Optimisation: Artificer + Runemaster

[Iranon]

Those two retorts together allow us to cast artifact spells for 25% of their normal cost and break them for 50%, so if we have nothing better to do we can reap a profit of our casting skill per turn.

How do we make the most of this? Some considerations:
We can't get more than 5 books in one colour, our high end units will be heroes in fancy gear. We'll likely favour in-combat spells because overland spells are effectively twice as expensive (we forgo doubling the mana we spend on an artifact).
As far as I see, 2 further retorts stand out. Archmage to give us a head start and boost our casting skill for ridiculous mana generation, and Alchemy to let us turn our free mana into precious gold.

Archmage restricts us to 4/2/2 books with no picks left.
Alchemy leaves us with 3 picks to play with.

Life gives us a lot of boosts to normal units and heroes, useful since our mid and late game is likely to be hero-centric. We also get Just Cause to attract heroes and help the gold side of our economy a little without converting mana.

Death gives us the single most synergistic spell for this strategy, Life Drain. We're happy to turn mana into skill at a slightly inefficient rate, if we get some undead for our trouble we certainly won't complain. Also, Life Drain on a hero with a lot of to-save penalties is evil. So is Black Sleep, especially if we can feed the victim to some Ghouls.

Sorcery simply has a lot of strong common spells, flight and missile resistance for our heroes will eliminate a few headaches. I definitely want some of this. If we forgo any other picks, 5 Sorcery allows Magic Immunity for effective hits against other wizards.

Chaos and Nature don't have much to offer in my opinion.

*

For the Archmage build, I tend towards SSSSDDNN or LLLLSSNN.
Less sure about Alchemy-oriented builds. Any suggestions?

[FrancoK]

I'm just playing this configuration in the last 6 month, it's very good.

Anyway:
The mana you get it's not exactly "free": you can't cast anything else while gaining mana creating objects and smashing them on the anvil.

The Archmage is very useful, but the price you pay is heavy: you do not have access to the 5 books artifacts, for S it means no invisibility and no Magic immunity IIRC.

Same for Alchemy.

I prefer to play SSSSSNNCC (for change terrain and raise volcano) or SSSSSNNLL for Guardian Spirit, but I'm testing other options as well.

One more trick, if you get Time Stop and your skill is 100+ you can almost sustain the spell by Artificer + Runemaster.
I'll write a thread about Time Stop when I've added enoght information.

[Asfex]

Runemaster+artificier+anvil
is exploit. I'll like ideas how to close it,but will not lose fun of it.

[letsdance]

this has always been my favourite game style =) put all your mana on skill and from the very start keep casting create artifact to get crystals.

problem is, you cannot afford to play without the 5th sorcery book, and you also really need archmage. but you have to do without one of them i more often use archmage, because if i find the other in a lair, it is better to have had archmage earlier. you can also get into troubles if you don't get a hero in time. that's really important because they increase your casting skill (through +mana items), which you need to create crystals.

since this setup relies alot on heroes you also need life magic. unless you save constantly and reload if one dies (i play without loading usually). with life magic you have alot better chances to keep your heroes alive, maybe even resurrect them. as 3rd realm, chaos is nice because it gives flaming as item ability, nature is nice for some of its spells =) but either works.

Runemaster+artificier+anvil is exploit.

kind of, but i don't think it has a higher winning percentage than other strategies. too many things can go wrong.

[Anthony]

Runemaster+artificier+anvil
is exploit. I'll like ideas how to close it,but will not lose fun of it.

Changing how runemaster and artificer stack so they're multiplicative instead of additive would be enough to make the combination more effort than it's worth, as you'd go from a 100% return on creating and cracking items (you can crack an item for twice what it cost to make) to a 33%. Simply making them not stack at all, or changing the return from the anvil, completely eliminates it as an option. Personally, I consider it an exploit, but not a very serious one.

[Iranon]

People seem rather quick to call "exploit" here. I'd say there are 2 important questions:
1) Does it harm the game?
2) Is it inconsistent with how the rest of the game works?

1) I'd say it enriches the game - it's a powerful option but probably not the best one, with more variety than other strong bjuilds.
2) The game contains fair numbers of both additive and multiplicative bonuses. This is one I'd expect to be additive (compare other casting cost reductions) and the developers seemed to encourage stacking similar bonuses rather than penalising it. Nothing here suggests a design oversight.

[FrancoK]

Finally, about exploit, by definition, is something the original creator (of the game in this case) did not think about and it is used (by the players in this case) to get an unexpected advantage.

I.E. Plane shift shouldn't be possible when you end in a defended node, because you should start a fight, instead the fight do not start, so it's is definitively an exploit.

The same is not true for Runemaster + Artificer, a combination suggested by the developers themself in the Strategy Manual.

[Catwalk]

I find that Alchemy is overrated. With good city management you will be able to obtain enough gold to fund your crafting. That said, it does allow you to boost your city management early on to get up and running faster. I find Archmage to be a lot more value, both allowing you to accumulate mana faster early on and churn out items faster later on.

As for books, 5x Sorcery gives Magic Immunity. This is probably the strongest ability, making you basically immune to AI wizards. If you just want to waste the AIs, this is the strongest pick. 4 books gives you Flying, which is a lot of use early on. Later on you will have enough speed that it doesn't matter that much, except for crossing water. 2 Sorcery gives you little use other than Counter Magic. Life is useful mainly for the spells it offers: Just Cause, Heroism and Healing. 2 Chaos gives you Flaming, which is great value and allows you to get a total attack modifier of +9. Death is not that interesting, not least because it disallows Life. 2 Nature gives you access to the ever useful Web, allows you to put Water Walking on amulets and lets you put the low value enchantment of Stoning on weapons. In conclusion, my favourite combo for powering up heroes and beating up on tough lairs is 4 Life + 2 Chaos + 2 Nature.

Another interesting option is Node Mastery. Problem with this is that it disallows Archmage, but even so it's a highly viable option.

I don't think this is against the spirit of the game, it's just overpowered. It should definitely not be removed in Insecticide, but it should be toned down in zitro's mod. My favourite idea for balancing it is to halve the value of scrapped items. I agree that consistency concerning how modifiers work is important by itself, so I'd rather not see that messed with.

[Anthony]

I find that Alchemy is overrated.

Alchemy isn't essential (unless you want to play a race that can't get alchemist's guilds), but it's certainly one pick worth of useful.

[Asfex]

Its offtopic.

Finally, about exploit, by definition, is something the original creator (of the game in this case) did not think about and it is used (by the players in this case) to get an unexpected advantage.
...
The same is not true for Runemaster + Artificer, a combination suggested by the developers themself in the Strategy Manual.

The exploit is not artificer+runemaster. The exploit is artificier+runemaster+anvil. I do not think this combo must get half reward to destroy items than other wizard. May be this combo will increase the casting skill twice if wizard cast enchant item?