QUEEN PROCIPINEE is not a summoner.

1. Summoning sucks.

2. She is the perfect combat mage (edit, I meant tank) thanks to her crown. I created a gender flipped version of her, stacked him with every single buff spell in the game, and had a great old time winning everything with nothing by my sov.

3. amarian blood is awesome for combat too as you gain a monopoly on shards the bonuses far outpace the drawback.

or sovereigns could have different xp levels but dunno

in some case is not a problem of slowness, its just that some of them cannot kill easily creatures until [...] but yeah getting that "until" sooner would help

Re: Ceresa and Resoln,  She is a bit of a glass cannon.  The bound spiders you can get from the start are a bit hard to make, but they have no mana cost.  They also fail regularly to web really easy units.  Perhaps this will get tweaked a bit.  The Cyndrum demons however, are saving grace.  Other demons not so much but I made a border repell force out of them to keep out wandering riff raff.  Then you can corrupt shard and get more cyndrum.  Win.  Spell wise you're going to have to upgrade some shard shrines if you want to cast a lot.  I got her a bow so I could sit back and let cyndrums handle most.  I used the spiders in early game due to zero wages and I kept my taxes low for research to get civics/leather. 

She's slow to get going, but once she does she's steamrolling.  

I humbly withdraw my objection since she got a re-think, 2nd look.  I seem to confirm the OP opinions  (the spiders weren't that great ).   Which makes me hopeful they'll get a slight boost (at least in spell mastery so the webs stick to more things)  in the next beta. 

While its more of a comment on the faction than the sovereigns, I'd agree that the most needy faction is Altar.  I think the issue is more that its too spread out - you need to rush the magic tree or you lose out on the champions, which die way too fast otherwise.  But their gear is down the warfare path, and if you want to take advantage of their prestige bonuses from the maps, you need to go down the civ path.  In a way they're the least tied down race . . .but they rely a lot on luck and finding champions, and later if you use the maps that you get something good out of it and not just waste time.  I'd rather see Relias get an exp buff, and a HP bonus (or start with the special armor) than the extra level, and then give them the ability to find new champs as well as spawn quests.

Tarth and Irane would be even more interesting if the monster AI was more predictably aggressive vs intruders.  Then the decision between keeping monsters alive as guards vs farming for exp would be more interesting.  Otherwise they're decent and straightforwards.

Karavox also feels a bit split between the trees, but to a lesser extent than Relias.  I really wish that silver tongue was better balanced, though.  99 cooldown seems like a bad way to do it, since 1 trained stack is rarely a game changer, but the cooldown seems to say otherwise.  Using a faction's special ability 2 or 3 times in an entire game doesn't feel fun.  I guess I could imp spawn to game it, but honestly the ability isn't good enough to be worth 3 points of my sov's HP per cast.

Most of the rest feel pretty good so far, I'd say my favorites are Ceresa (good early game with interesting elementals, good late game with OP spells), Magnar with really interesting slave units, which are great with Magnar's slaving spells early on, and are good cheap fodder later.  To a lesser extent Gilden's units . . I think once the AI gets good at countering high armor with more spears or lit spells they won't feel as OP.

I'm hoping once the balance tweaks come in, all the races/sovs go even a bit further down the specialization route . .and I wouldn't mind seeing sov's get special traits that normal champs didn't, or even greater stat bonuses just to make them feel better.  But I think cities would need more inherent defenders so that the midgame wasn't just city swapping with sovs wandering about.  Ah well, just my meandering thoughts.  Lots better each time is all I can say.

I meant to the say the spiders cost no maint. / wages but have a mana cost to produce in the post above.  Which allows for the keeping taxes low at start.   

I stopped reading about halfway thourgh all these posts.  Ceresa Dirge spell is the biggest nuke in the game.  The only defense to it is to get 100 poison resist.  Dirge does initial damage (which is HUGE), and also a damage over time effect (which is HUGE).

When you go around and corrupt EVERY shard to death, you can solo the most heavily defended cities by moving back maximum distance, cast dirge.  Pretty much everything will be dead.  If it's not dead, it has a LONG way to get to you (especially on the big city tactical maps).  So if they aren't immune to fire, another cast of Dirge, or just wait for them to die from poison over time.  If they are immune to poison, then you might have problems slightly, if you didn't keep a couple of fireshards too.

Overall, Ceresa IS THE BEST GLASS CANNON.  With extra emphasis on GLASS, and CANNON.  Seriously, the biggest nerf to hp EVER, and the biggest NUKE in the whole game

anyway, my two cents.

As for Prociponee faction, those outposts are really good early to mid game.  I use them ONLY to get territory with shards, then boost mana production, then boost outpost casting.  you can own EVERYTHING   as in not kill, but own the land   as for damage, water book has blizzard which is a nice nuke to keep her going

I notice the OP classed Irane as a ranged assassin , I actually think she's much better with a short sword or a dagger. Bows and staves are pretty crappy for sovs unfortunately but daggers & shortswords are pretty good for assassin classes as they get counterattacks and improved criticals. Irane can do some really high damage with a sharp shortsword, the assassin perk, and burning blade and I think she's much more effective like this than with a bow - I ditch her crude bow ASAP

*Scoff* *Sputter*

You can't be serious.

1)First off, you call Scrying Pool overpowered, and then say Enchanters is weak. You know Enchanters gives Scrying Pool, right? And it is quite useful.  I could give or take the spell books and the staves, but scrying pool is great.

2) Secondly, (in my opinion, obviously), Life and Air Magic are easily the two best schools of magic in the game. They start off good, with buffs that let you steamroll the AI with little or no downtime for healing in between fights, great city buffs,and they end up with two of the most invaluable ...that is to say...beyond price....spells in the game. Cloud Walk and Call to Arms.  I consider Call to Arms game-breaking, even after the nerfs.

 Unless you're talking about simple nuking, which is the most inefficient way to spend mana in the game. But even so, at mid levels Lightning gives a great nuke, if you ever just need to throw mana points at something big and nasty. And lightning is resisted far less than fire or cold by creatures in the game.  I  would never waste a sovereign creation point on a rank in Fire school. Plenty of simple Fire nukers available if I ever feel the need to throw away all my mana stores.

Please stop saying that. It hurts me.

Seriously though,  Procipinee is great, but you dont play her like a nuker. You build super-champions, and super cities with her.  Thats what her crown is for. It loses value later in the game, but early on it lets you make a super champion right out of the gate, which you otherwise wouldn't be able to afford without bankrupting your mana pool,  that can walk through early AI factions.

@bingjack

Totally agree with everything you just posted there

you cant agree with something wrong from any objective angle

air and life are not even remotely strong

you guys keep forgetting that the game in its WHOLE is not balanced, tanks first but fighters in general are so so much stronger and working than mages

so ofc buffing spells work because YOU DONT DO  a mage, ofc the game works like that

because mages are still quite bad

you have to weight this single fact b4 coming to conclusions, i try to see the game avoiding exploits and broken game mechanics

anyway he was right about few things too

air is not so bad in its whole, like he said he has a good nuke, even better than others with shards since its scaling better

whats the problem? its lvl 3 (and random so not good against group of mobs but very good against single big units)

whats the proci problem? she has 3 schools all lvl 1 so most likely you will get air 3 at lvl 6 7 but if you are unlucky even later

call of arms is still unbalanced yeah, even if the main point is

-do you have an army stronger than others? if yes its op, if not call of arms does not help much

so all in all proci does not work well for those reasons, buffs work when you fight mites and wolves

later on you need something STRONG to buff to kill big stuff

and she is not strong (even if like said a millions times, ANY champion using good gear is still a good fighter no matter what, and this is a big flaw of the game)

anyway i did not have much time to try more, ill do it next days but plz explain  how you play proci in details

i always buff my champions EVER, because buffs are too good, i do it no matter what, if i have crown or if i dont

same with cities, they are ALWAYS buffed in my game, so only thing that she does in my games is giving me more mana in the long run

ill try some more game once again in the while

Please stop.

Best spell schools in the game at present, if for no other reason than Cloud Walk and Call to Arms. But there are may other reasons. Regeneration is godly(overpowered). Storm is all the nuke Ive ever needed. Haste is cheap, and always helpful. Shrink is a cheap spell that makes high damage monsters manageable without having to spend 40 points melting them with offensive magic. Inspiration is great early game. The ability to heal eliminates downtime, and lets you steamroll. 

Playing a kingdom with Life magic is basically easy mode compared to having to use Death Magic as an Empire, which has some good stuff, but it's not even close to being as consistently useful as everything Life offers.

Nuking is an inefficient use of mana. It's a waste of mana that could be used much more effectively to enhance your champions who generally kill without wasting mana, to enhance your infrastructure, and pull off all manner of helpful situational stunts.  Nuking is for desperate situations.  It's fun to do, but its not necessary in the game, and far from the only viable way to play a magic user. 

The lightning nuke is best against high value single targets, yes, but that's really the only thing you should ever really need to use a nuke on. Fireballing a bunch of guys your life and air-buffed (with a stoneskin and burning blade for good measure...both low level and easily available) champs (with a stoneskin for good measure), and instantly created armies (from Call to Arms) could just walk through is a waste of mana that could be better used elsewhere.

Fire is powerful. But it's far from the only way to use magic, and far from the best way, in my opinion, at least in the current build.

I'm playing a game with Procipinee right now. By mid game on "Hard" difficulty she's bufftastic, and wading through enemy troops like freaking Sauron, with a Kingdom full of juiced up super cities that are paying off with huge mana and gold per turns. Scrying pools that Enchanters gives are awesome, because Essence is overpowered.  I could make a better Soverign, sure, but she's completely viable, and not remotely useless. Even her little Shadow Warg is a great way to help her get those important first few levels in the early game. I think she's actually one of the best factions.

I will say this , though. She's not efficiently built by the custom Soverign creation standards. I tried to recreate a clone of her with master Scout because I can't stand moving one turn at a time through half the map in the early game, and she leaves points on the board. It's not even possible to assign her as crappy a weapon as Procipinee starts out with, but you usually find a better weapon in the first 10 turns anyway.

and like i already argued storm is lvl 3 which is normally for a full air mage around lvl 5 6 for the caster

with proci it comes way later

so plz stop using arguments already discussed

in fact a full air mage would be much better and much much more viable than proci (or any air mage with air 2 AND life or something more)

its just proci that is not well designed

yeah compared to death i agree its better

you dont read what others say and keep repeating the same usual stuff

for the last time

I DONT USE BROKEN MECHANICS

tanks in this game are broken

most melee champions and melee fighting is half broken

ofc buffing a ALREADY broken champion works

but not cause the buff is OP cause the champion itself could work in the first place

its like you said shadow is weak but even shadow i made it work using blind (very good debuff) and melee champions... just cause melees are too good nto cause shadow is good

so if i was like you not reading and understanding others arguments i could say " ehy shadow is not weak because i blind enemies and then i go with supersayan tank that is totally immortal, but ehy death mage is good !!1!1!! "

i already said as first thing summon is very good early... and i explained how its very bad mid game, and totally useless end game

 so apart from this i still didnt get in details your tactic...

you build cities... ok, buff everything.. ok

then after you are lvl 6-7 how can you kill a umberdroth? how can you complete a hard quest against party of enemies in a small spot?

how many cities you build? you go questing with proci and which champions? which units? what research you make?

Just a small point:

You took a pre-made bunched skillset and races, and tried to discern if they are good or bad. You did it based on personal experience, instead of the actual starting perks.

For example, giving Verga a 6/10 early game? Really? He is one of the strongest starting champions, what with the extra defense, strong weapon and blindness (!). Not to mention that you are starting with training, allowing a quick rush of mediocre troops (instead of pure cannon fooder). Also, after making a notice of how Juggernauts are op, you still rated Yithril as being weak. Trogg racial giving them 20 weight means they get +2 initiative compared to other armor wearers, and the axes goes really well with Juggernauts. (please note- I don't take into account issues of balancing, such as warlord price reduction).

This, comparing to the praised Lord Markin, who has a different racial, and level in earth instead of extra armor. In short, I believe I have a problem with your view on the different races. (note- I didn't read your whole post)

Mages- Procipinee has both air and water. Once you get either air III or water IV, you start dominating. With water I you get an enchantment that gives you 1 mana per essence in city, with the crown all of the self buffs costs mana, and with the spells from air III and water IV you got two of out of the strongest spells in the game- Blizzard and Call thunder (if I'm not mistaken) as well as a teleport. Stacking these with high initiative and high damage, you can (did this) start with a first turn blizzard (again, if you managed to have enough initiative) and kill the enemy army. If by a miracle they survive (IE you don't have enough water shards), you can cast again and teleport to a safe location.

I do agree that Relias is underpowered compared to everyone.

This let me notice something interesting, though. Pre-made sovs are using 5/6 points available for allocation, which is interesting.

Here are a few points that are good in the post, though:

Resoln and Tarth are underpowered races, as they have no unique skill. Also, both has a weak racial, unlike Kraxis, for example.

I think you should focus more on the meta balance. Relias is weak because adventurer is insignificant, and because champions are not quite as good as you'd expect. Once champions will take their place as superior, useful units (compared to normal ones) and Relias have a nice headstart, he might be able to dominate.

A lot of the issues you encountered are more of a balance, instead of anything else.

@ddd888

You seem to have a very narrow definition of what it means to be a "mage". You seem to define mage as a nuker, but a mage is anyone who uses magic to achieve their goals. It is possible to make a sovereign without magic, you know.  Gandalf didn't throw fireballs at people. He used his will to buff himself up, and kick ass. Sauron was the most powerful wizard on the planet, and he armored up and knocked people silly (in the movie, anyway).

In classical roleplaying there are all sorts of magic users. Support casters, buffers, control, nuke.  If you define a characters usefulness by their nuking ability, then no. Procipinee is not the best nuker.  She's better, frankly, and she keeps getting better as the game goes on.

But, in any event, you didn't call this thread "Best Sovereign Nukers".   You called it "Sovereign Analysis", and then proceeded to mislabel what Procipinee was, and declare her to be "useless" by mid game.  You called Life magic and Air magic "not strong at all", and said "fire is the only viable magic in the game", which is patently inaccurate to anyone who understands the game at all.  I submit your "analysis" is highly flawed.

Sure, there are balance issues, but you cant call something powerful, and then call a character "useless" when she's good at that thing you think is powerful.  You can't call Scrying Pools overpowered, and then call Enchanters "weak", when it gives you the freaking  "overpowered" scrying pools. Well, I mean you can, but then people think you're nuts.

There are balance issues, sure. But your appraisal of Procipinee seems to stem from your refusal to use her strengths, and instead insist on her being good at something she wasn't designed to be good at.   If buffed champions are overpowered, and Procipinee is good at being a buffed champion, then she can't really be useless, can she?  By your logic, Procipinee is overpowered.  It's fine if you don't want to use that style of gameplay, but to dismiss the character as useless and calling her poorly designed because you're deliberately not using her right is both silly, and unfair to the people who designed her.

Could she have a selection of more powerful abilities? Yes. Could she be more optimized and perfectly min/maxed? Yes. But she isnt designed to be min-maxed. She's designed to represent the Lore. Does that mean she isnt well designed? That Pariden isn't a perfectly viable faction? I couldn't possibly come to that conclusion, when I'd rather use her than most of the other factions.  In my opinion she's already good, and if she got that extra unused point from the Sov creation process, she'd be even better. But she's perfectly usable as is.

If you're ranking spell schools by their ability to cast direct offensive magic, then that seems to betray a very narrow vision of both magic, and the available gameplay.  If you expect to be able to cast a spell as powerful as fireball turn after turn,  I think that is unreasonable. Nukers are capable of bringing the hurt on a massive scale when need be, but they shouldn't be able to do it all the time. Get them a magic ranged staff, which lets them be about as powerful as a safe, back-line archer support character with magic elemental damage for free.  When they need to, they can let loose with powerful magic, but I dont think they should be casting flame dart or fireball every turn, otherwise they would be overpowered. I certainly don't think every spell school should be only about nuking.  I like that they specialize in different types of magic.

It's clear we don't see eye to eye though. Carry on here with your analysis.

I solo Umberdroths with Procipinee by level 7.  But you would consider me to be using unbalanced mechanics to do it. (Buffed Melee) Which is accurate, but it's how she was designed to be used.  But as long as she is capable of doing those things, it's hard to call her "useless by midgame". That may change in the future after a few balance passes on the game.

you are wrong and didnt read well, there are 2 summoners and i play those mostly based on that, also i agree with you proci is mostly supposed to be a "support" mage

and i like it so

i submit your critic is nonsense

i DIDNT base anything on nuking capabilities

THIS is flawed and nonsense again

buffed champions are op NOT CAUSE OF BUFFS, they are op cause of SOME CHAMPIONS are

those champions are viable even without buffs 

if buffs would make EVERYTHING viable, like her summons too i would agree with you

but its not like that

last but not least you seem to consider buffs proci only skills

in fact most buffs and debuffs come very soon (too soon imo) so EVERYONE could be called support mage by this logic

even irane could be a support mage then

thats the problem, buffs ARENT the unique ability of proci, they are just common (too much again) so basically whatever champion you hire could  have those buffs already and dont need proci at all ( in proci case you could give them those buffs just buying book, whcih i consider so bad mechanic i dont ever use but still they could)

again, im not, plz read well and stop trolling putting wrong concept into others mouth

well it depends on WHAT you buff

if you buff her summoned creature is perfectly fine because SHE IS a summoner, so buffing her summoned creatures is what she is supposed to be

if you reasearch and train some troops is probably also fine most of the times  etc etc

so how do you proceed?

Dude, they gave her a hat that lets her stack unlimited buffs for free.  They started her with some of the best buffing schools of magic.  She's not supposed to use that thing as a drink coaster.

 


 

You said Life Magic and Air magic aren't strong at all. You said Fire is the only viable magic school in the game.  This shows an over prioritization on offensive magic, and frankly betrays a misunderstanding of the capabilities of Life and Air magic, considering they're far and away the best magic schools in the current build. 

Just because they don't have a lot of direct offensive power, doesn't mean they aren't powerful.  Remember, the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the for...er, the power to be anywhere on the map instantly, and create the most powerful unit you're capable of designing, instantly, from any city, without the need for a production queue. So you don't need to build -unit time facilities, like barracks and command posts. It basically allows you to bypass the entire system of controls the game has in place for limiting troop production. You dont need to worry about production cost, time, or transport. It frees up the production queues to build much more useful things. You are freed from the burden of having to specialize in production cities, letting you run Conclaves and +Gold Cities (which are all super essence buffed from scrying pools).  It's essentially game breaking.  I'm not sure what the cooldown is up to now, but even if it was ten turns, it would be too powerful.

By level 10 -13, Procipinee is anywhere on the map she needs to be, instantly, with as many of the most powerful troops that she is capable of designing as she needs, and the magic to keep them alive without stopping. And Procipinee levels fast (tutelage+early buffs+healing+ no downtime).  The ability to cast a million damage fireball is insignificant by comparison, if you're stuck in one corner of the map, while Lord Balrog from Hell (who is fire immune anyway) decides to go strolling through your kingdom on the other end of the map.  If she acquired no other spell schools from champions, this would still be incredible.

Those two schools have awesome support, invaluable unique abilities, and still give you the tools to deal with any battlefield threat between them.   Not that you need to sweat the battlefield much when your units are healing 5+points every single turn for free.  Unbalanced? Definitely. But unquestionably powerful.

Fire on the other hand just blows stuff up. It's really good at blowing stuff up, but it's costly, not as remotely versatile, or helpful in the strategic game, and useless for infrastructure.
 
 

Enough buffs with enough shards do make nearly anything viable. They make Champions into juggernauts. 

Procipinee's Hat lets her stack more buffs earlier in the game than other champions could without bankrupting their mana income, and again, she starts with some of the best buffing schools.  This makes her really good at steamrolling and expanding in the early game (claiming those +2 essence cities) when other champions have to team up with troops or other champions to take out many monsters or invade. Procipinee levels easily.

Later in the game when other champions have enough mana to stack that many buffs as well, her hat basically translates into a +8 to Mana(the amount of buffs you'd probably be running on her, and her dinky attunement bonus.). A loss in potency sure, but it's not nothing.  It's pretty easy to rack up mana with Pariden, with Scrying pools, and careful city selection where every city could be making +3 mana from the start, and Procip's +8 mana hat.  So they have plenty of mana to buff their units, buff their cities, and still toss around offensive magic.





 

 

I grant you Summoner is not good for much, but I dont consider her a summoner just because she has that trait. Summoning in the game isnt really developed enough to call anyone a summoner. It's simply something else she could do, if she bothered to level water magic up. I rarely use a summon beyond the early game. It would only slow Procipinee down, who by that time almost certainly has a mount and longstrider boots.

Most things that she couldn't handle just by nature of her gear, buffs, and combat ability can be handled with tactical magic. Shrink is cheap, and makes almost any single monster manageable, by cutting their attack in half within the capability of your armor to handle. A Haste+Slow combo is usually good for 20 point swing in initiative by midgame, which combined with her own initiative (which gets bonuses from shards), +move items, and regen, is good for legitimate hit and fade tactics (not simply taking advantage of the broken tactical AI in this build) against most slower enemies, by often letting you get 2 moves to their 1.  And against something really big and dangerous, she usually has enough magic to just Storm bolt them silly to soften them up.  Obviously there are special exceptions, but anything tougher and you can just giver her an army or group with other champs.

Remember, Procipinee gets bonuses the more shards you have, so she gets +init and +spell mastery so her spells actually work most of the time, especially with good gear.

All of this could change in the next build of the game. But in this build calling Procipinee worthless is ridiculous. Saying Life and Air magic aren't strong is blasphemous. Just because other Sovs can also do some of the things that she does, doesn't make her any less good at it, and slightly better than most.  I personally wont play a game without Life and Air magic. They are too good, too overpowered to justify taking any other school instead. The others offer some nice things, but simply can't compare in the current build.

you still didnt reply at my question

HOW do you proceed with proci with your supposed tactic?

i dont want explaination on her spells and stuff

i want YOUR PATH

whats your research order, whats your build order, how many cities you have etc

whats the usual party you use with proci

i dont care you use haste and slow, i want to know WHICH unit you use haste on and this stuff

you are just avoiding the question and ofc i won reply to the rest of your trolling posts repeating stuff i already denied and proved wrong n times like your partial and limited view of spells in the game

also you keep saying you use storm, but storm is a LVL 3 air, which you may get around lvl 6 7 if lucky or even later if not, what you do in that case?

if you really are interested in the discussion post your damn whole strategy so others can understand

I'm sorry, I guess I'm having trouble understanding you.

In the haste example, I thought it was clear I used it on Procipinee  (since you know, it was about me soloing stuff with her).

As for Storm, this is again an example of you overvaluing the need for Direct Offensive magic. I rarely use it, and Procipnee hits level 6 or 7 pretty quickly. I dont consider it vital, but by the time Im fighting anything that needs it, I have it.

The other stuff doesn't seem germane to the points we were discussing about you believing that Air and Life magic are not strong, and that Fire magic is the only viable magic school, and that Procipinee (and by extension Pariden) was nearly useless.

I'm going to disentangle myself from this now.  Carry on.

ok so you refuse to answer to what build you were using, what research you did cause your pathetic attempt at trolling has failed, ill remember to ignore your bs next time

cya

Ok, you baited me into it.

Im sorry bud. I dont really have a build order set in stone, and I dont think it really has anything to do with the fact that Life magic has an overpowered simple 1 point upkeep spell that lets you heal 5-7 points per turn by midgame (or twice that if I double double down on my shrines), a powerful burst heal, a cheap spell that halves the attack value of any monster, reducing a dangerous hitter to a melee-able non threat, and a spell that makes powerful army units instantly for you anywhere on the map, reducing the need for military  production cities and buildings.

Or with the fact that Air magic has very useful cheap utility buffs and unit enhancements, a powerful nuke if needed, and a teleport which gives you complete map control, and reduces the need for redundant units and garrisons.

Or with the fact that Procipinee with a stack of buffs, tutelage, and  no downtime from healing magic levels up very quickly, and solo's most of the first half of the game.

It was your opinion on the power of the Air and Life schools (best schools in the game) being "not strong", fire being "the only viable magic school", and Pariden being "nearly useless by mid game" I was addressing. A build order really has nothing to do with that.

But if it makes you feel any better, I start out with the obvious Civics and early game Infrastructure techs, bounce over to military to tech up to horseys, then pick up some Magic tree tech, and bounce around thereafter.  All in all I usually make it about a third of the way though each tree on a large map, before the game ends somewhere between 100-175 turns.

I play large maps on hard mode, which isnt bragging, because hard mode isnt much tougher than easy mode right now with the game in it's current state, but at least the AI can build things. The last map I played was a really good map, and I managed to get 5 solid cities made before I had to beat down the AI off my lands.

Each city starts with at least one +production building (or two if trees are present), and a scrying pool. (remember how you said Enchanters was weak, but Scrying pools were overpowered, even though Enchanters gives Scrying pools...ah, good times).  After that, relevant city spec buildings (although I will build some merchants to give an early game gold trickle while running on no taxes. Then some Inspiration, Natures Bounty, or Enchanted hammer if absolutely necessary (although the last one is expensive and not always worth it), depending on the city. 

So the cities all had between 2 and 3 essence. Slap the cheap 5 point +mana per essence enchantment on those cities, and that's +2-3  mana per city, before any shards or +mana buildings. Couple that with Procipinee's +8 free mana points (the mana Id have to to otherwise spend to run her buffs), I figure Pariden gets on average a 15- 20 mana per turn bonus for much of the game over the other factions, and that aint nothing, even in the late game with plenty of shards and +mana buildings.

All that extra mana goes into buffs for the super charged cities, with plenty left over for unit buffs, and offensive magic. And when I tech up to it, Soverigns Call, (+1 growth per essence, so +2-3 growth per city) which makes their cities explode, and balances the slow growth from multiple cities. It costs 25, but I have the mana to cast it on every city. So their infrastructure is hopping.

During the early game, most battles are being fought with the two starting champions. I might pick up one or two champions if they have good gear or a spell school I want, and they get used for interior defense.  About mid game, I build a couple range magic units, and once I tech up to medium armor armor and enchanted weapons, I use call to arms to instantly build some super  tank units anywhere I need them, and mop the map up, or kill and wildland guardians that were too tough previously.

I dont consider this any kind of "optimized" strategy. Im really not trying that hard. I dont think about BO. This is me testing the current build casually.

I understand you think melee units are overpowered, and you're certainly right in areas. But it's a beta , so it's constructed of a lot of unbalanced systems across the board at this point.  But that's the way Pariden is designed to be used. Magically enhanced units, and magically powered infrastructure. I know the word Summoner appears in Procipinee's description, but there aren't really any Summoners in the game. Summoning is not developed enough for a dedicated summoner role, or at least, I certainly wouldn't choose to use it.

Prociponee is a Battle Mage and support caster. In DnD Terms, she is a cleric, and clerics rock both in support of other troops, and in their ability to buff themselves into powerful fighters.  She doesnt kill directly with magic, she kills with a weapon she has made magic, and uses Life magic to make her army unkillable.

Other Soverigns can do this too. Procipinee is slightly better at it, because she starts with the best two spell schools, and the sizeable +mana bonus her faction gets from her crown, and from scrying pools. She can afford to buff more, and buff earlier, and starts with most of the best buffs, other than burning blade and stone skin, which are easy to pick up. She gets a fast start. Her blood bonus is ok, but it does mean she keeps getting better as the game goes on and more shards are acquired.

Choosing to willfully not use her the way shes designed to be used, and then calling her useless, is like calling a shotgun useless, because you decided to use it as an eating utensil.

All of this can change in the next build.  But right now, Life and Air magic rock, Pariden is great, and Procipinee is perfectly viable, if not superior to most sovs.

Re. Procipinee, I like plopping an outpost to mark territory as mine, and then use Freeze. You can take out powerful creatures early this way, especially if you have a ranged weapon.

yes  you are right

it has nothing to do with life magic

it has to do with the fact trolls refuse to answer in details because they cant explain their BS

so you do because ehy, you are just trolling

all your general answers is what EVERYONE does since month

"hey i research civics"

lol like other ppl dont do it 

"ehy i buff cities and build 1 more essence"

but i understand you, since you are wrong, givint details on how you play could just mean i can PROVE you how wrong you are and how proci is bad compared to others

keep your secrets little troll

ps the test is on challenging not hard

do you put a ranged weapon on proci?

that could help i think

and btw she has a unique ranged staff, with a small change that could become her main weapon and give her something

Why would you waste Procipinee with a ranged weapon, when the full suite of buffs in the game favors melee, and is far more damaging? Ranged weapons are for nukers who should be in the back field anyway, under ideal circumstances.  We both agree Procipinee is not a nuker.  Why on earth would you waste a ranged weapon on a character that can soak incredible amounts of damage by having, on top of any gear, for no upkeep cost, by midgame, on average:

+12 Defense (Stoneskin)

+10 attack(Burning Blade)

heal 5-10 points every single turn (Regen)

+5-10 initiative (blood strait)

+20 to dodge (Evade)

+12 or so HP (Courage+Blood trait)

+40% elemental resistance (Nature's Cloak)

I understand you think these things are overpowered. And I agree for the most part. But if you refuse to use the character the way it's designed to be used, you cant complain that its weak. And if you dont make use of these things, you don't gain the +8-9 mana points per turn Procipinee generates all on her own.

I honestly dont know what you want.  I explained how Im making 15- 20 more mana per turn as Pariden than any other faction, most of my cities have +3 to growth, +3 to mana, and +3 to grain, meaning Pariden doesn't have to build as many +food buildings, and because of Call to Arms, as many production buildings. So all that extra production can go into gold and research.

I explained that Procipinee can be anywhere on the map instantly to respond to any threat, with as large and as powerful of an army as I care to make. I explained how she can solo most of the game effortlessly in the current build.

I explained how between the two of them, Life and Air magic provide all the tools you could possibly need, and provide some unique abilities better than anything in the Fire school, which is only good at killing things for more mana than is necessary to spend.

All you've explained is how I'm a troll, instead of making an argument that in any way defends the following things you said:

*You said Life and Air magic are not strong.

*You said Fire is the only viable magic school.

*You said Procipinee/Pariden is near useless.

*You said the Enchanters trait is weak, despite providing Scrying pools, which you say are overpowered.

Pick any one of those statements, and defend it in clear language with an argument that doesn't boil down to "I think X mechanic is unbalanced, so I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist", and I will leave you alone.