What use is death magic?

[Teraswaerto]

The most common death summoning site is probably the Ghoul Cave, which is a far cry from mummies or banes.

[Forrest]

Thanks you have given me much to think on.

I am lvl 6 on construction and evocation(?)(for the eternal prye) and 3 on everything else. Devoting all research to Summoning for now. To get the good death units.

I was about to build a force of ten nature mages with ethreal bows and boots quickness backed by a couple of air mages. Astral and water are Arcoscephale's strong point. I think I can field it in under 10 turns. I fiqure set them for large monsters and see what happens. I hope they will make short work of a stupid dragon pretender and all those bears he summons.

The whole death thing will kick off when I give my revenants some boosts. Which requires my pretender. Dang he is busy.

Any ideas for boosting nature mages when all you have is lvl 1's and +1 nature gem per turn? I am realy sucking wind in nature and blood.

[Endoperez]

Blood isn't usually something you can just tack on to the nation. Don't worry about it with Arcoscephale.


You should have lots of Priestesses. Send them site-searching. That should give you something before or later. Once you have 30 gems, you can empower one to N2 and:
1) forge Thistle Maces, +1 N for anyone wielding it
2) start casting Haruspex, which finds ALL Nature sites in target province.

Nature 1 mages can cast Eagle Eyes, so if they don't have anything else to do they could do well as a bow-squad. Ethereal Crossbows are nice, but MR negates their special effect completely. Try combining them with few Black Bows of Botulf (Death item). Feeble-minded commander have worse magic resistance...
If you get Death/Air mage, Vision's Foe is wonderful. A crossbow with armor-negating damage, that also causes lost eye afflictions?

[Forrest]

Thanks for the heads up.

I had heard they don't hit the way they should and that explains it.

I was planning to use shamen for bowmen as the National Nature priests cost like $70 more per man. They also give me +10 food each. With a nice 2 lvl air mage site I found they should boost to at least 18 precision.

[Shovah32]

So how about:
7xShaman with Ethereal bow, eye of aiming, boots of quickness
3xShaman with Black bows, eye of aiming and boots of quickness

Let them cast eagle eyes and, if possible get some-one casting wind guide.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Shovah32 said:
So how about:
7xShaman with Ethereal bow, eye of aiming, boots of quickness
3xShaman with Black bows, eye of aiming and boots of quickness

Let them cast eagle eyes and, if possible get some-one casting wind guide.

That's an awful lot of gems poured into something that can be wiped out by a single blade wind if unfortunately positioned, though... Useful if you face nasty magicusing thugs or SCs, but against regular troops it is hard to imagine that there aren't other substantially better investment possibilities for the gems.

Let's face it: a mage with 20-30 gems worth of equipment who's able to kill one soldier every 2nd turn (if the soldier fails a MR) had better kill one hell of a good soldier to be worth the cost of equipping him.

[Shovah32]

Forget everything i said in that post, im confused.

[Cainehill]

A version of that which _might_ be worthwhile is those guys equipped with Bow of Wars, if you can send along someone to do the flaming arrow spell.

[Forrest]

No Peter it fires EVERY turn. That is the reason for the boots. Otherwise it would only be 5 or 10 gems.

So you are saying that the Etheral bow is worthless? It's not a good giant killer? I have militia to hunt rats with.

I have tons of archers. I have Flaming Arrows.

I want a Dragon killing assasin squad. I want those charging giants to fall like flies.


Lets see a $110 shaman for eagle eye, Ethreal crossbow 5 Pearls, Boots of quickness 10 water gems, Eye of aiming 5 Air. NOTICE no Fire or Death which are in high demand.


So for 20 gems and $110 I get a ....18 percision archer that fires EVERY turn and that kills ANYTHING that fails it's MR roll. It looks cheap.

Throw in a $110 air mage(stealthy) for aim and the Group percision goes up to around .....22.


I was not going to add the Eye of aiming, which is cheap. None the less these guys could last 30 battles if I am lucky and pick the enemy right. Maybe much longer if I put the right armour on them.

What do you have for killing big bad nasties for 20 gems and $110? No death or fie gems. Make it 10 more gems for armour.

The only question in my mind is the MR roll and how that degrades effectiveness. Does that MR smashing pendant work with this crossbow?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Forrest said:
No Peter it fires EVERY turn. That is the reason for the boots. Otherwise it would only be 5 or 10 gems.

Good point.

So you are saying that the Etheral bow is worthless? It's not a good giant killer? I have militia to hunt rats with.

Well, your stated problem was killing a stupid dragon pretender and all those bears he summons, not giants. Ethereal bows are incredibly useful on assassins - but much less useful, even when set to fire cavalry/fire large in larger battles since (assuming a standard mixed army on the opposing side) you'll quite often hit the wrong target and take out some cheap unit instead, even with high precision - less mistakes when the targets get close to your archer, of course, but cheap nature mages are not the sort of casters who should ever risk being close to an enemy as they die easily.

I have tons of archers. I have Flaming Arrows.

Which should do the trick without your sniper squad.

I want a Dragon killing assasin squad. I want those charging giants to fall like flies.

Ah, if that is your desire, then go ahead and build your sniper squads. It will be fun.

Lets see a $110 shaman for eagle eye, Ethreal crossbow 5 Pearls, Boots of quickness 10 water gems, Eye of aiming 5 Air. NOTICE no Fire or Death which are in high demand.

Heh - a significant change of mind (which I applaud) from the first post, where the question was what to do with the darned death gems.

So for 20 gems and $110 I get a ....18 percision archer that fires EVERY turn and that kills ANYTHING that fails it's MR roll. It looks cheap.

So long as it hits the right stuff and the right stuff doesn't have high MR, and so long as the enemy doesn't have archers hitting the general area your nature mage is in, it'll do the job. I'm not denying that it can do the job, but cheap?

You aren't talking about making one of these to be effective in an army but a group of these - say 5-10 for a 100-200 assorted gem cost. Add to that the forging time cost (3 items each), and that's 15-30 mage-turns additional cost to be factored in.

What could you (potentially) get for 100-200 assorted gems and 15-30 mage turns, that aren't fire or death? Disregarding your exact research levels now but looking at it in general, that's several elemental royalty (you can get two fully kitted out air queens at the high end of that range, each able to kill almost any army an AI can put together without help if most of the gems are air/earth), or it is a band or two of moonblade wielding ethereal giants and their even nastier leader (if lots of astral gems to burn), or it is two separate global enchants adding to your gem income each turn, or it is a dozen clams making astral gems, or it is an army of vine ogres, or... - any of which will likely contribute more over time to defeating a red dragon and his stupid bears and your next opponents than 10 archery mages will do.

...But it might not be as fun. Go build your sniper squads and regale us with tales of their usefulness. There are many things that aren't strictly speaking "best", but which are immensely fun to try out.