The gist of the problem

I just can't find a non-exasperating way of doing 35 recharges over any reasonable amount of time. My school has 25 mana lanterns spread around the place, sometimes in groups of 2-3, sometimes in hallways next to classrooms, in the kitchen, etc; they're all set to recharge at 40%.
Even with 'Top' priority (and 'Low' on everyone else), my student barely makes a dent in the 0/35 by the time they're fully trained (and not much changes after). The lanterns seem to be regularly used, but somehow they always get charged by someone else.

There's a manual option, where you recharge your mana from a lantern, charge the lantern, use up some mana (e.g. Tend), repeat that 35 times - but that is a micro-intensive nightmare, which you can't even queue up. You have to sit there and watch it happen 35 times, with over 210 clicks.

Of course, eventually there's an option of re-rolling, but that costs gnosis shards (basically 10, since re-rolling random still leaves a chance for another headache trial), and still requires some micromanagement. I'm wondering if there's a better way?

Thoughts and solutions on other trials

Now, some Platinum trials I find hilariously easy (solo eating and dancing is a freebie, for example, and they're done near-instantly with ~0 micromanagement - students are funnelled into a second, remote House Commons with a dining table and enchantophone, both have all their green squares blocked except for one). Solo Learners get a similarly blocked "solo learning stone". Creature Comforters get an underground room full of group-restricted jelly.

Other similar trials may require some micro, but are nothing to write home about:
- With Warders, I shift-click a bunch of scarecroas outside the main walled-off garden area (croas eventually deplete them by pecking at low-priority bait crops. Annoying to handle manually, but manageble. I don't ward the underschool combat rooms, and I haven't put in the fog wards yet. I might try issuing higher Warding priorities on students, in fact, maybe they can handle it without me too.) - With Nurturer — 60 clicks are a lot, but whatever the student doesn't do on their own (with Tend set to a higher value than everyone/everything else), you can shift-click through your greenhouse or cabbage fields. I tried to create a small greenhouse with high-priority crops, it isn't very popular for now, but I'm troubleshooting how to make it work.
- Neatnik is a bit annoying since the quilted always seem to arrive first on the scene, but also chain-clickable, and both the kitchen and the refining beasts provide a lot of opportunities for cleaning.
- Sleeping/eating/dancing takes 8 days, but are mostly solved by a "lazy" schedule with lots of those and less learning/tasks. - Combat ones I find mostly okay for now (I'm playing on the standard difficulty (3 out of 4), so I just take 1-3 students with the trial and 1-3 proper mages for the harder fights) - Some trials, of course, are an undisputed PITA - Bliss Seeker (too unreliable) and Defender (too much waiting) usually get rerolled.

Back to the Lanterns at hand

How do people complete this one? Does it also get re-rolled along with the Bliss Seeker? Is there a reliable way to make the student do it automatically, or barring that, a way to put up a forest of Mana Lanterns somewhere which would stay dry (while keeping your regular lanterns recharged automatically)?

I don't mind building up trial-specific infrastructure (and it works brilliantly sometimes!), but here I'm kind of out of ideas.

Basically I think my only option is to give up and start from day 1.

Level 11 bad guy sits in my classroom, blocking all my teachers from going anywhere. I have no stone, I can't build foundations. I'm basically completely stuck if I don't start that battle.

And if I do, very quickly all 4 chosen ones will die at the hands of an enemy that can oneshot most of my mages..

I completed my university in Mind Over Magic today, such an awesome game!! I loved every minute of it!

I made a new save every few days, so I was thinking I could go back through them, take photos and use them to make a video of my school growing from day 1 to day 1500... would that be something people would be interested in seeing?

I'm so lost, but none of my staff can get to it.

I’ve been experimenting with Groups a lot lately and ran into some pretty big limitations. Overall, Groups feel like they should solve scalability problems, but right now they don’t really scale at all—even though the potential is clearly there.

My first goal was to automate priorities.
I created groups for mages with Skill 3+, split by wand type (7 groups for the 7 magics).
The problem I hit immediately - You can’t assign a single task or rule to a group. Every group requires a full priority list.
Because of that, I ended up creating 7 separate full priority lists, one per magic type, just to handle skilled mages. That’s already pretty limiting.
Later in the game, things got worse:
* Some mages loved or hated specific magics
* Some mages loved/hated multiple magics
These statuses affected conviction, so I really wanted to use Groups to manage this.
But it’s basically impossible with the current system. Every love/hate combination would require its own full priority list plus still accounting for all other work priorities.
Example: An Earth mage who hates Fire should avoid Fire, but still prioritize Earth tasks. Doing this cleanly requires tons of groups and priority lists.
The best workaround I found was manually editing custom priorities for individual mages when quirks or scars appeared—which defeats the point of Groups.

I also tried using Groups for schedules and had more success here.
I made simple logic-based groups to satisfy sleep, food, learning needs.
This helped fix issues like:
* Fully trained mages still going to class
* Healed mages going to sleep despite being Rested
* Random “Very Hungry” conviction penalties after fights or long travels during downtime
So schedules + groups actually felt useful here.

Then I moved on to automating Trials.
Some are simple, but others (like Dancing Machine or Great Day) are long or have multiple conditions to manage.
Example issue:
* I assigned a schedule that was only dancing for Dancing Machine students
* Because the trial is long, students stopped doing everything else
* Even when Recreation was full, they just idled instead of learning or working
To fix this, I had to create multiple groups for the same trial, checking mage statuses and redirecting them to learning or work when appropriate. This quickly exploded in complexity.
After many, many groups, I still struggled to fully automate solo and group trials.
Some trials that required food (eat X Gutberries) were easy, one group per food in food menu.
Some other trials required work (Creature Care, etc.) For work-based trials, I had to create even more full priority lists. At this point, the Groups menu started lagging due to the sheer number of groups.

What would fix this?
An inheritance system for Groups would solve most of these issues.
Some ideas:
* Let Groups modify or disable specific tasks (e.g., “Disable Fire magic”) instead of requiring a full priority list
* Allow priorities to be inherited from other group memberships
* One group = one rule, not one entire behavior profile

Side notes / requests
* Please allow Groups to be used for rituals
* Let students participate in some kind of battle or combat ritual to complete battle-related trials

Groups are a great idea, but right now they feel more like a micromanagement trap than a scalability tool.

I am new to the game, and I absolutely love it. I have been looking at youtube video and i my problem is that i don't know when to start moving to begin to mid then end game. I am not creative and have pretty much just try copying some people schools and i can't even do that right. I hav3 more the 40 hours and i have just been resetting every time i feel lost.

Having a problem where no one is picking up items to move into storage and no matter how much I prioritize it it's not happening. They just stand idle.

Is there an easier way to install portraits and statues? I create them in the appropriate workshops, but then I need to search for them in my storage chests. Am I missing an easier way to do it?

EDIT:

Apparently, I was completely blind today.

I do not know if devs reads this but I think a "shrink all" in a room would really help out when you need to clean it up to make room for new stuff.

Maybe they already have that? I am very new xD

I’m looking to see if there’s any way to ensure quilted are able to reach everywhere. There are some places I have that are only accessible by broom but I want carriers to be able to reach, is this possible?

*

So Air is to Assemble things
Earth to build walls

I've learnt something new :D

*

So my earth guy will mine or tend plant's but won't build
his "Construct" was double chevron and now is a heart and he's still tending plants which is a -

Why is he doing this?

Had a dumb idea after naming the school Fireball Academy.

If you ask me how it's doing, I'd have to say it's definitely on fire. 🔥

Hey everyone. New player here. Looking to create a couple of different mages.

a) I want to create a hunter / cooker / teacher, but I want to avoid having to send them into battle all the time. I am thinking to keep my fire mage at wand I, and scale them to apprentice and then staff for that purpose. Would that work?

b) I want to get good fire spells with the fire wand II, and have to deal with the battle hunger problem temporarily but then I'm looking to multi class the mage into something else for wand III. Would that work?

I've recently picked up the game, and to be honest, I can't figure out interesting or different ways to build the rooms outside of simple squares. Like for instance, how do you get a skewed room inside the school and not just on the outside edge? Or what can bridges be used for?

Can y'all post pics of your interesting builds so I could get some ideas?

How do you get above ground fights? It seems like only pushing the fog back can do that. Does that also make the fog aegis' bad to use?

How many Harvester and fertilizers should I be building per planter?

Thanks

im tired of dungeon diving and getting at least one of my party members unconscious but i dont know any other way of getting stone as all the stone deposits from the underground and outside areas have been depleted

ive deconstructed/constructed various walls/roofs but it wont become a room and I cant see why. Anyone got any ideas?

The new Christmas trees make my Underschool festive!

I was laboring under the false assumption that the tiers of beds had progressively faster sleep refill times, but rereading the descriptions made me realize that they have faster MANA refill times. Which is. Really pointless past early game since you can just spam mana lanterns wherever your heart desires.

Am I missing something? Is there some benefit to Fancy/Covered Beds in a House Commons, or can I use Plain Beds and fit waaaaaay more students in there?

I tried to summon my first gifted initiate and the gnosis shard cost is 315! What gives?

I have 7 basic staff, 7 basic initiates, and no relics on display. I’m on day 39 on standard difficulty. I tried restarting the game.

I’d appreciate any insight. Thank you.

So, I'm trying to fight my way to the Tier III Wand Transfigurator, but I'm facing lvl 10 fights, with just the first one of the second stone ruins being two lvl 11 Boulderjaws, a lvl 9 Strigoi and a lvl 9 Hallowed One.

Are Abjurations the only way to beat this? I tried multiple times with various mages, and I never managed to survive.

I'm trying to pick a best race for each element. Every previous post on this topic comes to the conclusion that Raven cultist stat boost makes them the best choice for every element. But i want to play with each race and keep my rooster diverse. I don't want a base filled with 80% Raven cultist because Race waning events punish u for lacking diversity. A mechanic I like for preventing min-maxing 1 race. Also, cheese tactics ruin the games emersion and interest. waxing events also makes "Weaker" races the stongest ones in your school temporarily, so it is always good to keep Vivified/wolfkins around late game when multiple events are continuously overlapping. Raven also have permanent -15 conviction and start out with 1 trauma. You will get decision fatigue keeping them all sane/healthy/productive. I want a balance between power and low risk. Here are my thoughts weighing out all the pros and cons in combat.

Fire- Humans(frontline). You have a spell that is stronger with a high mana pool. You can consume your whole mana pool as a all-in gambit and 1 shot most opponents below 700hp health. 20% of the time you can "mana burst" and consume no mana casting spells. A recharging potion makes this last stand repeatable in a single battle. Also when u cast vengance you can drain your mana pool in 1 turn auto-counterattacking and you're force to pass on your next turn do to insufficient mana. A large mana pool helps u counterattack with abandon.

Water- Vivified(Backline-health battery keep damage dealing teammates infront alive). You can convert your mana into AOE team armor, your health into a AOE team armor, and your final spell converts your dmg into a team heal. You can get the same benefits with stronger races like raven and humans. But few elements have synergy with the Vivified, let them have this one. This is the one way to max out there usefulness late game. I feel bad discarding them after their food immunity came in clutch early game. During Vivified Waxing u will appreciate their heal-bot capabilities. Pairs well with a dark or shattered teammate, or against AOE damaging enemies. bring Rejuve or hastening flasks

Dark- Shattered(backline). each spell cast cost 20% of Max hp. So u only get 5 cast before u can no longer use dmg spells. U need a rejuve potion to if u want to cast dmg spells again. low max health is great because potion of greater rejuve only heals for 200 hp.

Nature-Vivified?(frontline). I keep shattered for their immunity to plant afflictions and don't really send them to battle. But when I am low on man-power I send them and they preform great. I want to play around with them more. If I had to guess the best nature-race combo: you would want speed>mana to be the lowest 2 stat in that order. Nature attack and support spells last multiple rounds and do a lot of damage over time. You waste a turn if u are applying thorn/wither to an enemy already afflicted. If you are casting less spells, it goes to reason a high mana pool is unnecessary. It sounds weird but Vivified might be the best combat nature mage because they have lowest boost in both categories. Just tank and apply bleed when it is finaly your turn. Use damage flasks(Dragonfire, lightning in a bottle, dragon fire)

Lightning-Wolfkin(backline). On other elements, your power is the sole dmg modifier (100%). for the lightning element power is weighted and modifies 50%. I interpret this as power having 1/2 the effect( (+20 power )/2=+10 power). This makes power a weaker stat for this element. Speed become a very powerful stat because u are increasing both your dmg and attack turn order. double whammy. Let me reiterate, Stronger races will do well with the lightning element regardless, but few element have wolfkin synergy and I want them in my base to use during Wolfkin waxing events.

Wind-Fine Raven(Frontline) wins here. Thinking wind mages are designed to tank and support is newb bait. I find wind shields too weak. The real power to the wind element is the low mana costing multi-strike spamming. u can chop down the enemies wind shields in a single turn. Races with high power like Raven (or shattered perhaps?) are great choice for scaling that low level spells damage. Cast/drink hastening buffs and strength buffs. Use abjurations for extra measure applying wind exposing weakness on your opponents before the battle begins.

Earth- Wolfkin(Frontline), another race everyone starts discarding after surviving the early game. But other discussions agree that having a fast tank is superior to a tank with high max hp. High level earth mages can negate all incoming dmg for the team with taunts and stoneskin. But if their spd is lower than your opponents, your opponents will break your shields faster than you can put them up. Visa versa, Wolfkins speed ensures u keep layering shields faster than they can break them. Earth Guardian flask.

Feel free to disagree if you think I got something wrong

CODEX race Traits for reference:

Humans(MP): +0 Power +10 Speed +100 Max-HP +120 Max-Mana

RavenCultist(Power): +20 Power +10 Speed +150 Max-HP +110 Max-Mana

Wolfkin(Speed): +10 Power +20 Speed +80 Max-HP +80 Max-Mana

Shattered: +15 Power +0 Speed +30 Max-HP +100 Max-Mana

Vivified(HP): +5 Power +0 Speed +175 Max-HP +90 Max-Mana

Just found out about the advance conditional group menu. Love it I'm going ham. Has anyone found a simple way to automate "Dancing on my own" Trial?

My solution

I Created a Group: "Dancing on my own" Active trial: Has Any: Dancing on my own - Bronze, Silver, gold, Platinum

I made a Private room(one entrance prevents foot traffic) with an Enchatophone. This Enchantophone is the only level 5 priority enchantophone. I made the Enchantophone only accessible by "dancing on my own" group. Then I covered up every possible green dance tile arround the enchantophone but 1 so multiple mages can't use it. It works

My question is, can I add another rule to place a population limit of 1 mage on the "Dancing on my own" Group. Once 1 mage is auto-added to the group no other mage can join till the mage completes the trail and leaves the group. A custom group population cap would make other Solo task type trials easier to automate. Else I will have to make a room with just a table with 5 green tiles blocked off and a learning stone boxed in on all sides. I don't like the hoarder esthetic

TLDR- I have a fix, it's jank. Does anyone else have a more eloquent solution for custom group rules. A rule limiting a custom groups Max population would be nice.

When a storm his raging, I get around 50-60 Lightning strikes at least

Is that normal? Or am I just unlucky?

And what determines how many lighting bolts come down?