Best summon?

[HotNifeThruButr]

Celestial Soldiers are a good, solid summon, in my opinion. They were very useful against the mighty Black Plate Infants of Ulm. These guys can slam enemy armor pretty damn hard, with superhuman strength and glaives. They also move fast enough to get to the battle in time (2 strat move on a 15 prot unit is good by my standards) and their battle move is decent enough for them to flank the enemy occasionally. They also cost 4 gems to a horse and summon in 5-packs. It's a shame that not all Celestial Masters can summon them without empowerments/items.

I'm also a fan of Behemoths. Non-routing elephants can be devastating.

Trolls are excellent summons in a gem-poor environment, if you the money to sustain them. Troll kings can also be used as troll generators, but I don't find the court economical unless your pretender is the only other mage that can summon trolls.

[Azhur]

Conjuration 7 - Air Elemental Queen (cost: 5 Air, 50air gems)

Three of these summons equals almost like having three VQs. Arm with same equipment like VQs and research alt 3 to:

- mistform
- mirror image
- charge body

ATTACK REARMOST (RAMPAGE!)

[ May 16, 2004, 08:46: Message edited by: Azhur ]

[Belcarl]

Vine Ogres - With an Ivy crown and 3N its easy to pump a lot of these these out at 1 nature gem each. They dont have that good hitting power but are solid "meat wall" for a lot of nations who rely on Missile/magic in battles. I use them quite a lot when playing R'lyeh and Man.

Revenants - For 9 death gems you get a researcher that doesnt cost upkeep more or less for free. And you can put that feverish amulet (sp?) on them for Fire gem hoarding.

Specter - Same as Revenant but cost 10 Death gems and requires 3D to cast, but are much better at researching.

Angelic Host- 50 Astral gems for 7 swift Blitzkrieg fliers that could wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and are nasty against undead AND are sacred. Then, they are not strong enough to fight large battles by themselves. Maybe not a game winner, but a PITA for your enemy, especially if he relies on mages in battles.

Then there is the Tarrasque(sp?) and Abominion at Conjuration 9. But I seldom get that far on the research tree unless its a big game.

I usually have problems with the wights chilling aura in Siege battles, since I tend to have a lot of other non-undead troops. If I'm playing a blood nation I would vote Devils as #1, otherwise I would say Abominions. A few of these could rout anything but the strongest defence, and 25 Astral is easy to Alchemize no matter what kind of magic sites you have found.

If possible I only use Trolls if I need a quick infantry boost against an enemy. One Sea Kings court is usually nice, but it cost too much gold to maintain to be a good summon strategy in my opinion. 3 or 4 turns of casting Sea Kings court and you will feel it on your upkeep.

[ May 16, 2004, 10:08: Message edited by: Belcarl ]

[proteus]

Call Abomination.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Azhur:
Conjuration 7 - Air Elemental Queen (cost: 5 Air, 50air gems)

Three of these summons equals almost like having three VQs. Arm with same equipment like VQs and research alt 3 to:

- mistform
- mirror image
- charge body

ATTACK REARMOST (RAMPAGE!)

Hmmm, is there a much point of casting charge body? It only affects first oppponent who manage to hit it, IARC.

[Wauthan]

Earth: I'm a big fan of the Clockwork Horrors. The sheer number that can be produced is very impressive. They tend to form the backbone of my defensive forces. Gargoyles are also really nice, but I can rarely afford them.

Death: Ghosts got to be the hardiest bloody units in the game. I've had many sessions where they were the only fivestar units around (they killed all the others).

Nature: I don't actually know why but I really like bog beasts. I mix them into armies with poison immune creatures and watch the death toll rises dramatically. There's nothing so bad that an ugly poisonfarting venomspitting swamp monster can't make it a heck of a lot worse.

Water/Fire: The Drakes. Again you get a lot of staying power for the cost and their immunities allow for crazed mage artillery support.

*Scratches head* I guess that's all. While there are a lot of cool creatures in the game I never find myself using them as frequently as those mentioned. I find bloodmagic to be too annoying to explore those units. Some units I even had too boost a little before finding any reason to use. Summon Animals and Corpse Man Construction come into mind. Anyone use these spells regularly?

[Tuna-Fish]

Enliven statues. Ench 6, EEE, 20 e gems. 10 living statues a pop, +2 per extra path. Ok shield for your mages, but when it really shines is when you take a cyclops god with e-10 for the reinvigoration, and then give him earth boots so he gets 26 statues a pop!