Omniscient combination ideas

[MrBiscuits]

Research build

Halfings + 9 sorcery + omniscient + sage master + specialist

You get a 44.5% bonus to city research which combines with the halfling research bonus. You also get a 33% and 15% research reduction for sorcery spells. 
Take aether binding as a guaranteed spell and cast that as soon as it is researched (which won't be long) meaning you don't need to put any mana into research or SP for half the game. 

I tried and won this on extreme, but not with halflings which I think would be difficult to kill anything early on (how do halflings ever kill anything without heroism?).


Heavenly Light power build

High Elves + 5 chaos + 3 nature + 2 life + omniscient + cult leader

Choose heavenly light for power and sprites and fire elemental as starting spells for early nodes/neutrals.
Cast heavenly light as soon as possible in all cities for 7 power per turn due to the cult leader and omniscient power bonuses. 

The 2 nature give you a small growth rate boost which high elves need. It bothers me that the second nature book doesn't do anything with omniscient and you have to get another 3 to make any difference. All the other book types give you a bonus for each one. It would be good to have a growth boost for each extra nature book and it would make the slow races a bit less painful to play with.

I tried this and am winning on extreme at the moment.

As an aside...why would anyone choose Guardian when heavenly light gives you pretty much the same bonus and pays for itself in the end? It's two picks as well.


Klackon production build

Klackon + 8 death books + tactician + warlord + omniscient
You get the klackon production bonus per worker and 40% extra from omniscient
Use this to rush your opponents with halberdiers that will have +3 defence over normal halberdiers

I've not tried this, but with increased population growth for Klackons in the latest version I think this would overwhelm opponent wizards quite quickly. 

Any better ideas?

[Arnuz]

As an aside...why would anyone choose Guardian when heavenly light gives you pretty much the same bonus and pays for itself in the end? It's two picks as well.

Because the limiting factor is skill, not mana. Heavenly light is ok below impossible but there it's too slow to get started, as you need to cast it rather than summons or buffs.

[Seravy]

With halfling pure sorcery, you should push for early Aura of Majesty, rapid settling, and make sure you never get into a war until you have rares. Neither the race, nor the realm can fight wars until midgame, albeit if you have slingers and magicians, they can be reliable self-defense for a while, unless the enemy has Firestorm or Invisibility.
Slingers and Magicians should be excellent at clearing nodes for you though.

The other alternative is to add another realm and rely on its summons for the early game.

It bothers me that the second nature book doesn't do anything with omniscient

Not true. The game calculates max population from terrain in the units of 0.25 pop, so getting +0.25 extra means your cities that have, for example, 12.75 max pop will be 13 instead of 12.
This can only happen if the city shares at least one tile with another city and that tile produces 0.25 or 0.75 food due to that.

Heavenly Light is weaker than Guardian.
It's +1 attack, defense while Guardian is +1 To Hit and To Defend. The latter are way more powerful stats except on the weakest units in the game.

That said there is a topic about Guardian somewhere, feel free to vote to reduce the cost if you want.
Now that the AI is much smarter about when to attack and can build doomstacks, Guardian might be less effective against it.

[Settemio]

Any better ideas?

This is definitely not a "better" idea, but I'm trying to have some fun with this build inspired by this thread and the other one where Halflings were being called out for being too weak without Life buffs.

I'm playing this on Extreme, Max Power, Rich Minerals, Dry Climate:
8x Nature
2x Chaos
Tactician, Omniscient

The goal is to settle at least 2 cities near Gold or Coal, transmute into Adamantium, build Alchemist Guilds, and start powering out Slingers. The Chaos books are for Flame Blade, which seems like it should be good with Slingers and the extra figures in Swordsmen. But maybe it would be better to go 9x Nature and Specialist, or get Spellweaver or Warlord? It will be interesting to see whether the dry climate will slow the AI down noticeably on this difficulty. My hope is that having 2.75 extra population will be useful.

[MrBiscuits]

With halfling pure sorcery, you should push for early Aura of Majesty, rapid settling, and make sure you never get into a war until you have rares. Neither the race, nor the realm can fight wars until midgame, albeit if you have slingers and magicians, they can be reliable self-defense for a while, unless the enemy has Firestorm or Invisibility.
Slingers and Magicians should be excellent at clearing nodes for you though.

The other alternative is to add another realm and rely on its summons for the early game.

Nice tips. How do you go about avoiding getting war declared on you? I've not figured out the system enough to be able to prevent it. I know having a higher army strength helps but that is about it.

Not true. The game calculates max population from terrain in the units of 0.25 pop, so getting +0.25 extra means your cities that have, for example, 12.75 max pop will be 13 instead of 12.
This can only happen if the city shares at least one tile with another city and that tile produces 0.25 or 0.75 food due to that.

I guess so, but all the other realms bonuses work on all cities all the time, whereas this one is marginal at best. I don't suppose there is a chance of a population growth boost as well as the max pop increase for each nature book?

Heavenly Light is weaker than Guardian.
It's +1 attack, defense while Guardian is +1 To Hit and To Defend. The latter are way more powerful stats except on the weakest units in the game.

That said there is a topic about Guardian somewhere, feel free to vote to reduce the cost if you want.
Now that the AI is much smarter about when to attack and can build doomstacks, Guardian might be less effective against it.

Well I probably don't understand it well enough to cast a well informed vote, but I'd probably still not take Guardian because it is quite boring and if you are winning games you tend to attack a lot more than defend. 
Mind you Heavenly Light + Guardian would be a nice powerful combination.

[Seravy]

About war, read the wiki. You generally want to avoid having an army strength too close to what the others have until the relation is high (40-50-ish).

"I guess so, but all the other realms bonuses work on all cities all the time"
In theory it's the same. That extra 3.5% is also subject to rounding. The difference is you usually have enough gold/production in cities to always get at least 1 full point extra from it...not for research and power though.