How to play Southern Mages
Alignment
Southern mages have multiple alignments, so some of them are better during the day, others during the day. Some are neutral.
Core units
Battle Mage I-IV - Core unit. Your only good melee fighter. Not very dangerous, but not so easy to take him down. Can regenerate, so they are good when retreating. On level 2, they can hide in villages. On level 3, they can teleport between villages. They are cheap, so use them, but they are not your main damage dealers.
Fire spirit - Your level 1 village grabber. These guys can be dangerous, but they are mostly a fast and cheap unit. So they are not made for battle.
Chaotic Mage I-IV - This is the damage dealer. In melee, they can produce walking corpses. In ranged, they are good in both cold and arcane attacks. Weak during the day.
Lawful Mage I-IV - Healer, that can heal everything from level 1. Mages are thus great in multiplayer maps with an ally. Fragile unit, but useful when combined with chaotic and neutral mages. Battle mages do not need them.
Neutral Mage I-IV - Another core unit. Your neutral damage dealer. Good in offense, but they are not strong enough to hold the line, so you must heal them or shield them with battle mages.
Spellcaster I-II - Your specialist. Unit that can curse enemies with poison, draining attack and slow. They can also use their backstab ranged attack. Good in specific situations.
Level 2+ units
Elder Mage IV-V - Fire and leadership unit. Use them to make your high and low level mages more powerful.
Lich III-IV - Strong balanced melee/ranged attackes. However, they are deadly during the night, but weaker in the day. When you get a lich, you cannot change him into living unit.
Basic strategy
Southern Mages are far from perfect. They are slow, expensive and do not have a lot of hitpoints. That also means you have to use your strenghts: your only melee unit regenerates and can conceal or even teleport on higher levels, and your mages are good in attack in the correct time of the day. Also, your mages can upgrade to different type. Lawful mage I can become for example Neutral mage II and then Chaotic mage III. Based on what a player need the most in the situation.
Fire Spirit is your village grabber. However, make sure you can use them also as a "roadblock", so weakened enemies cannot flee from your mages.
Against special enemies, add these units:
- Spellcasters cannot kill anyone by themselves and they can easily die, but they can weaken any enemy. Of course, if their cursing attack is succesful. Use against high level cavalry, trolls or anyone else. It is a good idea to lose this unit, in exchange to kill powerful enemy.
- Use time of the day. Lawful mages during the day, chaotic during the night. Always use some neutral mages, that can be useful in any time.
- One of the problems you can face is a lot of cheap units, like grunts, goblins, spearmen or elvish fighters. Try to use terrain, so you will not be attacked from too many sides. Also, many times there is no chance to defend, so... attack.
- Lawful mages are good in healing. Surround them with wounded units and force battle mages to hold the line. They do not need extra healing, but they can survive longer with using curse on strongest enemies from your spellcasters.
Upgrading
High priority: Everyone, with exception of fire spirits, is a priority. Make sure you can collect a lot of experience and do not lose an experienced mage, because every level is very important. Spellcasters have a higher chance to poison/slow/drain enemies.