Question: How to catch up research with AI? How to spend power point wisely?

[Suppanut]

I tend to think that I don't neglect building research buildings (I give them high priority, next to survival) in this game but I fail to finished research spell of mastery before others. I try 2 playthrough of Caster of Magic and result is consider as terrible for me.

My first game is normal difficulty as 5 life + 5 death wizard with alchemy and sage master retort rule over halflings which is my first atttempt of this mod I still finished spell of mastery second (all life Ariel finished it first) although I have both Sagemaster retort and much bigger empire than others (I own 2/5 of Arcanus and monopoly whole Myrror while Ariel own basically half of Arcanus). That game I don't quite understand what altar of peace really do and I think this may play role why I have less research success than Ariel although I have much more resources with sagemaster retort and mostly minded my own business.

My second attempt is fair difficulty as 4 nature + 4 sorcery + 4 chaos with no retort ruled over nomad. This time I end up lose research again with much worse situation. I only resource of 2/5 of Arcanus while lead player Sss'ra with 1 sorcery + 9 chaos Myrran wizard which later gain sagemaster retort reward from lairs and resource of whole Myrror in his hand (not to mentioned how often he cast Armageddon, Doomsday, and Meteor Storm). I lost research race by huge margin (I still have 5-6 spell left before Spell of Mastery when he has first attempt to cast spell of mastery).

In both playthrough, I only win game through grinding conquest. Not only have I lower research progress my military tend to around 1/3 of my strongest lead opponent, and also lost in power generation too. (Ariel casting Life Force in first game and runemaster make it more difficult for me to dispel it, not to mentioned all of her cities have enchantment such as altar of peace. Sss'ra in second game due to his long term Armageddon make him still generate over 2000 power points even at point which he has only 1 small village left standing and all node control by me).

How to be leader in research race? And how to generate and utilize power point wisely?

[Anskiy]

I've never pursued a Spell of Mastery victory but generally if you want to get ahead in research you must be willing to dedicate all of your power into it. Having a decently sized empire with Sages' Guilds built in all of your cities helps a ton too. Generally I only do that if there's a specific spell I'm shooting for, or I need to get to a higher tier faster.

[massone]

I have won SoM victories around 1518 on Lunatic, Huge maps, before any AI had even researched it. I find it tedious to finish conquering after I have a clearly dominant position, and simply use SoM to end the game faster as I spam click end turn, ignoring battles and losses because by that point it won't matter as long as I still have a Fortress and enough mana in reserve.

If you're economy is good, you should naturally keep up in research. Are you lagging behind on every tier? How much do you allocate to RP from Power? Your Sagemaster Halfling game should have been reasonably competitive on research, especially if you owned all of Myrror. Altar of Peace only produces 24 RP/city at max and unless you were allied with them, they probably only got 12-16. You'd get that much just from an average Halfling city's population.

Normal and Fair difficulties provide no AI bonuses, so if you can't keep up in research, this is probably because you're just spending too much Power in other categories, or you're taking too long to grow/expand. What year was it when the AI started casting SoM?

If you have the Alchemy retort, you should be spending <20% of all Power on mana, and 40/40 on RP/casting skill throughout the game (not every turn, but overall, switching between the two depending on what you need at the time). Ideally, you should be spending 0% on mana most turns, and fund all mana expenditures through Alchemy.

If you don't have Alchemy, you need to compensate by either making crazy amounts of gold so you can afford the half ratio, or have more Power generation.

A triple realm strategy is very advanced and difficult to play well. You need a very deep understanding of what each realm can do for you at every stage of the game and the synergies between each other and your race. I wouldn't advise it while you're still playing on lower difficulties. Try playing an economy and research focused game and make a build around it first, and use more retorts.

In general, it's much easier to play a strong game with lots of retorts, than it is to figure out how to do the same with more spellbooks/realms. You also have more spells to research when playing with more books.

Take Alchemy or Archmage as examples. Alchemy can let you fund all of your mana maintenance + spellcasting expenditure with gold, which allows you to spend all on your Power on RP/SP instead. Archmage makes casting skill much easier to get, so you can allocate more to RP or mana.

The question you should consider is, which incremental book is worth the trade-off of not getting these, or another economy retort? Which spells can compensate for it? If you consider a different retort, what can it do for you that has as much of an impact?

Let's look at Archmage vs getting another book, does the extra book you conquer fast enough, capture nodes, or help your economy enough to produce the equivalent of 50% more SP? Assuming you spend 40% on SP over the course of the game, that means you need to produce about 20% more Power as a result of the book to make it worthwhile.

You should do a similar analysis for various retorts, and the spells you get from your books. Learn which spells contribute to economy and how big of an impact it has, the return on investment for each, etc. Death's Dark Rituals spell is very good with Cult Leader, Life's Stream of Life is great for Halflings, etc.

During the actual gameplay, you should be careful of which wars you fight. Don't get in wars that waste a lot of your resources without getting much in return. When you decide which spell to cast, consider the ROI on the casting skill. Dark rituals can add 24 Power if you have shrine, parthenon, and cathedral. Heavenly Light counts as a religious building too, so that's another 6. +30 Power is better than most Arcanus nodes, unless you have Astrologer, and better than conquering an enemy city with all the Power buildings. That means your ROI casting it for only 150 skill is way higher than summoning an Uncommon monster, and probably better than summoning a Rare monster as you usually need multiple to conquer cities or nodes.

Don't rely on winning through tactical combat superiority, and don't always use Heroes as a crutch in the late game. This is a strategy game at the core, it comes down to understanding the numbers. Learn to build a research-heavy strategy that allows you to outpace the opponent in research to every tier, get to Very Rare before anyone else, then take what you learn from it and use parts of it in other strategies.

You can try this for an extremely fast research game that stacks a bunch of research bonuses:
(Alchemy OR Archmage), Sage Master, Omniscience, Specialist + 8 Sorcery Books, Halfling
Uranus' Blessing as guaranteed Rare
Aura of Majesty and Aether Binding as guaranteed first turn Uncommons.

Research Aura of Majesty first, then cast it to stay at peace.
Get Aether Binding and cast it no later than turn 30.

Archmage synergizes with Aether Binding, and will allow you to keep up in casting skill even if you spend very little Power on it, until you get Amplifying Towers with Uranus' Blessing, at which point you'll have enough casting skill even if you spend no Power at all on it, or if you want you can have way more skill than your opponents.
Alchemy synergizes with Halfling's high food production and full economy building access, allowing you to spend no Power on mana on the Large and Huge maps, or Wet maps. You probably still need to spend some on mana if playing Dry or smaller maps.

This will let you focus 70%+ of your Power on research throughout the game with huge bonuses, and you will almost certainly get to Power Link before anybody has Very Rares, even with just 10 cities. If you are lucky enough to also get Time Stop, then you can win a perfect uncounterable Time Stopped SoM victory after building enough mana in reserve, because Power Link blocks anyone Spell Blasting your Time Stop.

[Suppanut]

I have won SoM victories around 1518 on Lunatic, Huge maps, before any AI had even researched it. I find it tedious to finish conquering after I have a clearly dominant position, and simply use SoM to end the game faster as I spam click end turn, ignoring battles and losses because by that point it won't matter as long as I still have a Fortress and enough mana in reserve.

I'm not success in create any kind of pool of mana reserve too. My mana reserve in my whole game tend to less than 1000 until I reach my military victory lap.

In my game against chaos wizard, it is even worse, I have to survive the war by scraping artifact.

Normal and Fair difficulties provide no AI bonuses, so if you can't keep up in research, this is probably because you're just spending too much Power in other categories, or you're taking too long to grow/expand. What year was it when the AI started casting SoM?

Maybe I spend too much on mana, I think that my power effect on reseach is so trivial when compare to my infrastructure so I spend mostly either mana or spell casting.

I think I expand so slow in both game. My play style is quite sandboxy and I quite fuzzy about where to place my settlement, so I rarely build settlement unless I have full idea about surrounding. I don't fight lair and node until mid or late game due to I don't like hoarding many military units or summon but this mod seem force my hand to do that. Not fight lair and take reward like retort or spell early is also my biggest fault.

Year that ai start cast spell of mastery is around 1430

If you have the Alchemy retort, you should be spending <20% of all Power on mana, and 40/40 on RP/casting skill throughout the game (not every turn, but overall, switching between the two depending on what you need at the time). Ideally, you should be spending 0% on mana most turns, and fund all mana expenditures through Alchemy.

If you don't have Alchemy, you need to compensate by either making crazy amounts of gold so you can afford the half ratio, or have more Power generation.

So I should spend most of my power on spell-casting? at 40% of all my power? How spell power calculate anyway? Rate seem to have some inflation too as I need to spend more and more power to gain skill as game progress, is it calculate by percentage of spending?

A triple realm strategy is very advanced and difficult to play well. You need a very deep understanding of what each realm can do for you at every stage of the game and the synergies between each other and your race. I wouldn't advise it while you're still playing on lower difficulties. Try playing an economy and research focused game and make a build around it first, and use more retorts.

In general, it's much easier to play a strong game with lots of retorts, than it is to figure out how to do the same with more spellbooks/realms. You also have more spells to research when playing with more books.

That game is what I try in what I have never done before since day of vanilla. It is more difficult but really fun and paid off.

I admit that when I was young, I only play on life or nature realm only, so my three realms game is really sink or swim and I have fun with that game so much. I play the game without full understanding potential of Uranus's Blessing until I am near victory lap (my mana never enough, maybe I spend too much mana on buffing units...)

Take Alchemy or Archmage as examples. Alchemy can let you fund all of your mana maintenance + spellcasting expenditure with gold, which allows you to spend all on your Power on RP/SP instead. Archmage makes casting skill much easier to get, so you can allocate more to RP or mana.

The question you should consider is, which incremental book is worth the trade-off of not getting these, or another economy retort? Which spells can compensate for it? If you consider a different retort, what can it do for you that has as much of an impact?

Let's look at Archmage vs getting another book, does the extra book you conquer fast enough, capture nodes, or help your economy enough to produce the equivalent of 50% more SP? Assuming you spend 40% on SP over the course of the game, that means you need to produce about 20% more Power as a result of the book to make it worthwhile.

I play three realms that game with no retort because I would need at least 4 books in each realm to able to learn very rare spell from trade or lair so I need all 12 spellbooks

You should do a similar analysis for various retorts, and the spells you get from your books. Learn which spells contribute to economy and how big of an impact it has, the return on investment for each, etc. Death's Dark Rituals spell is very good with Cult Leader, Life's Stream of Life is great for Halflings, etc.

This is what I lack, I lack of understanding of full potential of each realm, not to mentioned that I new to CoM too. I never using Dark Rituals and neglect power generating in general in first game and learn very late about full potential of Uranus's Blessing and enemy's Armageddon at very late of second game.

During the actual gameplay, you should be careful of which wars you fight. Don't get in wars that waste a lot of your resources without getting much in return. When you decide which spell to cast, consider the ROI on the casting skill. Dark rituals can add 24 Power if you have shrine, parthenon, and cathedral. Heavenly Light counts as a religious building too, so that's another 6. +30 Power is better than most Arcanus nodes, unless you have Astrologer, and better than conquering an enemy city with all the Power buildings. That means your ROI casting it for only 150 skill is way higher than summoning an Uncommon monster, and probably better than summoning a Rare monster as you usually need multiple to conquer cities or nodes.

This is my fault in second game, I bogged in 2 futile wars with 2 chaotic wizards (I hate them as they make me could not stay in peace as I want) and I always want to own some continent of my own so I would able to stay in peace at ease. And by time Myrran wizard appear in the scene, it become "oh crap!" moment for me as it make me realize how much wasteful my time had spend (no continent would be safe from draconian army lead by full chaos wizard) and my priority change from sandboxing to survive after that.

Don't rely on winning through tactical combat superiority, and don't always use Heroes as a crutch in the late game. This is a strategy game at the core, it comes down to understanding the numbers. Learn to build a research-heavy strategy that allows you to outpace the opponent in research to every tier, get to Very Rare before anyone else, then take what you learn from it and use parts of it in other strategies.

I fully agree with you. I rarely depending on heroes though, especially on second playthrough. I end up to rely combat superiority not due to I like it.

You can try this for an extremely fast research game that stacks a bunch of research bonuses:
(Alchemy OR Archmage), Sage Master, Omniscience, Specialist + 8 Sorcery Books, Halfling
Uranus' Blessing as guaranteed Rare
Aura of Majesty and Aether Binding as guaranteed first turn Uncommons.

Research Aura of Majesty first, then cast it to stay at peace.
Get Aether Binding and cast it no later than turn 30.

Archmage synergizes with Aether Binding, and will allow you to keep up in casting skill even if you spend very little Power on it, until you get Amplifying Towers with Uranus' Blessing, at which point you'll have enough casting skill even if you spend no Power at all on it, or if you want you can have way more skill than your opponents.
Alchemy synergizes with Halfling's high food production and full economy building access, allowing you to spend no Power on mana on the Large and Huge maps, or Wet maps. You probably still need to spend some on mana if playing Dry or smaller maps.

This will let you focus 70%+ of your Power on research throughout the game with huge bonuses, and you will almost certainly get to Power Link before anybody has Very Rares, even with just 10 cities. If you are lucky enough to also get Time Stop, then you can win a perfect uncounterable Time Stopped SoM victory after building enough mana in reserve, because Power Link blocks anyone Spell Blasting your Time Stop.

Aura of Majesty is very powerful spell, when it couple with charismatic (gain from lair), I could dispel and disjunct global enchantment with almost no diplomatic backfire. I keep my alliance with Myrran chaos wizard just fine even with me keep sabotage his attempt (not sure that his ruthless personality effect in this or not) up until he start cast spell of mastery (I regret that I don't have spellblast but I'm not sure it would change anything as my mana reserve is so low to the level that I'm not sure I could use it effectively).

Aether Binding is also great one too but I think I don't fully understand its potential, Same for Power Link that I never able to get one.

[massone]

I'm not success in create any kind of pool of mana reserve too. My mana reserve in my whole game tend to less than 1000 until I reach my military victory lap.

In my game against chaos wizard, it is even worse, I have to survive the war by scraping artifact.

It sounds like the problem isn't managing the Power categories, but generating enough Power then. When I aim for a Spell of Mastery victory, I wait until I have 15k mana in reserve so I can finish casting it without relying on future income. However, I do admit that for most of the game, I don't keep a very high mana reserve either--it's wasted just sitting there unless I need it for something. I generally just keep enough in stock to get through a few turns' worth of battles. In the Uncommon stage, that's around 200-300 mana. At Rare, it's 500. At Very Rare, it's about 1000. But for me it's a deliberate choice not to keep more. By the time Very Rare spells come around, I have at least 1000+ Power generated each turn, and when I'm gunning for a victory, I'd have over 2000. So I could easily build a 15k reserve in 10 turns or so if I wanted to, for the SoM victory.

Maybe I spend too much on mana, I think that my power effect on reseach is so trivial when compare to my infrastructure so I spend mostly either mana or spell casting.

I think I expand so slow in both game. My play style is quite sandboxy and I quite fuzzy about where to place my settlement, so I rarely build settlement unless I have full idea about surrounding. I don't fight lair and node until mid or late game due to I don't like hoarding many military units or summon but this mod seem force my hand to do that. Not fight lair and take reward like retort or spell early is also my biggest fault.

Year that ai start cast spell of mastery is around 1430

Research is often not that important in early game, so it's not unusual for players to think that it feels trivial. The issue is that it's hard to quantize just how much benefit you get from additional research. But when you're looking to get specific economy spells, or strategically important summons, you really do need to try and rush the research. There's no need to go overboard though. You should balance it out with how much you can cast. For example, if I'm playing Life and Nature, and I haven't finished casting Heavenly Light and Nature's Eye on all my cities? Then I won't rush for Stream of Life until I feel that I have the casting skill to spare to actually cast it. Researched spells aren't contributing anything until you can cast them. That said, Stream of Life is quite a bit more powerful than Nature's Eye, so typically I'd go for Stream of Life as soon as all my major cities are well defended with Heavenly Light, and I prioritize Stream of Life over Nature's Eye.

At the Rare stage, if I'm playing Sorcery? I will absolutely rush for Uranus' Blessing if it's available. If it's not first to show up in my spellbook, I try to clear the Uncommons to get it. No other Rare spell has as big of an impact. It's a similar story with Dark Rituals (but to a lesser extent, because many cities often don't have Cathedral built).

Essentially, the rule of thumb I use is, when it looks like I'm running out of enchantments to use, that's why I start prioritizing research over casting skill. I want the next spell to be available by the time I finish casting everything I need to. Sometimes that means I'm timing it down to the very turn. I calculate how many turns it takes me to finish casting what I need in the short turn, and if that means I need 5 turns of casting skill, then I allocate research to ensure that I get that next spell I need in exactly 5 turns.

So I should spend most of my power on spell-casting? at 40% of all my power? How spell power calculate anyway? Rate seem to have some inflation too as I need to spend more and more power to gain skill as game progress, is it calculate by percentage of spending?

RP = Research Point. SP = Skill Point. I mean that you should allocate 40% of Power to research, and 40% to Casting Skill, over the course of a game. But you can definitely do 80% into casting skill when you don't need research at a specific point in time.  The formula for Casting Skill is explained in the manual. You get 1 casting skill for double the quantity in SP invested. If you have 20 casting skill right now, it will cost you an incremental 20 * 2 = 40 SP to raise it to 21. Then it'll cost you 42 to raise it from 21 to 22. This excludes fixed bonuses from Amplifying Towers, those are always added last.

The 40% is a general guideline on how much you should be spending over the course of a game. How much you need to spend on it at a given time is different. In general, you need to spend just enough to be keeping up with your enemies at minimum. You should also spend everything on casting skill that you do not need for research or mana. As I explained above, decide whether you need new spells in the short term based on what you have left to cast, and if you don't need research, just put everything in casting skill.

More concretely, suppose I'm playing Life-something. I see a node I can easily capture with a few summons/unit enchantments. I also have 2 towns I need to cast Heavenly Light on. I calculate that I need to spend 200 on the summons/unit enchantments + 30 for magic spirit, + 150 for the Heavenly Lights. In total, I need 380 casting skill to finish my short term goals, and after that, there are no more immediate needs. If my casting skill is 40, this means I need around 10 turns to finish.

If I've already finished casting all the common economy spells like Just Cause, and there's no other economy spells to be cast, and no other military needs (because there's no other easy targets), that means I need to unlock a new economy spell in exactly 10 turns, preferably Stream of Life, and must allocate Power to research accordingly. Once I have Stream of Life, if I have 5 cities I want to cast Stream of Life on immediately, that means I need 600 casting skill to finish. Now I need to spend enough RP so that I can get the next spell after Stream of Life in <15 turns, and put the rest into casting skill. 

Aether Binding is also great one too but I think I don't fully understand its potential, Same for Power Link that I never able to get one.

Aether Binding gives you as much SP as the current turn count. On turn 60 (December 1404) for example, you will get 60 SP. How powerful is it? Well, take a look at how much Power you're producing on turn 60, and how much you can afford to allocate to SP, compared to the amount you're getting from Aether Binding. It's almost certainly at least a 50% increase to your SP investment, maybe even double at that turn. 60 points is the equivalent of 10 towns with a magic market each.

Putting it another way, if you're playing on average Magic Power setting (1.0x), 60 SP per turn is the equivalent of 3-4 Arcanus nodes.

[Anskiy]

It must be noted though that sometimes Mana generation is more important than research or casting skill. For example, if you're playing Chaos, you generally want packs of Hell Hounds to aid your army in early conquest, so setting all the power to Mana helps there. Similarly if you're caught in wars with an enemy that fights on many fronts, you want tons of mana available. Generally speaking however, research and casting skill are more important than mana, and once you've built up a big mana stockpile, you shouldn't hesitate to throw all of it into them, either at the same time or prioritizing one over the other.

[Suppanut]

Thank you, massone and Anskiy.