Caster of Magic videos

[Suppanut]

There is a chaos summon that I like but pure chaos wizard could not make it much deadlier by buffing with enchantment is chaos spawn, chaos wizard could not make this defensive oriented summon any stronger (I think about it as something that more useful as guard dog for your city gate than actual offensive force in similar way to gorgons) as its only real weakness is its mobility and only mobility enchantment of chaos realm is mystic surge but it would only lead to turn unit almost useless at the end of combat. (strangely enough, best buffs for this abomination are from either life or sorcery which are on opposite side of pentagram).

There are many weakness for pure chaos wizards. Apart from generally weak resistance which make it weak against save-or-die or debuff roll, I think the most serious one is that chaos has no counter for invisibility at all until it get to flame strike and apocalypse, a few uncommon night stalkers could easily banish chaos wizards which fortified itself in his fortress. Chaos wizard also need to closely support his army and burn a lot of mana in process. This is very useful way to counter ai chaos wizard as they don't know when to stop casting spell even if it is mostly useless. Magic immunity also another issue which chaos wizard would find it tough to deal with due to most of chaos spell are direct damage spells and and strong innately magic immune sky drake could wipe whole chaos wizard army in resource raid, only things which chaos has to counter it are rely on luck (apocalypse's confusion effect, or mystic surge) or brute force (great drake, doom bats may able to do but rely on number to success).

(Maybe I played too few times but I have never seen enemy death wizard try to send full stack of night stalkers to try to assassinate me yet although it hard to counter it for chaos and nature wizard)

[Anskiy]

Yeah you can actually notice in my earlier videos that my Chimera army is effectively helpless against Night Stalkers. They can thankfully still kill them since they have enough damage with flame breath, but will suffer considerable losses.

Personally, I still find it funny that Sorcery, the realm that specializes in trickery and can make anything invisible, itself has no counters to invisibility.

[Suppanut]

I think Sorcery has counter to invisibility but most people tend to forget. you just need to summon something like phantom units which have illusion immunity to act as target spotter. But I agree with you, Sorcery should have enchantment which allow ranged unit to fire better and allow unit to able to attack at target that it normally could not attack.

I think magic in Master of Magic and Magic: the Gathering is similar (5 realms which very much the same in concept) except that Magic: the Gathering has full pentagram synergy and antagonistic position (example in MG, white synergistic with green and blue but antagonistic to red and blue, green synergistic with white and red but antagonistic to blue and black, etc) but Master of Magic has no clear synergy/antagonistic effect apart from antagonistic relation between life (white) vs chaos (red) which mildly and death (black) which very strong opposition. (I play edgy life-death wizard before and found them both just different tools in the box, no true synergy between them at all) And nature (green) - chaos (red) synergistic relation which full of combo which working well in both creatures and city development.

I maybe not able to fully see it through, do you have any thought on synergy and antagonism of magic realm in MoM and CoM?

[Anskiy]

Not in particular, I know Life and Chaos allegedly make for a good buffing combination as Life has many stat boosts while Chaos has offensive boosts. But that means you need to gamble on the right spells showing for combos beyond Holy Weapon + Flame Blade or Chaos Channel(defense buff) + Holy Armor.

[Suppanut]

My experience in CoM is limited but from my experience so far

Life-Death:
No matter how edgy the idea is, them both would just end up as different tools in your box, their strength not cover on each other's weakness and they are even strongly antagonistic/exclusive, life enchantments mostly not able to really buff dark creature, vice-versa. Using normal prayer and dark prayer together may cheaper than using high prayer but it still matter of different tool in the box, at best not interfere, at worst excluding one another. Dark Prayer may greatly help you when you using Exorcise and Holy Words but it also equally help any save-or-die spells of any realms so nothing special about this using Dark Prayer with Life spells, only that make spell which already efficient in their specialized role even more efficient. Similar spells from Death, Chaos, and Sorcery realms would be even more better under this combo due to they are already better in their roles than Life's save-or-die spells.

Nature-Chaos:
It is strongly synergistic with a lot of combo suited for those who play thing upright straightforward. Nature enchantment only good on fantastic creatures? Chaos could turn all your normal units into fantastic creatures! (Chaos Channal/Doom Mastery) Chaos has low resistance? Nature could buff you this! (Land Link, Resist Element, Elemental Armor) Nature could not do anything with tundra? Chaos's Rising Volcano could break such deadlock! You rise volcano to get resource but that resource is not what you want? Nature could transmute it to one you like! You weaken enemy with Armageddon and Doomsday only to left world as wasteland. Nature's Gaia's Blessing could restore environment living condition as you repopulate the wasteland you newly conquered! Nature could not hit flying unit well? Chaos direct damage and flying creature coming to rescue! Both realms are very bros and watch each other back very well.

Nature-Sorcery:
This pair is mildly synergistic but those synergistic spell are very specific non-common spells and could be easily missed if you play with just 5 or 6 books of each realms. Fantastic creature of Sorcery lack of raw power, Nature could buffed its power but just your fantastic creatures only, if you miss Land Link, Survival Instinct, and Iron Skin then you basically miss several things that would help sorcery creature raw power. The same go for Nature's creatures and Sorcery spells of Invisibility, Magic Immunity, and Flight. Those coverage is good but access could be limit by fact that number of spellbooks you have in each realm so you may want to rely on lair hunting and savescumming to get all those tools. The rest of spells are although not strongly antagonistic, they are different tools in the box. Help you in different aspect but not give multiply to force multiplier.

Chaos-Sorcery:
This two realm is mostly not help each others, and sorcery would strongly antagonized chaos if they are on different side due to many Sorcery spell would make life of Chaos wizard terrible (confusion, counter spell, magic immunity, banish, great unsummoning, etc). Low level creature buff of chaos would not help sorcery creature by any bit (flame blade could not buff fantastic creature) and most of chaos creature buff would only benefit chaos creatures, not other realm and raw power boost is what sorcery would need from other realms to support it. Chaos magician with magic focus would be powerful unit in term of raw power and survivibility (+3 defend or get flying would help magician to survive better no matter what) and able to cast higher class of chaos damage spell but it lost versatility and finess of ability to cast sorcery spell. Chaos not in badly need of flying ability from other realm either. Chaos would greatly appreciated magic immunity and invisibility but both are expensive and very easy to miss. Aether Binding, and Power Link and Uranus's Blessing are non-combat spell which would help chaos wizard a lot due to chaos wizard need high casting skill (most of chaos spell are powerful in combat but also expensive to cast) and also hunger for mana, anything that help in this would help greatly. Aura of Majesty would make AI tolerate your earth-shattering global enchantment more (and even longer if you have Charismatic retort) but does not mean they would tolerate it forever. The rest of spells are fall into category of "different tools", help and not interfere but also not multiply the effect.

I still yet to test Life-Nature, Life-Sorcery, Life-Chaos, Death-Nature, Death-Sorcery, Death-Chaos so I could not say anything much about them.

[Anskiy]

First game's end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASuOnyAu...e=youtu.be

Not proud of this one. My summon army ultimately hit limits of mana and casting skill, and being Chaos creatures, they were also killed easily in many engagements. It's quite obvious that Chaos still needs soldiers to support it, despite the promise of sheer raw power or strong summons.

Second game start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYeVvcf4...e=youtu.be

Having learnt my lesson, I decided to build Javelineer armies with Barracks and Alchemist's Guild, in addition to my summons. It's worked well so far. Flame Blade is somewhat disappointing compared to Life buffs but it still does work, and Chaos Channels should provide some good benefits when I can afford to spam it.

[Suppanut]

Flame blade is better for buffing generic non-magical ranged units than pure melee unit (unless it has first strike). Too bad that although it make it hit more noticably harder, it not enchant its survival rate. In my opinion Flaming blade is perfect enchantment for nomad's horsebowmen.

I think it would be nice if chaos has enchantment which give first strike and enchant some of its attack at cost of some of its defense.

[Anskiy]

New video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPyzImDt6xA

Lizardmen w/ Chaos ended with failure. I figured out that an economically strong race with the Alchemy retort would work better for Chaos. So far, I've been proved right.

[Suppanut]

I think similar, it so hunger of mana, and different from ai, player don't have casting cost reduction to help us spamming volcano.

About suitable race for chaos, I think economy is primary issue, but I think another supplement in case you want to use chaos channal/doom mastery and play only single realm is race with resistance bonus. I think nomad would work well as all of its units are so suitable for chaos buffs (but completely lame duck against kindergarten sorcery wizard due to guardian wind :P ) but you would need some other race to act as support colonies to supply you foods (although halfling would be perfect, anyone would have better food production than nomad). High elf also another race which I think work well with chaos realm if you go on buffing side too.

Chaos lizardman has fatal weakness in resistance, what that chaos has would not able to deal with debuff and save-or-die due to lizardman has resistance penalty, and this make your whole army has the same weakness all around. Although chaos-buffed javelineer and dragon turtle are such a awesome idea but I see it as more useful as martial race to serve more economically viable empire rather than go lead the empire itself.

I admit that in long term, economically healthy race more suitable as primary race to run empire for you more than martial race which has difficult time sustain your need.

I think Seravy should consider some retort which buffed normal unit of primary race but debuff normal units of non-primary race under wizard control as something mutually exclusive to guardian retort or part of guardian retort itself.

@Anskiy, Why, in video, you don't cast permanent flame blade on your horsebowmen you have?

[Anskiy]

Back at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFXl85LCyP4

Lost my Nomad Chaos game, Fire Giant's damage really sucks against a wizard who can blur, and they are horrifically weak to Poison damage for whatever reason. Switched up strategies for next playthrough.