Most Usefull Research Path...

[Meglobob]

Construction, useful for every nation bar none.

Interesting that in what is essentially a wargame, evocation magic has faired so badly. I say interesting but I am not surprised, thugs/SC's tend to win everytime over, 'kaboom' magic. Even the high level evocation spells like shimmering fields, niefel flames etc lack a certain punch.

[void]

The question is How could you build a SC without a good chassis.

AMA yes, Pendent of Luck yes, Amon Hotep yes, Magebane yes, Aegis yes, Boots of planes yes. So what? The only guy you could stack these items on to is a strategos, and with merely 13hp he just die to every single spell you drop there. Life for a life? No, a single level-one blood burst is already overkill.

And what if unique items are grabbed by other nation choose const?

ONLY ONE SCHOOL. Just like blood, to have a good go with const you need your nation have the ability to not only forge items but also use those const magics.

And blood come with enough SC counters..heck, with only one school blood player could have AC up without any hesitation.

[Sir_Dr_D]

void said:
The question is How could you build a SC without a good chassis.

The contruction path comes with a good chasis. The golem.

[solo]

Sir_Dr_D said:

The contruction path comes with a good chasis. The golem.

Also a djinn using the Magic Lamp, etc.

[AreWeInsaneYet]

Question: when a lamp is re-created the djinn is gone. how about his equipments?

[Humakty]

I don't trust SC (had some bad (but short) experiences with them), so I would say enchantment, for all the reasons developped above by more experienced players.

I will had the summons are easy to cast, as a 1D mage can search for sites pretty easily, so you don't need much effort before starting to trample the ennemy's elites.(If you understand what spell I'm pointing)

PS : I preffer to field ubber battle mages, rather than SC, I find them to kill more ennemies for the same cost in gems.

[Baalz]

One other consideration - in theory you can trade for construction items. I know that if I can line up a good trading partner early I'm much more likely to ignore construction for a bit. And some of the con-0 stuff you can do without research is decent, particularly the earth items, I think you could have a pretty decent thug without any construction research - if you had the right chasis.

[PyroStock]

Construction.

Cheap path boosters, SC items, per turn unit generators, assassins, supplies for large armies, underwater access for any army/unit, evocations, defensive items for mages, research boosters, gem producers, all the artifacts, communes, etc. No research path can claim to have it all, but Construction comes the closest.

In addition, if one could choose 2 research paths I would predict most would have Construction so they could enhance/access more of the other path more through items.

And what if unique items are grabbed by other nation choose const?

That could be said about almost any of the paths with their unique summons and globals. Even without artifacts you still have a wide variety of powerful items. The same cannot be said about Blood as without your uniques the best SC you could summon would be only an unequipped vampire lord or succubus.

If some MP game ever started based on limiting players to 1 path then the others might target the Construction nation just so they could hope to grab some items to make their uber mages or steal some nicely equipped SCs for themself. But with the right diplomacy the Construction player could make himself the invaluable goto guy for the needs of the others. And who wouldn't want to ally with the only nation who could make the good items? Besides you have to go kill that Enchantment Nation before they get Arcane Nexus up.

[Huzurdaddi]

PyroStock said:
Besides you have to go kill that Enchantment Nation before they get Arcane Nexus up.

LOL! What is he going to do with all of those gems? Dispell people to death?

It would make for an interesting game, but I think that everyone would simply go with construction. OTOH blood and making a pretender that could cast Astral Corruption is a decent play considering no one could dispell it.

[Chris_Byler]

Blood isn't as self-sufficient as it looks though - you don't get any blood thorns or brazen vessels or even SDRs without Construction. That makes a lot of spells inaccessible except to your pretender and also trashes your slave income.

I think the only answer is that there is no answer: a one-school research strategy will always be crippled. No school is sufficient unto itself.