Here's a dirty tip ... -Endless Mana

[alon]

I'm Mage LvL 16 in mid game Dwarven lands on impossible, doing battles that usually take me half an hour and on the rare occasion up to an hour and a half because of this 'dirty' strat ...

I now finish every battle with no losses + full mana + full rage and best of all: I just proved to myself that I can go into a battle with 1 single Shaman, stowing the other 29 in my Reserve slot + my regular army, and I come out of the fight with +29 brand new Shamans, while not even having the Resurrection spell - using a virtually endless source of Mana...

Since I saw people doing similar things but never writing they do "endless Mana" on any fight I thought I should share...

Ingredients:
1. A huge no retaliation enemy stack or any plain slow moving stack for regular fights - Alchemists or Royal Snakes for "endless mana".
2. A full Stack of Royal Thorns.
3. Mana Spring Level 3.
4. A never upgraded Poison Rain Rage-spell.
5. A full Stack of Inquisitors.
6. The Sacrifice Spell.

Mix the 6 ingredients together and you get the following:
*For the best effect you box in an enemy stack using 4 strong stacks of Thorns.
*Replace all thorns that die with new ones, but don't crowd the battle area or you will be waiting a LONG time for each turn to end...
*Cast Mana Spring 4 times - once on each thorn stack.
*Cast each Mana Spring AFTER the thorns have moved but before the turn ends. (simply click "Done" until the last turn of the Royal Thorns - this will assure best results).
*After you cast the last one, end the turn and ask Sleem to cast Poison Rain.
*This will generate 3 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 17 * 5 = 85 Mana when done right.
*Watch +20 MANA twice, than +10 MANA a couple or more times and... you get the idea.
*Use Inquisitors to regain full Rage for the next battle + resurrect any and all units - especially the units you Sacrifice...

Since the Alchemists have very good Poison resistance + high hit points + no retaliation + the Poison rain does so little damage (about 15 points per turn), and when they have a big enough stack they can withstand 150+ turns of this "abuse", giving you plenty of time to regenerate your losses and effortlessly gain new troops at 0 cost - except the most precious one of all: your time. :)

Enjoy.

P.S.
This thread should be moved to the 'Tips and Hints' sub-forum.
Thanks in advance.

[Sandsai]

It is a whole lot easier to use invisibility + emerald dragons to get your mana. Takes a relative long time to kill stuff but you can kill anything except stuff that can see invisibility.

[alon]

It is a whole lot easier to use invisibility + emerald dragons to get your mana. Takes a relative long time to kill stuff but you can kill anything except stuff that can see invisibility.
Cool - but you assume that I found the Invisibility spell + that I have access to Emerald Dragons when I only just got to the Dwarven lands ... :)

[kemydes]

you can cast 4!!! mana spring ?? how could you do that, i could cast 2 mana spring in a turn but 4 ??? and when you are at the end of the fight, generally you have already used this ability so you are stick with 1 cast by turn. Do i miss something ? :confused:

[Gatts]

you can cast 4!!! mana spring ?? how could you do that, i could cast 2 mana spring in a turn but 4 ??? and when you are at the end of the fight, generally you have already used this ability so you are stick with 1 cast by turn. Do i miss something ? :confused:

He probably did not mean "in one turn" - if he did - he was wrong

[slingshot322]

Or you could just be a mage, max out your ability to cast multiple spells per turn and nuke everything in a matter of minutes...saves time and limits your losses. 150+ turns!! who the hell wants to fight for that long.

[Gatts]

Or you could just be a mage, max out your ability to cast multiple spells per turn and nuke everything in a matter of minutes...saves time and limits your losses. 150+ turns!! who the hell wants to fight for that long.

even with maxed "higher magic" you can use only ONE additional spell per turn...

If you have Higher Magic level 3:
1st round : one normal + one additional spell cast
2nd round: one normal + one additional spell cast
3rd round: this time you will need only one cast... so you will save your third BONUS
4th round: one normal + the saved additional spell cast ...
after round 4 you can again cast only one spell (there is not higher level than 3 for higher magic... unless you MOD it)

You can save your bonus cast to whenever you like... but you can always have only 2 casts per round MAX...

I hope this clears it a little bit and I hope it does not destroy too many cloud castles (remember - you need cloud castle, titans can be hired there)