Unlimited mana

[kmnWolfman]

I'm not sure if this strategy is known, but I use it to get unlimited mana.

The Bear, Ancient Bear and Polar Bear all have the Hibernation talent. Using it, by hitting the Defend button, the bear falls asleep and does not retaliate the enemy's attack. So I usually use Blind to save one enemy troop for the end of the battle, while I kill all the rest. Then I make sure I keep all my units away from the saved enemy group while only the bears stay close to regenerate mana with Mana Spring.

So the end of most of my battles goes like this:

1. I cast the Magic Spring spell on the bears.
2. The bear defends and falls asleep.
3. All my other units defend swell.
4. The enemy troop is too far to attack any other unit so it attacks the bear. The bear DOES NOT retaliate, it just regenerates mana.
5. I keep defending until Magic Spring runs out.
6. GOTO 1.

It takes a while but you get a sure source of unlimited mana.

I tried searching the forum for other ways to get unlimited mana but I didn't find anything else. Are there any other such threads?

[Ryastar]

Yeah there are three that I know of, which are rather interrelated, and neither involve the death of troops in your army, though they are more late game strategies, so congrats for coming up with an early game one.

All you need is dryads, and one (preferably no-retal, but any will do if it's a good large stack) enemy troop. Have your dryads summon thorns and block the enemy in a corner with them, then you have three of options:

1. Using mana only. Cast magic spring and target on one of you own thorn stacks, and gain mana that way (slow and inefficient)/ use fire arrow to set thorn on fire, and also cast magic spring on it, and gain mana each turn due to burn damage (ditto on the slowness and inefficiency)

2. Using both mana and rage. Have two other thorn stacks off somewhere else, away from all other stacks. Cast magic spring on both. Put a poison cloud above them (works best if poison cloud isn't upgraded, but still works if it is, just requires more caution). Then have all your troops wait. Poison cloud does damage to all targets beneath it at the beginning of each stack's turn. Waiting makes it happen twice as much, increasing your chances to get the most out of you magic springs. (this is probably the most efficient strategy, and works quickly, you get 5*5*2 - 10= 40 mana each time you do it, and you can do it every x turns, where x is the rest time for poison cloud).

3. Using rage only. Use the rage drain + chargers cycle. Depending on your levels for each, this can be either slow and inefficient, or decently quick, and incredibly efficient, since you should be gaining more rage than you spend, as well as gaining mana. There are two problems with this strategy, though: 1. you need a unit to run around to collect the chargers (most armies have a unit that can do this, but not all (an all-tank or all-range army might have difficulties)) and the enemy stack needs to survive the rage drain (it will do an average of 200 damage, i think, once well upgraded) there are two ways to get around this 1. inquisitors + holy anger or 2. really big enemy stack to begin with.

Note that using dryads' thorns to block enemy is only one way to do it, though i find it the best, since thorns can summon more thorns from dead bodies and it costs no mana. It is possible to use other units/abilities/spells (eg. shaman's totems, necro call, demon portal, summon pheonix, stone wall, etc.) the idea, though, is to prevent the opponent from doing damage to your actual units (for maximum efficiency) while leaving them alive and the combat continuing.

[OGKingsBounty92]

Why do you want unlimited Mana when there's only one enemy troop left? Is there something you do while you leave one enemy troop alive and gain constant mana?

Is it to resurrect as much fallen as possible?

[Dabrinko]

Yes, it is to resurrect/sacrifice/both everything you lost, so you have zero losses.

[OGKingsBounty92]

Originally Posted by Dabrinko

Yes, it is to resurrect/sacrifice/both everything you lost, so you have zero losses.

Ahhh, I need to start doing something like this because I lose too many troops in battles and then it's hard to replenish due to availability of troops.

I'm always a Warrior.

[Ryastar]

The other reason to do it is so that you have full mana and rage for the next battle.

[kmnWolfman]

I'm playing my first game as a paladin so I already had Resurrect and I think I got lucky when I found Magic Spring in Verlon Forest. I have been using this strategy to win all my battles, since before the first boss fight, without taking any loss, so yes it is a great early game strategy to minimize loss or avoid it altogether.

I'm at the end of Freedom Islands and it still works great, maybe later in the game I'll have to change strategy, but for now my fights last on average 20 turns. I'm using Polar bears, bowmen, archmages, priests and inquisitors.