Death magic feels insanely hard to get to let alone use.

[Soferian]

I tried a game with a warlock whos SOLE purpose was to study arcane secrets. needing a total of 8 is crazy high, but I was determined. Seeing as theres not even that many on the map at spawn I had to use deaths to get more, which is fine because the first daughter slaughtered an entire kingdom.

My feedback on this since he gained too much menace and profile even tho I spent quite a lot of time laying low

5 for rank 3 death magic is a HEAVY amount of time, even with high lore, its so much time.

The 'magic arms race' is heavily hero favoured already, since multiple of them exist and you have to start early if you even want to gain tiers of magic, so you always lose the race, which is sorta fine, if you could actually get to rank 3 death magic.

The army of the dead that doesnt freely roam, didnt protect my necromancer from heros attacking him directly. I feel like this is a strange choice, a hero should need an army to fight his army, and a mage should be able to hit the necromancer directly, thats just my two cents tho.

LASTLY, if anyone has some advice or tips for getting a deathmage to 3 id love to hear them, its the one thing i havnt done yet!

[Raziel]

Magic is indeed pretty hard to set up properly. Like most things in the game, you will have to prepare for it in the early game and commit to it. It's true that if you're gonna use your warlock in order to create knowledge and then learn it that he will die a menace death. However, who is to say that your warlock has to be the one to create the secrets? The plague doctor is a great candidate for this, as he can also turn plague into secrets. These secrets are uncompeted and you can just grab them when you need them. Do watch out for knowledge-destroying holy orders, however.

Also, the secret knowledge that appears in libraries respawns after an X amount of turns. I've heard people talk about infiltrating 3 libraries and just moving back and forth between them. Of course you do need to distract the mages.

Money can also be a live saver. If you've got enough money you can theoretically get an infinite number of uncompeted secrets from libraries.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Honestly, death 3 is more trouble than it is worth, mostly due to how insanely useful ghasts are in comparison. The ravenous dead can potentially be powerful, but they will blow up in your face if you're not careful by giving every nation a massive boost to their motivation to join the alliance. And if they wander out of the shadows before they're ready, then all that preparation goes right down the drain as they get dog piled by the alliance's armies.

You should use different characters, one to generate arcane secrets and the main warlock who just studies to keep their menace low. You can also infiltrate the library to use their periodically spawning free arcane secrets, or 100% infiltrate a city with a library to pay gold to research arcane secrets.

In order to get the most out of death 3, you'll need to influence holy orders, which also helps you since that is one of the best ways for lore characters to gain xp quickly without getting nuked by mages. The corrupted holy order can generate constant death and shadow to nurture your ravenous dead into a world destroying force with the right moral tenets.

[jasta85]

mammon is decent for mages because money is his whole schtick, just have him bankroll your mage and have him travel between libraries to study. That said, I've only dabbled with magic, I don't think I've even bothered to get rank 3 before (the low level ghosts that spread shadow were good enough for me). I gotta do a magic heavy playthrough at some point.

[The Grand Mugwump]

I'll also add that another easy way to get rank 3 magic is to recruit a hero who already has it. If there are geomancy 3 mages harassing you, shadow them or kill them. Problem solved. So long as a mage isn't at geomancy 3, they almost always prioritize chasing arcane secrets over trying to stop your agents from casting big spells.

[jasta85]

I think it

Originally posted by The Grand Mugwump:

I'll also add that another easy way to get rank 3 magic is to recruit a hero who already has it. If there are geomancy 3 mages harassing you, shadow them or kill them. Problem solved. So long as a mage isn't at geomancy 3, they almost always prioritize chasing arcane secrets over trying to stop your agents from casting big spells.

It likely depends on your agent's profile/menace. When I was doing an Iastur run and was at the very end casting the ritual that drives random characters insane I was getting blasted by multiple mages from around the map. I'd then convert a mad hero into my next agent to cast the ritual and then they'd get blasted as well.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Originally posted by jasta85:

It likely depends on your agent's profile/menace. When I was doing an Iastur run and was at the very end casting the ritual that drives random characters insane I was getting blasted by multiple mages from around the map. I'd then convert a mad hero into my next agent to cast the ritual and then they'd get blasted as well.

No. They'll blast anyone casting a bad ritual regardless of menace or profile. It sounds like you were doing a terrible job of keeping mages under control then. One orc warchief with some ogre buddies or the harvester with howl of sin will sort them out faster than they can become a threat. It's also important to have a high lore stat so your characters finish their rituals quickly.

Iastur can also use his power to create an arcane fortress at his tomb. So long as they're not throwing level 3 attack channeler rituals around, it should be pretty easy to keep up with their damage.

[jasta85]

This was towards the end of the game, I had the arcane fortress up but was getting hit by 3 or 4 different mages. I was going for a madness victory and was close so I was just spamming the madness ritual and not really caring about agents dying as I only needed a few more mad heroes/rulers to get the victory. Wasn't aware that that particular ritual was different from others though.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Here's a fun fact for next time when you corrupt mages. If you have a geomancy agent, you can use the attack channeler ritual to attack mages who are casting attack channeler. It's another great way to get them off your back.

Also, you shouldn't start high stakes magical arms races unless you're ready to win them. It's better to not study arcane secrets at all than studying only 1 or 2 of them to trigger a magical arms race that you'll lose. Wait until you're in a position to study non-stop and win the race hands down (like a plague doctor's medical experiments generating secrets or having a large sum of money) before starting it.

[Strant]

Rank 3 magic in general takes too long to get for how useful it is. I find starting the magical arms race and letting the mages spend all their time getting arcane secrets is a pretty good strategy to waste their time. If you start it at turn 200-300 then it basically ties up the mages for the rest of the game. If you can get a "free" rank 3 geomancy from recruiting a hero then that's pretty useful as well.

[forrestomintero]

Honestly magic in general is more trouble than it's worth. After spending the whole game funneling gold to a warlock with 8 lore to reach death 3, what you've accomplished is unlocking a decent combat minion summon, and a ritual with 250 complexity (18 turns of getting attacked by other mages) which, if you're lucky, generates a 100 strength army. Which is cool I guess until it comes up against literally any mid-strength army, at which point those 18 turns of casting go to waste.

[Vanir]

It might feel hard to get and use, because you are doing it the wrong way.

Your level 3 mage really should not have problems with menace, since you should outsource the high menace actions. You do not have to use the same mage, who generated a secret from a soul, to study it and those secrets can not be deleted by holy orders. Just keep that high value mage clean.

If you mix getting free spawned secrets, with robbing a few treasuries on the side and perhaps some soul desecration, you can get level 3 reasonably quickly without completely neglecting shadow. Of course, if you insist on using the mage for high menace things, it will take a lot longer.

Both geomancy and death can just end the game at that stage, if you have done at least some prep-work.

Corrupt witches to spread plagues along with their human sacrifices or just start a few plagues manually for both weak defending armies and massive death modifiers. Note that immunity takes a long time to go away, so do not start them too early.
Alternatively just cause a few wars. Armies take pretty long to replenish.
Then cast it once -> self propagating zombie apocalypse. Unless you weakened the nation first, try to cast it in a smaller one. You can also support the initial army with commanders.

Geomancy is trickier, because it will take several casts, but you do not need to prepare the world as much and the more you cast it, the easier it is to hide your mages in the frozen wilderness. I would advise training a normal mage and the survivor to level 3, so you can reach critical mass faster. Enshadowing the north, will make it almost impossible for your mages to be attacked in person, for those crucial first few casts.

Getting attacked by other mages remotely is pretty rare, unless the magic arms race has ended long ago, because they will almost never do anything but study. You can soak the damage with the fortress magic or minions and try again later.
Honestly start the race whenever, because hero mages with level 3 magic can not really use it to oppose you and will have wasted a lot of turns. Remote attacks might get a bit stronger and they can heal the land a bit.