Rainbow Mages and Searching in the Early Game

[earwicker7]

What's the general viewpoint on how to handle searching with a rainbow mage in early MP? I can think of a few ways to keep him alive, but they all have negatives...

1. Spend your first few turns researching enough buffs that he is not so easy to kill. It seems like a waste of research for a non-SC.

2. Protect the hell out of him by keeping him with your main force. This seems risky, since he can get dragged into battle, and you don't want a panty-waste rainbow mage getting slaughtered by a stray arrow. Plus, it seems like the main army has different goals (rushing) than the rainbow mage (searching).

3. Keep a small group of units as guards, set his orders to retreat. I recently discovered through one of the "waiting for turn to resolve" tips that retreating during an assassination attempt is instant death, so this strategy seems ok for SP with it's limited AI, but bad for MP.

So what do you guys normally do?

[13lackGu4rd]

none of the above? set him at the back, either top or bottom corner, with orders to retreat. as soon as someone attacks(most likely scenario is an indy event) him he'll just retreat to another friendly province. with that being said, assassins can be a pain in the butt, and could really ruin your day. the thing is that most nations don't really rush assassins(LA Abysia aside), so you should have plenty of time to manual search with your pretender in the begining. also, don't send him to the front lines unless there is a near fort he can retreat to if danger is lurking by. if you expect them to be used against you than you should consider scripting something offensive to kill the assassin in a turn or 2, otherwise retreat him to the nearest fort and stop manual searching with him.

now, if you're expecting to be dealing with early assassins, presumably if you've really pissed off a neighbor with recruitable assassins(or indies, mostly in LA) than you can take the risk and script him to something offensive that should kill an assassin in a turn or 2. in this case it depends on the quality of the assassin sent against you and quite a bit of luck. also if he's attacked by a normal army he won't retreat, thus will most likely die. you can also take the safer course which is to only site search in safe provinces, as in non front line, surrounded by friendlies(so he won't be attacked). if you really fear assassins than make sure to patrol a group of provinces heavily before you send your pretender to manual search in, the patrols should catch most if not all of the assassins given enough troops(fliers, cavalry and troops with a patrol bonus are best).

[Valerius]

To protect against opportunistic remote attacks like seeking arrow use decoy commanders and/or forge magic gear.

Choose a stealthy rainbow mage so that by the time your pretender appears in a scouting report he's already sneaking out to search the next province.

Research Thaum. 1 ASAP and, assuming your pretender has S2, script Returning to escape battles and assassination attempts.

[thejeff]

In general, be done with it by the time it's likely to be an issue. Script to retreat (Or a couple spells to help the local PD, then retreat) in case of attack events.

If you've got a neighbor you don't trust - no communication/no peace deal - who you think would be able to target him, get him back to the capital.
If you're not being rushed you should have a year or so before it gets too risky. Remember it'll take time for your enemies to get enough scouts into your territory to reliably locate him. Then they need to have assassins or spells ready. And be ready to start a war to take advantage of his vulnerability.
After the first year or so, it depends on your relations with your neighbors. You may be able to risk site-searching with him or you may want to use the remote spells or other mages. By then, he's likely to have forging/casting to do much of the time anyway.

[earwicker7]

Thanks for all the sage advice!