Caster of Magic for Windows School Evaluations: Nature

 Recently, Hadriex made a video covering combinations of two magic schools in Caster of Magic for Windows(henceforth called Caster of Magic 2, or CoM 2 in short). While it was a good effort, I feel like he didn't go into as much depth as I would've liked: combining schools of magic is actually a very complex and nuanced decision, especially when deciding how many books to use from each school. The choice of retorts also complicates this, as they provide a very significant boost to the early and mid game of several wizards, if picked correctly. And, like most strategy games, the early and middle portions are some of the most significant - if your wizard takes off early and stays strong through the middle, they get a lot more territory and power, which later leads to them mobilizing strong armies more effectively.

So, I've decided to take a look at the subject myself. To do this, I've decided to first look at the strengths and weaknesses of each school accurately, before evaluating how the combinations work out. With that in mind, let's look at the first school of magic.

NATURE 

The school of Nature is focused on manipulating the forces of, well, nature. This is depicted through effects like changing terrain, webbing enemy units, and summoning. Indeed, summoning is how this school prominently manifests itself.

In practice, Nature is a decent early bloomer that struggles to hold on during the middle. It has a robust early selection of summons, as you would expect, but it has little in the form of trickery, outside of Web and situationally Earth to Mud. The summons are also fairly vulnerable to curses and debuffs, though Sprites and Giant Spiders patch this for a while. The reliance on buffs also make its summons awkward later, since summoning and buffing costs exorbitant amounts of mana, and many of its later summons are single figure units that don't work that well with buffs.

On the upside, Sprites and Giant Spiders are great, Web is a very good trick, and Nature actually works well for point defense: Wild Boars are very potent combat summons, Sprites fly and so block gates easily, and Web and Earth to Mud slow down most invaders, especially when used in conjunction.

To illustrate my point, I'll go through the Common and Uncommon tier spells, arguably the two most important tiers of magic.

Common Tier

1. Earth to Mud:

Cost: 20 MP

Effect: Fills a 7x7 area in combat with mud that's difficult to traverse. Flying and non corporeal units ignore the effect.

Analysis: This spell is good at its job - it seriously hampers most melee armies and buys plenty of time for ranged units, as long as it's positioned carefully. Unfortunately, most dangerous units in this game either fly, shoot at range, cast magic, or do a combination of the aforementioned things. Also, it doesn't actually damage any units directly or stop enemy wizards from casting spells. Thus, it ends up very situational, mostly used for lair clearing or defending towns from rampages.

2. Resist Elements

Cost: 5(in combat)/25 MP

Effect: Grants 4 extra defense against specifically ranged magic damage, direct damage spells, and breaths to the effected unit. Also grants 4 resistance against stoning attacks to the effected unit.

Analysis: This is a decently powerful buff, as it counters a common series of decently lethal attacks. The stoning resistance isn't too relevant, but is fairly useful when it comes up, especially since lots of curses don't have strong enough save penalties to overcome it. However, it doesn't help against physical damage, and so isn't that great for more generalized use.

3. Nature's Eye

Cost: 40 MP

Effect: Significantly boosts the sight range of the effected city, and grants 4 research points.

Analysis: A fairly weak city spell. 4 research points is practically nothing, and while the boosted sight range can be nice for detecting threats, you need to have decently formidable and maneuverable units to reasonably react to them.

4. Wild Boars

Cost: 15 MP

Effect: Summons a wild boar unit in combat that fights to the death.

Analysis: One of Nature's key spells, this serves both offensive and defensive roles. Wild boars are physically robust units, having 6x3 attack, 40% to hit, 5 defense, and 5x3 HP. They also move decently fast at 3 speed and forester, which lets them move unhindered through forests, an incredibly common terrain type. They are absolutely invaluable for point defense, and fill that role for quite a while.

5. Web

Cost: 10 MP

Effect: Stops a unit in combat until they can break out of the web, and removes their flight for the particular combat until dispelled. Units break webs by dealing 12 melee damage over the course of their turns, and automatically spend each webbed turn attacking it in melee. Non corporeal units ignore this effect.

Analysis: An extremely powerful debuff. It fills the same role as Earth to Mud, and while it only affects a single target, it's actually considerably more usable, as it works on flying units and makes the affected unit lose turns until they break out. As such, it's a common staple of the school, and can actually last for the entire game, especially with casting units. Few spells in the game are as good as this.

For all of its boons though, it's important to note that it's still just a debuff. You need something else to deal damage and defeat units. Thankfully, Nature has enough summoning to do exactly that, usually.

6. War Bears

Cost: 55 MP

Effect: Summons a war bear unit on the overworld.

Analysis: War bears are...solidly middling. At 7x3 attack, 40% to hit, 5 defense, and 7x3 HP, they are quite durable, and effective against most regular units. Problem is, that only lasts for the earliest portions of the game, and they are outclassed very quickly, both by other summons and regular units. Nagas defeat them decently reliably, ghouls easily defeat them at range and sprites trounce them too. They only excel against hell hounds, and those are a pretty terrible summon anyway. Nor do they offer any particularly useful abilities. At best, they are a stop gap until giant spiders are available.

7. Fairy Dust

Cost: 12 MP

Effect: Deals 7 armor piercing damage in combat to all figures in a unit. Cold immune targets ignore it. 

Analysis: 7 damage is extremely weak, even considering that it benefits from hitting all figures and piercing armor. Many dangerous units have a low number of figures, and even most units with multiple figures get plenty of defense and HP to effectively resist it. It's effective only against extremely early regular units and squishy, low HP units like magicians. Use it when the right situations arise, but don't count too much on it.

8. Water Walking

Cost: 20 MP

Effect: Makes the target walk over watery terrain, like sea tiles, swamp tiles and ice tiles, with no penalties.

Analysis: This helps decently with logistics, but isn't particularly exciting - most impactful battles occur on land, not sea. Since its effect is so specific, it's rarely used outside of specific logistical issues, like transporting ground based units safely across a sea.

9. Sprites

Cost: 80 MP

Effect: Summons a sprite unit on the overworld.

Analysis: These are Nature's primary ranged fighters for the early and mid game. Their physical stats aren't great, but their ranged attacks are quite strong, at 4x5 attack, 40% to hit and 4 shots. As mentioned earlier, they also get very good resistance, allowing them to easily dodge many early game curses. And, to top it all off, they fly naturally, meaning that their bad physical stats aren't as much of a problem as you would expect.

Most Nature games are won by finding enough power to fuel armies of them or giant spiders, and sprites are quite well suited to the task, being able to safely avoid many lair monsters and clear them out. In combination with Earth Lore, a spell I will elaborate on later, they are quite reliable at doing this, boosting the Nature wizard's early game considerably. In situations where that fails, they can instead serve excellently as city defenders, letting the Nature wizard build up strength.

10. Earth Lore

Cost: 10 MP

Effect: Reveals the terrain and all its features, including lairs and their defending monsters, in the targeted area.

Analysis: The spell that makes sprites so effective. Earth Lore removes a lot of nasty ambiguity about lairs that would otherwise require wasting time and units to scout. It doesn't do much else, but being able to scout safely is still a great feature, a convenience other schools sorely miss.

Uncommon Tier

1. Cracks Call

Cost: 25 MP

Effect: Has a 25% chance to bury the effected unit in combat. Burying units causes varied effects, depending on their unit type: regular units are instantly killed, heroes and summons take 21 damage instead. Said damage can't be healed normally, and units killed by it can't be resurrected. Burying also stops the unit from taking any further turns, makes any damage they take unhealable, and kills them if they are on the "losing" side. Flying and non corporeal units ignore this effect.

Analysis: Somehow, the school with one of the best debuffs also has this. This is one of the worst debuffs ever made. It's an instant kill sometimes, an upgraded Web other times, and is always extremely unreliable. Its only real use is being a desperate attack against strong units. There's almost always going to be a better spell to cast than this.

2. Construct Catapult

Cost: 30 MP

Effect: Summons a catapult in combat that fights to the death.

Analysis: Catapults have horrendous physical stats, and don't really hit hard at 9 attack, 50% to hit, not even with long range and 10 shots. However, they are good for dragging out the fight and applying attrition to enemy armies, especially since they can be safely placed far from the range of most enemy units during most combats. Wild boars will still see more use, but this spell is useful for prolonged encounters, and for adding some ranged damage in a pinch. The MP cost unfortunately limits its utility considerably.

3. Ice Bolt

Cost: 25 MP

Effect: Deals 34 damage to the target. Also causes them to freeze, which stops them from taking their turn and grounds them for the turn. Cold immune targets ignore the effect entirely, non corporeal targets ignore the freeze effect.

Analysis: 34 damage sounds like a lot...but it really isn't. Halberdiers, a common regular unit in the midgame, do 5x6 damage at base. And they often get upgraded to 40% to hit with alchemic weapons. Its main use is sniping strong targets, but frankly, its use cases are fairly sparse.

4. Giant Spiders

Cost: 90 MP

Effect: Summons a giant spider unit on the overworld.

Analysis: If sprites are Nature's main ranged fighters, giant spiders are their main melee fighters. They have pretty good physical stats, at 6x4 attack, 40% to hit, 5 defense and 5x4 HP. But they add so much on top, with a deadly 3x4 poison attack, a charge of Web that can't be normally countered, high resistance and very high movement speed. As such, it's hard to find a summon better than them for the midgame, and with some buffs they can even last into the late game! Any aspiring Nature wizard should definitely aim at grabbing them before going on the offensive.

5. Change Terrain

Cost: 28 MP

Effect: Alters the targeted terrain tile on the overworld. The sequences are: deserts, forests, hills, swamps --> grasslands --> forests, volcanoes --> mountains --> hills. Any other tiles can't be altered.

Analysis: It's a simple utility spell that buffs your cities. It's fine for what it does, but it won't really win any games. It can also be used for logistical help, but there are generally better tools for that.

6. Land Linking

Cost: 50 MP

Effect: Allows the unit to walk across any land tile with no penalty. Summons gain 2 attack, 2 defense and 2 breath, if they have any.

Analysis: This is the start of a troubling trend where Nature is expected to both buff and summon to keep up. Right now, though, it's not too problematic, as giant spiders and sprites are good enough to win many battles without it. Its cost is a bit high, but the bonus attack and defense definitely help giant spiders defeat their foes quite decisively. In fact, a stack of giant spiders with resist elements and this on them is very formidable, and can easily clear out lots of encounters that don't involve non corporeal enemies.

7. Cockatrices

Cost: 150 MP

Effect: Summons a cockatrice unit on the overworld.

Analysis: Cockatrices are a little odd. Their attack is fairly pathetic, at 4x4 attack, 40% to hit, but they get a stoning touch with a saving penalty of 4. Yes, four whole resistance just cut from the victim's resistance score. And each figure does it alongside their attack, meaning they get to stone units four times! They also have a ton of HP on them, at 7x4 HP.

As such, while giant spiders will do the bulk of the fighting, cockatrices function fine as a resistance focused melee fighter. They're also the only other Nature summon that flies, which can be relevant. Just be mindful of their cost, and summon them only for the appropriate situations.

8. Transmute

Cost: 60 MP

Effect: Turns minerals into other minerals. The sequences are: Silver --> Mithril --> Quork --> Iron --> Silver, Gold --> Adamantium --> Crysx --> Coal -> Gold.

Analysis: A city buffing spell that's far more situational than Change Terrain. Its most notable contribution is being able to make Adamantium, which gives regular units +2 to attack and defense. That would be a great buff, except for cities with the valid transmutable minerals being quite rare unless playing with Rich minerals. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for minerals to be destroyed or corrupted during most games, making this effect even more dubious. In short, don't bother unless playing on Rich minerals.

9. Nature's Cures

Cost: 50 MP

Effect: Heals all units in the targeted stack to full.

Analysis: This sounds great until you realize that it doesn't restore any dead units, and most combats, even ones you are victorious in, will invariably have some casualties. It's thus best used to cut down the attrition suffered by a strong stack...in a game where making such stacks is usually the difficult bit. It's very situational, and mostly just helps you win more without tipping any decisive scales.

10. Great Lizard

Cost: 200 MP

Effect: Summons a great lizard unit on the overworld.

Analysis: Oddly, this costs the most out of all the summons here, yet is the least effective. Great lizards have a decently strong attack, at 18 attack, 50% to hit, and fairly good defensive stats, with 7 defense and 30 HP. They even get Regeneration to help them survive lots of fights. The problem begins with their resistance - 7 resistance is quite middling, and leaves them susceptible to lots of curses. Stuff like Black Sleep or Confusion can kill them for a tenth of their cost.

Their bulk would be useful for taking lairs, except for the fact that they largely don't do enough damage for the purpose, nor can hit flying targets. Giant spiders do both, and in general trounce giant lizards, especially with Land Linking on. And they cost less than half their cost! Don't bother summoning them for anything besides defensive roles, in fact, probably don't bother summoning them at all.

Looking at the list, it becomes fairly clear that most of Nature's spells are utility of questionable value, and that, outside of Transmute, Nature has few good ways to buff regular units. Thus, most of the burden falls on its summons, which sprites and giant spiders handle well thankfully. Regardless, the lackluster selection makes it hard for Nature to transition into anything solid as the game goes on, often falling back on Stone Giant spam to make up for its shortcomings. The resistance issue becomes increasingly more pronounced, and while Web is a good trick, it starts to get really long in the tooth, especially since it affects only one unit at a time.

This is not to say that Nature is bad - merely that it struggles to be dominant at any stage of the game, and often trades away the decently strong start for utter mediocrity later.

What can help this realm? Well, I shall explore that question later, when I check its synergy with other schools.