What are the strongest summons?

[Taqwus]

For real gratuitousness, wish for a (stealthy) Lord of the Night, give him a Black Heart and some better gear, and now you have a size-6 flying assassin.
As for Gift of Reason... interestingly, when you get a Vastness and GoR it, you find out that it's an Astral-3 mage (good AND bad; bad if you're planning to use it against nations with lots of astral power...).
In terms of building a front line, I like the Wight summons; you get 20 well-armored non-fatiguing non-eating skilled undead warriors for 30 gems. Enliven Statues can also build a decent front line.

[Particle]

Bleh! Abomination is still my fav!

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
that Nataraja-prophet could still be an awesome super combatant...

I'd wish for a Void Lord instead of a Nataraja. You get one less attack (the Void Lord gets an extra life-draining tentacle), but the extra misc slot, better protection, better magic resistance, fear(+5) aura, underwater ability and immunity to eye loss more than make up for it IMO.

[Humer]

Vastness. Definately. You CAN'T beat movement of 10 (flying). After Gift of Reason, the V can zoom 10 provinces, easily beat local defence (Gotta love Blood Curse, sp?), set taxes to 200 and move away!

Yestereve got 3! Vastness' in 3 turns! So... I GoR'ed one and put the other 2 on tow and started taking provinces from the map at random.

BTW, Vastness really has Astral-3. GoR and see for yourself. Cast Luck and you have sacred ethereal creature which avoids 50% (from luck) of 25% hits (from etherealness) and on top of that, opponent who actually manages to land a hit must beat a magic resistance roll against Blood Curse (+2) or take the hit itself. But 0 prot and 'only' 76 hp makes it vulnerable to magical damage and as it is now hip, pop and on top, magic duel.

What's not to love?

- Humer

[Shael]

owning astral magic can be so bad
mind duel anyone ?

[Keir Maxwell]

I would be really interested to hear what low level summons people have had good results with. So what magic level 4 and below ritual summonings have people done well with?

I have had fun with Fire Drakes as artillery for Abyssia but they are not a must buy option. Cave Drakes look allright but its hard to summon enough to make a big difference. Summon Shades seems very handy and I have made use of Horned Snakes - in both case the numbers per ritual are the selling point. Call of the Wild is still a beaut but beyond these and celestial summons for Tien Ch'i I haven't found a great deal yet at the lower levels.

Anyone tried Spirits of the Wood?

I didn't much like Vine Ogres in Dom I but they look more attractive with other options scaled down from Dom1.

Cheers

Keir

[ November 25, 2003, 07:50: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[LordArioch]

Spirits of the wood might be decent, but being unable to move to other provinces seriously limits the usefulness of hama dryads. In terms of low level summons I'd have to go for behemoth for death, although wights might be decent...maybe.
I think I like the Kithanironic lion for nature/earth, although vine ogre mass production is great and economical. Maybe pride of lions? Costs a bit, but lions are pretty sturdy and it lets you spend gems fast. The scorpian beast isn't so costly as a drake, and the wyvern is cheaper now for spending air gems...
I don't really see much in earth...earth magic just strikes me as weak overall really. Besides blade wind its battlefield spells are weak or hard to cast, and its summons are not great either, except for some high level construction.

And blood of course has a wide selection of demons..I like the area damage on frost fiends against light troops, but the rest are more pratical it seems.

In high level summons, tartarian gate is awsome...you get a undead pretender god/mage for 10 death and 20 nature (Gift of reason). And some of them are pretty good mages too.