What mana nodes to build?

So, I have a raw mana next to my capital and some magic techs researched.
Now the question is what type of mana should I choose? And once I have sorcery, to which mana types should I switch with dispel magic.

So far I got this on my list

civ specific

Balseraph Chaos Mana
Elves Several Fire Mana
Luchuirp Enchantment Mana, Fire Mana, and other Mana types for their Golems
Sheiam Death mana a lot
Fallow Trait? No Reason to use Creation Mana (FF)

tech line specific

Melee Line:
Enchantment -enchanted Blade

Archery Line:
Enchantment -Flaming Arrows
Recon line:
Nature - Poison

horse:
?

Divine Line:
depending on religion are some spells less useful

sorcery Line:
summon spells (like fire, death)
Airmana (with Sorcery) for maelstorm

allways good:
Body - Haste (since the AI likes to mix units in stacks) and Regeneration
entropy mana for rust
earth mana for stoneskin (low priority)
chaos mana for dance of blades
shadow for blur
sun for blinding light (unless civ has access to radiant guards)
mind for charm
terrain specific

sun/water mana if lots of terraforming can be done
life mana if there is a lot of Hell terain and civ is not Infernal or at Peace with demons etc.

City Boosters

mind, spirit, earth and creation (FF)
Enchantment(passive effect)

What combos did I miss that I can teach the AI?

If I'm in a process of creating spellcasters, then I tend to pick:

entropy for rust
shadow for blur and shadowwalk
chaos for dancing blades and mutate (only need one mage with mutate)
body for haste and regen
sun for blinding light (which automatically means scorch as well)
water - 1 or 2 adepts to transform an occasional desert or put out a fire
air if I have a fleet of ships, otherwise I prefer ritualists
enchantment , nature and spirit - to create a couple of "weponmasters" - mages with enchanted blade, flaming arrows, poison blade and courage.

For the passive effects I usually prefer law mana, life can be good if the blight is imminent, maybe enchantment if I have too many red faces. I don't really bother with spirit as it's effects on my GPP farm are negligible compared to national epic.

Oh, an most of my mages receive earth 2 to give them a fighting chance against assassins.
City mages need earth for wall of stone, mind for inspiration and spirit for hope.

Fire for fireball mages is a must have...

Sephi said:

What combos did I miss that I can teach the AI?

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If you're teaching the AI, I think the biggest difference should be what tech path they are pursuing. (Does the AI even have that concept?). Something like:

Melee Line:
Enchantment
Body
law (for reducing upkeep of those captured cities)
spirit (courage == march)
-Assume only adept level spells (at least initially) - champions are much more important than mages

Recon line:
Nature
Body
shadow
-there aren't many 1st tier spells that buff recon, so you either go for mages too or just get passive/terraforming mana

Sorcery line:
Fire
Air
Earth
Entropy
Death (Summoner civs only)
-Direct damage mage spells, earth for stoneskin

Passive:
Law
Enchantment
Life

Other:
Chaos (mutate)
mind (inspiration, dispel)
water/sun (terraforming)

Eshnunna said:

Fire for fireball mages is a must have...

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I found fireballs pretty useless in tough games. It's collateral outdate quickly and city bombarding is not important if you have AOE and Rust at your disposal.

Recently i decided to drop arcane line playing immortal/deity for every race, because it's really expensive research wise and nurturing wise.
At early stages of games you pretty much must rely on catapults to fend off attacks. because AI always have sheer supremacy in melee force.
Cats come early, Construction is important and cheap tech (for spreading farms) and you actually can use em for attacking purposes.

For a magic damage I use divine line. AV comes early and gives great early AOE Ritualists, Empyrean research line consist of many goodie techs and gives Chalid/Raths and potential superb AOE High Priests.

Problem with arcane is obvious. A ton of useless 1 lvl spells. While you wait mages you going to be a toast. Better and faster to bring more cats.
All summons are hilariously useless when it comes to fight of enemy SoD's or cities.
And most important thing. You need to research economy line, religion line, metal/recon. Heck. I just don't have beakers for arcane

So my list of prio for nodes (especially since i often have just 1-2).
1. Enthropy (lvl 1 Rust)
2. Body (lvl 1 Haste)
...
999. Fire

Probably looks like this.

My experience is also that fireball is pretty worthless. Maelstrom at the very least is many times better, it helps you kill whole stacks. Fireball isn't even stronger against ships. That said, it is still useful for the amurites obviously, maybe sheiam when you work to get dozens of mages (other civs take too long for xp to mature). And the elves as mentioned in the OP don't get siege weapons so they need some way to get collateral, I think I'd take JonathanStrange's word on what is best there though

I also tend to avoid Entropy unless evil for the Diplo penalty. I do find it odd a couple other spheres like chaos and shadow don't have this though, and of course Death mana is just too useful in the right situations to care about the diplo penalty.

So the value of a spell also depends on tech path and access to divine magic. He who has longbowmen wants ENCHANTMENT2 and he who has ritualists doesn't need maelstrom. Sound logical to me.
gonna update the first post.

thanks for all the great feedback. More ideas are allways welcome. Time to get the modding startet . In the last AI_AUTOPLAY the Clan decided to get water mana and then managed to get rid of the desert in his land (wrote an UNITAI for that), so I am convinced that I find a way to teach him other spellcasting.

I disagree with those saying fireballs are poor. Fireballs are certainly easier to use than Maelstrom as you don't have to worry about hitting your own units or neutral units. They are weak against high-end units, true, but they are strong against medium-strength units b/c they can kill and their collateral damage has a better cap than maelstrom. Maelstrom's damage cap unfortunately is very poor. Overall I'd say fireball is better in the mid-game, and Maelstrom is better in the end-game (when your should have T3 spells to do the real damage anyway). Plan your mana nodes based on when you want to go to war and you shouldn't have a problem.

And frankly the Death spells are better at every level than either Fire or Air spells.

I don't nothing 'bout teaching AIs about what mana nodes to build. If I did, I might suggest for the Ljosalfars - whose palace provides them with Life, Air, Nature mana to start with - to build:

a) A Fire node -- for reasons cabbagemeister's given. Having no siege equipment, the Ljos need an easy to use and practical collateral damage (don't have to micromanage to avoid accidental lightning damage like Maelstrom).

b) A second Air node -- Maelstrom is my fav collateral damage but one has to be careful when calling the lightnings down from the sky as they tend to fall on friend and foe alike. A second node leverages Ljos' Palace Air mana making the spellcaster more potent as multiple mana sources allow for higher starting promotions. 15-50% damage caps, but war if non-hostiles hit.

c) A second Nature node -- Leverages the Palace Nature mana making higher start promotions available, the Ljos generally need Level III Vitalize spells. We want to improve the land, making more Ljosalfarian forests, sooner rather than later.

d) An Enchantment node -- The Ljosalfars aren't so strong in city attacking but having swordsmen/champions with City Raider promotions and Enchanted Blades help. Level II Enchantment spell Flaming Arrows gives a +1 Fire Attack strength for archers/longbowmen and as Ljosalfar archers are strong and thematic, I use them alot so it makes sense to have a mage with this spell in my production city.

I don't have a specific order in what mana nodes I'd build; it depends on the enemy, nodes available, specific needs. I'd probably say in general I'd build one of each at least. I usually like building on whatever mana I start with. Life mana, I sometimes neglect though (though my adepts will get Sanctify to keep our lands clear of hell), it does pay off when I need my civ hero reborn but that's so specific and I like widely-used spells

There are other nodes that are fun and useful, like a Body mana node, but they're generally secondary for me.

JonathanStrange said:

A second node leverages Ljos' Palace Air mana making the spell more potent

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Huh? Having more mana doesn't make your spells stronger (not talking affinity here).

xalien said:

Huh? Having more mana doesn't make your spells stronger (not talking affinity here).

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Should have read "the spellcaster more potent" [now corrected]. The Civopedia, as you know, states that multiple mana nodes allow more powerful spellcasters. At the very least, like I mentioned, it does allow higher starting promotions which amounts to virtually the same thing.

Having more mana, according to the Civopedia, is cumulative making passive spell effects like Health (from Life mana) more potent, while more Air mana makes the Level III Air Elementals summoned stronger - again according to the Civopedia. More Nature mana increases the strength of Druids; though the Civopedia isn't clear as to whether that's only their melee strengths and not the effectiveness of the various Druid spells like Entanglement.

All of which means multiple sources of the same mana have their uses, among them more powerful spellcasters with access to more powerful spells, as well as the civ as a nation having the cumulative benefit from nodes like Life, etc.

cabbagemeister said:

And frankly the Death spells are better at every level than either Fire or Air spells.

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Death spells were outlawed by the Overcouncil, in the year of 1461 after the Troll Wars!

Multiple mana sources can grant free promotions when built/upgraded, increase unit (not spell) strength if they have affinity.

JonathanStrange said:

Having more mana, according to the Civopedia, is cumulative making passive spell effects like Health (from Life mana) more potent

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This is the same as any health resource (cows, sheep etc.) - it doesn't involve any spell casting. The only way to increase damage from spells (like maelstrom, tsunami etc.) is with combat strength promotions.

Am I the only one who strives for a mind adept in every city?

Probably in the minority there; I wouldn't do that unless I'm already playing a magic heavy civ, or planned to get to mindIII. Same with spirit mana which I thinks also grants a city bonus. The importance of other lines of research, building actual units to fight wars, and better divine magic in many cases means I wouldn't be wasting time with adepts. And when I am in a situation to spam them first priority is something like Death or Fire anyway, for great usefulness as they upgrade to mages.

Gwythur said:

Am I the only one who strives for a mind adept in every city?

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I do this with the Amurites, except replace adept with priest and mind with Instpiration Hope Wall of Stone Stoneskin Maelstrom.

And firebows with stoneskin + enchanted arrows are very nice.

Amurites are a whole different beast, though.

(And before the Meleemongers trash my strat, I don't play Diety and I never will)

Meleemongers? Is that what we've become?

I suppose then that I am a Meleemonger, but at least I want some kind of buff to the Mounted/Recon lines!

If I've got 3 nodes and an Arcane Leader then I always take 3 Deaths for Spectre spam. Otherwise, I pick up Enchantment and Body.

If one is building a mod to improve or guide the AI Civs in building mana nodes, would any of these strategies be useful when coding the AI Civs?:

CIV specific: Given that the Civs, in general, have had appropriately chosen Palace manas - I'm assuming they have as I haven't reviewed every Civ - then might each Civ simply be instructed to, at first, build nodes matching their Palace manas. The idea being that a Civ would be able to use the extra mana to have earlier access to higher level spells. Spells which are more powerful and more likely to be used thematically by the AI. I've suggested something like this in my other post.

Troop type: hbar's suggestion was to base the AI's chosen mana nodes on desired troop types. See his post above.

Map dependent: Emphasis here being to have an AI build mana nodes to offset desert starts, use against certain nearby early rivals, limited known mana (if mana is scarce for the Civ, it should prioritize more).

Strategy: Maybe here the AI would give warlike Civs higher weight/priority to building mana nodes that allow for more aggression against an enemy, defensive Civs might prize more passive mana nodes (like Life) for overall national benefit.

Just speculating. I'm not sure if any particular focus would be best, though I do think the Civ specific method exploits the start mana for a Civ. Anyhow...

JonathanStrange said:

Having more mana, according to the Civopedia, is cumulative making passive spell effects like Health (from Life mana) more potent

...

All of which means multiple sources of the same mana have their uses, among them more powerful spellcasters with access to more powerful spells, as well as the civ as a nation having the cumulative benefit from nodes like Life, etc.

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I recently wanted more health in my enormous floodplained Malakim cities, so I ran around and built a bunch of life nodes to get the cumulative bonus. It didn't work. Like Corn, having more than one Life source didn't give me more health. This was very confusing, since I know that having many Enchantment nodes do give more happiness. I wonder if this is intended?

I've seen that but as I was trading extra Health for all sorts of AI resources, I thought perhaps I'd encountered a bug. IIRC, according to the Civopedia and my experiences, Life mana does stack or did. Play enough games and it's not always clear what's been changed in the different versions and no longer applies to the current version.

I'm not big on the Life mana nodes personally though since the Life spells past Sanctify aren't all to important to me unless I'm trying to resurrect my hero. BUT, I could test it on one of my saved games via WorldBuilder, I suppose.

EDIT: Went to WorldBuilder, added some Life mana nodes: in the city resources screen, the tooltips show Health from "Bonuses" increased (see the Health vs. "Green Frowny Faces"). The far right of the screen shows Health too, at the bottom the tooltips read "cumulative".