Breaking into Glamour

[Selgeron]

So I've noticed: There are basically NO ways to get glamour mages- There are no glamour mages that don't require a rare special site, like a throne, or crystal tower or bard academy. (Crystal Mage, Bard, Earth Gnome) No tribals have glamour. On top of that there are no spells that I can see that summon a glamour mage, even as a random without having glamour magic outside of blood 9.

Is there any other path that is like this?

[Mog Flintlock]

Troll Kings are E3G1 now. Troll Shamans have a Glamour random as well. Still, it's way rarer than it feels like it should be.

[voronin_mike]

What Mr Flintlock said. And I'm not sure, but it seems that open Glamour sites are relatively common. Maybe there are something else.
Though it's infuriating that succubi now require Glamour 1 in addition to blood... %) On the other hand, they are now G2 mages as well so there's that.

[Swirler]

From a dive into mod inpector.

Conjuration 6 Summon spectre has 2 chances at glamour. 3 Death path and 22 Death gem requirement. So it is fairly expensive.
Conjuration 6 Forest troll tribe has 1 chance at glamour. 3 Nature path and 37 nature gem requirement, even more expensive, but you also get 15 forest trolls.
Conjuration 6. Summon Troll king's court comes with the troll king 3Earth 1Glamour. 4 Earth path and 65 earth gems. Along with a big pile of trolls and even some mooseknights, they look kinda cool.

Conjuration 9 Tatarian Gate. A variety of summons some have no chance at glamour some have many. 7 Death path (o.o). 7 death gem requirement. With such a high death path basically makes it extremely hard to cast, but presumably you'd plan for this on your pretender or the game goes into infinity long enough.

Blood 9. Bind Demon lord. A variety of summons, 3 of the 6 lords have glamour paths, fairly decent level too. 8 blood path and 150 blood slaves. Late game spell, probably not your first choice to get glamour.

And it's possible the transformation spell (Alteration 6, 2Nature paths 8 nature gems) grants you some access to glamour magic in the new animal form? Untested in Dom 6 as far as I know.
Along with Gift of Reason (Thaumaturgy 5, 4 Nature paths and 20 nature gems) with certain units got you into other paths on certain basic units. A bit of testing might bring up some interesting results assuming glamour was added on to some animals/units as a potential.
Sorry I find no sources for anything related to Glamour here in Dominions 6, I guess it's still a bit new.

[Legowarrior]

Glamour is hard to break into, but on the other hand, once you have Glamour, it can be easy to build off of.
Glamour 3 and Earth 2 is enough to break into most other paths. Although it will take a while.

I think Air is still the hardest path to break into, while Water and Nature are the easiest.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by Swirler:

From a dive into mod inpector.

Conjuration 6 Summon spectre has 2 chances at glamour. 3 Death path and 22 Death gem requirement. So it is fairly expensive.
Conjuration 6 Forest troll tribe has 1 chance at glamour. 3 Nature path and 37 nature gem requirement, even more expensive, but you also get 15 forest trolls.
Conjuration 6. Summon Troll king's court comes with the troll king 3Earth 1Glamour. 4 Earth path and 65 earth gems. Along with a big pile of trolls and even some mooseknights, they look kinda cool.

Conjuration 9 Tatarian Gate. A variety of summons some have no chance at glamour some have many. 7 Death path (o.o). 7 death gem requirement. With such a high death path basically makes it extremely hard to cast, but presumably you'd plan for this on your pretender or the game goes into infinity long enough.

Blood 9. Bind Demon lord. A variety of summons, 3 of the 6 lords have glamour paths, fairly decent level too. 8 blood path and 150 blood slaves. Late game spell, probably not your first choice to get glamour.

And it's possible the transformation spell (Alteration 6, 2Nature paths 8 nature gems) grants you some access to glamour magic in the new animal form? Untested in Dom 6 as far as I know.
Along with Gift of Reason (Thaumaturgy 5, 4 Nature paths and 20 nature gems) with certain units got you into other paths on certain basic units. A bit of testing might bring up some interesting results assuming glamour was added on to some animals/units as a potential.
Sorry I find no sources for anything related to Glamour here in Dominions 6, I guess it's still a bit new.

If you search Mpath and sort by units, it will give you units that gain paths through gift of reason.

Sadly, it's on the Cave Kobolds.

Also, I noted that there are no Glamourattuned beasts. Nor Blood. But everything else seems to be covered for the Transformation spell.

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Glamour is hard to break into, but on the other hand, once you have Glamour, it can be easy to build off of.
Glamour 3 and Earth 2 is enough to break into most other paths. Although it will take a while.

I think Air is still the hardest path to break into, while Water and Nature are the easiest.

Nah. Glamour is relatively easy compared to air or blood. Lots of ways to get into it. Indy enchantress gets it I believe as a random, but the easiest if you have a death mage is just to summon spectres. Of course you can always empower into it, and astral access is very easy just by picking up Indy shaman or those Indy S1 scholars and site searching to give you a nice astral pearl income so you don’t have to alchmize gems to get into it.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Glamour is hard to break into, but on the other hand, once you have Glamour, it can be easy to build off of.
Glamour 3 and Earth 2 is enough to break into most other paths. Although it will take a while.

I think Air is still the hardest path to break into, while Water and Nature are the easiest.

Nah. Glamour is relatively easy compared to air or blood. Lots of ways to get into it. Indy enchantress gets it I believe as a random, but the easiest if you have a death mage is just to summon spectres. Of course you can always empower into it, and astral access is very easy just by picking up Indy shaman or those Indy S1 scholars and site searching to give you a nice astral pearl income so you don’t have to alchmize gems to get into it.

I feel like you are talking past me or not understanding what I wrote...

I said that Air was the hardest to break into.

When it comes to Blood, that's a bit tricky.
On the one hand, even a lowly scout can blood hunt, and blood empowerment is the easiest path to empower into.
In addition, the Lamia Queen gives you 2 chances to get Blood (just as good as the Spectre gets for Glamour) and you do have the Treelord for 1 blood.

After that, well, Empowering the Lamia Queen can get you the Thorn Blade and you should be able to forge the Armor of Thorns for +2 blood.

The soonest you can get a summon with guaranteed Blood is Blood 7 with Father Illearth, and then Blood 8 with the Heliophagus.

Honestly, Blood is hard to break into, but noticable easier then Air.

Glamour might be easier to get initially, but keep in mind, Spectres do not have the necessary cross paths to build much out of it.

1 Death 2 Glamour leaves you with nothing to add. If you can empower to 3 Glamour, you can get the booster to 4 Glamour but nothing to build into.

If you get 1 Glamour and 1 Water, you can get the Water Kobolds, which gives you access to Glamour Mages (although Glamour 1).

If you can empower you Glamour 2 Spectre into Earth, they can some Blue Caps, but that still leaves you with 1 Glamour (2 earth).

If you empower into Nature, that gives you the best option, because of the Fairy/Unseelie Prince. That gives you 2 Glamour/1 Nature (or death).
And Empower Fairy Prince with the Glamour Booster can get you Queens at Conjuration 8.

But, I feel like you can bypass that easily by taken Glamour 3/Earth 2 on your pretender.

That gets you both Boosters and Gnomes.
And Gnomes can get you 2 Glamour/2 Nature/2 Earth.

Heck, if you have Earth 2 mages, you can get away with Earth 1 on your pretender.

If I where to rate the ease of breaking into a new path (in a significant way), I would avoid including things like non-blood empowerment, Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry, Robes of the Magi or even the Staffs of Elemental. Those are very costly, and usually the time and resources are better used to making your nation better.

Water - Water 2 gets you up to Water 4 with boosters. Nature and Water gets you Naiad. Death and water gets you Kokythiad. Water 4 gets you Sea Kings and the 2 boosters get you Queens.

Fire - Fire 2/death 1 (not a combination found easily) gets you the Booster, which gets you the Flame Spirit for Fire 3. Fire 3 + the booster gets you the final booster, which gets to you fire 5 and the Fire Royalty.

Nature - Nature 2/Astral 1 gets you both booster, and the Ivy King. Which can get you the Treelord.

If have Water 2/Nature 1, you can, with water boosters get Naiad, which gets you Nature 3 earlier.

Death - Death 2 can get you to Death 4, by summoning a Mound Fiend with a staff.

Sadly, there isn't away to break through the Death 4 barrier without being Death 4. But, Death 4 with the booster gets you the booster, which gets you to Death 5. Sadly, with the Liche no longer a summon, that's about it. But you do have access to Wraiths, Spectres and With Blood, Vampire Lords. High Nature can get you Lamia Queens, but that is a lift.

Earth - it used to be easier, when Troll Kings where Earth 3, but now, at Earth 4, you basically need either Earth 3 to start, or Earth and Blood, for Bloodstones + Boots. But those should get you Earth Royalty, when placed on a Troll King.

Glamour 2/Earth 1 can get you Blue Caps, so easy access to Earth 2 (3 with booster) but nothing above that.

Glamour - we discussed already

Astral - easy to do in combat, hard to do out of combat. Spectres and Golems are the primary way to get access. Boosters require Earth and Astral, so Golems are a natural fit and can get you Astral 4. Getting above that would be tricky outside of combat.

Blood -whether you rate that easy or hard depends on empowerment. Otherwise, you can read above.

Air -nothing. Stop trying to make Air Happen. If you don't have national access to at least Air 1, just don't do it.

[anaris]

Blood is easy but time consuming to break into; it's not difficult or super expensive to recruit a bunch of indy scouts or other cheap commanders and hunt up enough slaves to get started empowering, but it's *time-consuming* - if you need blood 2 for blood stones or something it's possible, but if you're trying to compete for astral corruption or bring demon armies online, you will be so far behind even partial blood nations (meaning, anyone who can recruit b1 randoms) that it's hard to prosper with the strategy because it'll be 20-50 turns behind the curve (and will take fort turns, unrest income, and research away from your other focuses)

[Selgeron]

There are definitely a lot of uncovered glamour sites- I feel like I end every game with like +13 glamour gems and no glamour mages. I feel like some of the tribals could use glamour access

[Legowarrior]

Aren't there Sidhe Pop Types?
Sadly, the Amazons used to cover all the paths, but that no longer happens.

But yes, I think we'll need to get a few more pop types into the game. I'm always sad that regular humans never seem to ever be mages.

But that would be a different discussion, and we go off course too much.., well, we all know what happens.

[BNRON]

I think breaking into high level air is a lot harder than glamour. In dom5 the fairy queen allowed a reliable non-unique air summon, but there is no longer anything like that.

In comparison, glamour has loads of good generic glamour summons. The Fairy spells, the gnome spells. Any 2G2E unit (e.g., a pretender) can easily break you into pretty much any of the other glamour summons, and a lot of those summons feel cost effective.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by FacePerson:

I think breaking into high level air is a lot harder than glamour. In dom5 the fairy queen allowed a reliable non-unique air summon, but there is no longer anything like that.

In comparison, glamour has loads of good generic glamour summons. The Fairy spells, the gnome spells. Any 2G2E unit (e.g., a pretender) can easily break you into pretty much any of the other glamour summons, and a lot of those summons feel cost effective.

Actually, you need 3G1E to do it.

Edit: also, is anyone saying Glamour is harder to break into then Air? Maybe I need to reread everything posted, but I can't find any claim that people are trying to rebut.

[Partholonian]

Aren't there several human tribes that have shamans with minor magic powers? Although I don't know if any are glamour, maybe we need a Fox Tribe? Nidavangr has a Crow Tribe but I don't remember if they use glamour or if there is an indie equivalent.

Of course, a poptype existing doesn't mean you'll have any of them, but it would at least be a possibility.

[voronin_mike]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Edit: also, is anyone saying Glamour is harder to break into then Air? Maybe I need to reread everything posted, but I can't find any claim that people are trying to rebut.

There was a generic question of what paths are the hardest to break in into. Many people think the hardest one is Air and I personally is also close to this opinion, though I'd like to have several playthroughs under new rules to be certain.
Glamour, again, with a caveat of too little time/practice to be sure, seems to be among easier ones. Even though more difficult than Nature which you can almost always count on various tribes for. For Glamour, in contrast, we have clear variants through Trolls (i.e., Nature, Earth and Water) and through Blood. Somebody also mantioned Death through Spectres.
It's interesting to note that probably Astral became both harder to break into and less useful. Anyone's opinion on that?

[Hajduk]

My experience mirrors what other people said with lots of always visible (ironically) Glamour sites. It's best to just put glamour 2 earth 2 on a pretender so you can reliably conjure Gnomes and build from there.