Pesky Deathmatch

[spirokeat]

Has anyone noticed that it always tends to be the ghost king that wins that damn deathmatch. I usually tottally ignore it as someone invariably sends their god and Im usually playing an immobile pretender.

But ! I decided to play with the new Ctis dessert tombs from the patch, so I took Lord of the Gates and immediately reserached to hand of death on the off chance a deathmatch happened. Lo ! one pops up so I thought why not, my god has like 220 hps, bags of strength etc so I scripted hand of death 5 times and sent him in.

Suprise suprise I'm fighting the damn ghost king in the final. Instead of wandering up and hand of deathing him like I wanted, I stand there and chain cast animate dead, decay (which misses 90% of the time) and dust to dust which is resisted constantly. No melee, nothing. result, one dead lord of the gates.

Am i missing something about how hard the Ghost king is, I know he's Ethereal etc, but Ive seen that hand of death trick coming from him onto other high resist pretenders in other games and it seemed to work. Sigh, only turn 9, time to start over.

Spiro

[Breschau]

I may be wrong (by no means an expert on this sort of thing) but I think you'd have needed one or two "attack one turn" before your hand of death - otherwise you'd be out of range. If you're not in range the AI will look at your choice of spell, see that it can't hit the enemy from here, and pick a different spell instead - it won't move closer unless none of its available spells/attacks are in range or you've explicitly told it to. Ideally you give the unit flying so it closes the gap with a single turn of attacking, then it can start throwing out the close range spells.

Don't think most people risk their pretenders in the arena though, the prize isn't worth it.

[Vynd]

I think Breschau is right about why your Hand of Death plan didn't work out. I also agree that sending your Pretender to fight in these things is going to be a bad idea pretty much every time. I know that the AI does it, but hey, that's an AI for ya. The prize is nice, but not so awesome that it is willing to risk your Pretender over. This is especially true when you realize that, if you do win, then you will be stuck with the Champion's Trident until you die. You can't remove it. And so long as he is carrying it, your Pretender will be required to attend every Deathmatch from there on out.

[Cohen]

Well, an Immobile pretender has easy access to Soul Slay with high astral path.

However I agree with the fact your pretender has to go at every death match ... and this weaken it a lot since the enemy can prepare some nasty surprise like sending a scout with a disasing item...

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by spirokeat:
Suprise suprise I'm fighting the damn ghost king in the final. Instead of wandering up and hand of deathing him like I wanted, I stand there and chain cast animate dead, decay (which misses 90% of the time) and dust to dust which is resisted constantly.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He didn't go to melee range because you didn't tell him to. Dust to dust can't be resisted, which means that he missed when he cast it.

[spirokeat]

Now I didnt realise the prize couldnt be removed ! I've never entered or won a deathmatch before, in light of what you guys have said its obviously not worth it to attend. it would probably be a more worthwhile event should the AI not send gods.

Re the dust to dust, I guess he musta just missed, the 20 or so times he cast it...which frankly is terrible because the ghost kings hp's didnt budge from 56 until i got bored and Q'd out of the view battle.

I'll be giving that event a miss from now on. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Spiro.

[HJ]

Has anybody ever sent Nycafor to the deathmatch? That could take care of the cursed prize, and still allow you to win it.

[NTJedi]

It's not worth risking having him killed, cursed, diseased or horror marked for a boost in experience. He is one of the worst ice devils but still much more valuable alive then dead.

The only reason I would currently send a commander into a death match:
A) I am winning the map by a landslide and can easily afford the loss of a commander
OR
B) The commander will soon be dying from disease and cannot reach the front lines in time.


The game should have a base reward plus a reward based on the number of people which attended the death match.
Example=
Victory Death Match Prize
10 gems of a random type
and
50 gold per unit which attends the death match

Now that is a prize worth risking a good commander. Hopefully something will be introduced in a future patch.

[PvK]

Originally posted by spirokeat:
...
Sigh, only turn 9, time to start over.
... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What tense drama. Win fame and glory... or lose one fight that you chose as if it were a brave risk, and then wimp out and restart the whole game if you lose the challenge. No fair claiming the game is easy to beat (not that you did), after restarting when you have setbacks.

PvK

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by spirokeat:
But ! I decided to play with the new Ctis dessert tombs from the patch, so I took Lord of the Gates and immediately reserached to hand of death on the off chance a deathmatch happened. Lo ! one pops up so I thought why not, my god has like 220 hps, bags of strength etc so I scripted hand of death 5 times and sent him in.

Spiro <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Never send your pretender into a death match... you can easily get battle afflictions, cursed, horror marked and/or be killed.... and the prize for a pretender is a cursed two handed weapon and a little experience. Never worth sending a pretender... more valuable having him research.


Another design flaw which needs to be fixed is the AI opponents sending their pretender into the death matches.

[ June 14, 2004, 20:45: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Ironhawk]

Originally posted by PDF:
Is Hand of Death affecting UNdeads ?
Desciption doesn't say anything specific, but it'll be quite logical it shouldn't ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've seen hand of death kill undead. I don't think the spell differentiates in what kind of damage it deals and to whom.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
It's not worth risking having him killed, cursed, diseased or horror marked for a boost in experience. He is one of the worst ice devils but still much more valuable alive then dead.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, he could get killed, but that comes to a cost of about 55 blood slaves. He's a demon, so I think he was rendered unaffected by disease as of the most recent patches. Being horror marked is merely a minor nuisance, and being cursed will only end his mostly nonexistent combat career. Plus you can always just kill him and resummon him. I doubt anyone's going to try to beat you to the draw when it comes to getting Mr. Icyfists there.

[PDF]

Is Hand of Death affecting UNdeads ?
Desciption doesn't say anything specific, but it'll be quite logical it shouldn't ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
To a pretender the prize is more of a liability than a benefit, if only the Arena could be restricted to Non-pretenders it'll be *a tad* funnier (in SP ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

[spirokeat]

Originally posted by PvK:


What tense drama. Win fame and glory... or lose one fight that you chose as if it were a brave risk, and then wimp out and restart the whole game if you lose the challenge. No fair claiming the game is easy to beat (not that you did), after restarting when you have setbacks.

PvK <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It wasn't done as a brave risk, I've never won a deathmatch as i almost exclusively play immbobile pretenders and I certainly dont think the game is easy, I entered to see what would happen knowing I was capable of restarting as I was so early into the game. This is single player stuff, I didn't end 5 other peoples games in a sulk.

I enjoy building themic empires and seeing things appear under a particular style, thats who I enjoy playing, Im not in the game to see a win message at the end. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Spiro

[Taqwus]

Don't send pretenders, but be aware that if you're playing solo, the AI makes very poor equipping decisions so even AI pretenders aren't necessarily hard-to-kill in 1:1 combat. Early on, a Dusk Elder spamming summons will quite possibly do the trick...

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Well, he could get killed, but that comes to a cost of about 55 blood slaves. He's a demon, so I think he was rendered unaffected by disease as of the most recent patches. Being horror marked is merely a minor nuisance, and being cursed will only end his mostly nonexistent combat career. Plus you can always just kill him and resummon him. I doubt anyone's going to try to beat you to the draw when it comes to getting Mr. Icyfists there. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would rather risk having him killed by attacking my enemies where I know he will take a good handful enemies or maybe a weak province if there's lots of cold in the province.
I like placing 5 dispossed spirits as guards which lets him do lots more killing.

So devils can't be affected by diseased anymore?