if you start with magic level2 you should take casting specialist.

what skills are good depends on what type of game you play. pbem, online, sp?

and what spheres you have cosmos or specialized?

what your overall early, mid and late strategy game is.

take archons with all life sphere, pacifist, constructor and explorer. if the enemy is very close to you, rush with unicorns, paladin and avenger. put some charioteers together and explore with the pegasus rider to capture other cities. use healing, bless, enchant weapon often. mighty meek and martyr whenever you need it. research casting specialistI-II early and then all the spells you need. build a casting chamber and try to research the angel spell. research summoner and channeler and all the casting specialist levels you may even build an item with casting specialist, but at that stage you should dominate the map anyways.

summon and build 2-3 stacks of angels, titans and charioteers and put enchants on all of them. always protect your wizard, cause probably the only way too loose now would be a weak garrission in your captiol.

another way would be to take 3fire and 3 air or 3air and 3fire or 4water and 2air/earth and just build pegasi rider and especially charioteers. with static shield go for the titan. you may also take water and life spheres and pray for static shield, bless and martyr. its very hard to stop that kind of titans now. or earth and water, for stone skin, free movement and static shield.

the skills are always pacifist, constructor and explorer. i wouldn't take something else with archons, cause constructor and explorer are the skills that allows you to expand at the fastest speed. anything else can be easily researched with them.

for races that are not as fast and have no research bonus, you may take something else if you want, but i don't recommend it.

in one of my online games i played undead and was isolated on an isle. i build many towns without researching expander, i researched anything else though. i now think that expander isn't as good. with the abuse of housing you don't need it really. other skills were more worth it. like merchant if you go to mass cities. and survivalist if you plan to make a big high level army.(beware, survivalist sucks for lvl1)

i played games were i took channeler and summoner at the start with archons, though i won most of them i don't think its worth it. to only focus on summons is a too 1dimensional strategy.

i once thought too, that i don't need explorer for fast races and rather take expander. thats wrong. expander does little explorer does a lot. and the bonus will be greater with fast units. 40mp =48mp with explorer thats +8mp. explorer with fast units does mean no little effect but complete overkill. better, keep that in mind.

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 07-23-2005 @ 11:41 AM).]

In longer games it may not pay off to take a negative Skill. Negative Skills actually pack a double penalty - not only do you incur a penalty for the negative Skill, but you are also prohibited from Researching the beneficial Skill of the same kind. E.g. a Technophobe can't Research Constructor.

In a long game, where you have the time to Research this can be a big disadvantage.

Unless you expect to fight right out the door, taking Casting Specialist is a bad choice IMO. CSI costs only 200rp vs 500rp for all other Skills.

I don't know exactly but it seems to me that money is not that important on big maps after you capture enough cities. Until then, the negative skill Bureaucrat has not that big effect. Thus, having Constructor (or Expander) from the beginning might do more good than that money you would get if you didn't choose Bureaucrat.

Expander is useful if the map has many small towns (of Outpost or Village size). On the contrary, if there are some already developed cities, choose Constructor.

[This message has been edited by Idealistos (edited 07-27-2005 @ 07:57 AM).]

A player with Merchant will get 30gp/turn more for every city compared to a player with Bureaucrat.

If the penalized player has more towns to make up for the difference, great, but that's a big gamble.

I have never had too much Gold, particularly not in mid or late game phases. There is always the option to build another Magic Shrine, or upgrade another city to produce good Units, or rush that Red Dragon in 2 turns to get him to the big battle in time.

I can see how you might end up with too much Mana, if you have a lot of cities with Mana Producing Races, but not the time to Summon or Enchant. Gold you can spend at every town.

gold is very important in the game neve take a negative skill that hurts that. i once played with another good player "Frall" a tourney game it was semifinal and all random. he lost cause he was serena with bureaucrat, started with no wizard tower and couldn't build one. i was human and could easily build one cause of more gold and better production(and a higly developed city i did conquer)

in the first round of the random tourney i was serena too and couldn't build a wizard tower either(again it was without wizard towers) my enemy was subotai and he was shadowdemons and had no gold penality but better production and could build that tower early on. i found that out when i killed his wizard early on and thought i won now.

i did only win cause i put everything in research and got sacred wrath and angels. especially sacred wrath destroyed my opponent who had superior numbers and better units bought in caves and build in cities.

without the gold you have to be either a very lucky or a great player or both. never take bureaucrat!!!!!!!

I like to take Explorer, Pacifist, and Peacekeeper with fast races. Then I'll just zoom around the map recruiting and collecting everything. I'll often control a good 75% of the surface cities after only a few turns of starting. Since most of my gold has gone to buying structures, my army may be weaker, but my empire is so huge I can easily resort to a "scortched earth" strategy without hurting my own economy too much should the enemy attack (Of course, often enough my opponents will be so intimidated by my large amount of cities that they'll sign a treaty, allowing me to mass produce rogue units [Either Rogues or Prowlers, depending on the situation] and create a massive intelligence service with spies and assassins everywhere. It's really quite fun, espescially when they decide they should gang up on me and my already-planted assassins just knock off one of their wizards and their invasion just kinda crumbles. This has been a long and very unnecessary anecdote).

However, that is something to keep in mind; when possible, always try to keep stacks of say 4 Prowlers or Rogues (or anything else that works) hidden near each player's wizard, so you can keep track of what he's doing and knock him off if he leaves his defences down.

Unknown250 you are exploiting the ai. Better play online so you'll get a challenge. Here's some cheat codes if you want to win even quicker in single player:

[CTRL] + [SHIFT] + S (for AoW: Shadow Magic)

Cheat Code = Function
gold = 1000 gold
mana = 1000 mana
explore = Toggle Exploration on/off
fog = Disable fog
research = Research all spells
win = Win scenario
freemove = Toggle Free Movement on/off
towns = View all towns in the current map
lose = Lose scenario
spells = Toggle Free spells on/off
instantprod = Toggle Instant production on/off
ai = Toggle AI on your own player
upgradehero = upgrade hero
cityspy = Toggle Spying of enemy cities
emergehero = Calls an independent hero next to your city, so you can hire him
In the campaign screen, press [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + Q to open up all campaign maps.

[This message has been edited by Tearion (edited 07-27-2005 @ 04:12 AM).]

I take constructor to fasten production. I start with building facilities that give further production boni (building hall ...)

The second skill is explorer. Being 20% faster on strategic as well as on tactical maps is a big advantage.

The negative skill I took and fared well is anarchist.
The malus with the race relationship dont bother me.

anarchist can slow your expansion, though. with a 20% relationship and morale penality perhaps you can't recruit some additional units, like patrols, scouts and units that are garrisioned.(after a player's death) you can't buy cities either=huge disadvantage! say you have fast and cheap flyer, like the skimmer, hafling eagly rider, ice drake or goblin wyvern. you could pass mountains and waters with it and buy a heavy defended independent city with a wizard tower perhaps. to conquer a distant city that has got some tough troops is quite difficult without gold and good relationship cause you have to spend some resources.

with a bit gold you could buy it early on.

i only take anarchis with pure races as archons and undead. but i suggest to take either pacifist or no negative skill. pacifist is the least skill that will bother you, if you know how to crank out lvl3/lvl4 units soon and have a good unit control in TC and FC. just build the warshrine in your unit producing cities to get the silver medal.

your heroes won't survive the day anyways.

Quote:

Which of course is only true in online games.

In PBEM, you can keep your Heroes alive with care and careful army composition. Use TC against indies and AI wizards to gain levels.

If you have to take a negative Skill, Pacifist is probably the way to go, since only a few troops gain worthwhile Skills with levels, and as DM pointed out, you can always build the War Shrine.

But in long PBEM games, with a few AI Wizards around it's a lot more fun to level your Hero. Never underestimate the psychological impact of a level 12, 14 Hero with some neat Artifacts. Such a Hero can sometimes deter an attack, or sometimes provoke a hasty charge.

Never underestimate what might be crawling in that patch of dense forest behind the Hero, if you don't have True Seeing and can't get a Unit around to place next to the trees. Attacking only to find an extra stack of Bladedancers, or Shades, or a couple Concealed Karraghs is usually very bad for your health.

concealment is very expensive and never i saw it in use in online games, how about pbem games?

I have put it to use in a game or two. It is very expensive, but being able to easily hide any Unit can be extra-scary!

In online games Concealment seems to be of limited use anyway, since you can observe Units when they cross open Terrain. Takes a lot of the fun out of this great idea.

yes, in online games concealed units can be spotted easily, also if they just move you can see them. in a 1vs1 online game, perhaps players could agree to play with classical turns. it takes some exploits of the simultaneus turn out and you still have TC between humans.

There's more exploits in classic than simultaneous turns. In simultaneous the exploit is when a unit with grass concealment for example, the enemy can see when he moves through grass. In classic it's worse: How could a unit with forest concealment move pass a enemy unit in plain ground and move into a forest behind the enemy unit and the enemy unit won't see that the unit with forestry concealment has moved past him and gone into the forest behind him?

Quote:

Better download strangers dwiggs mod for online games if you want your heroes to survive and become strong.

[This message has been edited by Tearion (edited 08-23-2005 @ 01:14 PM).]

Online game with classic turns would definitely be nice! But on maps of any decent size with a few people it would probably take forever. You'd need a dedicated crew, so you could restart the game!

*sigh* Sometimes I wish I was still in college. *thinks back to college* Eh, maybe not!

Quote:

Because he's a sneaky bastard!

OT: I love the scene in Harrison Ford's "Clear and Present Danger", where they introduce the sniper dude, on the shooting range.

The sniper is hiding in some high grass, drill instructor's on a jeep, target next to them. Sniper shoots target, and instructors try to direct a few soldiers to where they think the sniper is hiding, though they can't catch him.

Finally, they give up and call the sniper to stand up. He's basically right in front of them! Drill Sergeant: "Sniper! How did you get so close to me?!?!" "Sir! Sniper got close to Sergeant by being a sneaky bastard, Sir!"

well, if i speak of "online" games i have 1vs1 in my mind, cause the times where i played multiple FFA games a day are long over.

Well I don't speak of classic turns. If it was classic turns it would take forever, yes. I speak of simultaneous, that's it's possible to lvl up your hero. I've gotten heroes really strong in dwiggs. I've also made items for them in item forge. I usually play 4-6 players.

When I started playing shadow magic online I always upgraded my heroes. It's much more easy to get them stronger in dwiggs than normal. Now I don't care about my heroes in normal games except to keep them alive. That's why I'm winning more often now

[This message has been edited by Tearion (edited 08-23-2005 @ 04:51 PM).]

if i want heroes i play aow1 and can still have my pretty lvl4 units.

aow1 is a much faster game than aow:sm online anyways.(mainly cause of leader mistakes.......)

Tearion, you mention at one point that unknown250 is exploiting the A.I.

How so?

I don't see anything in his strategy that would work considerably better against A.I. than a human opponent.

Let me know what i'm not grasping here...

Quoted from unknown250:

This is what I call exploiting the ai. You do it by making peace or ally with them and make an army right next to their capitol and kill them.

This won't work vs human players because people are allied for the entire game and are not allowed to declare war against an ally.
But if it would be allowed to change peace/alliances how everyone liked, if a supposed "ally" would come to your realm with an army you would declare war and kill his army immidetialy, not like the ai handle it.

[This message has been edited by Tearion (edited 10-20-2005 @ 05:26 PM).]

Ah, i see. Yeah, i thought it could be either that or the 'scorched earth' thing he describes. Didn't see much wrong with either.

Nothing much wrong with exploiting by expanding fast So, yes, i thought must be something with those assassination set-ups.
A.I. automatically detecs all hidden units so he must have been at peace/alliance - This is the part I forgot, thanks for the reminder

And hence that's the exploit you describe.