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[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Pex

To be honest, I don't summon anything else except those two (and of course magic spirits) until late in the game when I have heaps of mana so I don't really mind having a drake of some kind, just for the sake of having it

An army of 3-4 Wraiths, or same amount of Death Knights is extremely useful in the beginning to conquer nearby enemy cities and weaker but still otherwise too hard nodes / lairs / dungeons etc. Just think of an army of undead troll units - no upkeep, regeneration and unrest repression.
Wraiths are better though because Death Knights have first strike ability, and that one doesn't steal life / convert a unit to an undead one after fight so it hinders more than helps, especially when the Death Knights are hurt. Both of those aren't exactly cheap in upkeep so Conjurer helps there.

[another_guest]

Originally Posted by Pex

I often select conjuring as a trait, so it makes both summoning and upkeep cheaper...
I started a new game, on hard level, selecting node mastery, alchemy and conjurer as traits and it works really well....

Same here, in fact it was only rarely that I didn't choose conjuring.
Node mastery was another favourite; alchemy a bit less though I often depended on heroes beefed up with magical artifacts/weapons (especially ranged ones)

Hell hounds are useful but in many cases not that powerful; wraiths and death knights are nearly unstoppable early on, especially if you keep some mana available to cast spells during battle if it's really a close call.

[Pex]

I have yet to try and play with Death magic realm, but when I do I'll keep in mind your tips on units. So far this game is going really good. I defeated all 4 wizards, but Sss'ra was strong enough to cast spell of returning so I need to go around and conquer his remaining cities. That shouln't really be a problem, cause he built a nice network of roads, so on Myrror it means only a single turn from one city to another.

I conquered innitial cities mainly using phantom warriors, but since I developed enough to produce longbowmen, they'd been my main weapon, supported by a hero or a few. I only added a unit of rangers later for the sake of pathfinding. Btw, it's funny that developers decided to put rangers in a nomad city, rather than elven

Alchemy proved useful at the beginning and I'm still using it a lot, though now I would've been able to afford 2:1 ratio anyway.

[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Pex

I conquered innitial cities mainly using phantom warriors, but since I developed enough to produce longbowmen, they'd been my main weapon, supported by a hero or a few.

Combine them with Adamantium deposit in one of your cities and Alchemist's Guild and you've got a strong force there. Also if you use halflings, their slingers are even stronger than the longbowmen, but the only good units halflings have to offer though.

Originally Posted by Scatty

Also if you use halflings, their slingers are even stronger than the longbowmen, but the only good units halflings have to offer though.

Halfling 8-figured swordsmen are one of the toughest and are THE most cost-effective units in the game, when beefed-up. They will damage anything. And they are immediately at hand.

(I always end my halfling game with the same swordsmen unit in the stack with which I started)

[Pex]

Originally Posted by Scatty

Combine them with Adamantium deposit in one of your cities and Alchemist's Guild and you've got a strong force there. Also if you use halflings, their slingers are even stronger than the longbowmen, but the only good units halflings have to offer though.

Yup, been doing that. I've finished this game. You really have to love Fang the Draconian (dunno if there are other Draconian heroes, so far only Fang approached me). I conquered the rest of Sss'tra's cities only using him - with nice artefacts he could move 9 squares per turn and was invincible.

And I finally scored over 50% (56 to be precise). It was obviously a matter of game difficulty, since on normal level I couldn't go past 30%.

Now a big dilema, which magic realm to go with next, life or death...

Not wanting to discourage you, but Death is the hardest realm in the game, unless you play with 11 books (and get THAT spell - spoiler not included).

Life, on the other hand, cannot be easier than playing with Life.

[another_guest]

Originally Posted by kyrubb

Not wanting to discourage you, but Death is the hardest realm in the game, unless you play with 11 books (and get THAT spell - spoiler not included).

Life, on the other hand, cannot be easier than playing with Life.

Not that I want to question what you say, but why did you find Death so difficult? I seem to remember having a blast using wraiths. Granted, it takes a while before you can spend the ~325 mana and keep paying the upkeep, but I don't remember having exceptional difficulties with Death compared to the others.
I often found Nature to be easy with their lovely big, bad creatures (though the upkeep on those is pretty hefty)

[Pex]

I've started playing with life (before I read your replies). So far so good, though I have to admit that the location of my starting cities and nearby ones was very good.

I couldn't choose node mastery (because I didn't have enough points to include at least a book from chaos, sorcery and nature), but I have conjuring and alchemy again. The latter is seriously underestimated on lower difficulty levels.

Originally Posted by another_guest

I seem to remember having a blast using wraiths.

Wraiths are rare spell, they come later in the game (or immediately if you have 11 death books, as I hinted). Until you can cast wraiths, you have almost nothing to live with. No cheapy good spell a la Heroism, Confusion... No good summons.

That is why I find Death hard.