Mage crossroads

[Saridu]

So I played a paladin to Lv 24 (on normal) before I was bored. (The whole move royal griffins, phantom, summon guards x2 ,send in the max morale Trex, sit back and watch the fireworks and let ressurect skill return my fallen griffins)

For me the real fun of this game lies with the mage. So I restarted and after a couple of tries I found probably the perfect start for me. Ancient amulet on Debir, then Pendant of iron will on Scarlet, Verona has given me Paladins, Demonologists, Royal Griffins and Evil beholders (For me it doesn't get any better than that.) I also can buy Phantom and Demon Portal

My new mage is only lv 11 (on normal again) with lv2 chaos, lv1 distort, lv1 higher magic and level 2 learning I think.

I have around 30 magic runes (Just finished 50 battles with the ancient amulet) but only five might runes.

So the question, do I go for level three distort or level three chaos first?

Hypnosis was a godly spell in TL, it only ran out of usefullness in the labyrinth and demon portal was okay I suppose. The problem is might runes are quite rare for a mage and it may take me some time before I have enough to buy both. What worries me, in my Paladin game I had all but two islands unlocked and I still had yet to find Fire Rain and just found Ice snake on my last island (Reha I believe) so I have to work with what I have for now.

Is Chaos 3 plus summoner 3 for demon portal the way to go or is Distort level three with Phantom and Hypnosis better?

Agh! I hate choices

[Metathron]

I'd most likely go with Chaos, those damage spells are just too important. Would hope for that fire amulet artifact as well. In my last KB:TL game I got two of those!

[travelingoz]

For me, i'd go for transmutation level 1 and 2 first. The extra mana from the kills is a godsend and saves having to extend every battle to regenerate mana.

[DGDobrev]

Well, my usual build goes lvl 3 distortion first and lvl 3 chaos after that (assuming I already have transmutation). It is much more likely that you get the geyser spell first than death star. These 2 are the best offensive spells in this game. Death star is much better - but I never found it until late in the game.

[Saridu]

I took a chance and took the bridge from Verona to Montero so didn't have to find the chart. I found phantom on scroll in Montero and Demon portal on scroll in Umkas So I didn't have to pay for those. Also found my first Fire Rain and a fire amulet to boot in the Grand Canal and Ice Snake in Shattera so my mage is pretty prepped snd I took Chaos 3 naturally. I dunno about damage though, with this kind of set up I would be chewing through TL but in AP I find the stacks are much bigger which means they last much longer, also the lack of true high magic prevents the double fire rains. Thankfully I'm not interested in no losses (got my 50 that's all that matters to me) but replacing lost units can be a pain.

Maybe I'll drop those assassins (they're not bad no retal units and that backstab is great but I find they spend the rest of the combat on wait guarding my beholders\demonologists) and pick up those Red Dragons , but then my royal griffins will fight with them Hmm replace the royal griffins with Demons for their mini demon summoning - yeah not the same as the guardians but they do the job, gives morale to the demonologists and my paladins are at +1 morale anyways - can't check do humans suffer -1 or -2 with demons in the army?

[DGDobrev]

This is why you have the KBAP info thread

1. Humans.
- presence of undead in the army - Morale -1
- presence of demons in the army - Morale -1

There you go.