Is there an incongruous distribution of magic?

[vfb]

Agema said:
I personally consider magic skill of 1 in any path to be virtually useless.

Some ideas on how to make use of skill 1 mages:

Arcane Probing (S1) and Dark Knowledge (D1) are enough to find sites that let you recruit amazing independent mages.

N1 will prevent your armies from starving, especially in MA an LA where tribals are not so common.

S1 also gives you Body Ethereal. It's great to sit your mage on a couple thugs and cast this. S1 also scares off Mind Hunters.

A1 lets you forge quills, making Drain scales more palatable.

B1 bootstraps you into blood much faster than messing around with a bunch of scouts, and B1 mages can Leech.

F1 gives you lanterns.

W1 can boost themselves to W2 at const 6.

Also, about air: am I the only guy who likes Seeking Arrow? Oh wait, I can answer that: no, the AI likes casting it too. Not sure if that's a good sign though .

[Edratman]

vfb said:
[Also, about air: am I the only guy who likes Seeking Arrow?

I believe the answer to your question is a resounding yes. Having seen the AI cast it at me approximately three megagagillion times I believe the biggest problem I have with it is that it generates one additional message that I have to scan every time it is cast.

It may be more effective if directed by a player at an opponents capitol, but the AI doesn't seem to use that targeting logic. Regardless, I have placed the spell into my list of "Waste of Gems" file.


Other than that, how are you doing? Any genius-like discoveries lately? I was sure you would have been promoted to "VFB" by now.

[Torin]

its not a waste of gems. if you target a mage could get killed or get +5 encumbrance wich is damaging for a combat mage.

[Ewierl]

Torin said:
its not a waste of gems. if you target a mage could get killed or get +5 encumbrance wich is damaging for a combat mage.

It's all about your opponent's nation. Do they have lots of unarmored 9/10-hp human mages? Then Seeking Arrows can do you plenty of good. Otherwise, not so much.

[VedalkenBear]

Some of the nations get path combinations that are very rare outside of them.

E.g., EA Atlantis is one of the few that can pair Fire and Water magic. The only others I can think of are Jomon, EA TC, and Arco. Fire and Air has a similar very small list, which is more or less the above, minus Arco and Atlantis.

Earth/Blood is very rare as well, with Pangaea and IIRC Vanheim having the best access to it.

[Twan]

Seeking arrow is like all assassination spells a very good situationnal spell.

Your opponent has a 120 units army lead by only 3 commanders threatening to renforce his main army ? You spam 5 or 6 seeking arrows and all the leaders are dead, the army don't move (and perhaps won't move next turn, if he had no leader moving to the province).

As well killing a key mage can change the result of a big battle, and the spell is particularly good to achieve isolated mages after a retreat (or for surprise attacks on researchers when dome spells aren't available).

[Velusion]

Twan said:
Seeking arrow is like all assassination spells a very good situationnal spell.

Your opponent has a 120 units army lead by only 3 commanders threatening to renforce his main army ? You spam 5 or 6 seeking arrows and all the leaders are dead, the army don't move (and perhaps won't move next turn, if he had no leader moving to the province).

As well killing a key mage can change the result of a big battle, and the spell is particularly good to achieve isolated mages after a retreat (or for surprise attacks on researchers when dome spells aren't available).

Agreed. In most MP cases seeking arrow won't be used too often, but once in awhile a barrage of them in a sensitive province is very much worth the investment.

I've used them to really disrupt large armies that rely on communions. 3A to probably/possibly kill a support mage is a pretty good trade - especially if it makes that army vulnerable.