As parrot said, you need the global dispel, not the one for unit spells. Having not done the research of the magic tree is getting punished ;) As to the duration: same as yours, i.e. as long as the cost is paid.
I finished a game with "hero only" armies, but I recommend to use a mix of troops/monsters plus 1-3 heroes. I ended up with level 11-13 heroes and a sword that requires level 20 (among other things), so I am moving to more xp efficient tactics :) (It is nice, if you can lay your hands on some of the stronger heroes, like the panther, btw.)
Yes. As said above, after running it once online, you can play Steam Games offline, unless they obviously need the net (like MMOs). I played LH during my vacation on my laptop, away from the net.
It depends how good those maps are and what they may contain. If they come with scripts or recurring events (like tidal waves, expanding growth, growing volcanos or rivers springing up - i.e. life of their own) they would be interesting. So far I have not used pre-made maps with most games, as they have no advantage over random ones. (On the other hand, I'd like to support Stardock.)
I have gotten the most mileage out of the various spiders (crowd control). Many beasts are too frail to keep them around for long, though. I liked the cat-like beast which had such a high movement and a poisonbite, that could not be counter-attacked. But durability was on the low side. Slags definitely don't work, I have tried.
I don't want any pop-ups I have to click off. Maybe someone ca write a mod for those who want a pop-up asking "Do you really want to wake up your city?" And I am all for option 3. I have also a 4th one: I do not want my army to dissolve when entering a city but stay together.
@Lord Xia For my first war I attacked the enemy capital first, as it lay merely a hop across the border. I seem to have surprised the enemy, as he had few defenders and I took the city. When I moved on, he snuck in 4 armies from the fog and attacked his former city. I was surprised to learn that the militia fought him off, as it sure did a terrible job in holding me away :)
I have no quarrel with the champions so far, they can be tailored to be useful, even if the mages take more levels to become powerful, and the melees need more gear. To make powerful mages requires you to specialize. You can use fewer node types and turn the others into the ones you need to power up your spells. Turning my air nodes into death made quite a difference. I have not checked through the spells, if some categories do well without any nodes, but death and fire profit greatly
I have finally met the dread juggernauts, and they turn out to be not much of a problem. They have an ungodly punch and backswing, but they are completely depending on getting into melee. My spiders webbed them in place (resists happen, but not too often), which allows me to deal with them one after another without having to take all of their attacks at once. I suppose any spell reducing/stopping movement would work as well to do the necessary crowd control. On a side-note: Be
Yes, champions are not very common. It could be that I see only a small part of the map in the first few hours, so there are probably like 20 heroes on the map, even if I get to see only three. One of the higher military techs grants me a unit that can level up like a champion (says the description) - I cannot build them, because I have zero metal. Once I get some I will see what they are worth.
Since this is a game based on magic, I am not complaining about powerful spells :) But melee based heroes work OK, since my sidekick is one. They need different gear and some buffs won't hurt, but they can kick even tough monsters through the gates of Hades.
@Lord Xia: Thank you, that was what I was looking for. But I have still have my problem ;) I found the regeneration spell and could remove it, but "Anointed by Fire" does not show up in the list. Does that mean I can cast it only once and not switch it over to another unit? I put it on my sovereign first to use Fireball, but she can now cast it by herself and I would like to anoint another hero with it. Edit: I found the post which says this is a bug, so I cannot do mu
User reviwes are useful, if the author presents the pros and cons for him, no matter if positive or negative. Such a review tells me if the game may be for me or not, a simple number does not. After what some "professional" reviewers have written over the years, the percentages they give are highly suspect to me, too. I need a detailed review to decide if I like a game or not. Many reviews in magazines don't mention things I am interested in, too - like if I can save at any time,
I don't seem to have that glitch, everything is as it should be. (Windows 7, 8 GB RAM, Radeon 5870)
You could tame it? I really should try to remember the items I carry with me without using them ;(
It does not matter much I think, as your money will go only so far anyway, and the better stuff does cost more. Tuidjys recommendation is good, though.
I am not sure what your problem is, since you can end the turn with the button in the right lower corner (or the Enter key). Or do you mean that doing so locks the game for you?
I wondered how to activate it, since its effects are mentioned, but not how to do it.
I am missing something in the manual: how do I cancel a unit spell? I hope it is nothing glaringly obvious, but I cannot find out how to get rid of an enchantment I dont need anymore.
Yep. Many of us have played Master of Magic first, which was a fantastic game, and we compare of course every new game to it. I really liked the mage design and how it was based on Magic: The Gathering (or came MtG later?). In my opinion, the closest successor was Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. Most games in this genre seem to avoid the powerful spells which were part and parcel of MoM (like the terraforming spells). The various 4X fantasy games are not bad, but we tend to see the
That email hit me as a surprise and I peeked suspiciously at it's contents, after having gotten a phishing mail yesterday about my Diablo III account (...never had one...). After downloading and seeing the tutorial, I add my thanks to those above ;) And for the record, I would love another GalCiv, too, that was my favorite space game together with MoO 2.
In other 4X games you are often well off when playing a "builder" at first, before you go military. Sometimes it helps to have just a lot of units, even if they are weak, because the AI might just look at numbers and not at quality. In my memories of the old Master of Magic I would go with clockwerks advice...having superior magic sooner than the other worked well there (like summoning wraiths or the spell giving normal units the wraith immunities, i.e. invulnerable to non-magical weapons).</