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=====Powerful Spells in the Earlygame=====
In dominions there’s a lot of magic – and it’s not all built equally. For this section, I’ll list some of the most impactful spells in the earlygame – at least in my opinion

Notably – there is a general powerspike at research 5 – particularly evocation 5. Since there is so much magic in the game, we won’t be looking at the capstones, other than to note evocation and alteration 5 have a tonne of high impact, gem light spells.

This isn't designed as a comprehensive list - but rather just a list of some of the more major spells to watch for.

**Evocation 1:** Star Fires, Arcane Bolt

**Evocation 2:** Solar Rays, Web, Lightning Bolt

**Evocation 3:** Cloud of Dreamless Slumber, Shadow Bolt, Magic Duel

**Evocation 4:** Breath of the Dragon, Ephemeral Blast, Fire Cloud

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**Enchantment 2:** Shroud of Splendor, Personal Regeneration

**Enchantment 3:** Shroud of Bewilderment, Gift of Giant strength, Fire Shield, Regeneration

**Enchantment 4:** Spell ward, Simulacrum, Twiceborn, Raise Dead, Cloud Trapeeze

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**Alteration 1:** Personal Barkskin

**Alteration 2:** Personal Mistform, Blur, Personal Stoneskin, Gift of Cheated Fate

**Alteration 3:** Mossbody, Group Blur, Body Ethereal, Barkskin, Earth Meld

**Alteration 4:** Quickness, Mistform, Stoneskin, Curse of Stones, Group Barkskin, Swarm, Twilight, Arouse Hunger

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**Const 2:** Temper Armors

**Const 3:** Assorted item forging (GSS being the standout)

**Const 4:** Soldiers of Steel

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**Conjuration 3:** Phoenix Power, Summon Earthpower, Call of the winds

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**Thaumaturgy 1:** Personal Luck

**Thamuturgy 2:** Mind Burn

**Thaumaturgy 3:** Group Luck


=====The Alteration Buffball Earlygame=====

At alteration 3-4 a great deal of nations can buff their sacred troops with their mages into ‘super-troops’. These ‘buffballs’ often define early wars - particularly when supported by army thugs (essentially mages with light gear (5-15gem total and traditionally a powerful weapon, like a Greatsword of Sharpness). The research is early enough and game-altering enough to deserve its own section. 

//The reason army thugs can be so relevant is they generally provide armor piercing DPS, and a clean 'kill mechanism' for otherwise problematic troops. //

Body Ethereal at alt 3 is the most defining buff spell – reducing most damage to a quarter on all affected troops from a single spell. It’s followed by Mossbody and Barkskin. At alt 4 we also get Stoneskin, Group Barkskin, Mistform and Quickness. Finally, Luck at Tham3 falls into the same category of highly powered spells - but luck is often a little awkward to research for early as thamuturgy tends to be underwhelming when compared to the other schools earlygame.

There are other spells that can be layered on (e.g. Giants Strength, Temper Armors etc), but the core idea is that you make a small group of elite units – incredibly hard to kill. This means army thugs also benefit hugely from such a formation.

The essential idea is this isn’t a linear boost in strength. A buff on a strong unit is worth more than a buff on a weak unit. So it follows that a buff on an already buffed unit is generally worth more than a buff on an unbuffed unit. As such – we have the buff-ball – where we layer all our best buffs onto all our best troops/thugs.

For the most part – this is the best thing you can do at early research if your nation has good troops  and the right magic paths (and ideally troops that can fit multiple into a single tile). Although there are some specific powerful spells that can ‘keep pace’ – most of the time – the magics that can be best used against buffballs come in at research 5 onwards (big evocations being an obvious one, battlefield wipes etc). There are exceptions – but generally buffing strong units is a very good early research goal.

=====Midgame Magic to Watch For=====
Although most intermediate players will know about the big midgame spells, I thought I’d clump the magic ‘types’ one tends to see in the midgame.
  - **Battlefield wipes:** At about research 6-7, you start getting battlefield wide spells that will slowly kill everything. This means a single mage (often a pretender) can wipe out an entire army with just one offensive spellcast – and the rest of their kit focused on defense.
  - **Evocation Spam:** Past about evocation 5, evocation spam starts to get very powerful. Yes there’s the battlefield wide spell in earthquake, but usually, this is more AOE gemless spells like falling fires or stellar cascades
  - **Skelespam variants and fatigue lines:** These generally overlap – and essentially have mages spamming raise dead, horde of skeletons, and overwhelming an army. Relief/Rigor Mortis/Quagmire/Darkness complement this and 3/4 of them are in enchantment so its an easy combo to reach
  - **Army thugs:** Often – midgame battles are won by small squadrons of ‘super-elite’ commanders, holding say a GSS and a couple defensive items. The reason this is so effective is buffs/stats tend to have an exponential effect, so having a better weapon and some better gear makes an otherwise annoying sacred much harder to deal with
  - **Light Supercombatants:** Be it Invulnerability/Soul Vortex or a phoenix pyre golem, supercombatants outside of pretenders start coming online in the midgame. In higher level competitive play - you'll see a lot more variants on this. Usually, they need items from at least const5 to function at this level into proper armies.
  - **Remotes ramping up:** As armies get bigger and battles more important, remotes become more disruptive. Be it Mind Hunt or disease demons giving a defender fits, or a well placed call of the winds knocking out a connection tile and slowing an army – remotes go from being a fringe tool earlier on to a powerful utility knife.
  - **Amulet of the dead scouts:** This sounds like a meme but is very much a thing. 3-4 scouts can take out PD in a province holding amulets (or the comparable G item mirror of trapped illusions) and this gives all D/G nations a source of raiding – sometimes this being their only source of stealth.
  - **BuffBalls:** Even in the midgame, buffing units to the sky remains a very effective strategy. Come midgame, this tends to incorporate powerful summoned units other than sacreds (like gelatinous cubes etc)
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