MelficeBelmont's Boosting & Access Guide

Original guide can be found here

This guide is significantly derived from the work of Telos’ guide for Dominions 4 path boosting which in turn has drawn upon Sector24’s guide for Dominions 3. That in turn was transcribed from occult ancient Sumerian stone carvings. Special thanks to Nunnullus and Althaea for additional suggestions and edits. Additional special thanks to youtuber Attica and their video Dominions 5 - Magic Path Boosting & Diversity Guide which talked about some stuff missed in v1 of this document. Red_Rob has written a similar guide for the game with the Dominions Enhanced mod.

For any typos or errors in path levels or gem values feel free to comment on the google doc. Anymore significant suggested alterations please submit via email at melficebelmont@gmail.com or discord at MelficeBelmont#1431

What is and isn’t included

This guide is designed to point out the commonly available ways that magic paths can be boosted and suggest which ones are useful and viable. This means that using specific throne or site recruitment, national spells or items will not be discussed in this guide. Additionally, most things with less than a 10% chance of getting the paths needed will be skipped, since that list is rather extensive and getting them in a reasonable time frame is not guaranteed. Communions are a common means to boost paths in combat but there are guides specific to that feature so it will not be delved into in depth here either. Lastly, only relevant summons will be included so anything that requires a higher path access than it results in will be omitted.

General Tips

When creating a pretender, it can be useful to consider from the outset what it can do for path boosting for a nation and what that gets you. If a nation has lots of efficient low level access and no high access to a path it might be worthwhile to try and design the pretender to assist in boosting that path to properly make use of the large number of gems you will have available. Most paths have a certain level that is a bit of a hurdle and the pretender can be used to bridge that gap either by filling it in or having a crosspath that assists in making a booster or summoning something that can bridge it. Don’t forget to consider the pretenders items slots if you plan on them using boosters.

When it is an option, trading is another thing that can be very useful in trying to boost a path but it is not something that can be relied upon and will be mentioned only sparingly. When it comes to nations that have a difficult time with a certain booster or path level, most experienced players will be reluctant to trade a booster to said nation and will either outright refuse or price gouge. On the other hand, when a nation is able to make a booster, the likelihood of outright refusal or price gouging goes down and as a result sometimes trading will help save on a certain type of gem, allowing skipping of the recruitment of a certain mages, or avoiding certain research.

Some nations have access to seduction and this, while not reliable, could potentially give full access when applied to the right nations or mages. Independent units can be targeted this way too so thrones can be solid targets for this and may result in some windfalls.

Be cautious about using booster items in battle; not only can you lose them but the opponent can gain them. At the same time, they can be the edge you need in a battle but if at all possible rely on gem boosting or bringing reasonably priced mage summons to get access for key spells.

Gem boosting is when a mage in battle uses a gem to increase his path level by 1 for a spell or to reduce fatigue, e.g. an 1 mage can use a gem to cast Summon Earthpower, an 2 spell. A mage can only use as many gems in casting a spell as their path level, so this can prevent certain spells from being able to be gem boosted to due to their innate gem cost, e.g. Howl is 3 and costs 3 gems so cannot be cast with gem boosting.

Empowerment is very expensive in most cases and generally to be avoided if possible but it is always an option. Empowerment costs 50 gems for the first level and 15 x target path level for every subsequent level.

Construction 8 has nice boosters but the research cost is so prohibitive that they are generally not very useful and should not be considered when evaluating path boosting opportunities in a game. Even Construction 6 boosters should be cautiously considered based on how soon a nation would like access to a spell and their general research capability.

The structure of climbing a path generally falls along the lines of having a national mage or finding an indie mage to make a booster, then equipping the booster to summon a higher path mage and moving that booster to the new mage.

When climbing a path it is always important to consider whether you will still have gems leftover to do anything useful after getting high access.

Universal Boosters

Universal/Sorcerous/Elemental Boosters and other unique path boosting options

Items

2-hand
Path: fire 4 4 water 4 4
Path: air 4 4 earth 4 4

Construction 6
Cost: 25 firegem 25 watergem
Cost: 25 airgem 25 earthgem

Staff of Elemental Mastery

+1 Elemental paths
Good target for rainbow pretenders to forge.

Misc
Path: earth 3 3 fire 1 1

Construction 6
Cost: 15 earthgem 5 firegem

The Copper Arm

This doesn’t boost in of itself but potentially allows more boosters on a single mage, an example being in Nature with a Thistle Mace and a Treelord's Staff

Misc
Path: astral 6 6

Construction 6
Cost: 60 astralpearl

Ring of Sorcery

+1 Sorcery paths
Getting both a Ring of Wizardry and a Ring of Sorcery is generally too expensive in pearls to be reasonable for most games.

Misc
Path: astral 7 7

Construction 6
Cost: 80 astralpearl

Ring of Wizardry

+1 All paths
Getting both a Ring of Wizardry and a Ring of Sorcery is generally too expensive in pearls to be reasonable for most games.

Armor
Path: air 5 5 blood 5 5

Construction 6
Cost: 40 airgem 40 bloodslave

Robe of the Magi

+1 All paths
5% Horror Mark chance

Two-handed
Path: earth 4 4 astral 3 3

Construction 8
Cost: 25 earthgem 15 astralpearl

The Sword of Many Colors

+1 Elemental paths
Artifact

Misc
Path: earth 6 6

Construction 8
Cost: 60 earthgem

The First Anvil

+1 All paths when forging items
Artifact

Rituals

Ritual
Path: nature 4 4

Thaumaturgy 5
Cost: 20 naturegem

Gift of Reason

Upgrade various units to commanders for access

Ritual
Path: astral 5 5

Thaumaturgy 7
Cost: 25 astralpearl

Divine Name

Upgrade various units to commanders for access

Global Ritual
Path: earth 5 5

Construction 7
Cost: 80 earthgem

Forge of the Ancients

Global that gives your mages 20% forge discount & +1 to all paths when forging items.

Ritual
Path: astral 9 9

Alteration 9
Cost: 100 astralpearl

Wish

Capable of summoning various commanders or forging boosters. See Wish

Ritual
Path: death 7 7

Conjuration 9
Cost: 10 deathgem

Tartarian Gate

Various paths on great chassis, but with afflictions, insanity, and only 20% are commanders.

This one is generally not useful but is really fun.
Gift of Health or Shroud of the Battle Saint + a recuperation bless are currently the only way to cure their afflictions without mods

In Combat

Misc
Path: earth 1 1 astral 1 1

Construction 4
Cost: 5 earthgem 5 astralpearl

Crystal Matrix

Makes a mage a Communion Master at the beginning of combat

Misc
Path: earth 1 1 astral 1 1

Construction 4
Cost: 5 earthgem 5 astralpearl

Slave Matrix

Makes a mage a Communion Slave at the beginning of combat

Shield
Path: astral 3 3 earth 2 2

Construction 2
Cost: 15 astralpearl 10 earthgem

Crystal Shield

Casts Power of the Spheres at the beginning of combat

Combat spell
Path: astral 1 1

Conjuration 3
Cost: 1 astralpearl

Power of the Spheres

+1 all paths
Self buff. Will affect communion slaves.

Combat spell
Path: blood 3 3

Blood 3
Cost: 3 bloodslave

Hell Power

+2 all paths
Causes horror marks on casters
Self buff, will affect communions slaves

Fire

Fire is one of the hardest paths to break into, and one of the hardest paths to boost to high levels once you do break in. The Fire/Death crosspath really helps in getting into the higher paths of fire, or you can use the unique high-level blood summons a little later in the game. Without those, you can find yourself stuck at fire 2 2 or fire 3 3. All that being said, high-level fire is rarely a significant factor in the vanilla game.