Nope, you were clearly the one throwing out the insults for no reason, and you still are, if you could maybe read your own posts critically as you keep advocating. And I know the audience here is mostly composed of people who never played one pvp match, let alone "competitively".
If you had that contextual understanding you recommended to me, you might have noticed that I was the one telling you Gremlion is the only one here with a good clue about multiplayer. So there was really no need to give me that information as some sort of revelation.

And yeah I read the thread, first you werent even talking about multiplayer, then you want a "failproof strategy" and then once you get the failproof strategy you claim that it is not failproof and complain "how shallow the game really is". Then all the moaning about the "superflous karma" system which despite being superflous you claim punishes good players.
To summarize: You make alot of claims and when you get corrected you reply with insults.

My argument is that strong skill should allow roleplay, this game doesn't do that. You are confined no matter what.

Thank you for the logs and your time.

You really ought to stop.

Lyonis pointed out why I might have taken offense, but you were too lazy to figure it out; the provocation was there and the insult followed because of a 'misunderstanding'. However, you deserve full scorn considering you don't even READ what other people write.

Secondly, most people here probably have a good clue that Eador is receiving a remake with multiplayer in it and it just happened that the Russians modded the game or whatever to have multiplayer with the original. That being said, it's also clear as broad daylight that of the people here Gremlion is probably the most competitive - so yeah I know my audience, I had a very good feeling either Lyonis or Gremlion would reply to me.

Third, you didn't read the thread, you read the OP which is different. I mention multiplayer many times throughout you're just too blind in playing the white knight to read it.

And a system is superfluous because it offers nothing in terms of depth, so perhaps it's the wrong word and a better way to put it would be 'poorly designed' .

Basically, let me summarize this. I was asking for a fail proof strategy for an alignment strict play, and indirectly was checking to see what the best build orders were and it so happens that the swordsmen are not fail proof because Gremlion pointed at brigands + scout. However, since I was looking for alignment strict, everyone here more or less determined it was IMPOSSIBLE . Thus, my complaint - as a tangent - that the game isn't balanced and you are presented with a lot of false choices.

You're really dense if you can't follow this thread since everyone's state position is pretty obvious. The only time the insults started flying was when I 'misunderstood' Gremlion and now having to deal with trash posts like yours when I have asked you to just drop the issue.

You really ought to know your audience, and you know what? Your posts are mainly directed at me which would make me your audience. No one else is addressing you , no one else cares where as mine was directed at a few specific people who actually KNOW the game - look at the title, you dunce, the people who would reply to a thread like this are people who know the system.

Anyways, fuck off, yeah? We can move on.

Or you could just apologize for starting the insults because of your misunderstanding. Then you would not have to deal with trash posts like mine. But I guess you would need to be able to read and understand the posts in this thread which is obviously impossible.

Nah, dealing with retarded posts like yours is an enjoyable diversion.

The person with the right to ask for an apology isn't you, it is Gremlion and thus far he didn't deem it necessary and I already clearly stated that if he did ask for it I would oblige. But I suppose since your entire purpose here is to shit up the thread - which I don't mind since I got what I wanted - you would deliberately skip over that. Do you want me to put it in quotes as to show your own illiteracy/troll-ish nature?

It basically comes down to you trash talking me on behalf of Gremlion, something which he never wanted, and so really the trouble is between you and I. Quite frankly, I don't mind at all because I can tell already your comprehension is below par especially when you can't even keep track of the conversation.

I think Gremlion can speak for himself and doesn't need a false advocate such as yourself.

I was not just advocating for Gremlion, but also for general civility, something which you sorely lack. There is nothing trollish or offensive in the posts that got you so riled up. Yet for some reason it led you to ruin this thread.

Jam and Sein just retreat to your corners. There is no point continuing the fight at this point and replying anymore would just do that.

Your stupidity trolls me pretty hard. Being civil is reserved for people who are willing to discuss things , you are no such a person. That being said turns out the 'remake' doesn't even match the original.

My stupidity is no match for your ignorance and hypocrisy. If you wanted to discuss things so much why did you start with all the insults? Basic logic, too much for you.

Can someone give insights on spells - I am asking for 'good' wizard so won't have spells with -ve to karma like summon chaos / undead creatures.

My underlying problem is Spell buildings (especially after level 1) are expensive; then assuming mostly level 1 spells, how does one win battles? Wizard has low command, so fewer troops which can deal damage.

Do you rely on drops of scrolls? My problem is that in order to defeat enemies which drop the really good scrolls - I need those scrolls in the first place! Plus the entire item system is highly random; so no guarantee of getting anything useful unless you fight lots of battles.

Good wizard first few battles would do with Fatigue against living units and with Spark against undead(kill skeletons).
Enemies without stamina wouldn't attack you and their defence would be halved.
Here I had only 1 starting magic arrow and fatigue in all other slots. http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9020/screen9dw.jpg

So, you get impenetrable wall and would need something to do damage. For starters I would suggest crossbowman as 5th unit in your group to get grasp of buffing unit with magic weapon, bless, fire weapon and astral energy. To prolong phase where you can deal ranged damage you would need slow and web. When you become more experienced with AI behaviour, you can take slingers instead. They can have same passive as crossbowman(at 20+ level, but they grow very fast), have more dakka and can move for 2 tiles. But start with them is harder, you need to give them medals on enemies without ranged defence like thieves and zombies. Both are very dangerous for fresh slinger.

Magic weapon, astral energy are useful for healers. Restoring their ammo and giving them second turn.
wind shield->phantom form defence for back row (mage and healers)

So, I would recommend this spell/building order, because crystals are limited:
1. library
2. healers
3. If your healer managed to get early meditation - astral energy/web
4. Otherwise prioritise magic weapon/magic armour
5. At this point hire second hero (these schools are pretty solid for any hero)
6. Start to get crossbowmen example of tough battle. It is not a mage, but he have only 5 units and way less spells.
7. Get either sphere of wind for slow and mobility ritual or sanctuary for bless/curse.
8. Upgrade illusions. Phantom form and sleep are extremely good.
9. At this point you would get better benefit from T2 units and third hero.
10. Get fire weapon spell (For ghosts, knights and executors)

Basically, this would be enough to win colossal shard on expert difficulty.
As you can see, with this tactic spell duration>>spell power, so mage/commander dual would be better than archmage, not even counting that dual class would be able to field more units.

Thanks, Gremlion!

Just to be clear - let me try and summarize what I understood:

The Wizard is more focused on enhancing own unit effectiveness or reducing opposite unit effectiveness. [I was primarily looking at direct damage spells and it wasn't making much sense!]

The starting army for Wizard is 3 Swords (strongest 'good' alignment army) and you add healer/crossbows as Wizard gets more Command rating [which takes a bit of time and lots of levels!]. Or should you have one healer and two Swords from starting itself?

Any specific skills [apart from necromancy]? I normally don't play Wizards so [permitting game last long enough] they normally are my third/fourth hero who has the benefit of all the loot earned by previous heroes.

Starting army is based on your starting spells and sites in demesne.
If you see lots of undead sites - take 3 swordsmen. If you see brigands/militia - 2 swordsmen + starting slinger would be good.
Then add healer, 3 swordsmen+healer is real backbone of good tactic.

Game always will give +1 to command on 1-3 level range to any hero. To be more precise, you get random point on level up and if you haven't got any command on 1 and 2 levels, you will get it on level 3.

Direct damage mage isn't very viable without Vulnerability spell and some sorcerers to further decrease resistance. These are chaos school and unscrupulous units, not for goodies. Best combos with direct damage also based around karma negative spells and units. Like cast mind control(either by hero or mage unit) and sacrifice subdued unit to damage all his allies.

There is variant of using mage as healer with sanctuary school, but I don't like to rely on crystals for healing, plus it wouldn't increase regeneration on global map.

Why do you say direct damage isn't viable without Vulnerability? On expert difficulty it seems to work just fine and is pretty gem efficient in a lot of cases since double fireball ends up destroying most things or double inferno. Though the archmage route does have trouble with dragons (I save those for secondary heroes). What am I missing in this picture?

1. We are not talking about 20+level archmages.
2. Inferno gives -1 to karma, wink-wink. Thread is about good wizard.
3. Spell damage and kills don't count in exp distribution and hero become underleveled if compared with, lets say, wizard/commander dual which can deal lasthits with something heavier than knife/stick.
4. As for spell damage with/without vulnerability - Inferno have resistpower 300 - it means that 1 resistance on enemy decreases damage by 3. Power mod on Inferno - 200. 2 damage per spellpower.
On many spells 1 resistance means -2 damage, while 1 spellpower gives 1 damage.
So, in many cases placing free vulnerability from sorcerers would let you deal more direct damage and would make it easier to lasthit with wand.
5. I tend to play on difficulties higher than expert, biased opinion.