Another noob looking for advice.

[pigswill]

I've played a bit of BtS before but I'm still trying to get my head around FFH2. I'm currently playing a game on Erebus, noble, normal speed as the Gregori. I've got up to T260 and things are going fairly well.

I had an early war with the Bannor who shared a valley with me, they were annihilated c T130. Since then I've been rexing peacefully, got up to 15 cities with one more site to settle. Leading on everything except military, I'm building some dragonslayers to catch up there.

Where I am confused is what to do with magic. I'm researching sorcery at the moment, I've got a couple of adventurers waiting to be upgraded to mages (97 and 98xp). I've got death node from the Sepulcher, fire node from Pyre of Seraphic, spirit, water and enchantment from palace and 5 raw mana nodes.

What's the best magic path to go down?

I'll attach a save:

 

[UnforcedError]

Hi Pigswill

Another long time Civ4 player here (and a total newbie to FFH2). I don't think I'm competent to answer your question but I guess it would help if you told others what VC-type you plan to pursue. (So far I've only won one dom game on Prince without caring too much about magic, I just used random spells. They were effective, apparently ) I guess that would work for your game too, but it would be a waste with all the mana you have. As you already have Sorcery how about turning one of the raw nodes into a metamagic one so that you have access to dispel (and could therefore change the other nodes whenever you see fit?). Do you plan for the Tower of Mastery?

 

[Tschibo]

You need one metamagic node and a mage. Give him metamagic II. now dispel node and proceed with specialised stategy. (he can still dispel after metamagic node is gone)

1. Build the towers of magic -> win
upgrade raw nodes to required manatypes
build tower, than dispel and proceed with next tower

2. Multiple copies of same manatype give newly build or upgraded mages free promotions.
Example:
two death nodes give death 1 to all adepts and higher
tree death nodes give death 2 to all mages and higher
four death nodes give death 3 to all archmages

3. Stack nodes to gain maximal +x/ node on summons
Death: wraith and whatwasitsname? for pure summonerrush with mages and archmages
Water: Losing waterelementals split into weaker copies
fire: Colareral Damage
just to name some

4. Some Nodes give Boni to your empire.
Example: Law (-5% city maintance per node)

Tipps
-pick charismatic as adaptive trait before adventurer upgrade for more promotions
-don´t build wonders in capital. insted focus +x adventurer buildings here, cast your worldspell and call a golden age for many adventurers

all death mana is probably the easiest for a beginner. In case you´re overvelmed, go with passiv mana effects (mouseover will guide you)

I didn´t open your save, and might have missed something.

 

[pigswill]

Does this mean that mages keep spells once learned even without the corresponding mana types eg. Build 3 earth nodes, learn earth elemental, dispel, build 3 fire nodes, learn fire elemental, dispel etc etc?

I hadn't thought about going charismatic for the war set(s). Sounds like a fine plan to me.

On the other hand if going for tower of magic victory maybe pick industrious as adaptive trait and have a mage on each node.

I used the world spell very early on (T80) to get 4 adventurers by T160 to give them time to mature.

 

[UnforcedError]

They do keep the spells they learned. However (please correct me if I'm wrong) the free promotions only seem to work for newly promoted units. So if you plan for the Tower I think it's better to promote them normally while having access to the required mana type while building the towers.

Charismatic as a wartime-trait? Not bad

I'm actually trying to work out a plan to build the towers effectively but they involve GEs, so that's probably not a good idea for the Gregori. (Building the last tower with normal hammers should be interesting though, as you will be DoWed by all other civs according to the manual. So I guess I either bribe them into wars before that or I better rush the tower somehow It's 4000H )

If you only wanted the four archmages then rushing the world spell was a good idea IMO. I actually think the Gregori world spell seems to be a tough call. You really have to do some calculations in advance to fire it at the right time, evaluating your expected finish date, your needs for upgraded units etc.

 

[Tschibo]

Adaptive trait can be picked every 100 turns, so you can still take industrious. Your archmages would just have the requirerments for their next promotion increased. (when CHA is lost)

The free promotion from stacked nodes are given when the adepts are build or upgraded. so have them ready before the upgrade.

A mage can only cast once a turn(or twice with enchantment 3 spellstaff).
You don´t need more than 2-3 offensive Spells. This can allready be achieved with the nodes you have.
Don´t forget combat and twincast promotion, to get the most out of your archmages.
Death 3 allows lichdom which doubles your possible number of archmages.
Use normal Mages for effects like fireball and mealstrom (fire2, air2) or unitbuffs.

Wading through hordes of enemies is what the lategame is all about. Limitless colataral from magic is the way to win. Or many summons.

Have fun

 

[pigswill]

It occurs to me that one way to early archmages is to research divination early and build tower of divination while teching sorcery and take archmage tech (forgotten its name) from the tower. Does this work? Is it common practice?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You left out one tech there. Archmages require Strength of Will, which requires Arcane Lore, which requires Sorcery. Finishing the Tower of Divination right after completing Arcane Lore in order to get early archmages is a rather common tactic.

You could also use it to get Arcane Lore in order to have early access to the archmage heroes Hemah (if you have the Octopus Overlords state religion) or Govannon (if you are an Amurite), but then it would take longer to get your normal archmages.


Personally I like to save the free tech from the Tower of Divination for Pass Through the Ether, so I can be sure to get the Nexus. before anyone else. In my modmod that not only provides free Obsidian Gates, but also an additional source of Dimensional Mana. I like to have more mana before I get archmages, so they will start with more free promotions.

 

[UnforcedError]

^^Thank you for the answers. Would you also go for the Nexus in case of Tower of Mastery too? (It seems to me that it'd be better to switch off research completely after getting all the necessary techs and invest everything you have in diplo / GEs / rush buys (?). Would that make sense or is that too risky on some maps?)

 

[Folket]

If I'm building a victory building I go 100% gold.

 

[pigswill]

Just to update. I reloaded a T200 save to go for Tower of Divination which completed in T270 and I took Strength of Will from it. I've since researched Pass Thru The Ether and built the Nexus and got mithril. I've abandoned this game as being too easy and have moved up to Monarch still playing the Gregori. Here's where I gave up as too dull to be interesting:

 

[Tschibo]

I think monarch is minimum level for this mod. Have fun

 

[pigswill]

I've started a FFH SD over in the succesion games sub-forum if anyone's interested.

Didn't think it worthwile starting a new thread.