Magic Strategy
Human magic is the best advantage we have over those ugly, Grover-voiced orcs. It's important to know how to use it.
Here's the deal on the order of human spells. Things should be done in this order: After the mage tower is up (build a 2nd if possible) train a mage. When he is ready, research Blizzard, then get 2 or 3 more mages. That's about when you want to get a church going. Flame Shield is next. If you have the gold, its Paladin time. Getting them is a much lower priorty than getting mages with blizzards and flame shield, because nothing the paladin does is much good against bloodlust, and that's exactly what the enemy is getting right now. The rest of the spells come like this: Slow, Invisibility, Flame Shield, Exorcism, Healing then Polymorph. That is the way I typically go in a game, although exorcism and polymorph depend a lot on what the enemy has. It could be that you never need them, but this order seems to be the one that works most often.
The best use of mages is to blizzard a line of enemy peons getting gold. Learn to do this, and it will win you many games. If it's too dangerous to move in with knights and take the hall out, wait until there are at least 6 or so peons before hitting the gold line again. This will keep the other player busy making peons, so he doesn't have time to build troops, let alone attack.
Early on in the castle phase, use can usually come up and blizzard the peons without invisibility or anything special. Lately, though, things have changed. Enemies seem to be getting a little smarter about letting you get at their peons. Here are some tips on how to approach a protected mine. Sometimes you see catapults or cannon towers near the mine sometimes there are ogres on patrol near the mine or on the other side of the tree line. Sometimes they block the routes with ogres or buildings. These are all things you can do to protect yourself, although there are ways around each of these. Try some of these approaches:
Keep a flyer above the enemy mine. Look for places where your mage can stand and not be killed immediately. Usually, the enemy doesn't have complete coverage.
Often when a player seals in completely, you can get a single gryphon behind the mine that will kill all the peons. He often can't get a tower up and can't get axe throwers inside. Get as close to the miners as you can without being near guard towers.
This one is cool :) Take in an invisible mage AND an invisible peasant. When you get to the mine, stand the peasant in the middle of the gold line and flame shield him. There is absolulely nothing the enemy can do about your peasant without killing all of his peons. Before your mage gets it, try to kill some ogres or towers. If you want to add insult to injury, use the peasant to build a barracks between the mine and the enemy's town hall.
Yeah, but is it practical? Here are some screen shots from an actual IWL game with Terminator. You can't see them, but there are 6 towers around. The shield lasted more than enough time and it only cost me a mage and a peasant.
If there is a single cannon tower, stand right next to it and blizzard away. It's can't hit you directly, but it will probably kill you on the second or third hit because of splash damage. Still, you should have time to kill enough peons.
I often train a bunch of mages and leave them standing by the tower building mana. That is so stupid. Don't do that! I lost three of them to one sapper that Dragonlord sent my way. When you are not using mages to attack, spread them around your town so they can cover all of the routes of attack and not be as vulnerable to ogres when they come into town.
That makes it a good time to bring up going into an enemy city and exorcising or killing Death Knights. Most people are stupid like me and leave them next to their Temples. Head there first.
If you see a group of ogres sitting there, don't try to blizzard them with a single mage unless there's stuff between them and your mage like trees or a whole bunch of paladins. If you try it, you can kiss the your mage good-bye without doing much damage. The ogres move as soon as the first blizzard comes down, so hardly any damage gets done. Instead, flame shielding one in the middle or near the rear of the group works great, especially if there is a lot of lag because everyone is hard to control. If the game is fast, they can never pull the flamed guy out in time because all of them are moving around too fast. HAHA. That will result in more kills as the flamed ogre presses against them to get at your mage. Don't get me wrong, you will lose the mage, but the enemy will lose or seriously damage 3-8 ogres. My personal record is 7 dead ones out of 9. The best time to do this is when they are in a group bloodlusting one another. Try it, you'll see how great it is.
Oh yeah, it works great on humans, too. One knight and two mages survived this one :)
Here's the word on Slow. It's not the wonderful spell everyone thinks it is. It doesn't undo the effects of lust, although it helps a bit. Don't try to cast it on a group of ogres as they're running in on you. Nobody will believe me here, but I have tried this a million times, and it's just not effective enough to spend the time giving the orders. I make try to cast slow on an ogre and then another and then another and so on. I can often click on 4 or 5 before they come to my knights. The mage ends up casting slow on maybe two ogres. Then your mage gets it. He just doesn't do it fast enough. It's better to use the time to get your knights running or cast a blizzard or shield on the ogres.
When the ogres are fighting your knights and standing still, use slow. Then, you can manuveur and set up 3 to 1. You can also use your edge in speed to get away. Often, I pull back and cast blizzard on them.
You can also use slow on dragons or ships. It works great.
