Retorts and books you can find in a given game

[Dragonfabri]

I see, i'll see if i can come up with a different solution then.
Also thank you for keeping this game awesome, i'm having a blast on my billionth try on Phantasm, and never got frustrated once!

Did you manage to win in any of these Phantasm games? what setup do you use usually? race? retorts? books? number of enemy wizards? map size? do you pick it because you think it's the strongest or because you like it?

1) Not have won yet, closest i got was when i researched Very Rare, but Unsummoning + Wave of Death decimated all my troops in the world

2) I'm a sucker for challenge, i put all the Score Increase modifiers except Against The Worlds (i put no trade + major hostility + final war and lose only 0.05 score in the process compared to Against the Worlds)

3) I tried a LOT of races, Halflings are my go to when not Myrran, while myrran i go either Dwarves (double mineral bonus is GREAT) or Dark Elves (Warlocks are the best Garrison against the doomstacks and OP AI heroes).
I like Draconians a lot, but haven't found a good strategy with them yet. Trolls are neat, but there are way more counters to regen now, so they underperformed under my rule.

4) Depends, i usually always pick Astrologer (infinite slowly scaling power + no counter while busting nodes is huge) and Channeler (always useful in any situation). I then either pick Archmage/Alchemy when not going for city economy or with Guardian/Omniscient/Cult Leader when i do.

5) Again, depends. With Dwarves i always go 5 chaos for guaranteed Raise Volcano (i cover the land in them, and when out of space i override mine in my land to get minerals). Any mineral spawned with dwarves is a huge gain.
With Dark Elves and Halflings i usually go 5 Life for Sanctify (power generation and no mantainence on the costly Warlocks) and for buffing Slingers.

6) 13 wizards always

7) Maximal size, 1 power, then everything default (and plane of water, but i wish it wasn't a score increaser, it doesn't do the AI any favours)

8) Always because i like it, i don't like winning by following what everyone else is doing like a recipe. Surely some strats are universally used, but i play what i like both flavour-wise and strategy-wise (my playstyle is economy + treasure hunting and diplomacy, i'm no rusher or conqueror)

[GMBarak]

interesting....
going for diplomacy when "major hostility" is selected is kind of hard I guess...
My current personal picks are High elves, 4 life, 4 sorcery, 1 nature, Arch-Mage, Artificier, Astrologer. Master difficulty. Huge size, 13 wizards and I go for nodes/lairs until none are left and then go to war I guess... :D

[Dragonfabri]

interesting....
going for diplomacy when "major hostility" is selected is kind of hard I guess...
My current personal picks are High elves, 4 life, 4 sorcery, 1 nature, Arch-Mage, Artificier, Astrologer. Master difficulty. Huge size, 13 wizards and I go for nodes/lairs until none are left and then go to war I guess... :D

Yeah, diplomacy with my settings requires huge gold bribes and a good military force. On the plus side, i can often get extra spells while "refusing" wizard pacts at first (they do sweeten the deal if you are kind of on-par in terms of power with them).
High elves are a good late game pick, but longbowmen rock since the very start.
Node hunting i also love to do, but depending on my starting race i can do it early on or later on.
Let me know if you developed a good reliable strategy with elves! (or heroes too, given your Artificer pick)

[GMBarak]

Let me know if you developed a good reliable strategy with elves! (or heroes too, given your Artificer pick)

I will post my Strategy in a new thread, and maybe they will help you win in Phantas..., personally, I think I can win in 1 in 15 games or 1 in 20 games in phantas with them, didn't try, but I think so...

[GMBarak]

actually this strategy appears to be more effective than mine, he shows how to win in phantasmal...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I7lZliddSc
maybe we can learn from him...

[Desertfox]

I've playtested a couple of games to see realistically how many books/retorts one can find in the course of a game.
It seems that by default I managed to find only 1-2 books, and 1 retort, per game (within the first 10-11 years).

I think it would be interesting to find a way to provide new lairs / nodes / other challenges to get more books and retorts later in the game.

Otherwise, at higher difficulties and especially with a large number of opponents, you cannot rush the AI to clear lairs/nodes fast enough, and it's a pity IMHO.

Thoughts?

There are plenty of books and retorts to be found on the map but if you want them you'll have to prioritize them.

Perhaps the best way to do that is a Draconian wizard rush strategy. Use alchemy retort to transmute mana to gold, and use the gold to rush build a production city and after that 1 veteran Draconian wizard each turn. And repeat to get more. Astrologer retort is also a must-have. It is highly recommended to explore the map with Earth Lore instead of the usual spirit spam because Earth Lore shows both types of monsters (if applicable) in a lair or node, so you don't get surprises.

A group of 9 veteran draconian wizards, armed with Confusion, Web and Earth to Mud can take out about 60% of lairs and nodes in the game without losses. Including difficult ones with Very Rare summons. Although it may take more than one round, and you may need to fly around until turn 25 while your webbed enemies slow-move through the mud. Which is boring. You can take out even more lairs and nodes if you're willing to suffer a few losses against enemies with ranged shots (you can neutralize them with multiple webs afterward), or have spells like Petrify, invisibility, Mind Storm (to make Hydras killable with resist-or-die spells) or cheap direct-damage spells.

I play expert difficulty, 8 wizards, normal map size. Last game I found 5 books and one retort, the game before that 5 books, the game before that 4 books. Not counting finding Very Rare spells which also count as a pick, if I remember correctly. I now play without reload save cheating, after I won 1 expert game this way with reload save cheating.

Unfortunately, I had to give up all three of these games because focusing on nodes slowed down my empire development, and each time, at least one enemy wizard became too big and strong to catch up to. So I'll have to balance book hunting with regular empire expansion through conquest of cities. But I'm still learning each game I play with this strategy.