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Alteration: You probably won¿t find much use for this school either, until you have some high level blood summons out. Body Ethereal at 3 and Luck at 4 are good for spamming on your Lava Warriors, and Combustion at 2 and later Incinerate at 5 and Conflagration at 8 are good single target damage spells for your Anathements, but probably outclassed by Mind Burn and Soul Slay from your Warlocks. Will of the Fates, at 8, is costly but interesting. I don¿t find much use for this school in general past a few levels for this nation, though. Evocation: Evocation is a great school for Abysia because of their fire immunity and the plentiful fire damage spells. Additionally, there are a few spells for dealing with magical and undead creatures here for your Astral Mages. I¿ve mentioned a few already, but I want to call special attention to Fire Cloud. It casts a decent sized cloud of fire on the battlefield that your troops can pass through harmlessly but is deadly to your enemies, this spell is great to spam all over the battlefield. Beyond that, there¿s Falling Fires and Astral Geyser at 5, both of which are interesting and effective. At 6 you get Flame Eruption which is cool and may be able to cast Astral Fires, which is an improved version of Fire Cloud. At level 7 you can cast Flame Storm if you empower/equip yourself, and it works well with Flame Immunity. At 8 you get Pillar of Fire which is also a great spell, and at 9 you get Flames from the Sky which is like Fires from Afar but better, and you get Flame Storm which, again, is very useful to your fire immune troops. You really can¿t go wrong with Evocation at any stage of the game. Construction: There are a lot of useful items in here for you as blood magic has some of the best weapons in the game, and other items are particularly interesting. The spellcasting value, however, is low. It¿s worth taking to 6 early though just for the Boots of Youth as those will save you a lot of time and hassle dealing with old age. Enchantment: There are a few spells of particular use in this school, nothing too essential, so it¿s a medium priority school. Resist Magic, at 2, can help your demon units from being banished. Flame Arrows and Inner Furnace have already been mentioned and they are very useful and easy for your mages to cast. Dispel which comes at 5 with Inner Furnace has it¿s uses sometimes. Dome of Flaming Death, at 7, is a great spell if you¿re under attack from rituals. That¿s about it from here, though. Thaumaturgy: There¿s not much here that hasn¿t already been mentioned. Prison of Fire, at 4, is a decent spell, especially against Barbarians who can tear through your units. Gateway at 5, which is currently bugged, will work well for getting your Lava Warriors to the front lines in large maps. Enslave Mind, at 6, can be a cool spell when it works. Hydrophobia, at level 8, is a good spell to open a battle with. Past Soul Slay at 5 there¿s little reason to put much into this school until your other goals are met in my opinion. Blood Magic: This is a great school for Abysia simply for the summons, who are often fire immune too. Unlike other schools you can mass blood slaves quickly, so it may seem like the spells cost a lot of ¿gems¿ but it¿s not uncommon to get dozens of them per turn depending on how many hunters you have. Additionally, instead of ferrying gems to far away commanders, they can use the blood hunt command to get their own slaves from whatever province they¿re in. I recommend this school highly if not to play around with it, because with most of the other nations it¿s difficult or impossible to use effectively. Anyway, the battle magic is usually powerful, but has drawbacks like needing a blood slave, high fatigue or effecting your own units as well, so it¿s not as easy to use as other schools. Additionally, the heat aura kills your slaves so it¿s a bit more difficult to use with Abysia, but in spite of all that often worth it. As mentioned, Devils and Demon Knights are both superb units, and Agony is a great battle spell and Reinvigoration helps your mages to keep casting. Sabbath Slave and Sabbath Master will help you later in the game when you want to cast high fatigue, high path battlefield spells. At level 6 Harm seems to work pretty well, Rejuvenate is a good spell if you haven¿t forged any Boots of Youth yet, and Infernal Disease is a great assassination spell that, if the Disease Demon doesn¿t kill the commander outright, time will. Level 7 is where the real fun comes in when you can summon Father Illearth who makes an excellent SC with some gear and Arch Devils which also make good SCs. Rush of Strength, at 8, is a good spell for battle. Summon Heliophagus brings a powerful bloodmage to your side, and The Looming Hell can be a lot of fun to play with and Life for a Life is a guaranteed kill for everything but the largest units. At level 9 you get Blood Vengeance which you really can¿t go wrong with casting and it makes your Demonbred thugs potent weapons. Infernal Prison is a cool spell that¿s also a guaranteed kill in most cases. All of the Infernal X spells summon large amounts of good units. 8.11.2.1.7 Useful Magic Items Abysia is going to have problems forging a wide variety of items with it¿s limited but powerful paths, and the pretenders I¿ve recommended really don¿t help with this, but I think the blood magic items make up for it and as the game progresses you may find some access to other paths through recruitment of indies. Lesser: The Scepter of Authority is a good item for commanders, as is the Just Man¿s Cross if you¿re fighting undead. You may be able to forge the Armor of Souls which gives Blood +1 and MR. The Dragon Helmet isn¿t bad for a Morale boost, and the Burning Pearl and Ring of the Warrior aren¿t bad for an attack skill boost, and the Pendant of Luck will be used throughout the game, and if you can forge it and find it useful, the Soul Contract is OK if you don¿t mind a horror mark. Greater: The Fire Bola and Wand of Wild Fire are upgrades for your commanders. The Heart Finder Sword is great for a lot of units, especially assassins. The Flambeau is a good weapon. The Charcoal Shield and Lucky Coin are both good for almost any unit. The Robe of Shadows is a good item for any unit as well. The Amulet of Antimagic and Spell Focus are both good for a lot of units. The Sanguine Dowsing Rod will assist your blood hunters, but gather more slaves increases unrest faster so I don¿t find it absolutely necessary. The Heart of Life gives huge reinvigoration too, and the Brazen Vessel and Blood Stone are good for Blood +1 with the latter producing an Earth gem every month. Very Powerful: The best item on this list is the Boots of Youth, which stop aging and stop you from getting afflictions. I recommend these to all of your important mages that get picks you want, and eventually everyone. I¿d start with the ones summoning the Demon Knights and go from there. Other items include the Blood Thorn, valuable for SCs as it gives lifedrain and the use of a shield and blood mages alike. The Hellsword also gives lifedrain at the expense of a shield. The Moon Blade is good against magic beings. The Shield of Gleaming gold gives awe and a big bonus to defense. Red Dragon Mail is decent armor for lack of anything better. The Starshine Skullcap is very important as it¿ll give any Warlock the ability to cast Teleport which will help get them out there on a big map, among other spells, and if you want you could teleport to a lab and take it off ready to give it to the next Warlock that needs it. The Black Heart is an interesting item that allows any commander to become an assassin, so Mind Dueling Apprentices can be effective if not costly. 8.11.2.1.8 Conclusion There¿s a lot of different ways to play Abysia and a lot of different viable pretender designs. I can¿t imagine playing them without at least an E4 bless and good scales so my selection is limited, but other ways can work if you make heavy use of blood magic and construction, but this will get you started successfully. 8.11.2.2 MA Aby CBM Strategy 8.11.2.2.1 Presentation
Want to try something new with MA Abysia in CBM1.3? This strategy makes use of early Call Horror and Salamanders. Call Horror is a level-1 spell in CBM, but it's powerful enough to clear out an indy province. Salamanders have an AoE-1 20AP fire attack, and they can pull off five of these before they hit 100 fatigue. I am currently using this strategy in a small MP game and it is working nicely at around turn 50. There were six nations to start, and now there are three. This strategy guide uses these advantages of MA Abysia: - Call Lesser Horror at Blood 1 (only in CBM) - Cheap B2S1 mages - No income loss from death scales - Resource-cheap Salamanders - Lots of Fire Gems for Lanterns To expand using Call Lesser Horror, you need an awake researching pretender. I think only the Great Sage gives you at least 40RP on the first turn, but you might be able to find something else that works. 8.11.2.2.2 SCALES The scales this strategy employs are: Order 3: You need gold for your mages and salamanders Sloth 3: You won't be hiring many troops Heat 3: Yay, free scales Death 3: This lacks synergy with Order-3. But if you don't take Order-3, then you won't have enough gold at the start of the game. Luck 3: Once all your peasants are dead, you'll appreciate the free income, temples, and forts. Lacks synergy with Order-3, but you'll still get 2 or 3 events a month in the midgame if you have 45 provinces. Also it's a bad plan to take Misfortune with Death. And Aby has a Fire-Death hero, perfect for summoning spectral infantry, but I think you can only get him in SP. (Joke :P) Drain 2: Oh no! Drain with Aby? 160 gold for 3 RP? This works because your non-capitol mages are just vessels for Lanterns. 8.11.2.2.3 EXPANSION Your starting army is strong enough to take indies on its own. I like to make a warlord prophet just because they are cool. Hire just one Warlock to start, he will help your research and occasionally blood hunt. Don't be afraid to Blood Hunt in your capitol a couple of times, but try not to make it a habit. To get my initial slaves, the first province I hunted in was my capitol, with my Warlock. Besides your initial army, your expansion is fueled by Warlock Apprentices with 3 slaves. Place them at the back of the battlefield and script with: - Call Lesser Horror (he'll use 2 slaves) - Call Lesser Horror (he'll use the last slave) - Retreat The Lesser Horrors empty out the province, so it can be taken the next turn by a single indy commander or your starting assassin. The Apprentices can blood hunt in appropriate provinces, and you can send indy commanders with replacement slaves to the province you anticipate your Apprentices will retreat to. I usually throw my assassin at 1-commander or 2-commander indies without bodyguards, like Horse Tribes. And he usually dies. Unless it's SP, then he does just fine and gets some heroic attribute like Awesome Presence. The double Call Lesser Horror is weak to indy armies containing elephants, barbarians, undead, or dark vines. You can double up the Apprentices for barbarians. Your initial army can handle undead. For dark vines, hire a few indy archers. Elephants must wait until you've built a new castle, and hired some Beast Trainers. Beast Trainers have animal awe, so a few of them can hold the line against elephants while you lay down some damage with evocation. Add rat tails to rout elephants even faster. Hire some Humanbred units every turn since you don't have many resources and it's good to accumulate some shield chaff. Once you are about to hit Alt-3, hire a bunch of Salamanders. You can use Apprentices to cast Body Ethereal on the Salamanders, which prevents them from dying as quickly. I don't hire many Demonbred with this strategy in the expansion phase, because I need lots of Apprentices. You can pop up another castle at the end of the first year, or just build a lab and temple in an indy province that can give you nature mages. Your god can site search N, but he'll be at home researching for a while. It's nice if you can poke around in the forests with an N1, and later your indy mage is a cheap chassis for a lantern. Also, I like to empower an N1 in blood to make some jade knives and cast Cross Breeding. Wolf tribes or Jade amazons are the best, because you can get a random D mage. It's good to empower a D mage in fire so you can summon spectral infantry. 8.11.2.2.4 RESEARCH Blood-1 This must be your first research target, for Call Lesser Horror. Evo-2 Emergency army boost with Fire Blast, which is really effective when you've got a high-mobility Demonbred to cast it from just behind your fire-immune infantry line. Infantry being your PD or your starting army at this stage. Alt-3 Gives you Body Ethereal to cast on Salamanders. Const-4 Gives you shrouds to keep your diseased mages alive. Const-6 Don't delay this any more ... you need lanterns if you're not going to fall behind in research. Lots of lanterns. Make a few Boots of Youth for your Warlocks. Thau-1 For your God to script returning while site searching. Conj-2 Actually, if you get the Fire-Death hero, research this before Const-6, since he can cast Summon Spectral Infantry every month. Just 1D in CBM! Or if you got a lucky Death indy mage, empower him in Fire, so he can cast Summon Spectral Infantry. Conj-3 Summon Earthpower, Phoenix Power. Blood-2 Bowl of Blood to exhaustively search for blood discount sites. Ench-3 For a Revenant to cast Summon Spectral Infantry, if you didn't get an indy D mage or a DF hero. What you research next totally depends on your situation. If you're at war you might need more Evo for Falling Fires. The Chalice is really nice for healing your sick mages, so you could head to Const-8 to try to get it first. Otherwise Blood-6 gives you Five Gates and Ice Devils. Blood-7 gives you Leech to handle pesky enemy SCs, except Golems, which you can Magic Duel. Conj-3 for Banes to lead your demons. You could find lion tribes and decide to build a castle there and go to Ench-5 for flaming arrows. Enchant is also needed for your god to dome up your capitol. Watch your mages who are carrying lanterns. Every single turn I review all lantern mages using the F1 screen, and take the lanterns off mages with horror marks. Yucky micro, but they last a lot longer if you do this, and you don't lose the lantern. 8.11.2.2.5 DOMINION Every new temple in a fort you build should get an H3 to preach it up to max dominion (7). You can simultaneously sacrifice with another priest, and if you empowered an N indy mage in blood, wield a jade knife. You won't get a dom kill with this strategy because your starting dominion is too low, but you can spread a little influence onto your negihbors. 8.11.2.2.6 SITE SEARCHING Once you've researched Const-6, your god is free to wander about site searching. Script him for returning just in case something unlucky happens. I've only ever managed to spend about a year and a half manually site-searching, because there's so much else for your god to do, like summon (a Revenant to empower in fire if you never got a death mage) or forge (hammers, thorns armor, S rings, etc). So use rituals when you give up on having your god search.
8.11.2.2.7 BLOOD HUNTING See Baalz's blood hunting guide. I prefer 2 B2's, no rods, using indies to shuttle the slaves, tax at 20% or lower, no patrolling. Hunting at 5K pop provinces, but you'll still get results even at 3500 pop lands. 8.11.2.2.8 FIGHTING The Call Lesser Horror strategy also works against enemy armies/PD that does not include fliers (so no Caelum or Pan) or long-range archers (R'lyeh, Ashdod) or mindless/undead.
8.11.2.2.9 Comments 8.11.2.3
8.11.3.1 Some tips -> Flame storm is F5, any Anointed can cast it with a simple Phoenix Power casting, I don't see all the fuss with communions. They can also summon Scorpion Men with base paths, contrary to what the OP seems to imply. The demon lords have all of the paths except water and astral between them, but they're expensive and pretty late game. It is a last-resort option for diversification though. Astral magic is really good also, but the EA Warlocks are fairly weak in both. Nature is always an option via indies, at worst, and then you can start site searching for enchantresses, which open up much better nature and all the elements and seem to be fairly common. Playing the mid-era version of Aby in MP I found that establishing a good trade partner early on will greatly aid your attempts at diversifying. Hellbind heart mage-trades are especially good for you if you can get a trade arranged. Negotiating for an air mage is especially fun because you can trade with anyone on the map with cloud trapeze, so you can afford to shop around a bit in a large game. Try some of those ideas, see if it helps. -> You can cast Fire Storm with a fire 5 mage, no communion needed, and the mage does not die. I have done so several times. The effect can be nice. Note about incurred fatigue: A mage stops at 200 fatigue when he casts a spell (unless he is a communion slave, yadda yadda). Should he receive further fatigue (stun effects etc.) then those points over 200 are converted to damage. Heat From Hell also turns out to be nicer than expected in large battles. It is not fast, nor is it a killer, but it adds up over time. Tied in with the heat effect of your units and a possible Inner Furnace, enemy troops start to evaporate pretty quickly as fatigue spikes up. It also seems to slows the enemy spell casting down, making them rest one turn earlier than normal. It is a bit subtle, but something worth looking at if you are playing with this nation. Fire Storm is as powerful as advertised. However, it does take some time, so make sure you have troops to slow down the enemy and build up the damage. -> Um, yeah. Scorpion Men rock hard. They're late-game only, and quite a bit expensive, but they're very nice. Burning Ones are great units, but cap-only and very resource-heavy. And the strategic move of 1 will limit your options until you can get the Gateway thing going. Therefore, I wouldn't really play EA Abysia as a bless nation. Not that you said you were going to do so, but anyway.... Here's a fun thing to do with Fire magic: Race up the Evocation tree to Fires from Afar. Start toasting enemy armies before they can engage with you. Continue researching to Flames from the Sky. Now your toaster is extra-toasty. Fire construction items aren't great, true, but they aren't useless. A Warlord with two Fire Bolas (one in each hand!) can be fun. Demonbred assassins with Rods of the Phoenix are a hoot. And ... um ... I'll think of something else really soon. -> I had some limited success with it in a non-CB game although it was mainly for newbies(and me, im just crap) but i was fighting multiple nations(one being EA Tien Chi played by frank trollman) and doing quite well. I had a good number of annoited in the hall of fame with 400+ kills each(who eventually got targetted by vengance of the dead... not pretty) and armies composed mostly of burning ones, flail infantry and axe/shield infantry supported by annointed blasting with falling fires and pillars of fire worked well. I also had some indy/non fire aura armies with large groups of archers with the flaming arrows buff(pretty viable even later on in the game if you can support it). For raiding/support i had demonbred slayers(moderately equipped incase an assasination target showed up) with rods of the leper king leading around groups of fiends of darkness which worked great, a group of stealthy flyers with good combot power lead by a powerful assasin makes for a very versatile tool(support armies, raid back provinces, harrass enemy armies, assasinate researchers ect). I also did a few suicidal charges with the F2 holy mages(generally with one of them blessing the others for reinvigoration) casting phoenix pyre and shielded by a few infantry(to reach the target) which nicely softened up some enemies. as a final note: Decently equipped fire kings with phoenix pyre and very high reinvigoration(i used vine kings summoned by the pretender to forge nature items) are VERY useful and difficult to remove as you have to kill them several times in quick succession to completely kill them. -> Demonbred assassins are great, versatile units. Prophetised, they can reanimate undead and secretly push your dominion deep into enemy territory. Their mobility makes them great platforms for Lifelong Protection. They can be easily concentrated for large battles, whilst also being able to raid and assassinate at will. Give them a scepter of authority and they can lead misbreds on stealthy raiding missions. The misbreds are demons, but only require regular leadership. 8.11.3.2 Best Researcher for LA Abysia -> im wondering what is better for research purposes: Warlock 270gold not sacred 8rp or
330gold sacred 6rp -> I believe anathemant dragons are more likely to suffer afflictions from old age, since fire magic reduces their maxage considerably. I could be wrong though.
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