Yeah Royal Thorns seem to be the perfect thing to use Sacrifice on, as you can't buy an unlimited supply anywhere. I am loving Royal Thorns myself. Like Orc Shamans they give the enemy plenty of things to attack that *aren't* your troops, and that is exactly what you want as a Mage. I have also been using Sacrifice to get a stack of Horsemen as well, long before they become a horde at King Mark's castle.
My own game is progressing very smoothly - in fact I am disappointed how smoothly it is going. I've totally cleared out Freedom Islands now, including the pirate ships, and that's despite the fact that many enemies were listed as Very Strong or Overpowering. Leadership is over 6000 and I've still got Feanora due to her wonderful children. I just cleared out Creiston Mines too and I think I am level 15 now.
I decided that a Mage really wants to race up the Magic tree (obviously) but some things are more important than others. So I already have Chaos 3 and Destroyer 3, but only Distortion 2 and Order 1. The mana regeneration is also not so important this early, so I've only got one point in that. Ice Snake is a very, very nice spell to use and now it's dealing over 2200 damage to the central hex of the attack. Fireball 3 is awesome for any thorns you see too, as they take double damage from fire.
Comparing my money stocks to my two earlier Hard games, I am surprised to find that I have WAY more money this time. Currently I have about 500,000 in the bank, compared to 200,000 at the same stage in my last Hard game. Obviously I haven't been losing nearly as many units, and this is down to the decision to play an 'offensive mage strategy.'
Basically, you want to do the biggest spell damage to the enemy each turn, which means having as high an Intellect as you can (mine is only 16 at the moment) and prioritising Chaos 3 and Destroyer 3. Then you can use spells like Fireball, Ice Snake and later Fire Rain and Armageddon. Ideally you want to use as many ranged units as possible to complement your spells, so I have settled on Royal Thorns and Orc Shamans to create cannon fodder/diversions, as well as whatever melee units are cheap (Pirates and Sea Dogs in Freedom Islands). I don't like the human archer (too weak) but I also have a stack of Horsemen which I created with Sacrifice.
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