Is magic worth it?!?

[General_Jah]

Meglobob said:

The battles are typically very decisive between players. Often losing 2-3 important battles spells certain long term doom for your god and nation.

Most players usually have 2-3 big core armies and then small groups of raiders by midgame. Those could be individual SC's, small groups of thugs or small stealth/flying/teleporting armies.

Personally, its your big armies that win you the war in the long run, raiders are there to annoy your opponent, hurt him economically, keep him off balance/paranoid and generally make life unpleasent...

Its your big armies that hold land, conquer castles/capitals and destroy his ability to fight back, by defeating his armies.

Ahh perhaps that helps me understand a bit better the use of magic too... It sounds like magic is more useful then in MP because the battles are so important...

I mean many of the battles in SP vs the computer are rarely that much different from the next... So I have a hard time justifying spending a bunch of resources say on summoning elementals, regularly b/c I don't have enough gems to support it every single turn.

Where as in a MP game if you have a big fight you want to throw in everything you have to make sure you come out on top...

Does that sound about right?

[Shovah32]

Pretty much, although gem spending is often saved for the very large battles. If you want to see some bigger battles find a one province wide chokepoint and put enough PD in it to hold off enemy attacks. After a while they should either have a big force outside it that you can attack or they will beat the PD with a large army which you can then attack.

[Crafty]

I don't do much site searching but i still end up with easily 300+ gems in at least 2 paths, and about 100 in the others. I really need to use magic more, throw some at the commanders just for fun even...

[Taqwus]

That's a sizeable stockpile -- useful if you have a global or a dispel in mind. If not, there's probably some good use for 'em.

[Aleph]

I'll reiterate the poster who mentioned Abyssia.

Others:

MA Ermor has pretty amazing communions very early, able to boost multiple Thaumaturgs to Holy 4. This gives a lot of nice options - even regular longdeads are formidable with Power of the Sepulchre, and your longdead horsemen legions and Shadow Vestals are nasty indeed. Plus, when in doubt, spam Smite.

If magic sites are weaker in LA, you might think about LA Mictlan as a magical force to be reckoned with. Mictlan, more than just about any other nation save perhaps Ermor, lives and dies by effective magic use. LA is pretty much identical to EA with regards to magic strength overall, with less fire and more water (leading to easier clam spam, another big source of magic power) and a variety of powerful mage priests who don't have to worry about age (nice before you get boots, still saves you blood/keeps a slot free). Also, national troops are a quite a bit weaker in LA, so your Jaguars won't be competing with Vans.