Getting My Ass Kicked

[BB Shockwave]

MrBlister - the game is random, you can run into very hard enemies with any class. I had to re-start my Paladin because I came to a point where I could not beat ANY of the remaining guardings of the Verona chart without huge losses. Why? Yogi (Polar) Bear and his friends Bubu the Barbarian. The chart was on Bolo, guarded by throngs of bears and barbarians, and those things do insane damage. I killed everything else already and got stumped.

On my next try, I got Phantom early, and found the charts to other islands to get more XP and leadership before challenging the same troop... It's luck, tactics is an important factor, but luck features heavily too.

With a Mage you have to play differently... early on, unless you heavily max your Intellect (and there aren't many skills for that), you'll be weak. You need to focus on buff and summon spells, and de-buff your enemies. Fear is an excellent spell to get some throngs of level 1-2 units out of your hair without almost no mana spent.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

MrBlister - the game is random, you can run into very hard enemies with any class. I had to re-start my Paladin because I came to a point where I could not beat ANY of the remaining guardings of the Verona chart without huge losses. Why? Yogi (Polar) Bear and his friends Bubu the Barbarian. The chart was on Bolo, guarded by throngs of bears and barbarians, and those things do insane damage.

Bears and barbarians should never get within range of your proper army. I'd be much more worried about beholders, griffons, or archmages than two slow melee only units. Barbarians can't even run!

[travelingoz]

Since its your first time playing AP, as a Mage you should really grab the map for scarlet island from your starting island. Jump on your ship and run around there grabbing all the leadership flags and loot you can while avoiding the npc's there. That should give you enough of a headstart on normal to get your Mage leveled.

[MrBlister]

Thanks for the advice guys, it helped a lot.

I have a few questions though:

1. This skill eviln. Does it really suck or something? I can only use it on dead bodies, and it only seems to do anything if an enemy unit steps directly on it, then it acts like a trap and kills a lot of them. Otherwise, it doesn't do anything, though the skill description seems to suggest otherwise. Kind of expensive if that's all it does.
   
2. I got this ring that gives me +3 int. It says, on use it will give fuse or something and give me +3 int (after 50 won battles or something). So, I win the battles and use the ring, but it doesn't give me +3 int, it just turns into a ring that gives +3 mana.
   
3. I have items with race names on them. Some of these items have morale as well, and after a certain number of battles it drops to zero and I have to fight the item to restore it back to 100. I can't ever afford to test this by like restocking my entire army with nothing but the race of the item to see if it won't lose morale, so I'm just asking if that's the case; would these items stop losing morale if my entire army was of the same race as the item? Right now I have 3 items, all of different races, all losing morale after fights. I mean, it is the only way I've found to farm some extra gold and experience.
   
4. Is there a guide or list somewhere of all the units, and where to buy them? I just lost a bunch of my demonologists, and can't remember where I bought them from. Those guys are just too useful.
   
5. Is there a way/mod to speed up animations or cancel them? Especially the pet dragon--it just makes fights take so much longer than necessary.
   
6. Trophies--as a mage, do I need them? I can honestly say I've only once upgraded a unit with them early on. I unequipped the parchment early on in favor of a different item. Am I hurting myself in the long run? I mean, like, lategame am I going to find some dude who's like "Hey, wanna buy this sweet golden dragon of the gods? No problem, just hand over 50,000 trophies."

Anyway, I started a new mage and went and ran around islands grabbing whatever loot I possibly could, and then stayed with fighting the easy mobs. I skilled to get the multi-cast thing earlier too; that helped a lot. Also, I took the red dragon pet this time. Because mana is so scarce early on, the mana accelerator skill is mostly what kept me going. Also, having the dragon an active part of every fight is so important since I was so limited in mana that I couldn't rely on my army as much, so having the +5 rage was extremely handy as the game forces you to level up your dragon skills (starting with only 20 max rage is rough, especially since you have to invest outside the magic skill tree to get more rage). Honestly, I tried several of the other pets that seemed better suited for a mage, but the red one just worked best for me.

And man, it took a lot of tedious scavenging, but I managed to beat the first few areas. Kiting the islands is pretty tough, and required a lot of reloading of savegames, but I found you could get to some of the juicy, guarded chests and scrolls by leading the monster a long distance (so long as they have sight of you, they'll follow for a long time), and you can do things like lead them to areas where you can run around, and then ditch them so you have time to grab the stash. Also, the boat is handy when you're somewhat near the shore, as you can lead a mob to your boat, hop in, move up the shore a little, then hop out to pass the monster. lol, this wasn't exactly the game I thought I was going to be playing, you know?

The advice about focusing on summons really helped as well. They also made great fodder for the suicide bomber skill, which did great damage for its relatively low mana cost. Mostly it was oil fog thing, fire arrows, and fire balls. I'd use stone walls to mess with the monster pathing to get them to cluster up, and then nuke the group down. I always have one meatsack unit in my group that I tried to put out ahead of my other units to keep my squishy casting/ranged units safer. However, going against enemy heroes and enemies with strong ranged attacks was extremely hard. It's easy to get to the point to where there are nothing but lethal and invincible mobs left to fight. Buying expensive items almost cost me the game a couple of times, as I was too broke to restock my army. I've had to return to save games that were like 3 fights previous. But, later I got the pirana spell, and man, that thing is beautiful.

One thing I wish I had known early on was how important it was to save your crystals to upgrade your better skills. Early on, I decided to learn as many scrolls as possible, since learning them cost very few crystals and it is nice to have the versatility. However, it delayed upgrading some of the key spells when I ran out of crystals. I have so many spells that seem good on the surface, but that I never use. Kinda frustrating.

I'm doing pretty well now. I'm level 24; I've unlocked like 2/3rds of the map, and I'm sitting on over 200k gold. I'm working my way through some mines--can't remember what the name of that area is. A big help has been getting black dragons. There was some land where there's this black unicorn guarding a cave. I managed to drag the unicorn away from the cave and slip in and buy 2 black dragons. Oh man, they are such badasses. Also, the rune mages can resurrect black dragons even though they're magic immune. I have enough leadership now to get a 3rd one, but I just haven't gone to pick it up yet.

My biggest complaint about the game is that it wastes a lot of time. Not just the painfully long animations, but also, having to wander around and wait for your mana to recharge is honestly so stupid. There should be a rest skill that you can use on the main map that lets your hero sit down and regain all their mana and lose all their rage. I found some cheat codes that help with that now; after a fight, I just do "mana" then "rage -x". Really, though, there should just be a button to do that in the game. I mean, I'm not going to waste skill runes to upgrade the recharge skill since the skill doesn't actually give any in-game benefit besides saving you from having to stand around in between fights. Pretty dumb, tbh.

If I had some advice for other new players after playing this game myself for the first time, it'd be "don't pick mage unless you really really really want to play a mage." But, if you are just a big nerd like me who loves playing mages, then here's what I've found that helped (obviously disregard any of this if a more experienced player says otherwise):

• Get a pet with the mana accelerator ability. Obviously, you can wait till it comes up as an option when you upgrade your pet, but I found it's a very painful game until you get that option, and it's definitely the skill you want to start the game with.
  
• Get transmute early. You only get half-mana from summons that die, though.
  
• Get higher-magic as early as possible as well. The sweet spot for this skill is level 2.
  
• Accept the battle training even if you already know how to fight, because you'll get gold, crystals, scrolls, and equipment from it, and all you lose is time.
  
• Actively start working on those achievment bonuses once you hit level 5 or so. The first couple of levels of them are usually very easy to get, and they make a big difference. You don't want to wait until you're so far ahead of the game that they don't matter.
  
• Prioritize item choices in this order, mana, intelligence, leadership, defense. The only time I didn't was when it meant having my intelligence be a multiple of 7 (since you get the +15% damage). So, if you got 20 int, and you have to choose between +5 mana or +1 int, get the +1 int because it'll bring you to 21 int, which is +20% damage. Obviously, this isn't a hard rule; I mean, don't give up an item that gives you +300 leadership for an item that gives you +2 mana. And, as the game progresses and you have a larger pool of mana and more reliable regen in battle, you can swap some mana items for int items. Others have recommended getting defense, but I haven't found it to be useful. Better to have a unit or two with very high HP and then bless them with stone skin and stuff.
  
• Inquisitors. This was the bread-and-butter unit for me (I still use them a lot too, since I have a bunch in my reserve) and you can buy them from a lot of places, so you're not likely to run out of them. Also, you can upgrade priests to them if you're desperate enough. Early game they're crucial for their bless ability which increases your rage, which means more mana accelerators or pet attacks (pets default kick skill will get a lot of use for like your first 8 hero levels). Their bless does also make units deal more damage, and much more damage to undead and demons, but really, use it whenever you can to increase rage.
  
• AoE damage. I probably don't need to say this at all, but you want to do as much total damage as possible as early as possible in battles. The smaller the enemy units, the less likely they are to obliterate one of your units before you can resurrect them.
  
• Shift and Control to cast a lower level spell. Honestly, I missed this note all like 5 times I did that battle tutorial thing.
  
• Spells I have found to be useful (note, of the spells I've found so far, and just the best ones) and worth the crystal investment (up to the level indicated):

Fire Rain 3 - good bang-for-buck.

Flaming arrow 3 - amazing bang for buck as the mana cost stays at 5. Early on, it's great for picking off priority targets.

Fireball 2 - you will probably use fireball 3 if you don't find fire rain in time, but the bang-for-buck on it is pretty bad. Still, if you're working on the 3rd-level firemaster achievement, this is one of the qualifying spells.

Oil Shroud 3 - (but you can wait as, though the upgrade points are worth it, they're not top priority) not just for the crowd control, I use this a lot for the added damage. It reduces fire resistance, and can take it into the negative for added damage (so you can use it on targets that have zero fire resist to start with). Oil Mist + fire rain is so much damage for such a low cost it's ridiculous.

Kamikaze 1 - situational usage, but great bang for buck when the opportunity arises. Later on, though, you'll have better, more reliable spells which offer comparable damage without wasting crystals.

Piranas 3 - this is a monster of a skill, doing massive physical damage to an enormous AoE. This is what you want to use early--first 2 rounds, really, before you have too many of your units in the mix. But, you have to hit a lot of units to make this skill worth the mana cost. If you can tag 5+ units, it'll likely provide the greatest damage-to-mana cost possible. Otherwise, you'll need to fall back on your other smaller AoE skills.

Teleport 1 - I have this maxed, unfortunately, but wish I hadn't wasted the crystals early on. 4 spaces at level one is a lot, and it has an extremely low mana cost. I almost never use level 2, and have never used level 3. But, this is a great skill to position your low-mobility, high-hp heroes, or to save your squishy unit when it gets trapped with some big, ugly, baddy.

Slow 1 - useful early game to slow down those heavy-hitters.

Trap 1 - the best use of trap is to slow an enemy advance through a choke, and since it stops the enemy cold at level 1, it's really not worth any more points than that. I know there's a trap achievement and all, but I really can't see investing much in this skill.

Dispel 1 - there aren't a ton of buffs I'm afraid of seeing on an enemy that I'd waste an entire spell-cast to remove from an enemy, so I've never bothered to upgrade this. But, at level 1, it's very useful to keep your tank unit moving around, or to unsilence your summoning unit.

Magic Pole Axe 2 - very solid single-target damage. When you need to target a fire-resistant enemy. I never upgraded this to level 3 because then I found ghost blade.

Ghost Blade 3 - the best, single-target damage skill I've found. I don't get the downside to this this skill. The only time I use flame arrow ahead of it is if the target is weak to fire, or I'm totally strapped for mana and need immediate burst damage.

Summon Phoenix 3 - I mean, it comes back alive--what else could you ask for?

Call of Nature 1 - A clutch skill early game, but really not worth upgrading. I upgraded this and regretted it, but it's a skill I stopped using a while ago. The cost is just too high (40 mana) at level 3, and because the unit is random, you can end up with a lot of garbage you just don't need. This might be a more useful skill for like a paladin or someone with large attack and defense bonuses who can make great use out of it, but since, as a mage, you want skill-less summons mostly as battle-field distractions to buy you time to nuke down your enemy. I mean, you waste 40 mana to summon 150 dragon flies...ok, um...now what?

Chaos Dragon 3 - I don't know if this guy is really worth the 60 mana if you were to do all the theory-crafting, but he's just such a party. If it looks like it's going to be a long battle, I'll usually have 2-3 oil shrouds on the battle field, and like to summon this guy right in the middle of one. You probably get more damage out over 2 turns with fire rain, but he just makes such an entrance it's hard not to use him.

Anyway, hope that helps anyone else who is struggling with a mage like I was.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[Jah]

Originally Posted by MrBlister

[*]This skill eviln. Does it really suck or something? I can only use it on dead bodies, and it only seems to do anything if an enemy unit steps directly on it, then it acts like a trap and kills a lot of them. Otherwise, it doesn't do anything, though the skill description seems to suggest otherwise. Kind of expensive if that's all it does.

Eviln acts as a healing spell for undead units.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

[*]I have items with race names on them. Some of these items have morale as well, and after a certain number of battles it drops to zero and I have to fight the item to restore it back to 100. I can't ever afford to test this by like restocking my entire army with nothing but the race of the item to see if it won't lose morale, so I'm just asking if that's the case; would these items stop losing morale if my entire army was of the same race as the item? Right now I have 3 items, all of different races, all losing morale after fights. I mean, it is the only way I've found to farm some extra gold and experience.

Check out the Armored Princess info thread, section XI: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10991 It will tell you what affects the morale of various items. As you can see, with most items, the composition of your army will make no difference at all.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

[*]Is there a guide or list somewhere of all the units, and where to buy them? I just lost a bunch of my demonologists, and can't remember where I bought them from. Those guys are just too useful.

For the most part, the availability of units is random (there are a couple of locations, such as Frederick's Castle and the Royal Academy in Debir, that always have certain troop types available). Your best bet is to use a save game scanner, which will create a file listing the availability of units and items in each save game.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

[*]Trophies--as a mage, do I need them? I can honestly say I've only once upgraded a unit with them early on. I unequipped the parchment early on in favor of a different item. Am I hurting myself in the long run? I mean, like, lategame am I going to find some dude who's like "Hey, wanna buy this sweet golden dragon of the gods? No problem, just hand over 50,000 trophies."

I suppose the trophies might be useful if you badly need a unit type that isn't available anywhere, but in my opinion, upgrading using the patent costs too many trophies to make it good for anything other than occasional use. If you've found another, more useful item for the same slot, don't worry about unequipping the patent.

[MrBlister]

Thanks for that link to the info thread.

One question I can't seem to find the answer to is about the armor bearers. I found the dude with the scarred face, and have been travelling around with him. But I haven't seen anyone else. Does only 1 spawn per game? Do I have to dismiss this guy in order to find another one? I haven't found any since I picked this guy up.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by MrBlister

Thanks for the advice guys, it helped a lot.

I have a few questions though:

1. I got this ring that gives me +3 int. It says, on use it will give fuse or something and give me +3 int (after 50 won battles or something). So, I win the battles and use the ring, but it doesn't give me +3 int, it just turns into a ring that gives +3 mana.
   

1. It does give you +3 int. You can now take off the ring, and your int is the same as before when you had the ring. Now you can equip some +5 int item instead.
   
   

   Originally Posted by MrBlister

   Is there a way/mod to speed up animations or cancel them? Especially the pet dragon--it just makes fights take so much longer than necessary.

   Well, in options you can set combat animation to fast. It isn't too bad with that setting on.
   
   

   Originally Posted by MrBlister

   Trophies--as a mage, do I need them? I can honestly say I've only once upgraded a unit with them early on. I unequipped the parchment early on in favor of a different item. Am I hurting myself in the long run? I mean, like, lategame am I going to find some dude who's like "Hey, wanna buy this sweet golden dragon of the gods? No problem, just hand over 50,000 trophies."

Can be handy for fielding key units early on, then using Sacrifice to bolster your numbers.

Sacrifice hurts one friendly stack unit (can't be a summon), and a percentage of that damage is used to INCREASE your maximum unit numbers of another stack. Very handy if you need more of another unit.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

Honestly, I tried several of the other pets that seemed better suited for a mage, but the red one just worked best for me.

When you get more experienced, you will find the blue one? (+1 initiative to dragons) is probably the best one unless you are doing a very specific strategy.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

The advice about focusing on summons really helped as well. They also made great fodder for the suicide bomber skill, which did great damage for its relatively low mana cost. Mostly it was oil fog thing, fire arrows, and fire balls. I'd use stone walls to mess with the monster pathing to get them to cluster up, and then nuke the group down. I always have one meatsack unit in my group that I tried to put out ahead of my other units to keep my squishy casting/ranged units safer. However, going against enemy heroes and enemies with strong ranged attacks was extremely hard. It's easy to get to the point to where there are nothing but lethal and invincible mobs left to fight. Buying expensive items almost cost me the game a couple of times, as I was too broke to restock my army. I've had to return to save games that were like 3 fights previous. But, later I got the pirana spell, and man, that thing is beautiful.

If you can time it right, Kamikaze on a summon that is going to die does a lot of damage per mana. In fact, both Trap and Kamikaze do tons of damage per mana. I agree, Kamikaze probably isn't worth upgrading if you can avoid it.

Also, you can consider berserking (Berserker) demons the demonologists summon. Deadly stuff.

Don't forget support spells like Stoneskin, Phantom, and Target. Those are some of the strongest spells in the game and they are relatively cheap for the crystals. In fact, for a more full-bodied mage army, you are better off with support spells than damage spells (because the enemy is too strong).

Save up for Turn Back Time too.

Also, you can cast spells that cost MORE than 20 mana as your second spell during a dual-cast.

e.g. Pygmy (20 mana), then Call of Phoenix (35 mana) in a single round. As long as the first spell is at the limit, the second spell can be cast as a higher mana spell.

Also, try to get used to winning with no-losses. This helps a ton on the restocking bit and it helps your leadership score by getting that medal (+1000 leadership if you win 50 fights, no losses).

Get level 3 Summoner Skill ASAP. Helps Phantom and Phoenix a lot.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

One thing I wish I had known early on was how important it was to save your crystals to upgrade your better skills. Early on, I decided to learn as many scrolls as possible, since learning them cost very few crystals and it is nice to have the versatility. However, it delayed upgrading some of the key spells when I ran out of crystals. I have so many spells that seem good on the surface, but that I never use. Kinda frustrating.

Get the Neatness Skill in the Mind Tree. Just get level 1. Buy up crappy low level items, and "destroy" them for magic crystals. The problem is, you are not playing No-Loss, so you don't have enough money to buy the cheap items.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

I'm doing pretty well now. I'm level 24; I've unlocked like 2/3rds of the map, and I'm sitting on over 200k gold. I'm working my way through some mines--can't remember what the name of that area is. A big help has been getting black dragons. There was some land where there's this black unicorn guarding a cave. I managed to drag the unicorn away from the cave and slip in and buy 2 black dragons. Oh man, they are such badasses. Also, the rune mages can resurrect black dragons even though they're magic immune. I have enough leadership now to get a 3rd one, but I just haven't gone to pick it up yet.

Rune mages are GREAT. They were not in the original AP; just Crossworlds. A real game changer.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

My biggest complaint about the game is that it wastes a lot of time. Not just the painfully long animations, but also, having to wander around and wait for your mana to recharge is honestly so stupid. There should be a rest skill that you can use on the main map that lets your hero sit down and regain all their mana and lose all their rage. I found some cheat codes that help with that now; after a fight, I just do "mana" then "rage -x". Really, though, there should just be a button to do that in the game. I mean, I'm not going to waste skill runes to upgrade the recharge skill since the skill doesn't actually give any in-game benefit besides saving you from having to stand around in between fights. Pretty dumb, tbh.

Sorry. Now your final score will be tainted since you cheated. Not sure if you care or not. It will say "Amelie the Cheater" in the end game. Here are some ways to avoid that and somewhat save time.

Try to get Transmute Skill. It lets you get mana everytime you kill a stack OR if one of your stacks are killed.

Don't forget to get Anger Skill (Might tree), you want to get Rage faster.

Magic Spring spell (distortion tree), is great if you have a tank that will soak up hits. Every hit it takes (including post effects) will net you more mana! So it can be used to restore mana if you can ensure you will get that unit hit a lot. (think ... demons summoned by demonologist).

You can try to push for concentration as well. That gives you mana no matter what.

Anyway, these methods can be used, depending on your strategy. If you are big on "big sized armies" you want Anger and Transmute. Just one point in Anger will suffice for now. Transmute takes up Might runes, but it can really be worth it in speeding things up.

Also, get mana accelerator up fast, but not too fast if that is your primary mana regenerator. You might need to get Absolute Balance in the Mind Tree to raise your maximum Rage. Mages have trouble with Rage and going with the mana accelerator route can be very tough. If you keep levelling up the Pet Dragon, mana accelerator will EVENTUALLY become 25 rage -> 25 mana.

Also, you need one point in that "recharge skill" to get to Concentration skill. Also, you get +2 mana as well. It is better than nothing. If you win the battle faster than 10 turns, you can "delay" finishing the battle, so your mana will be more recharged (while you build up medals too).

Game time lost in the battle does not count against your final score. Mouse over the sunset picture in the corner, it tells you how many days you have spent. If you spent time out in the game board regenerating mana, then your score goes down a bit more. So, it isn't such a bad idea later on to max Mediation for the mana boost, and it does speed up regeneration quite a bit. Of course, it is not a high priority.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

[*]Get transmute early. You only get half-mana from summons that die, though.
[*]Get higher-magic as early as possible as well. The sweet spot for this skill is level 2.
[*]Spells I have found to be useful (note, of the spells I've found so far, and just the best ones) and worth the crystal investment (up to the level indicated):[/LIST]

Fire Rain 3 - good bang-for-buck.

Flaming arrow 3 - amazing bang for buck as the mana cost stays at 5. Early on, it's great for picking off priority targets.

Trap 1 - the best use of trap is to slow an enemy advance through a choke, and since it stops the enemy cold at level 1, it's really not worth any more points than that. I know there's a trap achievement and all, but I really can't see investing much in this skill.

Dispel 1 - there aren't a ton of buffs I'm afraid of seeing on an enemy that I'd waste an entire spell-cast to remove from an enemy, so I've never bothered to upgrade this. But, at level 1, it's very useful to keep your tank unit moving around, or to unsilence your summoning unit.

Ghost Blade 3 - the best, single-target damage skill I've found. I don't get the downside to this this skill. The only time I use flame arrow ahead of it is if the target is weak to fire, or I'm totally strapped for mana and need immediate burst damage.

Summon Phoenix 3 - I mean, it comes back alive--what else could you ask for?

Chaos Dragon 3 - I don't know if this guy is really worth the 60 mana if you were to do all the theory-crafting, but he's just such a party. If it looks like it's going to be a long battle, I'll usually have 2-3 oil shrouds on the battle field, and like to summon this guy right in the middle of one. You probably get more damage out over 2 turns with fire rain, but he just makes such an entrance it's hard not to use him.

Chaos Dragon sucks man. Phoenix is a lot better for the mana and crystals. For 60 mana, you can cast so many better support/debuff spells that will net you FAR more damage, and have you take far less damage.

Don't forget poison skull and fear. If you have all level 5 units, you cast fear. Then cast poison skull and flaming arrow... the guy will take 2 post effect hits, and won't initiate an attack on a level 5 unit.

If you have buffed up a unit with stoneskine and divine armor, and it gets hit by poison or burning effects, you want Dispel level 3 to get rid of poison/burning, but NOT your stoneskin buffs.

Ghost blade does not get any benefit from post damage effect. Flaming arrow or poison skull is much better since they will suffer from loss of morale, and take post-effect damage for 3 rounds.

If you use Ghost Blade to kill phys resistance enemies, you should be using magic damage (inquisitor) instead. Or debuff the enemy with Pygmy (20 mana), or if they are a cyclops with Helplessness (6 mana).

If a unit is hit by two negative status effects, the morale decreases, meaning, their attack rating AND defense rating drops (and their critical hit %), making them easier to kill.

Sadly, in Impossible games, the only damaging spells I probably get are

Flaming Arrow
Poison Skull
Trap

Level 3 trap AND trapping medal can be very good if you know your army composition will be a little bit weaker than the enemy. I believe my traps do like 5000+ damage, I get 3 of them for free at the start of battle (they are only level 2 though). The level 3 trap ALSO inflicts poison damage.

Trap probably does the most damage per mana (not counting aggregate damage like Pirana).

Of all classes, mages tend to benefit the most from trap.

In certain situations I will use other damaging spells like
Black Hole

A lot of people swear by Geyser... not sure why I never use it.

The best debuffs in the game is probably
Pygmy Level 3(for level 1-4)
Helplessness Level 3(for level 5s)
Plague Level 1 (for black dragons).

They are also VERY cheap for the crystal/mana usage.

Best support spells for yourself are
Stone skin level 3
Phantom level 3
Divine Armor level 2
Turn Back Time level 3 (if you use level 5s a lot... otherwise, just get enough to help your primary damaging stack)

Good crowd control spells are
Target level 3
Fear level 3
Blind (eh)

I am undoubtedly missing some, but those are the ones that come to mind.

In hindsight, you are already doing a lot of what I am suggesting. I think the key problem why you are running out of mana so fast is ... because you are using very inefficient damaging spells or spells like Chaos Dragon.

In Impossible Mode, damage by spells is really not that good.

Don't forget to abuse your Pet Dragon
Later on you will absolutely need

Ball of Lightning
Mystic Egg

Don't pick the mystic egg upgrades that will "give you leadership +300", just get the level 2-5, 90% leadership... etc.

[MrBlister]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

It does give you +3 int. You can now take off the ring, and your int is the same as before when you had the ring. Now you can equip some +5 int item instead.

God bless you. I can't believe I didn't figure that out.

Well, in options you can set combat animation to fast. It isn't too bad with that setting on.

You are going to heaven for this.

Sacrifice hurts one friendly stack unit (can't be a summon), and a percentage of that damage is used to INCREASE your maximum unit numbers of another stack. Very handy if you need more of another unit.

Will this allow you to increase a unit beyond your leadership?

When you get more experienced, you will find the blue one? (+1 initiative to dragons) is probably the best one unless you are doing a very specific strategy.

Initiative is what determines unit order, right?

Don't forget support spells like Stoneskin, Phantom, and Target.

lol, I didn't want to do a review of all the spells I use, just the best ones. Though, I never use phantom. I'm using demonologists, druids, and rune mages mostly right now (have been for a while, actually), and they summon enough fodder for me that I don't do much summoning, unless it's the occasional phoenix or party-time dragon. But, I'll keep it in mind if it gets rougher as I progress more. And as far as target, I've used it twice, but it didn't seem to work against lvl 2 units that were more than 1 hex away. Haven't touched it since. I thought it would have been a great combo with kamikaze.

Also, you can cast spells that cost MORE than 20 mana as your second spell during a dual-cast.

I haven't actually leveled that to 3 yet. 15 mana seems to work out fine so far--there isn't any 20-mana skill that I need to dual-cast yet. I usually start out battles by buffing or silencing, then I cast a big nuke (almost always piranas).

Get level 3 Summoner Skill ASAP. Helps Phantom and Phoenix a lot.

I didn't think it woulda made a big diff. I'll skill it more now.

Get the Neatness Skill in the Mind Tree. Just get level 1. Buy up crappy low level items, and "destroy" them for magic crystals. The problem is, you are not playing No-Loss, so you don't have enough money to buy the cheap items.

What's playing "No-Loss"?

Sorry. Now your final score will be tainted since you cheated. Not sure if you care or not. It will say "Amelie the Cheater" in the end game.

lol, I definitely don't care. I gain no advantage at all by doing it, so I'm still having fun legit. I'm not like morally opposed to cheating in single player games or anything, I just want to beat the game legit for the most fun. Nothing sucks more than giving yourself a small advantage early only to have it snowball into a boring game later.

Magic Spring spell (distortion tree), is great if you have a tank that will soak up hits. Every hit it takes (including post effects) will net you more mana! So it can be used to restore mana if you can ensure you will get that unit hit a lot. (think ... demons summoned by demonologist).

I used this skill some early on, but haven't in a while. Mana isn't a problem for me anymore, so I don't like to waste a spell turn on something like that.

Chaos Dragon sucks man. Phoenix is a lot better for the mana and crystals. For 60 mana, you can cast so many better support/debuff spells that will net you FAR more damage, and have you take far less damage.

I'm totally sure chaos dragon is a terrible spell, but man, come on, he's such a baller. ^^

Don't forget poison skull and fear. If you have all level 5 units, you cast fear. Then cast poison skull and flaming arrow... the guy will take 2 post effect hits, and won't initiate an attack on a level 5 unit.

I'm not far enough along to only have level 5 units. I almost never use fear. Maybe I'll need to later on in the game. Remember, I'm playing normal difficulty.

If you have buffed up a unit with stoneskine and divine armor, and it gets hit by poison or burning effects, you want Dispel level 3 to get rid of poison/burning, but NOT your stoneskin buffs.

I'm not really playing with units as a source of damage; I'm relying mostly on spell damage, and my units to summon more units and keep my tanks alive. I mean, I would never use divine armor to start with--too expensive. I'm not far enough along that it's necessary yet. And the units I cast stone buff on are either cheap, disposable fodder I want to last a bit longer, or a tanky unit. In either case, I usually don't dispel anything from them. I use dispel almost exclusively to unsilence my mage units.

Ghost blade does not get any benefit from post damage effect. Flaming arrow or poison skull is much better since they will suffer from loss of morale, and take post-effect damage for 3 rounds.

You mean it doesn't apply a dot? Units I target with ghost blade are usually ones I want to take out quickly, like friendly gremlin towers, or a giant who I let get too close to my cuties. I sometimes cast poison skull on like a slow-moving group, like a truckload of paladins or something. But, usually I just avoid those guys until they're the only unit left, then I just plink away at them.

If you use Ghost Blade to kill phys resistance enemies, you should be using magic damage (inquisitor) instead. Or debuff the enemy with Pygmy (20 mana), or if they are a cyclops with Helplessness (6 mana).

I've never gotten much damage out of my inquisitors or my rune mages. The demonologists seem to deal good damage, though with limited range. And I never make many attacks with my back-row mages unless it's a longer battle, as they spend most of their time using their abilities, not making basic attacks. Never thought of trying to use them like an archer. I'll try it out I guess.

Level 3 trap AND trapping medal can be very good if you know your army composition will be a little bit weaker than the enemy. I believe my traps do like 5000+ damage, I get 3 of them for free at the start of battle (they are only level 2 though). The level 3 trap ALSO inflicts poison damage.

Damn, I'll have to give traps another try.

In hindsight, you are already doing a lot of what I am suggesting. I think the key problem why you are running out of mana so fast is ... because you are using very inefficient damaging spells or spells like Chaos Dragon.

lol, mana is less of a problem now. It is brutal though early game.

In Impossible Mode, damage by spells is really not that good.

Yeah, I can see how the scaling is limited. Happens in a lot of games. :/

Don't forget to abuse your Pet Dragon
Later on you will absolutely need

Ball of Lightning
Mystic Egg

I'm actually in love with mystic egg. I've been getting dragons and teradactyls out of it lately. It's such a party.

Thanks also for the other spell recommendations--I'll try them out.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by MrBlister

Will this allow you to increase a unit beyond your leadership?

It will, but if you go over leadership, the unit will go "out of control". You have to do some careful planning for it. It helps if you only can find say 4 Trolls... and you really want more. Although it is fairly hard to raise high HP monsters with it. Much easier to top off the lower level / HP units.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

Initiative is what determines unit order, right?

Yes, going first is key. Lets you cast spells first, etc. You always want to have high initiative.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

Though, I never use phantom. I'm using demonologists, druids, and rune mages mostly right now (have been for a while, actually), and they summon enough fodder for me that I don't do much summoning, unless it's the occasional phoenix or party-time dragon. But, I'll keep it in mind if it gets rougher as I progress more. And as far as target, I've used it twice, but it didn't seem to work against lvl 2 units that were more than 1 hex away. Haven't touched it since.

Phantom has one unique subtlety that you can abuse. The phantomed unit has all the abilities of the first unit, rearmed.

This means if you cast Phantom Level 2 (20 mana), then Phantom Level 3 (25 mana) on a Rune Mage, you can summon 3 stacks in a single round.

It also means if all rune mages focus fire on a single unit, AND you have 20 spare, unused magic runes, you have a very good chance of sheeping the enemy.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

What's playing "No-Loss"?

Not losing a single unit in every battle. You can revive units though, but basically you save tons of money by not having to restore lost units at the castles.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

I'm totally sure chaos dragon is a terrible spell, but man, come on, he's such a baller. ^^

Ah, in normal mode he is probably fine. I always play Impossible mode... and he sucks in it. Haha.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

You mean it doesn't apply a dot? Units I target with ghost blade are usually ones I want to take out quickly, like friendly gremlin towers, or a giant who I let get too close to my cuties. I sometimes cast poison skull on like a slow-moving group, like a truckload of paladins or something. But, usually I just avoid those guys until they're the only unit left, then I just plink away at them.

Yeah. It does not apply a Damage Over Time. If you are hit by multiple negative status effects, you also reduce their attack/damage rating.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

I've never gotten much damage out of my inquisitors or my rune mages. The demonologists seem to deal good damage, though with limited range. And I never make many attacks with my back-row mages unless it's a longer battle, as they spend most of their time using their abilities, not making basic attacks. Never thought of trying to use them like an archer. I'll try it out I guess.

They aren't really heavy damage unit, quite the opposite. But they might be your best bet if the enemy has high physical resists, but zero magical resists.

Originally Posted by MrBlister

lol, mana is less of a problem now. It is brutal though early game.

Oh yeah, definitely.

[giancamo]

First of all,very good advices that make my game more playable as a mage.And for that thank you guys.But I still have questions to ask so here I go;

As I mentioned above I'm playing as a mage and havin' a very hard time too.Since i've been playing Crossworlds for 2 days, I couldn't figure out some of the dynamics of the game.

I have many things that i don't understand but the most important one is how to raise my intellect level.If i remember correctly in KBTL when i level up, the game gives me 2 options to choose and usually one of them is to give you +1 or +2 intellect(other one Attack, Defence, Rage or Leadership) so I pick that one and easily have 30 or more Int. in the middle of the game.After that it becomes easier to battle with those bastards who have stronger armies than mine and beat them without any major loss.On the other hand in Crossworlds it seems the situation is different.I'm level 17 and have only 13 Intellect which isn't even enough for me to kill enemies weaker or equal to my strength without huge casualities.There has to be some other ways I'm missing to increase my Int. level because if not, the only way to gain Int. is using your runes in skills that boosts Int. and even doing that gives you what? 13 +5 maybe +8 and nothing more.It just isn't enough.

The other thing I'm not quite sure that I understand is The Initiative thing.My guess is if yours is higher than enemy's, it gives you the chance to attack first.Is that it?I don't know.Where do I look my armies/enemies Initiative before battle? don't know that too.After some reading in this forum, Initiative has to be more than just having first attack.

Along with these 2 major problems I also have minor problems too.Firstly; What about Rage or Mana? I can gather only 20 rage & 41 mana and until now all my pet does is kicking enemies or putting an egg in the battlefield.And 41 mana means 2 fireballs and that's it.I can't use the lightining ball or the lava stuff with the rage I have and the spells besides fire arrow, fireball, pain mirror I can't even touch them.I know i can gather +1 or more rage/mana points when I visit specific places.But there has to be any other ways to gather them, right?And again if not; How can I have reasonable rage/mana stats before the game nears its ending?

I know these are the very basics of the game but without them I can't enjoy it the way I enjoyed KBTL.All I do while I'm playing until now is sweating during battles, cursing the enemy and desperately seaching for gold after that.I am only able to find 3 maps(Scarlet Wind, Bolo, Rusty Anchor) beside Debir.I also revealed Verona but There I can't even touch the land so that doesn't count.

Anyway; briefly I'm stuck and I can't go any further.Everywhere I turn, I see invincibles and there is nothing I can do about it.So if you enlighten me in these subjects, that would be highly appreciated.