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[EuchreJack]

Fun fact: Any undead/demon that is made into a priest can reanimate.  For example, if you nation has access to blood, then you can forgo making your first prophet until you are able to summon a Shadow Imp.  Once you have the Shadow Imp (which costs a whooping 4 blood slaves, making it the cheapest undead/demon commander, as it doesn't eat into the rarer death gems), make it your prophet, and you too can reanimate the dead!

[Frumple]

... 'course, a single reanimator is, while not quite the most useless thing in the game, pretty close to it. Especially if you have to give up your prophet's turns to be using it

Though reanimation isn't the worst thing you can do with an idling prophet. I mean, it's probably close with an idle stealth prophet, but still. You could just be waiting.

... though just waiting might be better, too, if the enemy has large amounts of banishers/other easy ways to mass kill undead. Pretty sure non-combat summoned ones still count for the HP rout trigger, in which case the prophet would just be making it easier to lose a fight :V

[sprinkled chariot]

People on desura call kraken unaffective expender, but in my games he turns out to be better then dragons in expanfing ( you dont get ranfom conan barbarian chopping off your head with big sword) Why?

Is anybody in beta test of eendgame spells mod? It seems badass! Hounds of tindaloo, woo!
Any ideas on using Moloch?
How to use battlefield wrecking spells without getting rekt, stuff like astral tempest.
La rlyeh pretender ideas except kraken?

[chaoticag]

I think it would have to do with the aquatic tag. If you don't have any air gems and air magic, you'd can't make it to land. The Earth Serpant can out the box get on land, and has 11 more protection for what you're getting, as well as having a built in fear. For the most part, you won't need to worry about expanding undersea since it's rare to have more than one underwater nation in a game. So you could use your underwater armies for that while the earth serpent expands on land.

[EnigmaticHat]

Fun fact: Any undead/demon that is made into a priest can reanimate.  For example, if you nation has access to blood, then you can forgo making your first prophet until you are able to summon a Shadow Imp.  Once you have the Shadow Imp (which costs a whooping 4 blood slaves, making it the cheapest undead/demon commander, as it doesn't eat into the rarer death gems), make it your prophet, and you too can reanimate the dead!

I had an earlygame build for Sauromatia that involved raising a black servant and making him prophet then using him to reanimate longdead horsemen on repeat.  Since I'm not in a mood to join any MP games I might as well share it.

Spoiler: Pretender (click to show/hide)

Originally the pretender was turmoil 3 everything else max positive but that doesn't really make sense any more.

The idea is to get palisades up as quickly as possible and start spamming M3 soothesayers, then rush enchantment 5.  Then you have a witch king or three spam Pale Riders.  Then, on the eve of your first war, recruit cavalry everywhere.  The idea is that for your first war you have two armies.  One is a massive blob of longdead horsemen (from Pale Riders and from your prophet plinking away in the background) and ordinary cavalry with little mage support.  The other is a horde of non-poison archers with Fire Arrows, Wind Guide, and several enaries in front spamming Horde of Skeletons.  With good play I believe that was possible in under 18 months, and from there you just rush evocations 7 (maybe stopping by for construction 4) and get Nether Darts.  There's not too much left to do from there tho, I wouldn't try that build in a huge MP game, only a medium or small one.

[ThtblovesDF]

How good/bad is frozen heart spam?

[chaoticag]

I think it would depend on how many mages you can marshal, and what troops you are fighting. 10 armor negating damage with 2 extra damage per extra level is not something to sneeze at, and 100 percision is pretty good. Spamming it however would be the issue, since you'd need to mass some serious mages for the effort. If you have water 2 mages spamming quickness might be better, giving your units twice the move, more defense and allowing them to attack twice a turn. Only affects one square at a time, but it's alteration 4 so at least you will get to it faster.

[EnigmaticHat]

How good/bad is frozen heart spam?

Its a niche for killing thugs/SCs mostly.  If you're targeting something that would die to evocations anyway (like heavy infantry or ogres or something) you're better off with the classics like fireballs or lightning or some weird crosspaths shit like acid.  But some big dude your opponent invested 40 gems in?  He'll die just as dead to it as a militiaman would.  Unless he has cold resistance.

The other niche is to break into evocations if all you've got is low level water mages.  But you have to ask "is this better than just summoning water elementals?"  Unless your opponent is using elite troops, probably not.  It doesn't scale too well with magic level (not enough to be more useful than a high level spell would be), and with its range the mages will be standing close enough to the frontline that your opponent might kill them with a missed evocation or even arrow.  You're looking at about ~5 human kills per mage per fight.  That's not bad but its not a glowing recommendation either.  Also if your army routs all your frozen heart spammers will likely die.

[ThtblovesDF]

Alright, I was just wondering if there is even anything one can do with Ichtyid Shaman 's, as they appear to the worst researchers in the game.

[Frumple]

If you've got const 6, for =<5 W, they're W2. If you're willing to splash... 35, iirc? W on one, or happen to have a omni/elemental booster sitting around, they're now W3, and can forge robes of the sea. Suddenly they're 20 water gems or less from being W3,* which means wave breakers, various summons (including naiad warriors or naiads if they're one of the N randoms, which means either pretty alright awe troops or a better platform to boost higher into water magics), Voice of Tiamat (at W2, even), most of the workhorse combat water magic, rain if you're looking to screw over a fire nation, so on, so forth. Just by their lonesome they can forge water rings, frost brands (!), water lenses (to give the boosted ones or other water casters free combat gems), rings of water breathing if you need 'em. Give 'em that ring and they can make boots of quickness -- suddenly those worst researchers in the game are a cheap and easy means of forging a good 2/7th of a solid SC/thug's loadout, and if you're having assassin problems (or want to make assassin problem for someone else ) they can pump out bottles of living water to help with that.

... so yeah, they're shitty researchers. They're also W1, and water is one of the easiest paths in the game to boost up if you've got that initial caster and enough construction, as well as having a few rather nice trinkets and whatnot. It's pretty much always fairly useful to have access to water casters, regardless of their strength, if you've got the W income to do something with it. It's better to have W2, obviously enough, but W1 can do in a pinch (or if you've got a limited amount of higher level water mages, due to events or whatev') and they're pretty good workhorse mages regardless. Just... yeah, don't leave them researching if you can avoid it :V

*Also you've got at least 1 W4 caster, which gives you access to, uh. Almost every pure water combat spell.

[Delta Foxtrot]

How good/bad is frozen heart spam?

Great damage, drawbacks are range (it's decent, could be better) and it's single target (not so good against armies, but it wrecks thugs and small raiding parties). Great spell in its niche. Another potential use for W1's (or any elemental mages for that matter) are elemental battlesummons. Gem expensive, yes, but a mass of elementals can do tons of damage in one-off battles.

[Frumple]

Or you can give them the lenses they can forge and get one elemental per W1 caster per fight, heh. If they can live through at least five fights, you've broke even!

[sprinkled chariot]

Hiss hiss, how do I LA Ctisss?

Also how to forge runesmasher? And what is the way to achieve maximum penetration on mage?

[Delta Foxtrot]

Hiss hiss, how do I LA Ctisss?

Did alright with them in one MP game. You've got powerful death mages and can create permanent longdead, including factional elites. Rushing enchantment for horde of skeletons and recruiting a bunch of priests to get an unending horde of chaff is a good basic strategy. C'tis is really powerful in the midgame once they get their basic research and undead production going. A bit weak early game and late game as people start countering your obvious undead. Consider taking an awake expander to compensate for the early game and play aggressively to end the game before you get too far into late game.

And just because you do undead really well, don't get complacent and ignore other things. One trick ponies in Dominions are rather brittle. You've got good access to astral between your recruitables and summonables for example.

Also how to forge runesmasher? And what is the way to achieve maximum penetration on mage?

If I can't get a WF mage, which is most of the time, I usually empower a W/F mage with the other path. It's a bit expensive, but I usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.

Here's all the penetration gear you can forge:
http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/?page=item&showids=1&itemkey=pen&itemcomp=2&itemval=1
Rune Smasher, Eye of the Void and Spell Focus is a good set. Even just Eye of the Void and Spell Focus go a long way.

[AlStar]

I usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.

Heathen! Have you no respect for the two best items in the game: water bottles and fire lamps?