Anyone got problem with souls?

[Serbal]

It kind of slow to collect and when you do auto combat it cast a lot of spell that use soul.

I would like option that forbid soul magic only when asked to auto resolve battle.
or
change the cost of souls to normal mana for non summoning spell

What you guy think about that?

[Midas]

I think an option to exclude soul magic in autobattles would be nice, but I also hate the AI wasting my mana, so I usually like to have spells off unless it's important.

There is a dynamic of souls being an additional resource, in that you get them above and beyond mana, but there is also the drawback that soul spells can ONLY use mana, which is very limiting. I think it would make sense if most necromancy spells used mana, and souls were mainly just for unit production, and maybe they would have like 1-2 mid/late game spells that cost souls but are really powerful for their cost because you're literally giving up units to cast it.

[Serbal]

Originally posted by Midas:

I think an option to exclude soul magic in autobattles would be nice, but I also hate the AI wasting my mana, so I usually like to have spells off unless it's important.

There is a dynamic of souls being an additional resource, in that you get them above and beyond mana, but there is also the drawback that soul spells can ONLY use mana, which is very limiting. I think it would make sense if most necromancy spells used mana, and souls were mainly just for unit production, and maybe they would have like 1-2 mid/late game spells that cost souls but are really powerful for their cost because you're literally giving up units to cast it.

i 100% agree

[Pu239]

Build one specialized city where a large portion of the provinces are Soulwells (unlocked by tier 2 shadow Tome of Necromancy). A dedicated city producing souls every turn should give you plenty while providing mana too.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Serbal:

Anyone got problem with souls?
It kind of slow to collect and when you do auto combat it cast a lot of spell that use soul.

I would like option that forbid soul magic only when asked to auto resolve battle.
or
change the cost of souls to normal mana for non summoning spell

What you guy think about that?

I feel like I am swimming in souls... never had an issue with that when playing for Necromancy.

[ethorin101]

Originally posted by Pu239:

Build one specialized city where a large portion of the provinces are Soulwells (unlocked by tier 2 shadow Tome of Necromancy). A dedicated city producing souls every turn should give you plenty while providing mana too.

You are only allowed one Soul Well per city.

[空から来た厄災]

There is an option for Auto Battles (before the Fight starts, there is a checkbox) which lets you choose to let the AI use Spells or not. (the spells for Dark are the ones that comsume your Souls.....)

[Astasia]

There is a fairly common t2 ancient wonder that looks like a tomb, controlling it gives you bonus souls per turn based on the number of dead heroes in your crypt. They stack. Claim a few of those with cities or outposts and go fight a war or two and you can be summoning reapers or spamming soul magic every turn.

Any sort of control on what spells can be used in autobattle or not would be nice though. If you start with barbarian and the spell that causes a unit to go berserk, the autobattle AI likes to suicide with that one a whole lot.

[Midas]

Fun fact: Because Skeletons are a unit produced in a town, you can get them as a result of the T1 Tome of The Horde spell Summon irregulars without costing souls. It's a very efficient way to amass golems without spending a ton of souls on them.

[Bomjus]

personally, i just wouldn't research any combat necromancy spell cause of the auto combat AI. it's not a "fun" solution i know, but there are plenty of spells in easy to research tomes that still affect undead units (cough tome of the horde+skeletons cough).

as for soul income, highly recommend fitting adept settlers into your build. having a 4th city cap for free so you can get a 4th soul well ASAP is super important. also keep an eye out for these wonders https://imgur.com/a/Y57oxps so you can get that 1 soul per hero in your crypt. if you're rich you can even hire and then suicide your own hero if you want for the soul income. i know i have lmao. if you have multiple of those wonders the soul income stacks. you can get the soul benefits of these wonders by clearing them, building an outpost, and then building a work camp to annex the wonder as part of the outpost. so you don't need to have them in your city to get that soul income.

and then remember to use soulbind army spell as much as you can before fighting independent armies.

but i also basically only use skeletons. because skeletons with unit enchants/race transformations give you the most value for the least souls. https://imgur.com/a/hyG5SxZ and just becuase you're doing a necro build doesn't mean using other units is impossible. sometimes you gotta include some regular old racial units.

finally, when you get to late game, if you get a tier 4 dark tome you can build the "root of the dark" or whatever it's called and it reduces all dark spells by 20%. this *should* include soul spells but it also includes soulbind army. so you can spam the ♥♥♥♥ out of it. i do think soulbind army should be cheaper like 35 or something.

[glythe]

The real shame of Death magic is the Reaper unit.

Every turn you must pay 7 imperium, 5 souls and 30 mana to maintain it.

What does it do? It gives all undead in the army +10% damage and +2 resistance.

It has 150 hp in my army and does 20 damage - oh that's right it does not get to use ANY elchantment upgrades,

In a different army (so it doesn't get an extra 10% damage) I have a bone golem that does 18 physical damage with +4 fire damage. It costs 1 gold and 17 mana in upkeep (some enchants make the units cost more gold per turn).

The golem only has 70 hp but it gets to use the army enchant for +10 hp with weakening aura. It also has my searing blade enchant along with a +30% crit enchantment from Artisan Armaments. And of course the legendary bone golem can have 125 hp (already factoring in the +10 hp) which gets a +20% crit chance bonus. With Precision training from your hero that golem gets another +10% crit chance for a total of 60% crit chance.


To make a long story short the Reaper is an absolute joke just like the T5 Shadow Tome.

How do we fix Death Magic?

For a start the mana costs need to go way down for upkeep.
Since units use souls they need to have base cost for mana upkeep like a unit 1 tier lower.

In other words a skeleton should cost 3 mana upkeep not 8 and the Bone Golem should cost 8 upkeep not not 17 mana.

Originally posted by Midas:

Fun fact: Because Skeletons are a unit produced in a town, you can get them as a result of the T1 Tome of The Horde spell Summon irregulars without costing souls. It's a very efficient way to amass golems without spending a ton of souls on them.

If you compare the bone golem in Age of Wonders III to AoW 4 you'll see the unit got a massive downgrade between games. And yet it has the same upkeep cost relatively speaking to T3 elemental spawns in AoW 4.

You can also just build bone golems in a town like any other unit. They are "free" units in that they do not cost gold but do have mana upkeep and require sols to purchase.


For comparison sake the Legendary Mama Spirit has 145 hp in the same army as a bone golem. It does 14 Fire damage per hit with up to 3 hits.

And it has the range 6 incinerate ability if it has not moved which absolutely decimates
enemy armies that bunch up. It works even better when you have the same ability on your hero with 7 range and a few more Magma Spirits.

[glythe]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by Serbal:

Anyone got problem with souls?
It kind of slow to collect and when you do auto combat it cast a lot of spell that use soul.

I feel like I am swimming in souls... never had an issue with that when playing for Necromancy.

If you have the soulbinders enchant then all your battle mages will constantly be inflicting Soulbound so pretty much everything you kill gets you a soul. Something might be broken with that ability because you can get 30 in a battle against 6 enemies.

Combine Shadow with Chaos and you'll be throwing firebombs with soulbound effect so every attack landed gives you a soul.

You can level up the fire elemental and also recruit the pyromancer directly from cities.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by glythe:

The real shame of Death magic is the Reaper unit.

Every turn you must pay 7 imperium, 5 souls and 30 mana to maintain it.

What does it do? It gives all undead in the army +10% damage and +2 resistance.

It has 150 hp in my army and does 20 damage - oh that's right it does not get to use ANY elchantment upgrades,

In a different army (so it doesn't get an extra 10% damage) I have a bone golem that does 18 physical damage with +4 fire damage.

Bone Golem is a charge unit, it attacks once per turn at most for up to 60% extra damage based on tiles moved. Reaper has a normal melee strike, meaning it can use it 3 times in one turn for 60 damage base. Reaper also has greater corpse consumption to heal itself for 40 and add +3 strengthened (+30% damage), and the ranged finger of death skill which has a high chance of killing any non-hero unit instantly and spawning a zombie for you, if it fails it still does 45 cold damage.

Reaper is an absolutely amazing unit and completely worth the upkeep. All t5s from every school are the "mythic" unit type making them exempt from most enchantments. This means very late game they are typically not godly units you want full stacks of, but they have very strong utility that makes having at least one per stack very useful.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Bomjus:

personally, i just wouldn't research any combat necromancy spell cause of the auto combat AI. it's not a "fun" solution i know, but there are plenty of spells in easy to research tomes that still affect undead units (cough tome of the horde+skeletons cough).

as for soul income, highly recommend fitting adept settlers into your build. having a 4th city for free so you can get a 4th soul well ASAP is super important. also keep an eye out for these wonders https://imgur.com/a/Y57oxps so you can get that 1 soul per hero in your crypt. if you're rich you can even hire and then suicide your own hero if you want for the soul income. i know i have lmao. if you have multiple of those wonders the soul income stacks. you can get the soul benefits of these wonders by clearing them, building an outpost, and then building a work camp to annex the wonder as part of the outpost. so you don't need to have them in your city to get that soul income.

and then remember to use soulbind army spell as much as you can before fighting independent armies.

but i also basically only use skeletons. because skeletons with unit enchants/race transformations give you the most value for the least souls. https://imgur.com/a/hyG5SxZ and just becuase you're doing a necro build doesn't mean using other units is impossible. sometimes you gotta include some regular old racial units.

finally, when you get to late game, if you get a tier 4 dark tome it reduces all dark spells by 20%. this *should* include soul spells but it also includes soulbind army. so you can spam the ♥♥♥♥ out of it.

I might have agreed, until I just conquered a city in a big fight that was basically carried by hordes and hordes of zombies. The best part was the sheer amount of death in the fight meant I still ended up with more souls afterwards than I started.

[Midas]

Originally posted by glythe:

Originally posted by Midas:

Fun fact: Because Skeletons are a unit produced in a town, you can get them as a result of the T1 Tome of The Horde spell Summon irregulars without costing souls. It's a very efficient way to amass golems without spending a ton of souls on them.

If you compare the bone golem in Age of Wonders III to AoW 4 you'll see the unit got a massive downgrade between games. And yet it has the same upkeep cost relatively speaking to T3 elemental spawns in AoW 4.

You can also just build bone golems in a town like any other unit. They are "free" units in that they do not cost gold but do have mana upkeep and require sols to purchase.


For comparison sake the Legendary Mama Spirit has 145 hp in the same army as a bone golem. It does 14 Fire damage per hit with up to 3 hits.

And it has the range 6 incinerate ability if it has not moved which absolutely decimates
enemy armies that bunch up. It works even better when you have the same ability on your hero with 7 range and a few more Magma Spirits.

Well, they're tier 2 units, so yeah. In AoW3 they were T3 units. The point is that Summon Irregulars lets you spam T1 units, and the Create Bone Golem spell lets you turn those into T2 units, and the overall cost of it all is just mana and 10 souls. It's a pretty decent early game source of power.

[tiamats4esgares]

I also had a problem with souls in my first game, makes me not want to play Shadow anymore as it's too hard to cast anything. And I agree there should be an option to turn off only shadow spell casting in auto combat.