Overarching Magic Strategies

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Seems to me you can go to several discrete extremes, or mix it up. Not sure of all the pros and cons.... Seems to me it would be more fun to go extreme instead of mixing them up.

1. Go for gear. Cheap commanders outfitted with magic items can be powerful forces. Ice Pebble Wand or Staff of Corosion, plus Luck Pendant, and your cheapie commander is better than most mages--has more hits, much better armor, etc. etc. E.g. Myrmidon Commander has (I think) AC17, HP 12. Add an Ice Pebble Wand, a Luck Pendant, and whatever else you have lying around (maybe a girdle of might for +3 reinvigoration) and you have a cheap artillery unit that can survive most arrow storms. In this case, you want to steer forforging items like Dwarven Hammers and Hammer of the Gods (name?), and Global Enchantments like Earth Forge (name?)

2. Go for summonings. Cheap powerful units. Corpse Man construction is cheap as heck (1air, 1death; 1 air gem). Use a lightning rod to quadruple construction. Use a Staff of Storms to octuple it. Use the Tome of Eno Glick (name) to double it again. With the Staff and the Tome you can make 16/turn with just one cheap mage and one air gem. If you like Earth mages instead, Clockwork Horrors are great early units that can kick Heavy Infantry's butts. Mechanical Men are a good easy step up, still cheap, but with far better arrow survivability, and without the pesky fatigue problem. Living Statues are a small step up from MM, and are twice as good as heavy infantry. All of these have heavy resistances. Nature mages have great early summonings with Poisonous Serpents. They get Dragon Mastery later on, and can produce prodigious numbers of fairly powerful units from then on--not to mention Tarasques, Treelords, etc.. Astral summonings/constructions include the powerful sacred dragon Sirroco (name), the Golem, and more. Death has perhaps the widest selection of cheap to powerful summonings, with perhaps the best "summon army of X" spells in the game. Having several mages perform Pale Riders every turn creates cheap powerful armies of light cavalry that can run down archers, mow down mages, and generally sweep the battlefield.

3. Armies of cheap mages. Instead of archers, use cheap mages with your armies. E.g. 2 commanders (stay behind troops), 80 heavy infantry (wait then attack closest), and 10 mages (attack spells). The sheer mass of the mages can do prodigious damage, even with cruddy spells like earth shard, and it is unlikely that they will get hurt in turn. 10 Mages each doing earth shard with 4 shards gets you 40 shards, half of which will hit, probably get 4 turns of clear shots, so 80 hits before battle is joined with your heavy infantry. Pump it up with a real spell or two, and you start wiping out armies 4 times as big as yours. Skel-Spamming, lightning orb spamming, etc.

4. Debuff. Keep an small army of mages at home, scry your enemy's castles out, and cast baleful star over and over. Hurricane. Death and destruction. Ruin production. Decrease cash. Put poison in their wells. Have disease creatures hide in their main provinces.

5. Buff. Go the good wizard route. Increase your province's growth, resources, riches, taxes, happiness. Globals would include Riches from Beneath, Province Protection, Invisible Hands, Nature's Bounty.... Preach in every province, temples everywhere. Telestic Statues. 11+ PD everywhere.

Ideas?