How do you use astral gems?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by alexti:
I've never had astral/air mage to cast The Wrath of God

That's a crying shame. It is so nice to be told that 134 were killed and 120 wounded per turn by the enchantment- these sort of figures are not unusual when Wrath of God is actual.

I'm not sure about The Eyes of God, but Acashic Record seems to be too expensive for what it does,

All depends on whether you have other decent site searchers, really. If you have easy access to searching to level 2 or 3 with mages in many paths, or if you play on a small map, you may never need Acasric Record. If you do not, but have, say, a couple of mountain provinces unsearched, Acasric Record might boost your total gem production by 4-8 gems/turn per casting. And if you are playing on an XL map and are in the mid-game, Acasric Record is exceptional for maximizing gem income - it will usually have paid off one way or the other in about 10-15 turns.

Sure, the individual path site-searching spells are much, much, cheaper, and well worth using ASAP for your most important magic types, but it does tie up a lot of mages, and you may miss out on some of the truly outstanding sites that reduce casting costs... (And if you find a conjuration site, then it is time to immediately relocate your Acasric Record team to that province to cut down on gem cost)

Acasric Record is the one to use when you really want to ramp up gem production long-term.

[And the more water gem sites you find, the more astral pearls you can produce, and the greater your astral gem income.]

which Astral Summons in particular do you use? In other paths summons seems to have better value per cost.

Very few summoning spells compare in power to the Ether Lord and his 15 Ether Warriors you get for 90 astral gems. Some summons are cheaper, and can compare or surpass the power if cast multiple times [Tartarian Gate anyone? ], but that takes multiple mages or several rounds to match the same power. Ether Gate takes one mage to provide an instant army, and an exceptionally powerful one at that, which includes a new mage capable of casting Ether Gate when provided with a single astral boosting item.

Juggernauts are also very, very useful for rolling up enemy dominion while trampling their troops, and, additionally, they look funny, and it is hard to think of any 25 gem summon that beats the abomination. (Okay, I have a weakness for big goofy troops! )

[PDF]

If someone ever has too many Astral Pearls, please send them to me !

[ February 28, 2004, 19:14: Message edited by: PDF ]

[Gandalf Parker]

I will probably regret asking but.. they dont work to boost research anymore like in Dom1?

[PDF]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I will probably regret asking but.. they dont work to boost research anymore like in Dom1?

Nope, feature was pulled out of Dom2 ... maybe because astral nations were already the strongest and didn't need an extra boost !
A propos de Acashic Records, it isn't that much costly than the basic one-path spells : each of these costs 2, so searching all paths cost 18 (counting slaves), whereas AR is 25, that's only 25% more but is 1 action instead of 9 and can be done with only 1 path instead of 9 !
Finally note that with 40% site freq and avg 1.5 gems/site (that's a guess more than a calculation, given that many sites don't give any gems) you'll get on average 0.4*4*1.5 = 2.4 gems/turn production. So ROE is 10 turns ...

[Pocus]

cestkoi ROE?

I can understand why Alexti asked the question on first instance though. Thats because astral does not have low level summons, so one can be under the impression that there is a lull, in astral gem usage, compared to other paths.
But I dont think that somebody can seriously say he has too much gems in his labs, or it means you have won against the AI, but dont want to end the game to toy with them a bit more.

[Saber Cherry]

Astrals:

-Convert to all other gem types
-Are great for ring of sorcery / wizardry

How can you have too many astral gems? It's not possible. If you can't use them all, either convert them or empower commanders until you can use them all. Lucky Coin / Starshine Skullcap / Robe of Shadows / Pendant of Luck / Crown of Command are all so useful that I could forge one per astral mage per turn and still want more.

[GavinWheeler]

Originally posted by Pocus:
cestkoi ROE?

"ROI" serait "Return on Investment", ce qui makes sense dans cette context. Pour "ROE" je n'ai aucun bloody idée, unless c'est "return on enchantment" ou something comme that.

Why the proliferation of franglais, anyway?