Arcane Vs Charismatic

[DrPepper836]

I play the Kuriates frequently in my games, and have recently been trying to use more mages then I normally do, just for fun and because they can be quite powerful. In normal games, I just leave the adaptive trait on Financial, but playing with a mage strategy makes me think that either charismatic or arcane would be better. I'm leaning towards charismatic for the side benefits, but I wanted to get some opinions here too.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In the long run Charismatic is more useful and more versatile, but for a mage strategy getting arcane, building lots of adepts, and then switching to charismatic at the next opportunity is best. Charismatic "works retroactively" in that once you get the trait the lower xp requirements per level kick in and you can get extra promotions.

 

[DrPepper836]

I see. Well, that does make since. Thanks.

 

[Ecofarm]

Kuriates.

1) Switch to Arcane (start building your adepts within ~20 turns of doing so - quickspeed)

Mind mana is key (domination)

2) Build tower for Strength of Will (finish just after you complete arcane lore).

3) Switch to Charismatic, promote and upgrade to archmage.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I've seen lots of talk about domination. Is the view that it is too strong in the new version, or that it requires enough effort to use consistently (tower, metamagic, etc.) that it is about right?
Seems to me that loyalty is not working right right now, that should be something of a counter ideally.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't think it is too strong, but the other top tier spells could use improvement. I'm not sure I consider Valor to be good enough for even a level 2 spell.

I'm actually thinking Loyalty should be removed.

 

[Caradoc]

I don't think it is too strong, but the other top tier spells could use improvement.

Amen to that. An Archmage should have powerful spells. Check out the AD&D manual for ideas.

 

[Ecofarm]

Amen to that. An Archmage should have powerful spells. Check out the AD&D manual for ideas.

The problem is when you start putting 3 and 4 of them together, with twincast and spellstaff!!

Example: wonder (chaos 3)

With balseraph druids, it's not worth getting. I tried it with Keelyn and still, it's just not worth it - compared to domination. I might make 1/4 druids chaos3 and 1/4 nature3, the other 2 domination with extra promos for fails.

With Grigori archmages, wonder is a sight to behold! Sure, fire elementals get the same job done - everyone else gets killed but wonder is just... wow. If you haven't tried it, go into worldbuild and give yourself 3-4 twincast, combat5, extension2, chaos3, enchantment3 archmages... cast spellstaff... cast wonder twice with each. It's like slot machines of world-destroying goodness. I take wonder over domination with grigori. Mistforms and taking raider trait via adaptive (Cha then Rai) is nice too.

Side notes:

Spell damage caps need to be fixed. Tsunami, Crush, Crown and Pillar leave everything at 1 strength. What's the point? Just make it 99% or fix it (50% for top spells, 20% for others). 80% and 40% = dead and pretty-much-worthless, repectively. It's too much.

Then we could add an area damage to a tier 3 mana (law?) at 50% cap or 20% + affects.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd say to move the overpowered spells to level 3, and maybe let them be lethal.


I personally think Valor is better suited for a law 1 spell than law 3. I'm making Law 3 be Banish which will effect "evil units" (demons, undead, AV, OO, CoE units and units using evil magic-basically any unit that would go to serve the Infernals), either killing them or making them escape to to their capital (probably a random chance of either happening)

 

[Blackmantle]

Have to agree with Ecofarm on Stack-Busters here in principle even if imo the individual values could be a bit higher and still be fun / balanced (50-60/65% for Tier 3, 20-30/35% for Tier 2 depending on Range, Area effected and circumstances of casting like Tsunami just beeing castable in / near Water or the likes. The team will come up with fair values im sure if they will tone those spells down / agree on that they need fixing at all. )


On law-magics:
Just relocate Unyielding Order to back Law 3. Decent enough a spell for Tier 3 / Builder Style (which suits Law Mana very well usually) and order allready has enough sources of good Happiness at will (+ easy access to Law Mana if founder so they have still a good synergy with Law 3) + it makes more sense at Arcane magics instead of divine imo (+ i imagine it whould be much easier to find a spell for Tier 3 Order than for Tier 3 Law with Banishment much more fitting as a spell for Order imo) which is much harder to get / later than Order + Channeling 3 (and cuts necessary wild switches of Religion / Alignment for anyone who likes big lategame empires with big cities. Which are a bit unfun / unflavorful.) + permanently binds an archmage-level caster.

Loyalty won't be axed i belive (due to the team liking to limit certain abilities for scenarioes and the likes i imagine. As can be seen in Nikis-Knights comment above as well as orthus getting that promo.)

But adding a loyalty effect to valor (and keeping loyalty promotion / spell the same way it is now for special units / circumstances so the team still has its option to bar the player from dominating anything) + giving it a much higher wear-off chance than before (like 10% or even 20% if 10 is to low with the old 5% beeing as good as permanent in respect to the usage of mages between / homebuff and support) + relocating it to Tier 1 seems better in my book than at Tier 3 and permanent as well (in balance as well as flavor with valor not necessarily beeing a permanent feat.).

@ Topic: In direct comparison i think charismatic wins to get a huge army of mages (8 XP on building are really easy to get especially should you get lucky and get hold of Gaelan) while Arcane seems better for a smaller number of more specialized mages. If you are Adaptive you can chose both as has already been pointed out...

@ Domination: Very nice and powerful spell. Well Balanced imo, Loyalty issue excluded (if it is one. ).

 

[Caradoc]

Wonder (Chaos 3) is another disappointment. Best I've ever gotten is a Fire Elemental for one turn. The rest could be cast (reliably) by an Adept.

 

[warhawk26]

I've seen lots of talk about domination.

In my view it is too strong, only because there is simply no way to counter it other than killing the archmage or hero casting it. I would probably think it less overpowered if the failure rate was a bit higher or if it couldnt affect Heros. As it is, Domination is simply the most powerful spell in the game bar none.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Wonder (Chaos 3) is another disappointment. Best I've ever gotten is a Fire Elemental for one turn. The rest could be cast (reliably) by an Adept.

Permanent Empower-V Mobility-II Treants and Krakens? Always fun. Also fun is parking offshore and managing to send Hell terrain into Faeryls pretty little forests. Most of the normal summons are pretty useless, but Spiderkin (3 turn temporary Beastmaster, basically) are decent, and the aforementioned Treants and Krakens are great.

I usually just have a waterwalking Wonder archmage and park him in the middle of the ocean. Treants and Flesh Golems get pushed to nearest neutral/friendly land, Krakens can swim back, and everything else pretty much has no effect.

Finally, Svartalfar Wonder-summoned Treants are amazing defenders. Since they're illusions and not elementals, they heal 100% after combat. Makes them pretty much impossible to dislodge from say, an Ancient Forest Citadel on a hill.

 

[kenneth]

Charismatic would win hands down on an ancient start. Charmismatic affects ALL your units. For most civs, the bulk of your army early game is gonna be warriors and not adepts. Charismatic is far more useful. Arcane is good later in the game though, when you have more mages to really benefit from arcane.

 

[Darksaber1]

Well, the thing is, Aracane only effects NEW adepts, not ones you alreay had, since arcane give the Promotion Arcane, which actully gives the fater xp. Thats why I go Arcane firat(to get pleanty of adepts with Arcane), then pick Charismatic, because THAt works retro activlly, so all my units earn several levels without getting any new xp.

 

[kenneth]

Yeah i can see your point. But you have to consider the timeframe.

Knowlegde of the ether is usually a bad idea to beeline to first, and most will get at least bronze working with a lot of swords first before you tech to KotE for adepts.
A better strat would be charismatic (to benefit from early warriors) for defense, then arcane (to let ur spellscasters level up) then back to charismatic if you are adaptive.

Of course, there are exceptional situations i can foresee such as getting death mana, using a skeleton army for def etc. But unfortunately, the races that can pull off this strat well are not those with adaptive traits. (grigori or kuriotates).

If you want to play mages, then play amurites or some other magic heavy races with archmage heroes, rather than kuriotates , which in my opinon is more suited to go down the horse/warrior military tech to benefit from their special units. Use your adaptive traits to maximize your strength, like picking aggresive or charismatic so most of your units can benefit.

 

[brucedecatz]

Burning a great sage on KoE is usually not a bad idea to use the first great person.

 

[Caradoc]

Well, the thing is, Aracane only effects NEW adepts, not ones you alreay had, since arcane give the Promotion Arcane, which actully gives the fater xp. Thats why I go Arcane firat(to get pleanty of adepts with Arcane), then pick Charismatic, because THAt works retro activlly, so all my units earn several levels without getting any new xp.

So the Arcane promotion will continue to work even after the leader changes to something else?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

So the Arcane promotion will continue to work even after the leader changes to something else?

Not exactly. Your new adepts won't get the arcane (well, now Potency) promotion, but the ones that have it will not lose it. Since the trait doesn't really do anything but apply the promotion, building plenty of adepts early can mean you don't really lose anything when you change traits.

 

[Snarks]

I'm a bit confused here, you can change traits? I thought traits were static unless you have Insane. Am I missing something here?