u/_Pyroshrimp

last level i had to s rank too :(

The swamp was easy. Everyone said it was hard, and they lied. You kill the monsters and run. I get to the mountains and its hell. I've died three times now compared to one time in the swamp. But, once you die, you come back with less gear and skills. Oh, and god save you if your frost mead runs out. God save you more if you die in a dungeon, your meager 56 health from whatever you have at base won't save you from 2 cultists and their fire. Once you do get your stuff, good luck getting out, your final challenge is 39 drakes and a wolf.

10/10 biome very pretty and I love crystals

https://preview.redd.it/571y8wsusadh1.png?width=472&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d69700b225d6686faba021975b6b8b5c722b90e

The screenshot is of our chef today, nothing too special about him. He's a spellblade, which isn't great but we will take it all the way to the best it can be, a worse warrior with a cool magic attack. However, he has an offhand staff, courtesy of the armory of wonders mod. I never found myself using it, but do keep that in mind that it is an option. For his ascension trait, we are doing stormbearer, just to make him a little harder to kill. If you don't have it, it won't kill you by any means. For perks, you will want to beeline critical second wind for effective immortality. Around level 4, dip into the lightning evocation, and on the 4 level upgrades, go astral and then nature for all of them. He is also a Champion, because of foraging training, extra food, and the xp bonus. The only tools you want iwth him are a sword of +crit chance and either lightning or blight damage. All else is yours.

With our chef out of the way, the rest of our kitchen is rather simple. Primal culture, storm crow subculture. You need the extra mana this build, and until you can get your proper units up storm crows can carry. Protectors are a reliable shield unit that suffer in damage but can heal which is great, and darters are decent and their damage is going to stay consistent even after your t4 tomes are researched. For society traits, choose Swift Marchers, mobility is nice but you mostly want the chaos point. Prolific Swarmers also works. Movement is great, and another unit and more people is also great. Your other trait will be Reclaimers, solely because artifacts are dope and I like them.

Form doesn't matter too much, once you have everything only the main course will be a racial unit and everything else will be either fey or plants. Arcane Focus and Tenacious are decent, other than that it is up to you.

Now, once all the ingredients are together you want to start with the Tome of Roots. The first things you want are Blight arrows and Vine Prison. Blight blades and the thrall are useful, but not urgent as your protectors will be defense first rather than damage. What's really gonna be your first backbone is your Animist. Storm crows are your first consistent lightning damage, and will scale somewhat well as you go further and further into your progression. Being able to summon a disposable unit as well is decent, it will be a good source of healing when you run out of combat casting points, and it can strengthen your others. Keep his ass alive. Your second tome will be Evocation, lightning focus is a must, and fulmination and lightning torrent are great as well. These are your first, and only, damage spells until t3. They also aren't going to make or break your game, but early AoE attack is good cost until you get other spells. Gets much better once Lightning blades/focus is applied, as your units will do more lightning damage to electrified targets. Stack a storm crow on, and you've got something good going.

Your T2 tome is going to be kicked off with Fey Mist. You get this one for the Fey Embrace, an amazing support/buff ability, fey touched for defensive battles and your bread but not butter, The Mistling. Now, city wise until now you should grow your capital. Farms, forests and quarries are a need and use your imperium to get it. By this point, you need to rush wizard tower high halls to summon the mistling. Once you have him up, make an army of them or, if you have the heroes swap your old units and put mistlings with your ruler. The main reason you want them right now is the fact that they have Fey Trick, which gives your enemies a random debuff. As of now, they only have lightning focus but are about to take off. Your current strategy is to either fight your enemies in your domain (build the fey pond in every city), stay in the mist to buff, and attack them while they struggle to throw things at you once you have the racial transformation.

Your next tome is Mayhem, which is going to be your first great power spike. Mark of misfortune should replace sex in your life. Now your mistlings are going to become even more powerful. Curse of misfortune is also ok, but not important. The mark now makes fey guile give the enemy 2 (two) debuffs. Already you're going to be doing some bullshit to your enemies but also make sure to Sow confusion during sieges to ruin enemy placement. Gremlins are worthless as they are just the mistling but doing a damage type you don't want to do later on.

T3 are Cycles and Pandemonium. Both of these are mandatory. Cycles gives us Parting gifts, which heals upon something dying, blooming imbuement, which heals our mistlings as enemies die, and Druid of the Cycles. The druid is mostly useful for Cycle's End, which will insta kill a unit depending on random chance. Do damage first, but use this on mythics and heroes. It's such a good skill it singlehandedly got me through half my battles. Diffuse Health is also a great spell, use it for frontliners but never as a damage spell alone, it's too expensive. From Pandemonium we want Havoc Magic, and now base attacks will provide debuffs. Mistling Fey Trick applies one, it can apply mark of misfortune and a random third one now, making it horrid to be hit by. Vessels of Chaos will make our final major unit much stronger, but you also need Infectious Insanity for crowd control and disabling of heroes. Mass Hysteria is an ok spell but your units already will give your enemies plenty of debuffs, use combat points for diffuse health or fey embrace instead.

So, you're now stronger with defensive mist, your enemies are all going to be ruined with weakness, sundered defense and resistance, life seed, being stunned, what's t4. Stormborne is your first one, and final required one. Get stormbringers, who can do massive lightning damage, debuff enemies, do more damage per debuff, and wipe the floor with chaining attacks. Lightning storm is an amazing combat enchantment that makes all enemies wet (more damage), downpour also can be used in the world map. By this point, your army should be mistlings, stormbringers, and druids with a shield here and there. Entwined Protectors are great if you can get them from a wonder or rally, but not worth it outside of that. I then went with Paradise however Nature's Wrath also works for frenzy imbuement (strength and life steal per hit on magic fighters), as well as generally ruining spells. Paradise gives us Fortress of Vines for 10xp a turn, enemies being unable to move while you can go twice as fast in your domain, and Exhilierating Pollen for morale and distracting enemies. Gaia's Chosen is our major race transformation, if you didn't do Naga. I like my shoes, so I chose this one for a huge hp buff and because it felt cooler.

For t5, Goddess of Nature is our only option. You mostly want Force of Nature for blight damage + crit chance, which I got to be around 55% on my highest units. Mass Rejuvenation would be good if my units ever died, but they didn't usually so I never used it.

For your empire tree, get prosperous lands and foraging to allow units to heal much faster. from Chaos, you want tireless armies, Might makes right, and otherworldly reinforcements. For your heroes, get ritualists for buffs and offensive wildgrowth, and elementalists for cracked damage.

Now, at long last, you may cook with lightning. Lightning torrent for single stack armies, downpour later for entire provinces. Use lightning storm in combat as your enchantment, or the pollen spell for morale boost. Use your stormbringers to wipe the floor with your enemies, a few battlemages or your primal darters for range, and whatever you can get your hands on shield wise.