Newbie - General Concepts

[Cainehill]

Endoperez wrote a great reply, BUT:
Most pretenders are built to fulfill one spesific role, and their actions are planned with their abilities in mind. As an example, if you have Son of Niefel with Water 9 to get quickness for sacred units, you want to plan his doing according to his powerful magic. As Breath of Winter becomes more powerful with more powerful Water mage, using him in battle seems like a good idea.

Unlike Fire Shield, Breath of Winter doesn't improve with higher ranks of magic. Instead, the effect is dependent on the climate of the province : in cold provinces the cloud is larger and may do more damage, in provinces with Heat-3 the spell is nearly worthless.

By way of illustration : I teleported a monolith into provinces with different weather, using nothing but Breath of Winter. The only time he failed was against militia when teleported into Heat-3. The spell often couldn't be seen at all, and the militia swarming the monolith took so little damage that they never retreated.

Because of this, the monolith eventually auto-retreated, but because it's immobile it can't retreat, and so died. Doing the exact same thing with Heat-2, the spell's cloud was sufficiently larger that the militia took noticeable damage in the first 10 rounds and fled after taking casualties, unlike the Heat-3 where there was zero casualties amongst the militia.

[Endoperez]

Yep, it seems you are right. Water 2 and Water 10 had the same effect in hot province, and again the same (but this time much bigger) in cold province. I had tested this with Jotunheim, and thought that the bigger AoE came from the high level of Water magic.

Does high level affect the damage of the spell?

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes definetly pros and cons (thanks Endoperez for the quote)

All of these answers also depends on what race you are playing. A tactic that works well for Jutenheim Giants would not work the same for a Pangaea, or Caelum. The game is designed so that everyone can beat someone, but no one can beat everyone. At least not all at equal levels of ease.

Play with all the races abit. Search here for racial tactics. You probably have a playing style (aggressive, defensive, barbarian horde, stealth, diplomacy, research magic, item artificer, RPGer prefering strong single units). Find the race which best matches your playing style. That will win you more games than trying to force certain tactics on the wrong nation

Gandalf Parker

[Gargoyle]

Gandalf Parker said:
Yes definetly pros and cons (thanks Endoperez for the quote)

All of these answers also depends on what race you are playing. A tactic that works well for Jutenheim Giants would not work the same for a Pangaea, or Caelum. The game is designed so that everyone can beat someone, but no one can beat everyone. At least not all at equal levels of ease.

Play with all the races abit. Search here for racial tactics. You probably have a playing style (aggressive, defensive, barbarian horde, stealth, diplomacy, research magic, item artificer, RPGer prefering strong single units). Find the race which best matches your playing style. That will win you more games than trying to force certain tactics on the wrong nation

Gandalf Parker

Well I am mostly just reacting to each turn. I took Ulm's home province (boy are they pissed!) I'm doing fairly well but I just feel like I don't have plan. I have about 10 Provinces now, nice income and Resources, 3 good Armies.

The thing I feel most lost about is expanding my Magic. Other than enpowerment and Items that boost, do magic users go up in power with experience? Then I can see Researching the highest spells, but otherwise not.

[Zooko]

They do not get higher levels of magic skill with experience. You can get higher levels of magic skill by:

1. Getting it on your Pretender in the first place.
2. Summoning a creature which has high magic skill.
3. Items that boost magic skill.
4. Empowerment (expensive in terms of gems).
5. In battles, a mage can use up to one extra gem to increase his effective skill level for one spell.
6. Communion.

[Endoperez]

There are many spells that are high in the research list not because of their power, but because they don't need high levels of magic. Check Frozen Heart, Nether Darts, Will of the Fates... For their effect, the casterlevel needed seems low.

You should probably have a list of all boosters. There is some kind of a file that sums them up, but I don't remember who made it or its name. Try Arryn's site. Fire, Air and Blood have boosters only after level 3, or Fire 1 Death 1 with fire and Skull of Fire. Both Air and Blood have two boosters available after that. Earth, Nature and Death have booster available at magic 2, Nature also has N3S1 item and N4 staff that gives 2-level bonus. Death has D3 or D4 helmet, and some very nice artifacts. Water has Water Bracelet and, if you really need to reach high level and cannot summon Sea King's Court (Sea King has Water 3), Robe of the Sea.

There are few items that boost many paths at once. Staves of Elemental Mastery, Rings of Wizardy, Rings of Sorcery... and Robe of the Magi. However, the last one has nasty side-effect of imposing Horror Mark on its wielder. I think it is of stronger kind than that imposed by the spell.

[Gandalf Parker]

Keep an eye out for natives such as amazons or raptors which you can recruit from that province. Especially any with 3 in a magic type. Those can usually create items which can boost that magic to 4 which has another item appear which can boost them to 5 etc etc.

Also be sure to search for magic sites in your nearby provinces since many of them will allow you to recruit new types of units and often they are magical.

What race are you playing?

[AMF]

Endoperez said:
There are few items that boost many paths at once. Staves of Elemental Mastery, Rings of Wizardy, Rings of Sorcery... and Robe of the Magi. However, the last one has nasty side-effect of imposing Horror Mark on its wielder. I think it is of stronger kind than that imposed by the spell.

Ok, newbie question here: is there a way to boost a pretender's level in a magic *school* (not path) after gamestart?

Thanks, it's probably a really basic question...but I am just starting out...

Alarik