LA Man Magister Sometimes No Research

[Jagdpanther]

I am playing LA Man and have been recruiting Magisters for research. Every third or fourth Magister I buy does NOT have any research ability (also once in a while I get one that has four research instead of the normal three.)

Is this a bug? Did I miss something that tells me that all Magisters do not have research ability?

Using Dom 3.10

[llamabeast]

Am I right in thinking that the ones with no research are just the ones with no magic paths? If so it's not a bug, it's just that they happen to be rubbish. No non-mages can research (apart from philosophers).

[Micah]

If you click on the unit details in the recruitment screen you'll notice that the Magister has no standard paths, just a 1? path. Most of the time what that means is there is a 100% chance of getting a pick out of a few different paths, but in this case it means you have a 50% chance to get E1, a 50% chance to get A1, and a 25% chance to get S1, all rolled INDEPENDENTLY of each other. So, you can get anywhere from 0-3 magic paths, with 1 being the most likely result. The standard research formula for a mage is (2 + paths + magic scale mod) so your Magisters with more than 1 path get extra RP, but the unlucky ones that have 0 paths can't research at all.

So no, not a bug, and you missed the detailed breakdown of their paths, which tells you that some don't have research ability, though it takes a bit of deduction to get there.

[OmikronWarrior]

Micah nailed it. Thats why its definitely best to build Magister Aracane for research (and they can be easily switched to battlefield use). Be sure to supercharge Man's scales (except always Drain 3 as it doesn't effect Magister research rate) so as to have money to buy a lot of them. Thats not to say regular Magisters are worthless. They have a siege bonuses on both sides and have stealth. Similarly, Judges have patrol bonuses and help with path diversification: your only source of death.

[thejeff]

Magisters are also spies IIRC. They can also be built without labs, which can be quite convenient.

I used the judges without magic as my main troop leaders.
If you build enough of them you'll get one with fire and death, which gives you the Flaming Skull fire booster.

I like LA Man's mages. Different from the standard, but all useful and interesting, even when they don't happen to have magic.

[Micah]

Yeah, Magisters Arcane are gonna be a better bet most of the time, especially since you'll want a lot to get a decent selection of the path randoms, since only 1 in 8 will have a specific path at +1.

Edit: Ah, excellent point thejeff, the fact that you can use them as spies makes them quite useful, and they're pretty cost-effective researchers (especially if you forgo the drain dominion and take some magic with the intent to spam dinky researchers). My above point stands for pure research speed though.

[thejeff]

Agreed with Magisters Arcane for research speed, though once you've got a few castles up is it more efficient to spend your money on 1 MA or several Magisters and/or Judges?

And to hijack the thread somewhat: Pretender ideas? You've got Nature income with no nature mages, so I'd want Nature on the pretender. Maybe Death as well to take advantage of site searches from the Judges. (Nature and death suggests Lamia queens later on) Do they have an SC capable pretender that can get Nature, Death and good scales?

[OmikronWarrior]

As Man's recruitable units are so good, its probably best to focus your pretender around really high scales (paid for in part by Drain-3). Thinks Man could use, though, include an A4 unit to build the Air Boosters, a nature mage to take advantage of gem income and summon uniques, Earth and Astral to build Crystal Coin and Communion Matrixes, and finally death magic for boosters and summoning uniques.

So frankly, I see a Man Pretender as there to spread magic diversity, which is best suited by some form of rainbow pretender (perhaps the Monolith, though that means no to site searching). The Tuatha Sorceress would be a good pick with A2N1 base and the handiness of glamour. Bit expensive though.

[quantum_mechani]

OmikronWarrior said:
The Tuatha Sorceress would be a good pick with A2N1 base and the handiness of glamour. Bit expensive though.

If you are going to pay for that, you might as well spring for a ghost king. Though I still think it's hard to argue with an awake cyclops/prince of death/wyrm for any nation.

[Jagdpanther]

Thanks for all of the info. (I didn't click on the 1? -- just saw the three research.)