Guide by Big Al from Oz at http://warbookforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=386.0

I am a Visionary,
I make hundreds of attacks a week,
and mostly I don't even spy on my targets.
Surprised?
Read on.

If you're surprised at an attacking Visionary, read about the Bully in AL's Visionary Strategy -- post two of two.
If you're surprised I don't spy, the answer is simple.

I make a few million profit from each attack. Land value is much greater than troop losses.
But when I spy, at my current level, it costs half a million gold per spy.
Why do that when it's impossible for various classes to achieve more than a certain DPA?

But this post is not about Me, it's about Mana.
If I cast a fireball, or if a Magician with my Mine and Mana levels casts one, it costs ten spy spells -- 5 million.
So guess what? I don't fireball, and if I was a Magician, I wouldn't fireball either.
I guess it's kinda fun, but 5 million, and you can't even see the look on their faces?
I'd rather have 15,000 more soldiers from a dealer, to cover losses from another one of my successful blind attacks.
Casting a fireball, is not as expensive as losing a battle, but casting three is.
I guess sometimes it's worth losing a battle to prove a point,
normally I use words, talk is cheaper.
Of course, we can all fireball if needed, and the ability rather than the actuality is usually all that's needed.
But Mana is not free.

Why is it so?
Mana can be used constructively. Rather than making one player go backwards with respect to you,
you can make yourself go forwards with respect to everyone else, by casting alchemy.
With 100% mines and all trade agreements income is 46 gold per acre (60 for Moguls).
Mana is 31.5 gold per acre every three hours, worst case (75%).
More realistic is an average of 13.8 gold per acre per hour (90%).
Magicians get double this, making a total income of 73.6 (comparable with a Mogul with 73..

See what I mean?
Mana is juicy, good stuff, in fact, not only does it help my income, it is often most of my income.
Maybe I'm too defensive, maybe I'm too aggressive, maybe I just like having too big an army,
but my troops are red-blooded, meat-eating lads and they cost to keep in trim.
Unless you're running smaller armies to push up your income,
that alchemy average of 13.8 gold per acre per hour is probably a decent slice of your income too.

What I'd like to know
I'm not a Magician, so I haven't been able to work out how much land you get for a landgrab.
I presume it's still 100 mana cost, even when you have a mana level of 200,
which would make it 1 2/3 alchemy spells worth.
I'm imagining this is quite a good deal.
The cost is 69 times your acreage in gold for the spell,
the benefit is land worth 0.1 times your acreage in gold per acre to buy.
Anything over about 700 acres is profit.
If that is so, I'd not be using alchemy as a Magician, I'd be using landgrab.
If the profit is large enough, it also makes spying and fireballing more expensive.
They're draining away from your next landgrab.

Raise the Dead
I've heard it said that Necros get "free elites".
If they spend mana for this, it is not free, I'd love to have more details.
From what I've heard, it is indeed a wonderful spell, it raises ALL the dead.
Can you save it up and use it after a week's worth of battles?
Or do even the dead decay eventually?
Are enemy casualties included in the dead that are raised?
But most importantly, just how much does it cost?

Bloodlust
Another cool spell that's not free, if it costs mana, is "bloodlust".
I'd love more information about how it influences battles.
Since I make most of my attacks inside an hour, and could force myself to do it if needed,
this seems an ideal kind of spell. Defense is needed all the time, but attack is only needed
when you are actually online and ready to go. Why maintain an attack rating while offline,
when you can turn it on as needed.
Does it affect DPA or attack only?

Hey folks, I'm asking the questions this time.
Help me out please.

Reply by MKramer


Ok, so I have 125 mana. According to your numbers, a spy is costing me ~800k. (I haven't checked your math). How much does a repel cost? Repel losses are either 1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, or 2 percent of your elites (x5 for soldiers). For me, this puts the cost of a repel between 40M and 80M. If I spy every target, and a catch a repel every 20th spy, I am saving myself a ton of money. A TON. In reality, I catch a repel every 10th spy. And because I spy every time, I can attack riskier/larger targets with confidence.

Reply to reply by lvl_50_noob

It depends on how big/strong your army is, as well as how much your max mana is.
The more maxa mana you have, the smaller proportion a spy spell will be of it.
The stronger your army, the less likely you are not only to fail an attack, but your losses will also be smaller.

Personally, I'd say I fail an attack about 1 out of every 30, and my losses are about 0.2% of my elites (which for me cost about 100'000 gold). Casting spy on all those 30 opponents costs 60 mana, which is 3 alchemy's for me, or 900'000 (9 times my losses for failing an attack)

Also, the figure of mana being 31.5 gold per acre is wrong. The cost of each mana is the money generated by alchemy divided by the cost of alchemy. As alchemy provides 85% of revenue, if the average gold produced per land is 46 gold, and alchemy costs 20 mana, then each mana is worth 85% of 46/20, which is 1.955 gold per acre per hour.