Hi Folk,

I just start a couple of game in medium difficulty and I was surprised with the fact that how quickly computer gather magic power. I know that there is no building that grant extra magic power and only two race get benefit from population, dark elf and tall elf. So do you have any idea about how to improve magic power?

Best wishes,
Bahman.

Nodes
you can gain power from melding a node with a magic/guardian spirit once the nodes defenders are killed
i think its 1 power for each sparkle square

doubled for Node mastery

doubled if you have the mastery for that node type Nature/chaos/sorcery mastery

conjunction events affect power generated from nodes as well doubling power from same nodes as the conjunction and halving power from all other nodes

Buildings
some buildings generate power as well
building power
-------------------------------------------------
shrine +1
temple +2
Parthenon +3
Cathedral +4
Alchemist Guild +3
Wizard's Guild -3

Dark Rituals spell can add power as per its description
bad moon event doubles the bonus from teh 1st 4 buildings listed above if you have death spellbooks
(if you have life instead then the bonus from those buildings is halved )
Divine/infernal power retorts boostes the same buildings power output by 50%

Races
High elves, Draconians and beastmen generate 1 power per 2 people icons in city display
Dark elves generate 1 power for each people icon in city display in city display

Edit:: note that you can only build the buildings available to the city's race type

To add to Vyraexii's post, some proven strategies:

1) Anyone can convert gold to mana (and vice versa) but at a cost of twice the original product for the end product received. Alchemists, however, convert back and forth at a 1:1 ratio.

2) The combination of Runemaster and Artificer is a devastating one-two punch. Because of the net 75% reduction in casting cost, you can actually craft magical items, and then break them for a huge profit. Here's a thread with more info.

Vyr covered most of it.

The amount of magic generated by nodes depends on the "Magic" setting at game start. Weak = .5/sparkle square; Normal = 1/sparkle square; Strong = 1.5/sparkle square.

The "Good Moon" event is the opposite of the Bad Moon: Good Moon doubles the mana building income if you have any Life books, and halves it if you have any Death books.

Also the AI gets a huge production bonus unless you're playing intro/easy mode, so I guess they build mana increasing buildings a lot faster than you can.

Runemaster and Artificer
This combo gives the best "discount" on mana usage.

Other than those 2, a combination of Sage Master/Archmage will also help you cut back on overall mana cost. In the case of Sage Master, the research bonus means you can lower the slider on research , and put more into mana generation. Archmage is probably not that useful in lategame though,when your casting skill will be more than enough UNLESS you're going for Spellmastery.

If you're mostly relying on summoned monsters, the combo of Channeler/Conjurer is probably better though.

Archmage is great late game; I'd submit it doesn't come into its own until late game. It multiplies the power that you place toward increasing spell skill, so you gather spell skill faster. The more power you have, the more you get out of archmage's primary ability, and it helps offset the increasing cost of increasing your high spell skill.