MA - Nazca: Are you my Mummy?

This is a guide focusing on Nazca, the best MA nation in the game. Yes it is. And dont you go saying otherwise!

Introduction

Shameless grab: RATE THE GUIDE!

This is a guide on my favorite nation in the game, Nazca. In my opinion is has the strongest late game of most any nation (barring perhaps well setup blood economies... Grr...), as well as having a strong early and mid game. Part of this strength comes from being flyers, and part of it comes from having access to most magic paths in the game. You only dont have water (which is one of the more "meh" paths), and blood. Your nature is only a 1, but its hardly the strongest path in the game, and if you really want it you can either find some indies or empower one of your guys to N2.
This guide borrows some ideas from Staythecourse's guide on nazca in dominions 4, but also contains stuff i personally found useful and often use.

Commanders

Commanders

1) Apusqispay
Your generic commander unit. These guys will be doing 3 things: Either leading troops because you need another commander, ferrying troops over to your Inca commanders, or killing themselves and spending the rest of their immortal lives summoning slaves.
An Apusqispay can move around 80 regular troops when alive, and due to being a flying 21 map move commander does a pretty good job of it. An Apu is 30 gold cheaper and still can command 60 troops (20 less), but I simply like the Apusqispay more.

2) Aclla - F1, A1.
Your lab monkey. These will do most of the research due to being cheap. They ain't the best at fighting though. Still, can be used for crafting Lightless lanterns, owl quills, amulets of vengeance, and fires in a jar. The fire in the jar can then be equipped on them to let them cast Phoenix power, to become a lvl 2 fire mage in combat. They can also be given slave matrixes, and be communion slaves for an Inca with a master matrix. Costs a load of gems to craft, but let's you do high level air and fire combat magic without offing your slaves each time. When they die they can be made to summon some undead for free each turn.

3) Hurin Priest - E1D2 ?AES.
Your battle mage. These can be summoned in each fort and offer some awesome paths. Ones with Astral random can boost themselves as high as they need during combat. The ones with Earth 2 can freely cast earth power, and then spam various earth spells, and also craft earth boots! The ones with Air can do winds of death, though mainly focus on death when I use them. The astral Hurins are the main star of the show, and can be used in a communion to boost your Coyas or other Hurins. Spamming horde of skeletons is also a great tactic to use them on. When they die they also can summon up skeletons in your forts forever.
Update: Hurins make decent thugs-lite in a pinch. Air ones are best for this. Give him a skill staff and some armor, have him case iron skin, possibly mist form (with an air gem), soul vortex, and run into enemy. Barring enemy having cavalry with a good charge, or good mages, the Hurin will not die.

4) Inca - A2F2.
Your main commanders and thug-wannabees. They lead your troops, toss our fire and air evocation, and can be geared with some items to be decent thugs. They might not be able to take down armies, but clear basic PD no problem. Can be given the crystal shield to boost their paths to 3 each. Further path raising is harder and may or may not be worth it. Can reach Air 2/Fire 3 in combat. Fire 4 with flaming skull (and item you can natively forge). Pretty good for fire stuff. Can random some paths, but it's so rare I won't even bother talking about it. When they die they join with a Coya if one is avaliable to form a Royal Mallqui that has the combined paths of the Inca and the Coya. If no Coya is avaliable they form a Mallquiit just gets the paths of the Inca.

5) Coya - S2E2D2.
A beast of a mage. Can craft an item to boost each of her paths, 2 in the case of astral. Can cast Power of the Spheres in combat to get another boost to all paths. Can also communion to even more boosts. Yey! Give her 2 slaves, and item and a pearl and she can get herself to E6 in combat after 3 spells. I always use them to lead the communion, and just like my expansion few starting armies, they kill it. When they die they join with an Inca if one is avaliable to form a Royal Mallqui that has the combined paths of the Inca and the Coya. If no Inca is avaliable they form a Mallqui just gets the paths of the Coya. Can reach Astral 6 in combat by herself (Starting 2 + 1 from crystal skull cap (can be natively made), +1 from Crystal coin (Can be natively made), +2 from having 2 spells that raise astral level). Can get to Earth 5 in combat (Starting 2, +1 earth boots (natively forged), 1+ Earth power, +1 Power of the spheres). Can reach death 4 in combat (Starting 2, +1 Skull staff, +1 power of the spheres).


6) Royal Mallqui - F2A2E2S2D2.
Best recruit able mage in the game. And only 2 commander points too (Unlike Inca or Coya). But it costs 850 gold. Ouch. These can't fly, or be communion slaves. But who cares? When they are sitting in your cap, they can summon Supayas. Sacred Ethereal undead flyers that are basically the flying versions of battle vestals Pythium has. Except free (aside from Mallqui turns) and with numbers only limited by the amount of Mallquis. The Mallqui can also function as a magic gating gun, casting multiple spells per round, and making the enemy sorry they decided to attack the glorious Nazcan empire!

Basic units

1) Various human units.
I never use these. They are bad and they should feel bad. Granted, they can be recruited from every mountain province, and are cheap to get. I suppose once you get army-wide spells that make units super tanky (like Army of Lead), these can be your slow (on strategic map) chaff that bog down the enemy while your mages do work. But don't put these in your normal armies. They can't fly and thus slow the whole army.

2) Aucac Runa Spearman
An excellent unit and a staple in your army. You'll recruit more of these than of any other unit combined (bar maybe supayas). What makes them so great you ask? Well... They fly, which means they are great at getting at the enemy back line, and move quickly on the strategic map. They have lances which means they ignore abit of the enemy armor due to lances being a piercing weapon, their first attack hits harder due to the charge effect of the lance (at times causing the enemy to just insta-rout due to causing them so much hurt so fast), and can occasionally repel with it. Sure they aren't super elite, but they are cheap, can be massed easily, and given enough commanders can blanket half the enemy territory in one turn.

3) Aucac Runa Axeman/Maceman
I never use these, but they are just subtypes of the Spear unit. Their weapons don't have charge but if the enemy gets resistance to piercing, yeh these help.

4) Aucac Runa Archer
These arechers aren't bad. They have 2 features for which you will want to get them. First is their ability to stay in place. With the removal of guard commander for large groups of units, and your flyers being flyers, you have a severe lack of units that stick to the back for longer than 2 turns. But these archers will not leave your commanders alone. Aren't they nice? Their other great feature is the ability to support your skeleton chaff with arrows to which the skeletons are conveniently resistant to. They can also be buffed with flaming arrows and wind guide to make them more effective.

5) Hatun Runa

Your flying slave unit. Never use them for combat unless you absolutely need some bodies to hold for like 1 round and then run off. These guys are trash in combat. They do have some pros though. First, they have an upkeep of onliny 2 gold a year which is nothing. Second they can be gotten for free by suiciding one (or more) of your flying non-members commanders and then having their newly mummified selves call up these slaves. Third, these slaves are as good at cracking and defending forts as any of your other fliers (which is twice as good as a no-flyer unit of average strength). This means having 100 of these in each fort means the enemy needs more than 200 men to even start making any form of a dent. And they'll cost you next to nothing for upkeep. Amazing! Also bring them in after a battle to help crack a fort in 1 turn. Fourth, they are also great at patrolling as all flyers are (bar special flyers that specifically state they can't patroll well).

6) Condor Warrior - Your sacred spear wielder. These guys are kinda lackluster in my opinion as far as sacreds go but hey, they are still sacred, still have better stats than your basic spearmen, and you still want to get as many each turn as you can. These can also fly in storms which makes them great if you start worrying about such things.

7) Sun guard - Great stats, sacred, magic weapon, does triple damage to demons and undead, what's not to love? ♥♥♥♥♥♥ map move that's what. The reason I rarely use these, is because they slow the movement of your entire army. Instead I get them when the situation calls for it. Which is usually when I face demons or undead, or when I need more guys with magic weapons. They are awesome, but that slow flying on the strategic map really really hurts.

Magic and Magic items

This section will describe the different spells you can cast in and out of combat, as well as the magic items you can craft. Some things to note:
1) Some combat spells are too high level for your mages to cast on their own. It is assumed mages that can buff themselves will do so. Coyas for example can enter communions to be able to cast these spells. Incas cant (or can but with difficulty), and thus most high level spells for them arent really given much thought.
2) Items and ritual spells are assumed to be cast while wearing appropriate boosters. So when i say you can cast Summon troll king's court, I mean you can do it by giving a mage earth boots.
3) Spells mentioned are spells I either personally found to be useful, or ones I havent used but see the potential for.

Fire

One if the less helpful paths you have. Most spells deal damage with medium
damage and medium aoe. Might not be as good as earth, but a fireball in the face still hurts.

0.1) Skull of Fire - Why 0.1? Because I forgot about this and am too lazy to renumber. This is your fire booster. Its made by your Mallquis and can be given to your Incas to make their lives easier. If you ever happen to random an Inca with 3 fire, or spend the gems to get a flaming spirit, then you can get:

0.2) Flame Helmet - Your other fire booster. Can be made by a flame spirit wearing the flaming skull. Put this and the helmet on the spirit, and he can summon the elemental King of fire. Put these 2 on an Inca and give him a crystal shield and have him cast Phoenix power, and you got a lvl 6 fire mage in combat. Evocations for days.

1) Fire in the jar (Item) - Gives a free fire gem each battle. Costs only 5
fire gems to make, 3 if you use a hammer which you can also craft.

2) Lightless lantern (Item) - Best research booster. Costs 5 (2 less with
hammer)

3) Medallion of Vengeance (Item) - Another item that costs 5 gems. Lets any
of your commanders (or scouts) to Alla... I mean suicide into the enemy and
make a big boom.

4) Huaca Headdress (Item) - You'll be crafting alot of these if you are having your Mallquis summon up Supayas. Since this boosts the rate of summoning by 50%. You'll end up crafting atleast a few for the manual summon spells of Supayas and Huacas.

5) Fireball (Evo 3)- Your vanilla fire spell. Your Incas can cast it out
the gate, and your Aclla can power up with Phoenix Power (just don't go
full on Jean Grey) and then cast it. The Acllas would need a fire gem for
Phoenix or a fire in a jar!

6) Falling Fires (Evo 5) - Fireball 2.0 needs an Inca to use Phoenix but is
just better than fireball in every way. Aside from being higher in research

7) Pillar of fire (Evo 8) - If fireball is a grenade, then this is a bunker
buster. It has less radius, but hits the square it hits harder. Also
castable by Acllas

8) Cold resistance (Alt 5) - Castable by Incas after Phoenix (or if they
boost by spending a gem). Gives 15 squares worth of units cold resistance.
Especially good if you are fighting some cold users or those with cold
auras. Though as Nazca you already have some cold resist.

9) Phoenix power (Conj 3) - The spell that boosts a mages fire level by 1
for the battle. Incas can just cast this, Acllas need a fire gem to do so

10) Summon Fire Elemental (Conj 5) - For when you need an Ethereal attacker
that burns anyone that touches them. Actually pretty good, but only issue
is that by the time they get to the enemy, your fliers either won or lost.
Good for when you send your Incas somewhere solo.

11) Living fire (Conj 7) - A pain to cast, but makes multiple copies of
smaller fire elementals. Still not that good for the effort you gotta go
through I think.

12) Flaming arrows (Ench 4) - I don't use archers as Nazca, but by God can
fire arrows be effective. Buffs all your archers to extra fire damage.

13) Flame Ward (Ench 5) - Gives 15 squares worth of units fire resistance.
It's great, and it protects you from enemy fire magic and your own fire
magic that misses.

14) Heat from hell (Ench 6) - A pain to cast but if you cast it along with
Flame ward, all the enemy units will soon start passing out from heat
exhaustion, while your guys are immune.

15) Fire fend (Ench 8) - Pain to cast, but is a Flame ward for the entire
army. Worth it if you need it.

Air

One of the more useful paths both for its damage and damage mitigation via buffs

1) Owl quill (Const 2) - Good research booster. Only 3 gems if you use a
hammer. Can be made by Acllas. Good use of extra air gems.

2) Summon lesser air Elemental (Conj 2) - Weakish, but spammable by your
Acllas. And are great at screwing with the enemy back line.

3) Summon Condors (Conj 3) - Your national spell. I use them to patrol, and
no-sell the enemy forts by breaking them down super fast. They also do ok
during combat.

4) Call of the Winds (Conj 3) - Summons some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hawks. You need your
Inca to cast this, but it's nice to drop on an enemy province that only has
1-3 PD.

5) Summon Air elemental (Conj 5) - Needs to be cast by Incas. Requires air
3 to cast which is a pain to get. Or to use an extra air gem for a total of 2

6) Air shield (Alt 0) - Waste of time later on, but early on might as well
cast it. Makes your Incas nearly immune to arrows.

7) Mirror Image (Alt 2) - You'll only use it if you are tugging an Inca.
But when you are doing that (and there are times you wanna do that) it
definitely helps alot!

8) Mist Form (Alt 3) - Makes your Inca thugs amazing at tanking hits... As
long as they aren't hit by magic weapons or magic.

9) Wind Guide (Alt 4) - For when you have lots of archers and probably also
buff them with fire arrows. This will make them more accurate. A deadly
combo with the flaming arrows

10) Lightning bolt (Evo 2) - The air magic's fireball. Except with less aoe
and more damage. And less ♥♥♥♥♥ about armor.

11) Mist (Evo 3) - Enemy brought alot of archers? This makes them sad. They
can't see ♥♥♥♥ or hit you. Same for if enemy brought evocation mages. Does
affect you though

12) Eyes of the condos (Ench 2) - Your scrying spell. See a distant
province. Keep seeing it an extra turn per gem out in. Has its uses.

13) Cloud Trapeze (Ench 4) - Those Inca thugs? Well this is how you get
them places. Drop them behind enemy lines to cause havoc, or even better
take an enemy province both you and enemy are moving into, this makes it
your province when you start battle, giving you a slight defenders
advantage (I think). Also how you move your slow, undead, 850 gold mages.

14) Thunder ward (Ench 5) - Gives 15 squares worth of your troops lightning
resist. For when you fight enemy air users, or to mitigate your own
friendly fire.

16) Arrow Fend (Ench 6) - A pain to cast, but makes all your units give
very few ♥♥♥♥ about enemy archers.

Earth

Thats how you feel as an earth mage

1) Lead shield (Item) - Gives 4MR for only 10 earth gems. Really nice if
you need it.

2) Lodestone amulet (Item) - Like above, but half price for half the
effect. Still nice!

3) Crystal matrix (Item) - Hey its your best friend! Remember how above I
mention a few times how some spells are a pain to cast? That's because the
Incas need to get an extra level of air somewhere to cast them (often more
than the level they can get by burning an extra gem during the casting).
This baby let's them get plugged into a communion to cast those. Now, your
slaves wont have air or fire magic, and will likely suffer massive fatigue
and die but... Well, they had a good life and will be back as mummies anyway.

4) Earth boots (Item) - 1 more level of earth. Your Hurin priests and Coyas
love these. One of your most crafted items.

5) Armor of knights (Item) - For those Inca thugs. One of best armor in
game. The best armor in game for this cost.

6) Summon earth power (Conj 3) - Your friendly neighbourhood path booster
in combat. Gives you a level of earth in combat AND reinvigorating. What's
not to love?

7) Troll King's Court (Conj 6) - I don't often go for conjuration summons,
but when I do, it's because my earth 2 mage put on earth boots and cast an
earth 3 ritual to get me an earth 3 troll king who with earth boots gets
earth 4.

8) Living earth (Conj 7) - Not as good as other "Living x" spells I think,
but you have muuuuuuuch easier access to this. Spam galore!

9) King of elemental earth (Conj 8) - Might actually be worth an empower of
your troll King. Great SC, strong earth mage. And you can get 2.

10) Stone skin (alt 2) - Gives your mages (Hurin and Coya) kick ass armor.

11) Earth meld (alt 2) - Make enemy elite soldiers get stuck and unable to
move. Ungodly effective against bless rushes and cav.

12) Iron skin (alt 3) - Stone skin's big brother. Does make you weaker to
lightning. Worth it!

13) Curse of stones (alt 4) - Fighting enemy that already has high fatigue
per turn? Cast this. They get even higher fatigue per turn.

14) Destruction (alt 4) - Fighting Ulm or similar? Use this. Turns them
from walking tin cans into wannabe nudists. Then your guys can poke them
with sharp sticks for the win.

15) Shatter (Alt 5) - When you gotta kill those SC golems or immobile
pretenders. Just remember the short range. You might need to make your mage
attack in order to get in range.

16) Lightning Resistance (Alt 5) - Hey its like Thunder ward. But in
alteration 5, and via earth magic. Cool. And useful.

17) Maws of the earth (Alt 5) - Earth Meld's really really big brother.
Makes units stuck in place AND does damage. And you can spam it. Oh God yes!

18) Iron bane (Alt 6) - Makes all combatants get rusty armor. Your dudes
don't care much. Ulm would. Makes armor have a chance to fall off when hit.

19) Marble warriors (Alt 7) - Remember stone skin? This is stone skin for a
large chunk of your army. It's aaaaawesome.

20) Ground army (alt 8) - Lightning resist for the whole family... I mean army.

21) Wizards tower (alt 8) - Never used it, but see potential. Can let you
keep an important throne the turn it might otherwise be taken by enemy.

22) Army of lead/gold (alt 9) - Iron skin for the whole family. With the
side order of magic resistance or heat resistance bonus respectively.
Godlike. Wins battles easily.

Actual image of how your army looks after this spell:



23) Blade wind (Evo 4) - Good for clearing low armored chaff. S'ok

24) Earthquake (Evo 5) - Amazing for clearing anything with protection of
8-9 or below. This includes most enemy mages. This specifically doesn't
include any of your flying units. Good times...

25) Legions of steel (Construction 3) - Poor man's marble warriors. Not
that great but hey... Its something.

26) Strength of Giants (Ench 3) - Makes your dudes hit harder. Decent as
just another buff to add to the pile. Won't make or break the battle though.

27) Iron will (Thau 3) - Let's your mages get their MR up. Not bad if some
MR spells are liable to hit em. But all mages that have this also have astral, which has a copy of this...

Astral

Helps put alot of things together and empower other paths. Also has some
nice things on its own

1) Crystal shield (Item) - Put on an Inca to help him cast spells that are
otherwise a pain to cast. Can also be given to other mages obviously. Good
item.

2) Amulet of Antimagic (Item) - Like the lead shield but costing half
except in pearls. Great to protect the commanders/mages vs nasty MR spells.

3) Crystal coin (Item) - Boosts astral. Great item. Lets you craft crystal
shield. Let's you cast higher power astral spells easier.

4) Eye of the void (Item) - Makes your mages ignore some MR of targets.
Great if the mage casts spells like that. Can't be removed though.

5) Spell focus (Item) - More MR bypassing. Just less effective and
removable. Still worth having.

6) Starshine Skull cap (Item) - Like the coin, gives you astral boost. Gets
your mages to astral 4.

7) Banner of the Northern Star (Item) - Boosts all mages in astral during
combat. I prefer just to cast a spell that does it, but this is good for
when you want to have the effect up from the start.

8) Power of the Spheres (Conj 3) - Boosts all magic paths for the mage in
combat. It's great. And it propagates to slaves if cast by communion
master. Making slaves take less exhaustion due to having more paths, and
also because the master has higher paths. Win-win

9) Light of the Northern Star (Conj 4) - The spell the banner casts at the
start of fight. Makes ALL mages in battle have 1 higher astral. Even enemy.
Quite useful nonetheless. Especially since most of your mages that see
combat have astral.

10) Acashic record (Conj 5) - Want to see the score graph of another
nation? Now for just 10 pearls you can! Yey! Good for **** measuring competitions

11) Summon Huacas (Conj 5) - Mmm... These make me hard just thinking about.
Sure they cost pearls to summon, but: They have awe, are sacred, have good
stats, fly, still fly even if there's a storm, have magic weapons, and look
badass. These guys are amazing. You can get 7 per 15 astral gems, if your mage wears the headdress that boosts the number of these summoned. Sadly these are outclassed by the golems. While golems do require more gems to outfit, they also justify the investment. Still, if you dont have those extra gems for golems, or const 7... Yeh these are awesome!

12) Personal luck (Alt 1) - Generally not something I waste time on later
on in game. But might as well script this early on when there's nothing
better. Might let you live longer.

13) Body Ethereal (Alt 4) - While only 1 square per cast, the spell has its
uses. Making units Ethereal is amazing, and Nazca is no exception to this.

14) Doom (Alt 7) - For when you want to make the entire enemy army just
abit more sucky. Even post battle. Now they will all keep losing limbs and
such long after they met you

15) Will of the fates (alt 8) - Luck for the whole family. Quite good.
Imitates a major bless from Dom 4. Real good.

16) Magic duel (Evo 3) - Has your astral mage play Russian roulette with
the enemy astral mage. Generally you don't want this since your astral
mages ain't cheap. But can occasionally come in handy if facing something
with astral magic that is low enough, and the enemy needs to die.

17) Stellar cascades (Evo 5) - Nerfed in dominions 5, but still pretty
decent at fatiguing some elite units. Though generally I'd do other things
to them like using maws of the earth.

18) Mind hunt (Evo 6) - Great for sniping enemy commander when you know
they don't have any astral mages in the province. If they do, using this is
suicide.

19) Resist magic (Ench 1) - Gives the caster bonus MR. Basically the astral
version of iron will. Unlike iron will though, it's actually better since
its a personal spell and thus can be propagated to communion slaves.

20) Antimagic (Ench 4) - Increased MR for all your troops. Great when there
are MR spells flying around everywhere.

21) Dispel (Ench 5) - Dispels a global spell. Great when enemies put up
something game changing.

22) Communion slave/Master (Thau 1) - What let's your mages give each other
emotional support on the battlefield. Each master gets the following boost
to their present paths given enough slaves: +1 to paths for 2 slaves, +2
for 4, +3 for 8, +4 for 16 and +5 for 32. Slaves take some fatigue away
from the caster for the spell that's cast. Slaves take extra fatigue if
they have no levels in the spell path that's needed to cast the spell. So
your hurins that are slaves to an Inca casting fire and air spells will
take very high fatigue each spell.

23) Horror mark (Thau 1) - It wont kill them now, but it will kill them eventually. Marks enemy unit to be visited by some powerful monsters. Stacks quite alot. So if the enemy has some unavailable super combatant, have some mages spam 10-20 horror marks, and then run away. Said super combatant will soon have a bad time.

24) Mind burn (Thau 2) - Astral magic's sniper rifle. If the enemy fails a MR check, they take damage no matter their armor or anything else. Only downsides are the MR check and the fact that it only targets one unit at a time.

25) Teleport (Thau 3) - Will mostly be used by your Coyas, since the other mages either need 2 boosters to cast this (Hurins) making it a pain and not worth it, or can cast cloud trapeze (Mallquis).

26) Soul slay (Thau 5) - Astral magic's railgun. If the enemy fails the MR check, they die. If they pass, nothing happens. Still totally worth it though. Everything eventually fails a check.

27) Golem Construction (Const 7) - Lets you make one of the best thug/SC chassis in the game. Sure you gotta kit him out, but once you do its awesome! For these you can make Fire brands (or if you find a water indie, frost brands), charcoal shields, knight armor, skullcup (for teleporting), or iron face (for dat protection), boots of flight/quickness, and a coin (instead of cap), and some other item. These are great. Really. Barring specifically targeted magic, or army with heavy mage support, he wont die. Amazing at raiding.

Death

Another strong path. Lets you summon alot of cool things, and royally screw with whole armies even without much combat.

1) Duskdagger (Item) - I almost never use this, but it sure as hell is helpful when something with a metric tonn of resistances and protection shows up, as this ignores armor.

2) Bane Venom Charm (Item) - One of my favorite items. Stick this on your flying scout, and have them shadow an enemy army, or hang out in their important provinces. Fun all around! Can be stacked to great effect

3) Crown of Bones (Item) - I think this is a new addition to Dominions, so I havent had much fun with this. But definitely seems to have a use as something to help you ferry your various undead around.

4) Skull Staff (Item) - Your death booster. Like all other boosters is worth. Enables winds of death shenanigans.

5) Summon Lammashtas (Conj 4) - An interesting spell. For only 1 death gem your Coya or Hurin can summon 2 very strong fighters. Only issue is said fighters want to kill you as well. Wear heavy armor and be ready to retreat. But worth it to unleash these monsters on the enemy. Especially since your mages dont mind dying once.

6) Summon Supayas (Conj 5) - Summoning the undead versions of Huacas. They lose awe and their armor, but are now etherial and undead. This is probably where you'd spend your excess death gems unless you have other plans for them. You can get 7 per 10 death gems, if your mage wears the headdress that boosts the number of these summoned.

7) Soul Vortex (Alt 6) - Something fun to put on your mages if you thug out Coyas or something. Havent really done it but should work well enough. Also allows for turbo communions (propagating it to the communion slaves whom are surrounded by things they now drain to keep themselves alive)

8) Skeletal Legion (Alt 6) - Gives all your units pierce resistance. Useful if fighting alot of enemies with pointy sticks. Less useful if the sticks are used for cutting or bludgeoning. Probably cast antimagic before this though.

9) Darkness (Alt 6) - Makes the enemies suck at hitting things. Makes your undead... still be exactly the same. The undead might only be better in comparison, but still better. Much better.

10) Disintegrate (Alt 8) - Similar to Soul Slay. If the enemy fails MR check, they just die. Definitely useful.

11) Shadow Blast (Evo 4) - Great evocation spell that deals good damage, and has a chance to paralyze those it doesnt kill.

12) Raise Skeletons (Ench 3) - The go-to spell to spam before you get to Ench 5. Makes 3 skeletons. They aint much, but they soak damage.

13) Horde of Skeletons (Ench 5) - The go-to spam spell. Makes 6 or more skeletons. Its bigger and better than the previous spell. And enemy now starts being really sad as he watches the undead horde grow larger and larger.

14) Rigor Mortis (Ench 6) - Havent used this much, but should go great with your skeleton or Supaya hordes. Sure your mages will also likely take a nap. But your undnead wont. Incluring any undead mages.

15) Life after death (Ench 7) - Infinite skeletons! As living troops die, they become undead that fight for you. This is amazing!

16) Wither Bones (Thau 6) - This is what you use against other undead users. Best spell to erase the enemy undead horde.

17) Wind of Death (Evo 6) - An amazing spell. Makes all units that fail MR check start agint 5 years a turn. Grab about 3 hurins, give them a death staff and 2 magic penetration items, and send them against an enemy stack with the orders to cast this twice each and retreat. There will be no enemy army once they finish.

18)

Actual combinations for magic in combat

This section will describe different spells and setups I generally use to cast said spells.

1) Earthquake
Units used: Cast with 2 Coyas and 2 Hurins.
Spells units use: Hurins cast communion slave, Coyas cast Communion master, earth power, Power of the Spheres, earthquake, earthquake.
Battles to be used in: Any battle you want to kill low armored units. Like if enemy uses mages, or has a low of Lor armor chaff
Why are we using 2 Coyas? Just for the extra effectiveness. 1Coya and your Hurins won't get much fatigue so you are under-utilizing that aspect of communion, 3 Coyas and they get too much. Plus having 4 earthquakes is generally enough to kill most things that can get killed by earthquakes

2) Fire Fend + Heat from hell
Units used: One or two Incas, depending on avaliable fire boosters.
Spells units use: While wearing a flame skull, and potentially the flame helmet and the crystal shield, the Incas cast Phoenix Power and then Fire fend and then Heat from Hell.
Battles to be used in: Any battle vs enemies who don't have/can't get fire resistance. This will quickly fatigue the enemy army while your men will not even notice.

3) Fire fend + Fire storm
Units used: Two Incas
Spells used: One Inca wearing a flaming skull casts Phoenix power and then fire fend. The second is wearing every booster we can get on him: Flaming skull, flame helmet, crystal shield, Casts Phoenix power, and then fire storm, while having 2 extra fire gems to help reduce fatigue.
Battles to be used in: Any battle vs enemies who don't have/can't get fire resistance. This will not fatigue them, but will instead reduce the enemy to fine ash. This is also great for when enemy casts something like Fog warriors because this breaks the effect on enemies it damages.

Handling Bad Scenarios

1) The enemy is Ermor and had a craptonn of skeletons!
Use Earth quake.

But he now has much tougher elite undead!
Use Communioned'd coyas/hurins to spam Maws of the Earth, and Dust to Dust.

2) The enemy has expencive/key/hard to replace mages with astral magic!
Use astral hurins to magic duel them. Some Hurin lives shall be lost (but they'll live on as mummies), but they will kill those pesky mages.

3) Enemy has a big tough army!
Well, EQ wont work. Time to buff your troops. Use marble warriors, strength of giants, and similar army buffs.

4) I cant handle the enemy army!
♥♥♥♥ them. Grab a couple of your basic lancers and go raiding. Any fort the enemy sieges should already have some slaves or have some transported there, making them sit there uselessly. And if they roam, they are one army that takes one province per turn while you take more with raids. If they split, you can consolidate faster, and pick them off.

5) Enemy has a big army with not large MR and human lifespan.
Outfit some Air hurins with a skukk staff and an armor, as well as some magic pen items, and run them into the enemy army 2-3 at a time, each scripted to cast winds of death several times before running. Enemy WILL die in droves.

6) Enemy has strong mage support!
Use earth quake to kill the squishy mages.
But they arent squishy!
Use lancers to attack rear.
But they have bodyguards!
Buff the lancers and then send them in anyways. They will draw enemy fire from your mages, allowing them to pummel the enemy as a whole including their mages with magic.

7) The enemy is sneakin around mah landz!
Patrol with Condors. If you dont have the gems, patrol with slaves. You can get em free from dead basic commander mummies recruiting them.

8) Hurins arent finding any magic sites!
Use a damn Royal Mallqui. That thing searches for 5 sites at once! Having about 2 rotating through your lands is worth!

9) The enemy player wants to attack me!!!
Remind him you can raid.

10) Supaya?
Supaya!

[Karsk]

Have you got any changes to the pretender to make in dom6?

[ethorin101]

@Renen

I mean, that's a good thing tbh with ya.

I keep meaning to try scales Nazca b/c the mages look really interesting but then I run into "trying to expand with birbs" and omg I hate it.

[Catowl]

@ethorin101

Simply due to this being more of a scales-focused guide that relies more on mages and having more gold for said mages than on having more sacreds and a hell-bless (but having less money because hellbless ruins your scales)

[ethorin101]

This guide "Condors are ok in a fight I guess"

Literally every other guide "Take an awake with Tweps, fire res, and w/e else you want, turn all air gems into Condors, turn all other gems into air gems if you can't cast Condors every turn, crush with your ball of absurd sacred birbs"

[Pup]

Sceleria: "I see you try playing with skill, and I laugh at you."

[Catowl]

@onomastikon

Sorry. Been abit abscent. I shall try to fulfil that request and update the guide some more.

[onomastikon]

Thanks for writing this. Can it be that you haven't come back to this thread in a year? If so, this is lost on you, but I thought I would say that I would really enjoy your insight on having those parts of guides that seem pretty common, namely some thoughts on expansion and pretender design. Especially regarding scales, since Naz seems so bizarre: they seem quite gold hungry, but don't really need much in the way of recruitment points or resources. I sort of miss that in your writeup.

[Noise]

This nation is so crazy it's daunting to get into but this guide will help a lot!

Typo near the top, you meant "best MA nation in the game", just left out the word "best"

You didn't mention pretender design at all, do you have any comments on that?

[Foulsplay]

Incredible, I love your guide, some bless or chassis you recommend?, I like using a rainbow mage mostly with F3A3W3E4S4-8 with many minor bless, but any build you consider is worthy?

[cal195]

hahahaha