1:Unit based infrastructure. Unlike some strategy games, this one has minimal base building, just forts, labs, and temples. However, your real economic infrastructure is your mage corps. In multiplayer, managing your mages—who to recruit, their tasks, and time—is crucial. Mages are your primary source of research, and falling behind in research leaves you vulnerable to higher-level magic, which can delete your army with no losses for your opponent. Key points: recruit many mages, and be deliberate with their movements. If an army with 20+ mages isn't researching, it needs to be making significant gains; otherwise, you're falling behind.

2: Mages are your primary economic resource, so prioritize producing them. While slow production is fine during early expansion between turns 1-10, once you're established with good income, focus on building more forts and recruiting mages from each. About 3 a turn is fine by turn 15 if you're not focusing your money on an early war, but for some nations that is too many and some nations in Late age it's too few. It really is something you need to get a feel for with your nation and the build you took, but this is a workable rule of thumb. Without enough mages, your research will lag, and you won't be able to effectively use what little research you do have. While it is important to balance your mage recruitment with your troop recruitment, the 2nd most common mistake for starting players (after failed expansion), is not making enough mages.

3: Magic is divided into Paths and Schools. Paths are the skill ranks your mages have in a specific form of magic. A Death 2 mages is a 2 path death mage. But they might also have some other paths like nature or fire. Higher paths means more power, wider paths means more flexibility (but also more mages that are mostly useless for anything other than research). In research there are different schools that all magic spells are split into. Every level of every school has a ton of spells. But realistically until you're very far into the game you care about 1 spell per level of research on average. Because that is how many of those spells you can ever cast or are ever worth casting. For us this is a good thing, because you can ignore 95% of the spells in the game while you focus on what you can do.

4: Plan your magic in advance. Magic you're going to use in battle should be planned before your army leaves your forts. You want to already have your script worked out for the whole army and you want to have allocated gems to your army as well as have scouts traveling with your army (in stealth) holding backup gems. You ‘can’ send more gems and items and new commanders to an army that is already deployed, but this can get pretty messy mostly because of how movement works. Imagine you move a reinforcing mage to meet up with your army, but then the opponent move their army into your army and you fight on your own province and your army never reaches the meet up point so your army dies because that mage was not there to do their job and the mage dies because they find themselves without an army. I'm not going to go into this further, as you play the game, the inconveniences will become very obvious, just know, its worth it to plan ahead when it comes to sending out armies.

5: Use your Gems to win battles. I will talk about the specific mechanics of spending gems in battle in the mechanics section, but by turn 30 about 90% of your magic power comes from spending gems. You should be spending gems. Not in every battle and not all the time, but you should always be making a conscious decision on how much it is worth it for you to spend in a given situation and not just being oblivious to what you could be accomplishing.

6: Dominions mod inspector. Go to this site https://larzm42.github.io/dom6inspector/. Learn how to use it. It shows you all the details the base game fails to tell you. Its a very efficient way to look up items, spells, and summons. You can also use it to look up mercs, sites, and events which is nice.

7: Archetypes. This is a thing that falls into the category of, when your better at the game you should stop looking at things in this way, but its useful for getting started and for explaining roles. The main mage archetypes are: Big Casters needed to cast your large spells that you only cast once or twice in a battle. Line casters cast a bunch of spells in mass either on offense or support. Research Monkeys gold efficient research, but not necessarily usable in combat. Communion slaves who boost other mages. And finally Thugs, mages who have specific traits, and paths that make them excellent warriors either in a battle or going solo. A lot of mages will fit in two of these archetypes.

Path Rank and Fatigue
All spells have a listed Fatigue cost. For every path over the minimum path cost of a spell the caster halves the fatigue cost . So a mage with one path higher can cast a spell twice as many times. A mage with 2 paths higher four times as many. Additionally magic scales reduce the cost of casting spells in a province and drain increases them. When a unit reaches 100 fatigue they will pass out. Under normal circumstances a unit recovers 1 fatigue a turn and 5 when they are asleep. A unit’s casting encumbrance will also add to the cost to cast a spell and extreme temperature will also add to this if the caster does not have resistance. Being in a swamp without swamp survival also adds to the cost. In my opinion this boils down to, don't have high confidence in your perfectly calculated out fatigue costs, just eyeball it and don’t make high investment plays dependent on knife edge fatigue calculation to get all the spells you want off before troops clash.

Battlefield Enchantments
Some spells enchant the battlefield. This creates a persistent effect that lasts until the caster leaves the battle though death or otherwise. All Enchantments will create a magic star on the top right corner of the battle viewer and you can click on them to see which enchantments are active and who cast them. Some enchantments stack when both sides cast them. All Battle Enchantment spells cost gems to cast and they are all very powerful. Your mages will never cast a Battlefield Enchantment that your side is already holding, however it can be worth scripting multiple mages to cast the same spell to ensure it is cast. The most notable Battle Enchantments in the earlier stages of the game are Darkness, Rigor Mortis, Firestorm, Wrathful skies, and Foul Vapors. Each of these spells will make you automatically lose a battle unless you are countering it in some way. Sometimes the counter is something as simple as being a giant with a lot of health or just kill the other army fast. By turn 25, Be aware of these spells and opponents you believe may cast them and take the time to prepare a way to fight while the spell is active and not automatically lose.

Spending Gems in battle
-Some spells require a minimum number of gems to be spent for the spell to be cast.
-Mages can also boost their path by one level for a spell cast by spending a gem. The ai will do this automatically many times you don't want it to. Normally when their script would make them jump over 100 fatigue I think its something like when their fatigue is over 50.

When giving a mage gems in battle. Be aware of the checkmark that says conserve gems. This should be checked by default but it isn't. What this means is any mage holding gems will do his best to spend the gems he is holding this can be ridiculously costly. Ideally have your extra gems held by a scout and not a single mage.

Each time a mage casts a spell they can spend a number of gems equal to their rank in the primary path of the spell.

-So a Fire 2 mage can cast a Fire 3 spell by spending 1 gem each time he casts it.
-A Fire 2 mage can cast a Fire 3 spell that requires 1 gem by spending 2 gems.
-However if the spell is Fire 3 and requires 2 gems they cannot cast it as they would need to spend 1 gem to boost and 2 gems for the spell itself.
Gems cannot be spent to boost the paths for secondary paths. So a Fire 3 Death 1 mage could not cast a Fire 3 Death 2 spell with gem boosting.

Gem Baiting
Spells that cost gems are extremely important as most spells that protect an army from area of effect damage cost gems. As do most powerful buffs. In multiplayer many more experienced players will seek to exploit this by deliberately triggering battles that will cause gems to be waisted so the army will no longer have gems in the real fight. I have played games where I could not deploy my armies because they would be hit 3 times in the magic phase each turn causing them to spend all the gems scripted 3 times before the real battle happens. This is not a fun thing to deal with. It also makes high level play often end up being mostly about gem baiting and delaying battle as long as possible. I recommend you always play multiplayer games with the persistent gem mods enabled which makes gems last a whole turn, so that this cannot happen and make sure your armies that will be using gems have scouts or other stealthy commanders with them in stealth holding additional gems so you can restock between turns. It is also often worth it to put temporary gem items on very critical casters to ensure they can always cast their critical spells

Boosting Paths in battle:
There are a number of spells buried in the spell list that will boost paths. Almost all of these spells are extremely important and when you evaluate the spells a nation can cast you should keep them in mind.
Summon Earth Power Earth 2 (Conjuration 3): This spell also grants reinvigoration which lets a mage restore fatigue faster and cast more spells over a battle.
Summon Water Power: Water 1 (conjuration 2): Can only be cast underwater
Summon Storm Power: Air 1 (conjuration 2): Its effect only works when the spell Storm is also active. This defines the play style of all air nations.
Phoenix Power: Fire 2 (conjuration 3): Grants +5 fire resistance the least impressive of all path boosts
Light of the Northern Star Astral 3, 2 gems (Conjuration 4): Boosts Astral for all mages from both armies while active
Power of the Spheres: Astral 1, 1 gem (Conjuration 3) Boosts all magic paths, stacks with all other path boosts. Notably it costs 100 fatigue and a gem to cast.
Twilight: Glamour 3, 1 gem (Alteration 4): Boosts all Glamour paths by 1 for all mages. It also imposes a -2 to precision. There are a lot of spells that will directly cancel this spell’s effect making it unreliable.
Strength of Gaia: Nature 3 Earth 1 (Conjuration 4): Also grants regeneration, barkskin, and +4 str.
Hell Power: Blood 3, 2 slaves (Blood 2): Grants +3 to all paths and a ton of other stat boosts and also makes horrors periodically spawn next to you which will almost always kill the caster or horror mark them which is a stacking debuff that makes you increasingly likely to get assassinated by horrors. (its really bad and the only way to effectively permanently remove a god from play without defeating the nation) Unlike all other spells on this list this one is a niche use case.
Jomon has a unique national version of Power of the Spheres

Path Boosting with Items:
There are a lot of items you can forge that boost paths. These Path boosting items are often for making sure a mage can fit into the role of a big caster to cast a specific big spell. While path boosting spells are more commonly used for both line mages and big casters. Outside of combat path boosting items are also very important since they can allow you to forge new items, cast new spells, and summon even more powerful mages to then give the item to to cast even more powerful spells. Guard your path boosting items jealousy and except in very extreme circumstances do not trade them to another player who can not already make them as you will most likely exponentially expand their options and therefore their threat to you. Mostly I only trade them to someone who I know is going to die just so they can put up a better fight. You don't need to go this far just make sure you get your money’s worth and don't get scammed.

Communions and Sabbaths
Many nations have mages with at least one path in astral magic, granting them access to communions. Similarly, blood mages can form Sabbaths, which are a parallel communion. In a communion, masters cast a master spell, while slaves cast a slave spell, connecting all participants. When the number of slaves doubles (e.g., 2, 4, 8), masters gain +1 to all magic paths. This is a powerful mechanic, allowing masters to transfer self-targeting buffs to slaves and distribute half their spell fatigue among them. However, if fatigue exceeds 200, slaves start taking HP damage, which can be fatal if the battle drags on. Managing this fatigue is crucial, though strategies to do so are outside this guide. Blood communions are separate from astral communions, so blood slaves won’t affect astral masters. Note that Middle Age Man has a unique communion where slaves automatically exit at 100 fatigue. There are very detailed guides on communions in the dom5 steam page just know that separating blood and astral communions is new to dom6 when you read those guides.

Communion magic is extremely powerful and generally human nations with access to large numbers of cheap astral mages are quite dominant in the mid game before their opponents have easy access to battlefield wipe spells that can make fielding 100 old men in pajamas prohibitively expensive. Of course some nations like LA Pan, and Uruk, a have access to dirt cheap communion mages that are far more resilient

Effective Communion Usage is critical for most late age nations who often cannot field Big Casters without a communion backing them up.

There are items that allow mages to join a communion or sabbath. They are somewhat expensive and require cross paths that are somewhat rare. Earth astral and blood astra. These items can be used to allow your nation to cast spells you would otherwise be unable to cast by allowing a non-communionable mage to be boosted. These items are an absolute game changer when you can get your hands on them.
Astral Communion Items. Earth Astral Cross path
-Sky metal matrix: Makes the holder a master.
-Slave matrix: Makes the holder a slave
Blood Communion Items. Blood Astral Cross path
-Master’s Athame: Makes the holder a sabbath master.
-Slave’s Heart: Makes the holder a sabbath slave and cannot be removed meaning they will never function as a non-sabbath mage.

Commanders who are not mages cannot serve as slaves by giving them these items.

Magic Duel
Magic duel is a spell where the caster selects a random non-mindless Astral mage and they have a faceoff. Each mage rolls a non-exploding d6 and adds that value to their non-modified astral path. Whoever has the lower number dies instantly. On a tie both die. This spell can be used by nations with large numbers of cheap astral mages to bully nations with smaller numbers of astral mages out of being able to field communions or cast astral magic in general. This spell is also a good reason not to make your god that you intend to solo armies with astral 1-3 as that is a very obvious vulnerability. Note golems are mindless and therefore immune to this spell and also cannot cast the spell. So if you're somehow able to get one, a lone golem can safely cast antimagic, or will of the fates or whatever big astral spells you need when facing a player with a huge number of astral mages


Empowering:
There is a mechanic where you can permanently increase the path of a mage by 1 for a large number of gems. There are times this is worth it. They are very context sensitive. Do not worry about this mechanic until you're more familiar with magic. Keep in mind it is a tool, count the costs of your different options to achieve your goals and when you are ready you will see times it is an opportunity and not just a waist.

Site Searching:
You can get new sites for more gems by sending out mages to search. Site searching is a tricky subject and I'm not going to pretend I have an optimal perspective on how to do it but ultimately it's worth it, especially in Early and Middle Age where sites are more plentiful. Ultimately you should send out mages to site search your provinces once you can afford to have mages doing anything other than researching. I would say, look at your timings and see if you can afford to delay them, but let's be real you have no idea or you would not be here so mostly just send out a couple mages early if your not feeling like your in a serious rush to get some early research goal and send them around searching. The less hospitable a province’s base terrain is the higher chance it has a site on it. So swamps and waists are more likely than farms. Some paths have a higher chance of appearing in different terrain types but seriously don't worry about that. Search everywhere and don't wait for level 3-4 mages to do it. The vast majority of sites will be found with level 2 mages. There are spells for site searching I use them, but other than using the astral one that level 1 mages can cast I cannot say I have an opinion on when they are most optimal to use or just have a mage search. Auto site searching seems to be a little bugged and is not as efficient as manually doing it but in a single player game where your playing turns back to back you should use it. In a multiplayer game where you have a full day to do your turn I suggest doing it manually to maximize efficiency and mapping out your path ahead of time.

You will find sites, but they are completely random. Some nations are extremely dependent on specific gem types and sometimes there will not be a single gem site granting those gems in all your territory or even the territory of the first person you conquer. This is not Too common and most nations have enough diversity they can pivot into a different gem type and roll with the misfortune, but be aware of it and be aware that you might need to completely reevaluate what magic you will realistically be able to leverage.

What i'm going to layout is a methodology to approach magic when you're still learning the game and still learning magic. Let me reiterate my point from the intro, for someone good at the game, just about all this advice is wrong, but you're not good at the game yet. Take the training wheels and use them.

I am going to make a sharp divide between two different types of magic. The magic your nation is naturally good at casting is going to be part of your core combat strategy as you get more used to magic and playing dominons. And magic that your nation can cast but not well. I will not talk about this magic much. This is what you start doing after you are more familiar with the mechanics of the game. For example i'm not going to talk hypothetical ways to effectively deploy death 1 mages. Also I recommend against playing a nation with high reliance on blood magic (most your big casters have blood as their highest path) until you have played at least 1 game with a different nation or are following a guide for the nation you are playing. Blood magic adds an additional level of complexity to your in game economy and the way it is used in battle is completely different from other magic.

Take note of every path you can reach level 3 with a mage that you can recruit. Most nations have at least 1. As long as it's something as available as a one in four chance on a two turn to recruit mage it's good enough, even if that mage can only be recruited in your capital.

These are the magic paths for your ‘big’ spells. You will probably be able to cast any major battlefield spell in the game that is on these paths and you should look up the high path battle spells of this path before the game starts. Read what they do, ask around online or in the comments section if you're not sure what they do, then decide which of these spells you want to prioritize. Plan out how you will be able to cast that spell with items, communions and path boosting spells. I suggest focusing on spells from research level 5-7 for now. By the time you reach level 8 the game state will have evolved into a situation where your national inclinations are not as restrictive and you can fitness ways to cast those very high level spells even when your nation could not normally do so, It's called path climbing and I will not cover this in this tutorial.

Now look at your other mages. Make note of the mages you can recruit outside of your capital that have at least 2 ranks in a single path. (Sometimes it's something like 3 different paths at level 1 and then a randomized path that will be one of those 3 paths and then maybe a 4th off path). These are your line mages. They make the bulk of the mages you deploy in battle and will be casting the most spells and will take up a lot of time for positioning and scripting.

You're going to need to pick out what your line magic is. This can be a bit more difficult than for big magic because it can be more situational and is going to be spread across more paths than your big magic but, aoe direct damage spells that don't cost gems tend to be good for lower level play.

Blood magic is an exception here. Blood magic is primarily used in Sabboths (the blood version of communions) or to summon units outside of battle. Blood 1 mages spam sumon imps in a pinch. If your opponent does not have good chaff clearing in their army or good armor, that spell cast 8-20 times can really mess them up.

As a side note. Astral 1 mages are pretty good line mages as well because astral 1 has very good single square target buffs with body ethereal and twist fate and they can also get out spell ward or cast magic duel to disrupt communions more on that later and they can also communion up themselves to cast stronger spells.

I suggest writing down all the spells you think you're really going to want as your base strategy in the game and what research you need for them and then plan out what order you want to research in. When you're better at the game you will likely target specific spells first depending on the nations near you and the wars you expect to be in. If you don't already know the match ups though and can't figure them out then it's pointless don't worry about it. Just focus on getting the magic you believe will have the largest impact and get that first. But like if someone has built in fire resistance maybe don't bank on killing them with firestorm.

The best use of magic is when you know precisely how your opponent’s units stack up to yours, what magic they can cast and plan how to answer it. When you are new to the game you know none of these things. If you have a spell that makes your guys more good then cast that spell. If it does damage, cast it, if it protects them from an element you think your opponent will use then cast it. Just get the spells you targeted when planning your research and bring them to the battle and try not to counter your own army of crossbows by casting storm. Don't overly worry about what your opponent can do until you start getting a feel for things. Reaching a targeted goal and attacking someone just as you reach that timing is far more valuable as a newer player than having the right matchups. Find a way to make your mages count and then focus on that. Eventually you will need to find ways to not get deleted by their magic, but you need to deploy your own magic in a threatening way and start learning the spell list before you can do that.

Each unit can be scripted 5 times. Sometimes you NEED a certain spell cast immediately and sometimes the mages can afford to cast spells to enter communions and cast path boosting spells to boost themselves up to cast the spell you want. It depends on your opponent and how far into the game you are.

After the mages use up their script they will go ‘off script’ mages off script tend to be very stupid though with a lot of experience with how the ai works you can work out some tricks to make sure the default spell they cast is just the spell for the job. Personally I recommend playing with the casting Ai mod. It prevents mages from spending all their time buffing themselves and the mages near by them while the battle rages. I also very strongly recommend that any mage you intend to be casting offensive spells is scripted to advance and cast. There are countless battles lost in dominions because someone never set their mages to advance and cast. I also strongly recommend that you do not set your expensive big casters who are holding very expensive items or critical battlefield enchantments to advance and cast unless you have a very deliberate plan for what they will do.

If a mage takes damage while they are casting a spell it might be interrupted. The mage will then cast the next spell on their script. Don't let your battlefield enchantment spells be interrupted by a stray arrow.

In general most line mages have very little armor and no hats making them vulnerable to arrow fire. Too bad! You should place many of them advanced up with your troops casting buffs on them anyway and accept that in a major battle you're going to take losses. If your line mages are summoning with spells like Hoard of Skeletons then they can stay further back. Mages intended to do damage might start further back casting buffs on themselves then be set to advance and cast once the two armies clash. Be aware of the accuracy and range of your spells. Don't expect to just cast a spell turn 1 and it hit your enemy before they get closer. Some spells are good for this, some are not. If your mage has no valid target to cast a spell they will cast off script. For the same reason keep your big casters where you think they will be most safe. Note this is not always the far back because flying units exist. In all cases I recommend spreading your mages out roughly evenly among your troops instead of stacking them ontop of each other unless the mages are specifically intended to be buffing themselves for a specific play just to mitigate losses.

-Examples of army scripts incorporating magic and description of the logic behind it.