Fireball was Invented for Seiges

[Lilly112]

Never had much luck with the Fireball spell in open battles. Sometimes I can get a few kills with it, but usually I prefer my Missile Storm, or White Bolt. But, having just started a war with the Sarraid, I besieged one of their castles, and saw it's might. The opening ramp was clean in seconds (Go MP-14) and when the reinforcements spawned, I must have killed at least thirty men with one spell. Not tested in defence yet, but in attack, it owns. Hard.

Also, on the topic of magic and to not make this threat completely useless, my White Bolt isn't healing me any more. It did in a few fights ago, but now it never does, was it never meant to, or is something wrong?

 

[guspav]

It should keep working. Maybe you aren't aiming it close enough? You have to practically throw it at your feet.

 

[Lilly112]

Ohh, at my feet. Never thought of that. I usually throw it at the heros and then get healed from the splash. But yea, got to be rubbing shoulders with them. The main way I use it is with Shadow Knights. Send in the Knights of the King I rescued, and just throw the bolt at them, healing the knight and killing surrounding Evils.

 

[Morrowind Mod Man]

Fireball is the only spell my evil wizard knows. You summon a ton of undead, siege a castle and then lob fireballs into the enemy walls. Your disposable troops function like janitors to clean up anyone you didn't kill. Try pressing backspace so you can see where the biggest cluster of guys is and then lob your flames into there. When your troops enter the main keep, stand on the ramp and wait for the rest of the guys to spawn (near the entrance of the castle) so you can kill them too.


Being a mage is much, much tougher when you aren't a necromancer though. Do you use the charged staff ability? It's much more effective than using the summon weapon spell.

 

[Lilly112]

I find being a mage is much much easier if your not a necromancer. You don't have to worry about what troops will get annoyed with your undead, or the undead breaking free from your control till your a decent enough level, or anything. Sometimes I do do the Charged Staff ability, but usually the Arch Mage staff is strong enough without spending 4mp a hit.

 

[Morrowind Mod Man]

I find being a mage is much much easier if your not a necromancer. You don't have to worry about what troops will get annoyed with your undead, or the undead breaking free from your control till your a decent enough level, or anything.

This is why forums are so great. Your thoughts are the exact opposite of mine. I don't mind the undead breaking free thing, since

Spoiler

it disappears once you master necromancy. The issue with fighting as a mage is keeping enemies off your back so you can nuke everything. The other issue is your people dying. Basically you're looking at being able to create 10 zombies, skeletons or shadows twice a day, most of which are leveled up already. No need to pay for upgrades, or cultivate villages. If you face any lords who have around 75-100 guys, you're automatically going to win because, as you mentioned in another topic, you'll kill about 35-45 with just your magic. Devastating battles that killed your top tier units and left your party weak won't matter much to you, since you spawn your guys out of thin air. Really convenient.

Since the undead die instead of being knocked out,

Spoiler

you never need to invest in the medical INT skills. You don't need trainer either unless you're using the mummies/necromancers, since created undead generally don't upgrade. You can pump it all into things like Pathfinding and engineering, something that you'd never do normally. As you mentioned before, you're already a siege machine, and now you're a super mobile one. When you kill a large group of enemies, your character raises low level undead from all the corpses. After a siege of 300+ you'll have a hundred or so of fresh undead to fill your new castle/towns with. Or use as fodder.

Once you get to 30 INT

Spoiler

you're basically a master mage (you can keep pumping it and get more in magic power) and your fireball lets you get all the EXP you need. At this point you can seriously increase your power by branching into CHA and investing heavily in Faith. The cleric abilities are insanely powerful (bless and curse are seriously some of the greatest things ever) not to mention being able to heal yourself. You can throw wave after wave of super charged, totally disposable soldiers at your enemies while you stand back in relative safety and wait for your magic to recharge.

I can definitely see where you're coming from with not using necromancy though, since

Spoiler

your character and a bunch of companions with trainer skill can take a group of newbie soldiers and turn them into top tier guys in 3 or 4 days. There are lots of incredibly powerful troops in this mod, such as the Blazing Hand. Maxed out medical skills let your guys get back into the action after a fight really quickly. You also aren't cutting yourself out of using "good" troops because of your "evil" zombies. You also won't have any trouble facing enemy clerics.

The take away from all of this is that mages are awesome and the extra skill points from INT gives you a lot of ways to play the game. Best class ever.

 

[Lilly112]

I'd prefer mage to necromancer myself. You don't need 30 int to stop your mages or bodyguard - or Golems, totally awesome units - from running away, and having Seventy Adept/Expert Mages with a few Master Mages could beat a thousand zombies and skeletons. Plus, there is always a load of Shadows to pilfer Knights of the King and Swadian Knights from, giving you moderate cavalry support against the enemy. Every Fodder Zombie or Skeleton or Shadow you put on the battle field means one Mage that isn't on the battlefield. It doesn't really matter in the small fights, but up against lords with 170 guys and some clerics, plus a couple of their own magic units - such as Djjin - Undead get cut to ribbons, and because of them, you don't have the immediate number to fight back. Then you get hit by a fireball and die.

But, why 30 INT? I thought it took about 45 Int to get Magical defence and Attack to 15.

 

[DoctorPringles]

I'd prefer mage to necromancer myself. You don't need 30 int to stop your mages or bodyguard - or Golems, totally awesome units - from running away, and having Seventy Adept/Expert Mages with a few Master Mages could beat a thousand zombies and skeletons. Plus, there is always a load of Shadows to pilfer Knights of the King and Swadian Knights from, giving you moderate cavalry support against the enemy. Every Fodder Zombie or Skeleton or Shadow you put on the battle field means one Mage that isn't on the battlefield. It doesn't really matter in the small fights, but up against lords with 170 guys and some clerics, plus a couple of their own magic units - such as Djjin - Undead get cut to ribbons, and because of them, you don't have the immediate number to fight back. Then you get hit by a fireball and die.

But, why 30 INT? I thought it took about 45 Int to get Magical defence and Attack to 15.

I'd just like to point out that necromancers don't just have fodder units. At higher levels of necromancy skill you will begin raising higher-tier shadows right out of the gate. The two top level shadows are a mage and a mounted knight, very, very powerful units. Now it's not "mage vs. fodder" it's "mage vs. mage", except shadows are free (to create, not upkeep) and instantaneous. There are tradeoffs, though, since undead get wrecked by Blazing Hand dudes.

 

[Morrowind Mod Man]

I'd stop at 30 INT because it gives my character the ability to throw 5 fireballs. You can get there incredibly fast by raiding villages solo and tossing fireballs. Of course you'd want to increase it further but I like casting bless on my guys and then sitting back. CHA is what I pump after so I can get a horde going.  I forgot to mention something incredibly important, and that's the fact that you'd store the undead you get after battles in castles, so you can go back and get more just in case a disaster that you mentioned happens.

Your point about clerics is well taken. You'd need to personally kill them or else you'll lose a lot of soldiers. The non Blazing Hand factions usually don't have many of their cleric units though, so you don't lose as many guys as you might think. As DoctorPringles mentioned, the top tier undead are unholy knights. Most wear twilight armor and they can cast fireball.


The mages are incredibly powerful as well, they just don't particularity fit my fast and loose playing style. I don't like waiting around for units to get trained, or going to towns to replace them. This is appealing because you can always be in the field, and the only thing you stop for is upgrading equipment. They would work really, really well if you went with mage heroes and you went the medical trainer route. Very strong.



As far as the Blazing Hand goes...well, they were designed to kill undead. You're clearly going to need other Evil troops.  Another correction to my above post, you can only apparently make undead once per day, even if you have the health for it. My bad.