The Best Wizard ever, challange!

[Seravy]

Challenge : The Best Wizard Ever

Story
After conquering countless parallel worlds and universes, most of which quite similar to each other,
you detect something unusual in the AEther. A greater power source. Peeking into your crystal ball,
you realize it is yet another similar parallel world. Two planes of existence. The usual races you have
seen so many times. But something is differenct. Weird vibrations of magic fill the air. They are
still the same five realms you know...but they feel different. Stronger, even.
You have to conquer this new world, because you are, afterall, the Master of Magic.
You prepare for your interdimensional journey, and turn on your reincarnation device. Unfortunately,
physical matter, such as your body, cannot be used in an entirely different world. Only your soul can be
reborn there. Losing most of your magic power is sad, but you have done it countless times.
You'll still have enough to take control of the city you'll be reborn at...and use them to grow your power,
and take over the entire worlds, both of them. You want this new universe to pay attention to you,
to worship you, to realize you are the true ruler of all existence. Which of the powers you own should you
keep this time? It's too bad only a limited amount can be kept, but a newborn wouldn't
be able to withstand more. Will it be chaos again? Destruction and violence are always excellent tools for a
conquest. Death is awesome too, people will fear your name all over the world. Sorcery, of course, is always the best,
total control of the powers of magic, nothing beats that...but the masses won't understand the greatness of it.
Nature on the other hand, yes! Huge, unstoppable monsters, that can trample down entire capitals into nothingness, that
is a power that makes the world realize who you are. This is a hard decision...you only know one thing. You'll avoid
the magics of Life. They rely too much on the people. You want the world to fear YOU, not your armies, not your citizens.
And you especially do not want those pesky heroes to take the spotlight away like once when you previously relied on them.
No, this time you'll rely on your superior magic alone. And so the journey begins...

Rules
-You must play the latest version of the Caster of Magic mod! (you are allowed to use the normal, or the replaced wizard portraits)
-You must pick Archmage!
-You are not allowed to pick Warlord, Artificier or Myrran!
-You are not allowed to pick more than 3 Life books. Any other realms are allowed in any quantity.
-You can't pick fewer than 8 spellbooks total (they don't need to be in the same realm)
-Heroes aren't allowed to attack cities, nor can they be used as a garrison in a mostly enemy controlled continent. (Your home continent is always allowed, even if you don't control most of it)
-Heroes can attack Lairs, nodes, or towers, and they are allowed to defend your cities on continents you mostly or entirely control.
-Random Events, Revolting Raiders and Monsters Gone Wild must be enabled.
-Land size must be Huge, Power has to be Max, four opponents. Minerals need to be Rich, Climate is Dry.
-Impossible difficulty. Lower only if you have never managed to beat the mod on Impossible. The lowest you should play is the highest level you have already beaten in a non-challenge game.
-You must record the game and upload it so we can all see your progress.
-You aren't allowed to pick a portrait just to eliminate a potential strong enemy. Recommended portait is Merlin or Yukari.
-You should focus on using casting power and spells/summons to win. Normal armies are allowed but try to make sure your magic counts more!
-Barbarians and Gnolls are not allowed, they cannot support your magic well enough. All other races are allowed.
-No reloads unless the game crashes or any other bug is encountered that changes the outcome of a battle.

Note : This is, despite the obviously superior starting conditions, most likely harder to beat than the worst wizard challenge because the AI in the mod is a lot harder.
I haven't had the time to beat it yet myself (in fact I only tried once and failed, and that was my only Impossible level game in the past 3 months. Modding takes far too much time.)

[TwilightSparkletheAlicorn]

So this is basically a 10 blue archmage play on max difficulty with the rest of the settings set for the quickest meetup with the opponent and thus rushing game. Maybe full chaos with sage retort to get wingame globals quickly. I don't know anything about the mod changes though.

[Seravy]

I seem to have forgotten to include "no reloading", I guess that's common sense, there is not much of a challenge if you keep replaying every battle until you win it.

So this is basically a 10 blue archmage play on max difficulty with the rest of the settings set for the quickest meetup with the opponent and thus rushing game. Maybe full chaos with sage retort to get wingame globals quickly. I don't know anything about the mod changes though.

I'm planning to beat it using Death+Sorcery with some retorts, cheap undead for early rush against whoever I can take out, and sorcery is essential for Spell Blast (I don't know how long it takes the AI to get Spell of Mastery on Impossible now but I expect it'll be a threat, at the very least the Myrran wizard will probably reach it).
My first attempt failed though, I shouldn't have taken High Men, they don't pay enough taxes. And I should have went 5+3 books instead of 4+4.

10 Sorcery should be a possible win if all enemies roll a personality that's not starting a war without provocation, but a game like that is boring and the chance of it happening is very low. It also requires a deep understanding of the fixed diplomacy system to be able to avoid the war. Sorcery's options for early game aggression are decent but probably not enough for Impossible difficulty.
10 Chaos and Sage Mastery, I played that once, it was absolutely overwhelming... on Hard difficulty, 10 AI upgrades ago. It might win with a good start, although the greatest problem with Chaos is its not so good early game.

[TwilightSparkletheAlicorn]

Pffft. You pick Archmage, and with 10 blue books it's early phantoms strategy plus direct damage plus confusion, and then you move onto game-breaking stuff. FIW is actually possible since you'll probably be able to get the required spells once you can build Warships. AI nearly always declares a war anyways. Too bad you forbid Artificer. Even worse you removed Enchant Roads. The rebalances are questionable. Kitty was always good, but I preferred it with Artificer at least, to get access to spell save penalties for, say, Black Sleep.
Red books have mainly NU-focus early game. Especially the unique Eldritch Weapon. But also lots of Hellhounds for FU.

[Seravy]

Pffft. You pick Archmage, and with 10 blue books it's early phantoms strategy plus direct damage plus confusion, and then you move onto game-breaking stuff. FYW is actually possible since you'll probably be able to get the required spells once you can build Warships. AI nearly always declares a war anyways. Too bad you forbid Artificer. Even worse you removed Enchant Roads. The rebalances are questionable. Kitty was always good, but I preferred it with Artificer at least, to get access to spell save penalties for, say, Black Sleep.

Yes I guess phantoms and confusion works well, okay, I'm underestimating Sorcery as usual
Flying warships, I tested noncorporeal warships (they actually work now), it's really powerful about up to where the AI gets rares. After that, losses in battles start to show up and eventually the strategy stops working but Magic Immunity and Spell Lock could keep it going.
Instead of Enchant roads, you have conjure roads, no instant movement on the created enchanted roads though, but aside from that it's a way superior spell.

We all know heroes are unbeatable (not as much as they used to be thanks to smarter AI, but still), but the goal of the challenge is to see how well improving spells worked, which was the most important goal of the mod, so the rules are set to encourage spell based strategies.

I might try 10 Sorcery if my Sorcery+Death attempts keep failing.

[TwilightSparkletheAlicorn]

Pffft. You pick Archmage, and with 10 blue books it's early phantoms strategy plus direct damage plus confusion, and then you move onto game-breaking stuff. FIW is actually possible since you'll probably be able to get the required spells once you can build Warships. AI nearly always declares a war anyways. Too bad you forbid Artificer. Even worse you removed Enchant Roads. The rebalances are questionable. Kitty was always good, but I preferred it with Artificer at least, to get access to spell save penalties for, say, Black Sleep.

Yes I guess phantoms and confusion works well, okay, I'm underestimating Sorcery as usual
Flying warships, I tested noncorporeal warships (they actually work now), it's really powerful about up to where the AI gets rares. After that, losses in battles start to show up and eventually the strategy stops working but Magic Immunity and Spell Lock could keep it going.
Instead of Enchant roads, you have conjure roads, no instant movement on the created enchanted roads though, but aside from that it's a way superior spell.

We all know heroes are unbeatable (not as much as they used to be thanks to smarter AI, but still), but the goal of the challenge is to see how well improving spells worked, which was the most important goal of the mod, so the rules are set to encourage spell based strategies.

I might try 10 Sorcery if my Sorcery+Death attempts keep failing.

"Way superior" you say when your spell doesn't even work at water. Sure, it quickens the game pace by allowing earlier roads, but because of the lack of the instant travel you cannot use roads to the most advantage on Arcanus. If you kept the Enchant Road while adding Conjure Road, it would quicken the pace even better, allowing user to expand or conquer faster at the cost of his mana pool.

For early Artificer the important thing is either comboing with runemaster for mana gain (much like 4x power from nodes but cannot be spent on skill or research) or/and early -spell saves combined with a resistance roll curse like Black Sleep, which guarantees victory against any unit that is vulnerable to Black Sleep for any 1 level 0 fame hero (who is certainly weak at this point, nowhere close to being unbeatable). The point lies in the spell and the item being rushed - I often have fun games with Artificer+Runemaster+kitty books.
Otherwise Artificer is used with focus on heroes' stat boost.

[Seravy]

"Way superior" you say when your spell doesn't even work at water.

lol, you really love building roads on water don't you?

Meanwhile I reduced the AI resource advantage because extreme and impossible were close to unbeatable due to improvements on how the AI plays. I suggest if anyone wants to try this challenge to wait for the next update of the mod.

[TwilightSparkletheAlicorn]

"Way superior" you say when your spell doesn't even work at water.

lol, you really love building roads on water don't you?

Meanwhile I reduced the AI resource advantage because extreme and impossible were close to unbeatable due to improvements on how the AI plays. I suggest if anyone wants to try this challenge to wait for the next update of the mod.

I'd say I just hate navies.