Strategy for Mage class?

[The Gunslinger]

I can't seem to get this class right, how do I pick fights, what fights to choose and when to wait. Need tips, never played any other King Bounty games and playing on hard difficulty. Need some tips on skill tree's, do I focus on Magic only or some Might for my armies? What equipment do I want to choose, + for int. or attack and defense?

And what are the attack, defense and luck runes you can pick during a battle, what are these and what is best to pick for Mage?

[Zoltan32]

Why are you playing on hard if you are new to the game?

I played a mage in the legend and the most important skill was the double/triple cast (i think it was called high magic), focusing on Intellect first since your army is going to be small and won't do much dmg by itself.
Try to get an AoE spell as soon as you can, bombard the enemy and let your army finish the survivors.

The runes are exclusive for the nord units i guess and are used to buff their stats (atk,def,crit), so if you want your berserkers to deal more dmg you pick the attack rune.

[Elenoe]

not just for vikings, they just have more of them, but all my human warriors have runes too (maybe from skill or something).

As for mage... go for int, it's most important. I concentrate on long range units with only one or two tanks (I preffer paladins for their strong ressurection). Trained Rune Magic to 3 and it's good to have High Mage before spider battle, it helps a lot to do double damage with magic missile per turn. After that it's really good to have great mana pool and mana regen (Transformation and that +xMana/turn). Once you get blizzard (rune) on level 3 I stopped loosing any units. (Found mine on icy island after doing some quest for that guy on the beach.)

Almost forgot, you need high initiative. As mage you really need first turn to use mass damage spell (2xBlizzard for me, but can be different) and you decimate any army without it moves. And when it moves, it usually don't get close enough in the first turn so you do it again, depends on mana pool.

Playing on normal but it seems like I overestimated enemies as I can kill deadly armies without loosing a unit (with paladins help).

[ChiLLe]

Damage spells don't work too well in harder difficulties. You want to mainly go support caster using spells such as Stone Skin, Fear, Haste, Ice Prison, etc. I rarely focus on Intellect as it's wasted since I don't have to cast damage spells.

[Razor Shin]

On runes - Runic Magic gives all your troops +1 rune/level (it's random, i think, even though you should always end up with all 3 if you have 3 runes). There are items that also gives runes to troops (runic belt was one item that did that, i think). Vikings just have the "knowledge of the runes" passive, which gives them 3 runes right off the gate.

On mage... yeah, i dunno, it's pretty much the hardest class to play, and playing the game with that class, for the first time, on hard... yeah... you're asking for trouble.
Ahum, imo, you should first attempt to play the game either on an easier difficulty level, or with an easier class. Learn the mechanics of the game, what item does what, etc..

You see, the single most important thing for a wizard early game is NOT TAKING LOSSES. Because your armies are small to begin with, you need the leadership boost from the Master Strategy Achievement (whatever it's called). Yes, having a small army makes it hard to not take losses, but if you don't unlock those achievements relative early, the going gets increasingly hard. Rule of thumb - your priority for items should be intellect > leadership > everything else.

In terms of troops, I've always considered the Green Dragon to be a staple wizard unit. If you can get your hands on those relatively early, it will really make life THAT much easier. Other big units for wizard are inquisitor, to help boost your anemic rage growth and cut your losses, and rune mages, who summon fodder, are very durable, cut your losses, and are probably hands down the best units in the game (unless they got reworked dramatically from the last game, haven't seen one yet). As a rule of thumb, you want 1-2 tanks (Green Dragons and Paladins are good picks), 3 supporters/summoners (Dryads, druids, rune mages, etc).

In terms of abilities, yeah, High Magic (That's the wizard unique ultimate) is a must, but another key factor is this - you want, as far as possible, to delay getting all your spells until you've gotten all 3 levels in Alchemy (that's the wizard unique that cuts spell acquisition cost). The reason being that as a wizard, you live and die by the amount/quality of your spells, and buying your spells AFTER you've maxed that means you'll have X% more spells/better spells. The other big advice i'd give you is see what scrolls the game give you at first. All magic types have an aoe/summon, but ideally, you want to max one magic type first, preferably one in which you have both scrolls. In practice, it's better, esp. early game, to have a few level 3 spells, than it is to have a lot of level 1 spells in all schools.
Rune magic is strong, btw, but bear in mind that you need Runes (which limits your choice of troops of items), to really maximise on it.

In terms of non-wizard ability, mind is something of a toss up. You want to the Looking Glass for sure, so you can pick your fights (archers of any description, you typically want to avoid unless you've got a clear answer for them (blind and what have you). After that, there's a big choice you'll need to make between getting the leadership buff line, or working your way down to tactics for better positioning. You'll pick up a few points in intellect, and +10% experience along the way, but you'll be forfeiting a potential +1000 Leadership that could be lifesaving early. Your call.

Might runes... well that's a no-brainer, imo. Bum rush your way to that shiny "40% rage sticks around after battle". That's essentially a guaranteed extra nuke on the first turn of every battle. And you're gonna need all the help you can get, believe me.

Finally, in terms of rage abilities... yeah, one thing you want to do well is manage your ability growth. Be wary of an upgrade of that increases the turn cd of an ability, and bear in mind that even if it's not mentioned, the rage cost of abilities will almost always go up with levels, and it will quickly go up to a level where you find it even exceeds how much max rage you have (can happen easily to a wizard). Greed's curse, for example, is pretty much something you want to only upgrade the damage and effective level (i'd prioritize effective level over damage, in case you have the choice), while keeping the turn counter as low as possible. Ice Wall also makes a huge difference - don't neglect it as well, but bear in mind that if you completely cut off access to your troops, enemies will destroy it rather than walk around it. Here again, you want the turn CD to be as low as possible.

Generally speaking, on higher level difficulties, nukes don't quite cut it, because going into the mid game, you'll see that the rate at which you gain damage gets outstripped by the rate at which their army grows. You are still doing damage, but you're just not doing enough of it. Later on, your damage will eventually catch up. Up until then, you'll need to squeeze in every last drop of leadership, and pump out fodder to divert enemies while you work your magic. It's difficult, but its the part that you need to survive, because once you hit the late game, you're essentially playing the strongest class.

[Crystal Sky]

razor shin pretty much nailed alot of aspects.

a good way to deal with hordes of overwhelming forces, is to stack them with poison, fire, and fear and block any low level units then let them stand and lose huge stacks. terrain blocking is critical.

[John|Cat]

So some things to reiterate: Playing on hard for your first game really isn't recommended for King's Bounty. Hard really is hard. This isn't Diablo where Normal == Easy.

Here's some more stuff that hopefully helps in the early game. Casting twice in a turn is great but not helpful when you are starting out.

Start every battle with full mana: Make sure you get your mana back between battles.

Minimize Losses: Try to minimize losses, generally, but I'm finding Warriors of the North is slightly more forgiving of early money problems than the previous games.

Get tier 3 Spells ASAP!: It's extremely useful to level up spells to tier 3! Much more important than being able to inscribe new tier 1 spells or having multiple spells at tier 2. Casting something like Magic Missile at Tier 3 is extremely mana efficient (which gets important as you will hit battles where you run out of mana) AND lets your spells kill enemies three times faster which reduces the damage your troops take. Some spells also become 'mass' versions at tier 3, which makes them quite powerful -- mass Haste gives all your units more speed, mass bless makes them all deal maximum damage, etc. So it's MUCH more useful to get tier 3 of ANY spell school rather than level 1 in multiple. Runes or Chaos for damage dealing, Order or Distortion to make your troops win (less important for a pure mage, but still useful).

Units: You'll figure out which units are good for what as you go, really. Mages are usually pretty great. You'll want at least one bruiser troop usually that can be in the front line and take attacks (so they don't rush your support, casters, and archers), but it's possible in mid-late game to do most of your damage with spells and rage. You can mostly not sweat this TOO much and experiment and find what you like.

Rage: Don't forget to use your Rage. Even though you are a caster, Rage is another source of spells for you. It won't ever be amazing, but early in the game it's a signficant source of damage.

Leveling up: You'll mostly want to put stuff in Magic. When you have "too many" runes of other types, feel free to spend them (but try not to go to zero, since Magic still uses the other runes now and then).

Get Scouting: 1-3 levels of Scouting in Mind is useful no matter who you are, quite early in the game. The game's recommendation of what is 'strong' vs. 'weak' is usually decent, especially early in the game. Plus it gives you Intellect, so it's perfectly useful for a mage. (Level 3 probably isn't necessary, but level 2 is nice.)

Battle Selection: Once you have scouting, the game will tell you if the fight is going to be difficult. You really want to be a bully and pick on the weak and avoid fighting those much stronger than you. If it says the enemy is "Invincible", you don't fight them. It's fine to sometimes take some even battles or even possibly 'strong' enemies, but you expect to lose troops in those fights and end up weaker. Early on this mostly means running around and refilling troops. Later on you might end up in places where it's harder to go fill troops between battles, so that gets rough.

Avoiding Battles: You can often run around enemies or pull them away from things you want and never fight them. It's a weird sort of 'real time' aspect of the game, but often useful. Sometimes that 'very strong' enemy is in front of a nice bonus on the map. Get their attention, and stay just out of reach as they follow you. Get to a wider area and then run around them (or run in a circle around the roads). Sometimes this is impossible (usually on purpose by the game designers, pretty clearly). But know that you don't need to fight everything. Also, sometimes you avoid some battles and go level up somewhere else first (maybe on another map). The game isn't really designed for you to entirely clear each area of ALL enemies before moving on. Just because the game puts it in front of you doesn't mean you should be dealing with it (yet, or at all).

[The Gunslinger]

Great tips thanks again guys

[John|Cat]

Something that's not very obvious:

You can destroy items to get magic crystals. It's better to get the Artificer skill first, but at some point you'll probably find you want more crystals than you have. The Alchemy skill is useful because of this, if you think you want to scribe and upgrade lots of spells. It can be pretty expensive in terms of crystals.

[Ruinous]

Depending on when you get them, the phoenix and iceball can be useful for tanking damage while you whittle away the enemy with spells and your main units. It is really important to get into the habit of trying to win fights without losses as the strategy achievement makes for a big boost in your leadership early on. Nature's call / demon portal can do in a pinch.
My ability strategy is to push for higher magic as soon as possible, then backfill with getting the spell schools up to 3. Being able to cast two spells in a round makes farming up achievements very much easier, not to mention being able to chuck out a hell of a lot of damage before a lot of enemies can even get their first move off. Transmute is quite important for keeping your mana supply up, concentration is good but not as effective. For the other trees, getting the xp bonus one is a must, as are the rage talents already mentioned above.

Once you've got the flying mount, try to snaffle up as many bonuses around the maps available as possible. You can lure a mob out of the way, grab the bonus and take off if the fight would otherwise be too hard for you. On the first few islands, having the soothsayer unit enrage enemies is a must, and double dipping the viking / berserkers ability by having them berserk, then casting berserk on them can be quite powerful.

[RottenNoob]

(I did the campaign in impossible but the advice should also be valid in hard)
For the start, you should always do the training and try to kill all creatures(and the cyclop hero) with no losses at all while trying to finish stacks off with rage ability for early experience boost. Don't learn any spells until you collect 30 crystals for the early bonus in intellect.
In every run I did, I found wild call(the order summoning spell), if you do find it, boost order to level 2 early. The summons will help you get no losses. Something to keep in mind against enemy heroes, they generally use destructive spells on your creatures who did the most damage and ranged creatures attack the same way, so wait before attacking with low hp archers. If the ennemy hero start with a destructive spell, he won't aim at a unit but at a case, so move your unit with the most hp on the targeted case (after the reload) if he will survive the spell.

For the rest of the game, John cataldo's advice is good to play later on. This way i managed to get to 86 fights before I lost a single unit (and then, the loss was a mistake on my part).

[Zlorfik [CH/BY]]

I wonder if playing as a summoner/conjurer/necromancer is worth considering... The reason I'm asking is simple. When I started my mage I had the luck to find a "Call of Nature" scroll. I immediately linked this scroll to my favourite type of gameplay - letting my minions do the dirty work for me - and started focusing on it. I'm only lvl 6 so not really much of a comparison, but so far it works great. Battles that I used to lose units now are easy like idk what. I had severe mana problems at first and still have, but usually, 2 stacks of Call of Nature troops are enough to hold my enemies off long enough that my 5 ranged units can take them down with help of rage and sometimes damage spells.
I recently got a new spell from my first Valkyrie that spawns an egg on the battlefield which grows to some lizards a round after. They're pretty strong, but very vulnerable until they hatch. But they need much less mana and so it's a nice choice to boost damage when your first animal troops are still holding off the opponents.

I see one problem coming: The ability, to use the spell book multiple times per turn is limited to a maximum of 20 mana used, so probably it's going to be impossible to make use of this tactic efficiently. I could only use the it at first to deal damage/boost my unit's power and with the last possibility to use it again (Nr. of times used or more likely, 20 mana barrier) I'd summon units.

Then I don't know yet if it's possible to acquire necromancers and similar units to revive any dead stack of (summoned) units. So I will continues to try it, but I guess, I will run into a dead end...

Edit: So far no problems, although the first boss fight against the spider I almost lost. I needed to focus entirely on the boss and not on the summoned minions. Because the minions were summoned, mana regulation was really difficult even tough I have the skill Transformation on max. I Now changed from generally strong troops to troops with high defence and life, and - if possible - regeneration (troll).

[Jonie]

like the tips above, i found it crucial that you get a tier 3 spell really fast. one that's of general use and does some severe damage or summon. then you could start with the alch. at higher difficulties having the extra spells really allows you to switch your tactics accordingly.