I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[Boron]

Arryn said:
BTW, contrary to the prevailing belief of some, combat isn't necessarily about who's got the biggest baddest toughest sword-swinger. You can rock your enemy's world with potent battle spells that are as much or even more effective. And that's without even getting into Gandalf's favorite area: stealth. Or the subtlety of converting the enemy units into your own. Dominions is a multidimensional game. It's too bad so much of the discussion on this forum is focused on what makes the best hammer ...

Yeah Dominions is multidimensional but normally in lategame only either Battlemages or SCs , both with special troop support like devils , storm demons , living statues etc. are promising .

Special mages like soul slay/enslave mind astral mages , charm casting nature mages , deathmages with drain life and earth mages with petrify sure have good chances defeating SCs . The SC advantage is his high mobility + his resistences against some measures which normally work well against mages :
- Strategic spells like Flames / Murdering winter
- Assasins

And you can control your SC better because the mage doesn't follow his script after 5 orders anymore and/or is fatigued after 5-10 turns normally anyways .
Finally taking to much mages to battle hurts your research/summon/forging abilities too much .
SCs are just the most crucial part for most situations because they are good against almost everything and it is their natural role anyways .

I think Stealthtactics normally work rather bad . Gandalf stated this himself not long ago that he does it mainly for fun not to be effective . But you have to pay for the stealth ability so your stealthforce is more expensive then a normal force with about the same combat value .
If your stealthforce is too big it is discovered too easy by patrollers .

So Caelian/Abysian raiding forces are cheaper but have the same or even better effect .