Abysia and magic research

Crust · #1 November 15th, 2008, 04:23 PM

How can you keep up with other nations? Not only are the researchers you have available poor or capital only, but you need to deploy your mages to cast battle magic (Fireball, Falling Fires) the moment you get into a war since your troops are so expensive. You need to take advantage of their fire resistance to win against a real enemy.

Also there is the need for Warlock Apprentices for blood hunting and Demonbreds for devil summoning.

Hadrian_II · #2 November 15th, 2008, 04:32 PM

Ligthless Lanterns are your best friend.

JimMorrison · #3 November 15th, 2008, 05:31 PM

And all this time tequila has been lying to me about that.

licker · #4 November 15th, 2008, 09:14 PM

lightless lanterns are fine, but const 6? So along with needing to (likely) get some into evo and blood you need to run to const 6...

20 turns? 30 turns? Unless you take a research pretender, how far behind are you already by then?

Abyssia would really run more smoothly if you could at least get some blood on a non cap mage.

vfb · #5 November 15th, 2008, 10:44 PM

Evo 2 is sufficient to begin. At Const 4 make Lifelong Protections with B4 Warlocks, Wild Fire wands with your F3s, and Shrouds if you have an N4 bless. You don't need Blood initially (unless your are using CBM, then Blood 1 gives Call Lesser Horror). A research pretender is a good idea, and since you don't have gold-efficient research anyway, you may as well go with an awake Great Sage and Drain-2.

WaltF4 · #6 November 16th, 2008, 12:09 AM

What qualifies as gold-efficient research?

archaeolept · #7 November 16th, 2008, 12:18 AM

comparatively ok RP/g

aby's mages are expensive for the research you get... so vfb gives one plausible way around it - use the great sage to get to lanterns in a reasonable amount of time

JimMorrison · #8 November 16th, 2008, 04:10 AM

So, you are spending 250 points to get an Awake pretender, whose sole purpose of being Awake is to justify gaining 120 points?

Have him Dormant, and you are Magic1 instead of Drain2, and you have 30 extra points to spend.

vfb · #9 November 16th, 2008, 04:38 AM

But then I can't expand using Call Lesser Horror starting turn 3! (CBM)

In year in my Warlock Apprentices were all out in the field either blood hunting, casting Body Eth on salamanders, or casting Call Lesser Horror on indies.

It's a functional alternative to normality, that's all.

VedalkenBear · #10 November 17th, 2008, 08:53 AM

Walt: Generally speaking, you can find a 'good' RP/gold ratio by looking at known good researchers and then extrapolating.

Before Golden Era Arco, I believe the 'most efficient' researcher in Dom2 was the Daughter of Avalon, who had a base gold/research ratio of 20, with a per-turn after that of 2.7 or so.

In Dominions 3, I think a gold/research ratio of 20 or less is 'good'. So 111 for 90 mages (e.g., Seithkona) are 'good' (18). Warlock Apprentices for Abysia are at 30, I think. (150g for 5 research base, right?) If they're Sacred, then you can take that into account.