MoM: What your favorite Magic type

[LDiCesare]

I tend not to worry about nodes at all. Just build up a city with good units in it, gold to alchemy into mana to defend yourself with spells when needed. Once you have a good stack of halflings/paladins/hammerhands/wartrolls/griffons/whatever with maybe a few heroes, you can go forth. The only spells that are useful then are spells that help defense (healing, confusion, web, invisibility...) and those that affect the whole fight (tornadoes, lightning, curses/blessings) or don't need mana upkeep (chaos transforms).

[MattyBoy]

I think it's fun to use heaps of magic. It gives you things to do/decide and looks great. It is all part of the fun of the game so I tend to structure the game to use it a lot.

[LDiCesare]

Of course magic is fun, but I tend to get most fun from heroes. I need time to get them and so I have lots of time before I get strong spells to give them items or protect them. Thus I tend to wait and turtle a bit, then when I feel ready, I launch great offensives which usually last all the rest of the game. That is why the start is not very important. Also, considering the AI is really a threat only in the start, I prefer building strong defenses and use mana to defend myself rather than lose defenders in a far away node.

[MattyBoy]

LDC,
I think you play completely differently to me. I try as hard as I can to minimise upkeep in my cities and the start is a mad rush. This is probably a flow on from my Civ 1 days.

Some day I will try your approach.

[moomin]

I play much like LDC, but have node-clearing as a very high priority nevertheless. But then I like to have my caster up in the 150 points/turn range before I go on a rampage

[Sikander]

I too tend to turtle and build up my army / defenses. My favortite strategy is to go the artificer route, with 5 sorcery books, 2 life and 2 nature or sorcery. I build and break weapons for mana and defend myself while I build enough to make artifacts that I can keep. The best way to do this is to build artifacts that have spell points which you give to your heroes. I keep all of my spell casting heroes in my capital, which makes half of their spell points available to me for casting purposes. This increases my mana accumulation rate, which means that I can build those really powerful artifacts that much faster. I like the missle weapon wielding heroes the best. I give them as many attacks as possible, great armor, flying, invisible, and whatever other defenses I can. Then I send them out alone to conquer the map.

[moomin]

I tend to play much like you, Sik. I'm a big fan of artificer as well. Normally go for 2 life, 5 sorcery, artificer and alchemist. Dig in, build artifacts and go out on hero rampage. The difference is that I don't build artifacts for mana trade in - alchemist normally gives me enough mana anyway, especially if I manage to liberate a few nodes early on.

This style of play is very comfortable, because it's very little micromanagement to be done. I play SCC all of the time, so the turns just fly by.

[aaglo]

I've played some 10 games with artific/runemaster setting. And now I'm bored. Give me another fun combo to play with!

[moomin]

aaglo: no books, and as many retorts you can cram in.

Have fun!

[aaglo]

moomin: I've already done that. And with no spells cast...

[moomin]

Heh. Ok, play summoner - and you can have no troops (well, you may fortify those you start with in the capital) except those you summon.

[MattyBoy]

I presume you've done all life and Summon Torin (or whatever) as your start spell?

That is too easy, but it is pretty amazing how strong Torin gets.

[aaglo]

Matty: No, I haven't tried that Summon Torin -stuff. I once tried with 11 life and stream of life as a rare spell. When I had a couple cities pop 5 or 6, I cast the stream on them, changed tax rate to max, and started swimming in gold. Occasionally transferring gold to mana (upkeep of the spell is 8 mana)...

[aaglo]

Moomin:
Last night I tried that summoner game. I completely and utterly suck as a summoner! I'm as bad summoner as they can come. I've never liked summons, I don't know how to use them, thus I don't use them. I think they are horrible - they don't gain experience, some spells cannot be cast on them.... Arrrrghhh.....

[moomin]

Ah, but did you try to summon heroes?

Just kidding

It matters a lot what kind of magic you go for when playing a summoner. I actually think no retorts (including, of course, summoning) and 11 death books with wraiths for top spell is the easiest possible way to win. Summon a couple of wraiths and crush everything from turn one on. Death gets free garrisons w/out upkeep as well, so you can actually conquer effortlessly.

Amazing stuff.