How difficult is this game?

[llamabeast]

I like MA Marignon for a starting nation. They are human, so quite familiar. They have powerful crossbowmen, and elite knights. It rapidly becomes obvious that magic is powerful as they can lay down some serious firepower with easy access to fire magic. And later on in the game they can do interesting things like summon angels.

Also they have interesting options in that any of a strong bless, a rainbow pretender or excellent scales would be a reasonable tactic to try out.

[Fenris99]

Those guys sound even more interesting.

[VedalkenBear]

They _are_ pretty 'traditional'; I guess my issue with them is that they are virtually the only nation he ever plays. So I'm overloaded on them.

[Fenris99]

Oh, when I play RTS I'm kind of a turtler. I like to build up and research and then attack with a fully upgraded army.

[Fenris99]

ok, question: How do you raise the spell levels of your mages? Do they go up automatically when you research magic?

[Amhazair]

I suppose you mean their level in the different paths of magic (fire, death, nature and the like)? They don't improve automatically or easily. With the appropiate level in construction and the apropiate paths you can construct some items that boost one or more paths. (A list of all the boosters can be found on page 282-283 of the manual. That's the page I've used most often. )

Alternatively you can use magical gems to 'empower' you mage in that path. To do so just select the 'empower' order when your commander is in a province with a lab. This is cripplingly expensive though, and generally only done to experiment/for fun in SP, or occasianally to reach certain benchmarks in MP (you'll start to figure them out when you play more)

[Fenris99]

Amhazair said:
I suppose you mean their level in the different paths of magic (fire, death, nature and the like)? They don't improve automatically or easily. With the appropiate level in construction and the apropiate paths you can construct some items that boost one or more paths. (A list of all the boosters can be found on page 282-283 of the manual. That's the page I've used most often. )

So you're telling me that you can research all these powerful spells and have no one capable of casting them?

Also, what determines their base level in the magic disciplines? Is it the pretender's levels?

[Endoperez]

The nations specialize. Middle-Age (MA) Marignon, as an example, is a Fire/Astral nation with a touch of other paths I don't remember. Other nations have different magics. Pretenders don't affect the mages available. Gem income is often just as important as the power of your mages.

As far as magic power goes:
1 is low
2 is base power: fireballs, bolts of lightning, etc
3 allows most good stuff, most often
4 is high, and all paths have at least one booster item available at level 4 and construction 4 or 6.
5 and above is for the heroes, pretenders and epic spells, and mages that start with 5 or more can also use booster items and spells to reach most high-level goals.
9 and above is only used for spesific strategies, to reach spesific goals. Pretenders rarely take magic over level 5 or so unless the nation can also use the bless it provides.

Example with Marignon:
Their Grand Masters can get up to Fire 4 or Astral 3 with a lucky random pick (click on the question mark next to the magic paths to see what they can get). With that and research in Construction they can forge a Flaming Helmet or a Starshine Skullcap, bringing them to Fire 5 or Astral 4. The Conjuration spells "Phoenix Power", "Light of the Northern Star" and "Power of the Spheres" can be used to further increase their paths to Fire 7 and Astral 6, for battles at least.

[Fenris99]

OK, so the magic level of your mages is based on the nation that you play?

[llamabeast]

I guess my issue with them is that they are virtually the only nation he ever plays.

Who? Me? I've only played them once! I do really like them though.

I remember I spent my first Dominions demo game carting a single fire-2 mage around, getting him lots of experience, waiting for him to become fire-3. It was very frustrating! (It turns out it doesn't work like that at all).

So you're telling me that you can research all these powerful spells and have no one capable of casting them?

You have to plan what you research for the mages you've got. And always you will have heaps of spells you can't cast.

For example, as Marignon, you should research Evocation, to give you fireballs and stuff. Evocation also includes water spells (like water strike), air spells (like lightning) and so on - but they're no use to you, so you might as well ignore them.

When on the research screen you can press the 'f' key to show only fire spells - and equivalently 'w' for water, etc.. The only non-obvious one is 's' for astral. This can be very useful for seeing what spells will be useful for you.

After a while you also get a feel for what each school is likely to do. The most obvious ones are Evocation, for directly attacking people (fireballs, lightning), conjuration for summoning things, alteration for buffs (spells that make your mages and troops tougher) and construction for enabling forging of items. There are some non-obvious things though - for instance Phoenix Power, which gives fire mages an extra level of fire magic in battle, is in Conjuration.

Although there are a bajillion spells, they are all quite distinct, and after a while you will get to know a few that you like. If you're Marignon, you'll get to like Fireball, Falling Fires (both evocation) and Phoenix Power.