Skill empowerment for casting big spells

[ThatSwoleGuy]

Hey guys, news to dominions with a question here.

I am almost certain that using gems to beef up a units magic skill is not the way to go to start casting mega spells, is there a mechanic I am missing here?

Maybe I am to give them a magic boosting item or two and use the gems as well?

[Swirler]

There's a few items in construction research that boost mage power and they all have a different way of using empowerment in battle.

Astral and blood are both very good at cheating out more power than they should while in battle. Both are a little tricky to get the hang of though.

One of the ways of getting the better items that usually require a stronger mage is to use your pretender to craft some of these items which enables some of the regular mages to craft more of those and so on. Depending on your gem income of course.

Using gems to empower your mage the more expensive way is necessary at times (particularly if you want an extra level to craft a good item) but you shouldn't be doing that a lot or else you'll run out of gems too quickly.

[Uncle Al]

You can leapfrog up some paths through a combination of summons and boosters. Tricks like having W3 N1 on your pretender can get you N4 fairly easily, as you summon a N3 Naiad and then she forges a Thistle Mace.

Telos made an awesome guide for Dominions 4

http://www.moddb.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/dom4-magic-path-booster-guide-by-telos

Most of which will be applicable to Dom 5

[darkdaze]

Depending on your nation and/or Pretender, some times you have no choice but to empower to break into a magic school. Nature is super easy to get from indy commanders, but getting higher than 1 Astral might be hard if you're not an astral nation.

Blood is super cheap to empower once you get a decent blood hunter or two.

So it really just kind of depends on your situation. I use empower quite a bit when the situation requires it. But you need to have a *reason* to do it. Like forging Rings of Wizardry.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by ThatSwoleGuy:

Hey guys, news to dominions with a question here.

I am almost certain that using gems to beef up a units magic skill is not the way to go to start casting mega spells, is there a mechanic I am missing here?

Maybe I am to give them a magic boosting item or two and use the gems as well?

Gems are a terrific way to boost weak mages cost-effectively: weak mages often aren't worth wasting permanent items on, and definitely not worth empowering. E.g. you can take an F1 research mage and give him five gems, and tell him to <Phoenix Power, Summon Fire Elemental, Summon Fire Elemental> and tell him to go patrol a province that you think the enemy is going to attack next turn, and he will massively beef up the defense of that province (once). You could do the same job with an F2 mage, but that mage would probably cost a hundred gold more, and he'd still need three gems, and you'd rather be using your F2 mage offensively as part of a real army instead of having him guard the back lines.

Similarly, E1 mages with gems can let you boost an army with Strength of Giants/Legions of Steel even if you don't HAVE any E2 mages.

For mega spells though, it's often better to invest in path boosting items if you can get them. Sometimes you have to Empower one mage in order to start him cranking out path boosting items for everyone else (e.g. if you have recruitable A3 mages but no A4s, you empower one guy to A4 and let him forge Winged Helmets for your other mages so they can cast Fog Warriors with an extra gem). There are a few cases where the only path boosters you can forge are more expensive than just empowering, and in those cases you should consider empowering instead. E.g. if you've got A3 mages and a high-Astral pretender, you COULD forge a Ring of Wizardry (80 pearls or so) to boost to A4 to forge Winged Helmets, but especially if you have more Air income than Astral Pearl income, it may be better to just do the Empowering. It depends on whether you have other uses for that Ring of Wizardry afterwards.

[ThatSwoleGuy]

Is there no way to combine mage power?

[sum1won]

Originally posted by ThatSwoleGuy:

Is there no way to combine mage power?

Communions, sabbaths. There are also some mechanics for trinity gods, nazca (royal mummifcation), and ea ryleh (mindvessel) that "combine" powers.

[wilson.max]

Also, for Astral magic specifically, you can have one mage cast Light of the Northern Star to boost all astral mages in the battle. That's _sort_ of like combining power with other mages.

Ditto for Storm/Summon Air Power combo.

There is currently no generic way to combine mage power for rituals (except by having one mage forge boosters for another mage), only during battle. Although the combinations sum1won mentions obviously do work, for the specific nations/pretenders that have them.