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[Frumple]

Yeah... it's a sort of blessing that the dryads are considerably more cost efficient researchers, imo. I tend to use them as my go-to for lab monkeys, and only get pans when I need battle casters/forgers/site searchers, so the maenad spam is both fairly controlled and more likely to be close to somewhere it's useful. Extra bonus from that is the pans themselves are pretty nice leaders, so they can usually take their detritus along with them as they roam about.

[SharpKris]

Been trying to play early abyss children of flame. getting a 3 sqaure flyer assasin/prophet is rather OP in my opinion' any ideas on early strategies for them?

[nenjin]

Stealth Converter/Smite-Nuke-ssassin? Load him up with troops and then send him deep into enemy territory to attack from the opposite side of their empire? Get a flying carpet and some gossamer cloth so he can have non-stealth non-flying company. Like Living Statues Those things are freaking evil in large enough numbers. It's always fun to go traipsing through the ai's homeland, setting off a hornet's nest of new spawns that chase you.

[SharpKris]

problem is he has 0 leadership. perhaps there's an item that gives leadership?

in another different issue "goddammit mages! stop casting useless enchantments on yourselves and start nuking!". id it just me or is the AI not so brilliant when it comes to spell selection?

[ChairmanPoo]

I love playing this game while listening to Bal Sagoth.

[Puzzlemaker]

So I played this some more last night.  I learned a few things.

1.  Arrows are great, except for piercing armor.
2.  Using a Bless strategy is great if you actually make sure your bless is good.
3.  Getting super high production and growth is not needed for civ's without super expensive units, and should instead be put towards, oh, lets say, better bless bonuses.
4.  Undead are a huge pain in the ass when your army is composed of non-magical troops without magic weapons.
6.  Getting mages ranked up is critical, so leave some in your army stack so you can get guys with more then one point in magic (Research can evidently rank them up to level 1, though?)
7.  Finding magic sites of the type of magic you want is impossible, especially when all your mages only have one level in that type of magic.  Seriously how do I do it.  I guess I alchemize gems then empower them?

[Il Palazzo]

7.  Finding magic sites of the type of magic you want is impossible, especially when all your mages only have one level in that type of magic.  Seriously how do I do it.  I guess I alchemize gems then empower them?

Use site-searching spells: Augury, Auspex, Haruspex, Astral Probing, Dark Knowledge, Blood Bowl, Voice of Tiamat/Apsu, Gnome Lore. Each finds all sites of the relevant kind in a province. Each requires at most 2 levels of relevant magic path. You should be able to get at least one mage to lvl2, either by empowerment, item forging(magic boosters), random event(of the "a mage joins" kind), or by designing your pretender accordingly.
All these spells are easy to access, as they're not that far on the research ladder.

There's also an astral spell called Acashic Knowledge(not Acashic Record, mind you), that is harder to research and cast, is rather costly in pearls, but reveals ALL sites in a province it's cast on.

Additionally, there's an artifact called Book of Creation, that can cast its own, costless version of Acashic Knowledge.

Finally, one of viable strategies for pretender design, is the so-called "rainbow mage". You pick an awake chassis with very cheap cost for taking new magic paths, and increase magic to 3-4 in as many paths as you can afford. Then it's just a matter of sending him/her/it to search for magic sites, giving you a lot of gem income way before anybody else. Also great for research, forging and magical diversification later on.

6.  Getting mages ranked up is critical, so leave some in your army stack so you can get guys with more then one point in magic (Research can evidently rank them up to level 1, though?)

What do you mean by that? The only "ranking up" I can think of is experience, which increases by 1 for ALL units every turn, more if they take part in battle, even more for each swing they take in actual combat.
I don't see why you think it's so important, as it merely gives your mages +1 research capability per level(along with other, less important stat boosts), which isn't that much for most mages. Certainly not enough to justify the time spent with an army and away from actual researching.

[SharpKris]

love blood magic! combined with fore magic and abyssians it's just super fun summoning fiends and hunting anything in sight.
i really want to try a crafting civ, any suggestions?

[Neonivek]

love blood magic! combined with fore magic and abyssians it's just super fun summoning fiends and hunting anything in sight.
i really want to try a crafting civ, any suggestions?

Well Blood is one of the two pure magics.

[Puzzlemaker]

Ah, so units just gain experience by sitting around?  That explains why the research mages I had gained a level!  That's why I thought research gives experience.  Doesn't it also give them another magic level as well?

I haven't tried blood magic yet, but it looks fun.  So many possibilities!

[Culise]

7.  Finding magic sites of the type of magic you want is impossible, especially when all your mages only have one level in that type of magic.  Seriously how do I do it.  I guess I alchemize gems then empower them?

1-2 levels in a path is typically enough to find the majority of sites.  Only higher-level sites require 3 levels.  It might just be unluckiness. 

[nenjin]

problem is he has 0 leadership. perhaps there's an item that gives leadership?

in another different issue "goddammit mages! stop casting useless enchantments on yourselves and start nuking!". id it just me or is the AI not so brilliant when it comes to spell selection?

I don't know if the Crown of Command or Scepter of Authority will give leadership to solo operators, which seems to come hand in hand with the Assassin Trait. I'm thinking no but you could try. If their magic paths give them zero magical leadership, chances are items won't either.

At the very least, if he's strong enough to take a province, have him assault it. Then pump province defense to an insane level, build a lab, then have your Astral 4 mages with Astral Ritual Range Boosting Items use Gateway to teleport in with their armies.

in another different issue "goddammit mages! stop casting useless enchantments on yourselves and start nuking!". id it just me or is the AI not so brilliant when it comes to spell selection?

The AI will cast what it can w/o gems. Which isn't a whole lot. If you really care about what they're casting, make them a spellcasting list. I generally find they'll cast blessings first, then personal buffs, then summons, then whatever attack spell they have that is in range and doesn't cost gems.

[dennislp3]

I find that they like to cast buffs in a repetitive manner...when they have already applied said buff...so yeah I try and make a list that is useful for them

[E. Albright]

I don't know if the Crown of Command or Scepter of Authority will give leadership to solo operators, which seems to come hand in hand with the Assassin Trait. I'm thinking no but you could try. If their magic paths give them zero magical leadership, chances are items won't either.

Historically, they didn't. But in Dom4, up through 4.04, they do provide leadership to 0s; it hasn't been confirmed if this was WAD.

[E. Albright]

1.  Arrows are great, except for piercing armor.

Flaming Arrows.

3.  Getting super high production and growth is not needed for civ's without super expensive units, and should instead be put towards, oh, lets say, better bless bonuses.

Yes and no. Both of these (particularly Growth) contribute to overall income. Even if you don't have expensive troops, more gold is more gold. And if your sacreds are underwhelming and/or capital only, better scales can be significantly superior to a better bless.