'research integral', if you like maths).