Archmages: Two questions

[Landmonitor]

Two things:

First

I have only played four games of FFH that survived the first hundred turns, and I now build eight adepts early on to eventually be my archmages.

When I am ready to upgrade to archmages, I promote a laterly-built mage to metamagic II so that I can rework my nodes. I then convert all existing nodes to give my adepts level two in whatever their specialty will be as an archmage (if there are enough nodes/shrines/palace mane, they get to level two in two disciplines that compliment each other, and where only one needs affinity, like entropy and an element). After that, I convert all existing nodes to death (preferably to get four of them) and upgrade the mages to archmages, who then immediately become liches.

The (preferably) four mana nodes are then converted to enchantment so that the next four mages are upgraded to spell-staff-capable archmages. Each archmage or lich is then upgraded to level three in whatever is appropriate.

Finally, the nodes are all converted to leverage whatever I want to summon (I typically stick to one type of elemental, often dictated by starting mana or shrines... in my Empyrean Malakim game where I got the Mirror of the Sun, it was, not surprisingly, an Aurealis).

This allows all the promotions to go to spell extension/strength (with maybe one or two exceptions to get at a useful first-level spell).

Is this commonly done? I haven't found it a problem to control four non-palace/shrine mana sources by the time I get strength of will, and saving at least one node for Metamagic isn't inconvenient (standard map size), particularly if a marginal terrain island has a couple and is either Barbarian or occupied by a Civ that I happen to not mind going to war with for a few turns.

Second

Is there any reason to specialize in summoning anything other than a Djinn? They are so powerful! I appreciate that Air, Water, and Fire elementals each have a perk, but the strength difference just doesn't seem to justify it... any thoughts?

 

[readercolin]

you actually find djinn's useful? Try keeping your nodes all death and summoning specters instead - I think you would find yourself in for a surprise. Also - each elemental has its strengths. The fire elemental has mediocre strength, but causes collateral damage. The water elemental has the lowest strength - but when it looses a fight, it has a chance to split and turn into 2 water elementals, each of which also have a chance to split - this can make for some VERY powerful offensive work. The air elemental is also weak - but it can move very far (base movement of 3 I believe), and when it is victorious it has a chance to create a lightning elemental - which a while ago was a permanent summon, but I haven't used them recently so I'm not sure if that is still true or not. Then there is the specter (death 3 summon), who has medium strength, but causes fear to all units it attacks. Then the last 2 elementals are the Aurealis and the earth elemental - Aurealis has the benifit of have +2 sun mana affinity, potentially making it the most powerful elemental in the game, while the earth elemental has the highest base strength - but its real bonus is each earth mana you get just adds 1 strength, of regular strength and not of a particular element, making them very dangerous against people who have resistances to mana types (like dragons).

Now, if you meant Aurealis instead of djinn, I might understand the comment, but if not, why do you find Djinn's to be the most powerful? Most people actually find death to be the most powerful because of the death 2 summons affinity for death mana - 6 death nodes and your basic wizards are spamming strength 9, fear causing terrors. This is generally more useful then having only 4-8 archmages sending forth fewer higher level elementals, simply because you can spam wizards like its no tomorrow, unlike archmages.

Anyways, on to your other comment. Generally, I don't try to focus on using the changing of mana nodes and such to upgrade my mages, simply because it is alot of work and time - and in the end not any better than spamming champions. This of course changes if you play on marathon or epic - but playing on standard or quick you can usually pull a champion every turn or two from your best cities, and they at least can get decent upgrades. Also, if I have enough mana nodes to make it worth it to do that, I usually end of going for a tower of mastery victory - which means that my focus on one particular mana ends up going out the window. And then I achieve a domination victory before achieving the ToM victory... but thats a whole different story.

-Colin

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I find Djinni quite useful, but that is less because of their affinity and more because I made them UNITCOMBAT_ADEPT and gave them Channeling I and II so they get free spell sphere promotiosn based on what mana you possess when they are summoned.


I find most of the summons relatively boring, and think they should be specialized more. My Aureales have Perfect sight, plus they can target recon units and unitclass_assassins/shadow/assassin heroes units in stacks of stronger units and also be the first to defend against such units. My Einherjar have Valor and Guardsman. My Water Elementals can carry ships as cargo across land. My Earth Elementals often cause earthquakes. My recently added Runewyns (see the Bestiary) are magic immune, have a huge bonus vs arcane units, can target arcane units in stacks, and can cause arcane units to forget how to use random spells.

 

[hbar]

Djinns are extremely useful for the Amurites, and less so for everyone else. The Amurites start with Metamagic mana, and their UB (Cave of Ancestors) grants +1 XP per unique mana type (this isn't clear in the 'pedia, but it is clear in the code and is confirmed as working as intended).

So, if you want to leverage the power of CoA, then you need lots of different manas, thus making Djinns the most powerful summon available.

And to answer the OP, no I don't micro my archmages anywhere near that much, but I play pretty sloppily as well. What you describe probably makes the most powerful archmages possible, but it doesn't sound fun.

 

[Landmonitor]

Question 1

Hbar and Readercolin,

I too dislike micromanaging, but this is really only a question of a two stacks that can rebuild a node in one turn doing their thing twice (much as I do with worker stacks); it is not as onerous as it sounds, but the effort is the main drawback. Also, I play at my maximum handicap, so I don't tend to be sloppy... whenever I find myself being sloppy and winning I raise the difficulty. But I don't want to sound defensive (so hard to properly convey intonation in these forums); the lack of interest in micromanaging is a completely fair criticism of this idea.

I also realized the first time I did this that my "Hero Stack" didn't really need well-tuned summoners, and this was even more obvious in a Calabim game (do you really need anything but some well-feasted Vampire Lords and those ride-of-the-nine-kings-grafted-golems that follow them around?!). It was also a case of being overwhelmed with the possibilities that archmages presented before I realized that it is smarter to pick something and have them all be really good at that rather than, for example, having one Archmage for each type of element.

Still... doubling the number of casters that can reach level three spells by doing a full-death-line attainment on archmage upgrade is pretty sweet. Having four archmages that have spellstaff (or maybe flesh golem) without having to blow three upgrades is also a definite edge.

I guess the conclusion is that, like any strategy, it is useful if you can leverage it, but if you didn't get a raw mana node late enough to get metamagic or just didn't have much mana period (perhaps having no shrines), then it wouldn't be relevant. The cost/benefit analysis (the cost being that it is cumbersome to carry out) is also, like Readercolin pointed out, tempered by the usefulness of just spamming Champions, Musketmen, or (preferably nightmare) Chariots).

Interesting feedback, Thank You.

Question 2

Readercolin,

I had no idea that Spectres are death affinity. That changes everything. I thought only level three summons had affinity. I also didn't know that Aureali had double affinity. In the Malakim game I referred to, I had seven Sun Nodes (post-world project that increases mana resources; this game was my first that "caught" and was on quick to try everything out), and they were coming out at strength 21; my Djinns were at strength 29. Either one cleaned house, and I was largely summoning Aureali beceause it just seemed to fit, but the rational choice remained the Djinn... However, I had a ridiculous amount of mana from vassals and shrines, so perhaps that game was a statistical outlier and a bad example... I knew when I had a FP/Dragon Bones/Ivory square in my capital that I would be hugely incompetent if I didn't win!

Also, I knew about the benefits of each elemental (I called them "perks" in the post), but it still just didn't come close to the raw strength of a djinn... so far I like the water ones the best. As you said, they are dynamite on the attack.

I didn't know that about Earth Elementals. I'll have to keep that in my pocket... either way, I'll likely be checking out that Death affinity for Spectres next time... if only I'd known in my Calabim game... perhaps it would have ended much quicker!

New Question

Do Dijinns only get 1 affinity per unique mana type or do they get 1 affinity per mana resource like any other affinity? Hbar's comments suggest the former, but I presumed it was the latter (particularly given what I saw in my Malakim game).

 

[Landmonitor]

Magister Cultuum,

Those are interesting changes. Its funny you did that with Djinns because when I read the manual and saw that they had a very low strength, I presumed that they could cast spells. I personally don't make my own changes; with BtS I was strictly what came from T2 and with this, I just leave it as it is from the creators.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Do Dijinns only get 1 affinity per unique mana type or do they get 1 affinity per mana resource like any other affinity? Hbar's comments suggest the former, but I presumed it was the latter (particularly given what I saw in my Malakim game).

The latter. You couldn't even get 29 strength Djinns with the former because there aren't enough mana types.

 

[readercolin]

Yeah, the whole real powerful djinn thing was because of all the mana you were getting from your vassals. If most of your mana is coming from mana nodes though, there are 2 approaches that I have found best (unless going for a ToM victory). Approach 1 - spam death mana nodes and spam wizards (best when playing the amurites). This approach is very powerful - the only problem happens if you happen to be facing the lurchip or angels/mercurians, for whom most units are either immune or highly resistant to death mana. Use this approach if you are trying to have LOTS of wizards. Approach 2 is if you are just trying to have 4 archmages and 4 liches - get enough death mana to upgrade 4 of your mages to liches, then spam sun mana. As Aurealis's are +2 sun mana affinity, they can quickly become the best summons in the game. However, otherwise the sun line is rather meh (scorch can be useful, but sun 2 is generally useless on the attack, and while usefulish on the defense, spamming specters or maelstrom would be better). This approach is much better when getting the high level casters, but rather useless if you're just spamming wizards.

If I'm playing with magic in a game, those are the two approaches I generally follow. They aren't perfect, but usually they're enough to get me through the game with enough mundane assistance.

-Colin

 

[Worm4life]

I never understood why you'd want to get duplicate mana types for the free spell promotion. The bottleneck for me has never been the number of promotions, but the unit level. I end up blowing a promotion or two on crap I don't want just to get an adept up to level 4. You only have more available choices than promotions if you have a ton of different mana types, which you won't if you go duplicates.

Fear has always been kind of worthless to me. I'd much rather use collateral damage and assassins on a stack, and the one time scattering a large stack would be very useful (in a city), it doesn't work.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The real use for fear would be keeping a couple spectres with your stack and not attacking with it to chase off counterattackers. Won't help you vs. assassins but everything else is kind of SOL.

 

[Landmonitor]

I didn't know that some Civs units were immune to some mana types. That probably means that Djinn can be really strong against most Civs since I'm guessing that no Civs have resistance/immunity to say, law mana or spirit mana.

There is a lot to this mod that isn't obvious at first, which is a big part of its appeal.

 

[hbar]

Not every mana type has a damage type associated with it. I believe the types are fire, cold, death, poison, holy, and unholy. Anything outside of that is normal damage.

Does anyone know if magic resistance/magic immune affect affinity strength?

 

[Breunor]

I don't agree that djinn's aren't useful. Especially when I'm going for a tower win, and on larger maps, I have lots of different types of mana and djinnis can be powerhouses. A few Grigori archmages with combat 5 twincast djinns with 27 strength is pretty good in my book.

Some people like to go 'deep' and some like to go 'wide'. There are many reasons to go wide, and if you do, djinns are great. I agree if going 'deep' I prefer death or sun, but I tend to go wide.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[readercolin]

If affinity strength is for something like fire - then, yes, magic resistance/magic immune will affect it (it should state -50% fire damage or something like that). If for example though it is an earth elemental (earth mana affinity just adds extra strength), then it won't because the affinity just increases its base strength, it doesn't add +x (damage type here).

As for fear vs/ collateral. Its not so much that - a fireball is strength 4 and never ever changes. However, a specter is strength 3 with +1 death mana affinity. That means that the fireball will always be attacking at strength 4, even in lategame. The specter though can be attacking with strength anywhere between 3 and infinity, as long as you have enough death mana. This makes death mana significantly more useful into the lategame as you can stack the death mana and get summons that match the strength of champions, or more.

-Colin

 

[Worm4life]

I always thought sun mana was the best choice for affinity craziness. +2 affinity for summons, +1 for Chalid the impaler.

 

[Nefelia]

If affinity strength is for something like fire - then, yes, magic resistance/magic immune will affect it (it should state -50% fire damage or something like that). If for example though it is an earth elemental (earth mana affinity just adds extra strength), then it won't because the affinity just increases its base strength, it doesn't add +x (damage type here).

As for fear vs/ collateral. Its not so much that - a fireball is strength 4 and never ever changes. However, a specter is strength 3 with +1 death mana affinity. That means that the fireball will always be attacking at strength 4, even in lategame. The specter though can be attacking with strength anywhere between 3 and infinity, as long as you have enough death mana. This makes death mana significantly more useful into the lategame as you can stack the death mana and get summons that match the strength of champions, or more.

-Colin

Fireball can gain one additional point of strength from one of the Towers...probably the Tower of Elements.

 

[Landmonitor]

Fireball also gets empower and spell extension benefits... and your mage can have four of those out of the gate if you get access to three fire mana nodes. Again, having two "worker stacks" of mages who also have mobility I (and maybe access to haste) can mean that you reconfigure enough nodes to do this in two to three turns.