Mage/Commander Numbering Questions

[Edi]

Yes. Though you can work around that if you can build a Staff of Storms and give it to the first guy in your combat order.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Edi

Yes. Though you can work around that if you can build a Staff of Storms and give it to the first guy in your combat order.

Oooooooooo! What exactly does a Staff of Storms do, please?

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Oooooooooo! What exactly does a Staff of Storms do, please?

Autocasts storm at the start of battle. (So it doesn't actually matter who you give it to from a casting order perspecive.)

[JonBrave]

Yes, thank you!

I only discovered this as a result of reading here. I have barely any A4 mages, I only just noticed the innocuous icon for the Staff of Storms they can forge! Icon should have some sparks on it!

That is great, I won't have to cast Storm!

[Knai]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Yes, thank you!

I only discovered this as a result of reading here. I have barely any A4 mages, I only just noticed the innocuous icon for the Staff of Storms they can forge! Icon should have some sparks on it!

That is great, I won't have to cast Storm!

The best part is that Storm will be active even on offense before your opponents turn.

[Dimaz]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Yes, thank you!

I only discovered this as a result of reading here. I have barely any A4 mages, I only just noticed the innocuous icon for the Staff of Storms they can forge! Icon should have some sparks on it!

That is great, I won't have to cast Storm!

In that case I also recommend looking at the Ankh and sword of Aurgelmer. They are constr8 but give mass luck & LaD on the first turn even when you attack, which helps tremendously especially during castle storms.

[Starbelly Geek]

The auto-cast thing is the advantage for Crystal and Slave Matrix, and for the Crystal Shield, too. As with anything, it has to be balanced against the mage-turns and gem cost, but it's handy to have a communion kitted out in a way that doesn't require anyone to spend a round casting Communion Slave or Master, or Power of the Spheres. The banner that autocasts Light of the Northern Star can be similarly useful. Assuming a bunch of astral-earth mages, you can then go right into casting Gifts from Heaven and Master Enslave and whatnot.

Originally Posted by JonBrave

If I build a powerful mage later on, he's more likely to be stuck number-wise behind other built guys.

I haven't noticed that this is the case. Commander positioning seems to be tied more strongly to something other than time-since-built. Has anyone tested this out with, say, 20 to 30 commander builds? I guess it's complicated by the AI killing off commanders in the mean time, but that could be controlled for by setting up a multiplayer game with two players and playing both positions.

Non-commander units seem to end up pretty reliably in the order in which they were built, but commanders seem to go all over the place.

[Edi]

Unique identifiers, unit numbers (unr) are recycled, so your commander can get almost anything from among the free ones. When you recruit units in bulk, they get assigned from free blocks and each recruitment gives as consecutive numbers as possible to the units, meaning they will also appear in that order in the squad you assign them to.

If you want to do specific types of mixed unit formations, recruit the in the order you want them (e.g. alternating shield maiden/steel maiden to get a little bit more durability without sacrificing to much offensive power from the squad as EA Ulm)