Uh oh...what do I do now?

[OG_Gleep]

Trying to get a meger blood slave pool, I mixed and matched items till I could finally create the Robe of the Magi. Read the description, everything looked fine.

Been using it for both my Pretender and my one Blood mage for blood hunting, when I noticed my Bloodhunter had a cool new icon. Well that Icon was horror marked. WTF...I checked my Pretender, and sure enough he had it too.

So somehow, without it saying (or I have selective blindness and choose not to see it), my pretender is horror marked. From what I can gather this is a very bad thing.

What can I do now?

[OG_Gleep]

Looking at it again, there is another item both of them used. The Ring of Sorcery...but that doesn't say anything about horrors either.

[Truper]

Its the Robe of the Magi. There are a few items with properties that aren't advertised, and the Robe is one of them. There isn't anything you can do about the horror mark, they are permanent. What you will need to do is prepare to face a visit from an occasional horror...

[archaeolept]

they're quite rare, and usually not so tough (for your pretender, at least). except for very valuable mages, I wouldn't worry too much.

[OG_Gleep]

My pretender is just an average Archmage (Wizard on a regualr horse). Think a stiff wind could knock him out.

I haven't ever seen horrors before, but from what I read they sounded pretty nasty. But if theres nothing to be done....

Wish they mentioned that somewhere.

[shovah]

they ARE nasty but can i give you some advice? if you have acces to blood mages the only item you should give them is a sanguine dousing rod and they should be cheap mages aswell, put 3 lvl 1-2 blood mages in a 0% tax province

[Oversway]

Suprise! But yeah, horrors are rather rare. I think it may depend on your luck and/or magic scales.

I suggest keeping a few bodyguards on your archmage to slow down any horrors until you can get off some good spells.

[Endoperez]

If he has Astral, and you don't want him to fight any fights any way, consider scripting him to cast Returning. That is the most exploited way of getting out of Void Gate.

[shovah]

what paths does your archmage have?

[OG_Gleep]

I didn't have access to any. My only blood mage (out of about 40 randome picks) is a sage 1 blood. I thought increasing his blood would help, as he was getting 0 slaves. I got his blood up to 3 (while he was at 2 I had to switch the robe of the magi between him and my pretender). Now he has a rod, Ring of Socery, and the thorn armor that raises blood/Nature.

I didn't realize that the rod would help more than the extra blood. Thanks for the advice. Hopefully I'll get aother blood random here shortly and I'll just stick a Rod on him.

[archaeolept]

give your archmage some tough bodyguards - ghosts are pretty good, or the like.

[shovah]

the rod basically counts as +1 blood for hunting but its cheap, you could always summon lamia queens/some blood gifted units

[Ironhawk]

OG_Gleep said:
My only blood mage (out of about 40 randome picks) is a sage 1 blood. I thought increasing his blood would help, as he was getting 0 slaves.



If you are really strapped for blood hunters, start summoning Lamia Queens. They are a bit expensive for that task but they get 2 sorcery randoms so there is a good chance they will get blood. Way better chance than sages, at any rate.

And about bloodhunting, let me just list the guidelines incase you didnt know:
1) always equip your hunters with Sanguie Dousing Rods
2) only hunt in provinces with populations over 5000 (is it 5k? I forget. Maybe its 8k)
3) keep unrest at 0 (either via lowering taxes or patrolling)

[Saber Cherry]

I always use scouts for bloodhunting. They are cheaper than anything except cheap blood mages with Sanguine Dousing Rods. If you intend to bootstrap into bloodhunting, you can collect 50 slaves with scouts, empower a national mage with synergistic paths (like Earth, Nature, Death, or Astral), forge a SDR, and hunt with him too until he's empowered enough to do useful things. Blood hunting with non-blood-mages was reduced in efficiency in patch 2.1x, but is still quite useful, considering scouts are dirt cheap. Hunting unsuccessfully does not cause much unrest, anyway, so don't be afraid to dedicate several 3000-6000 pop provinces to blood hunting, with 4-10 scouts each. You'll need to patrol at the upper end of the range... in the base game, I often use 25 indy archers and an indy commander for patrols (or low-end Foul Spawn); in a mod that sets militia pricing to very low levels, I use militia. But bear in mind that patrolling kills population much faster than blood hunting, so only do it in a very close game, a (anticipated) short game, early in the game to accelerate the bootstrapping process, with a theme that will kill people anyway, or when you choose some combination Disorder, Sloth, Death, and Hot/Cold scales that generate little income from the populace anyway.

Incidentally, scouts are still ideal blood hunters in many cases - even since non-blood-mage efficacy was reduced - because they are stealthy. Therefore, a scout transporting valuable slaves cannot be caught (when sneaking through unpatrolled territory), and a province full of hunting scouts can be set to "hide" when a pincer attack is expected... and lastly, if blood-hunting is your sole aim, empowered scouts retain their stealth and low upkeep while suddenly becoming able to use an SDR. Since blood-hunting is most economical in provinces you expect to lose (or at least, be unable to defend) rather than in your rearmost assured-income provinces, stealth and cheapness (in the event of death due to an unexpected attack) are immensely valuable to blood-hunters.

[OG_Gleep]

CRAP!!!

He just got killed by a horror...it took down my unnatural bodyguards, routed my archers and then one hit away from dying, killed my boy.

Anything I can do to get him back? Crappy thing too I just got two of my entchantments dispelled.

[OG_Gleep]

Oh thank god. I searched all the message boards for an answer...the lack of information, coupled with the fact only immortal return questions were raised, I freaked out and jumped to post without looking in game first. First time my pretender died in any game so far. Thank god there is a "Call God" option.

[Endoperez]

OG_Gleep said:
Oh thank god. I searched all the message boards for an answer...the lack of information, coupled with the fact only immortal return questions were raised, I freaked out and jumped to post without looking in game first. First time my pretender died in any game so far. Thank god there is a "Call God" option.



No need to thank him, he did it for quite selfish reasons. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[OG_Gleep]

lol

[NTJedi]

OG_Gleep said:
My pretender is just an average Archmage (Wizard on a regualr horse). Think a stiff wind could knock him out.

I haven't ever seen horrors before, but from what I read they sounded pretty nasty. But if theres nothing to be done....

Wish they mentioned that somewhere.



I've had my pretender horror marked with the boots which do the travel spell... same as you nothing was mentioned.
Well the worst experience I had was the Helm of Ahomtep (spelling?) . After forging the helm I was once again afraid of getting cursed or horror marked... so I looked for a test subject... and found a telestic animated statue(5_astral). And popped it on head... great bonuses and no curse or horror mark... yet I couldn't remove it. Then I found the mummifaction spell it could do... yet realized this statue was underwater... making it virtually worthless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
Maybe someone had a worse experience but this one is pretty bad.

[Endoperez]

That IS bad. When something like that happens, it's time to redo your turn. It can take time, but it IS a much better option. And redoing your turn is much more fun than losing resources, even in SP where you've practically won any way.

[PvK]

Personally, I find it really funny and fun when things like that happen, even to myself. I like playing through even such goofy mistakes.

PvK

[Zen]

I just have to say, this is what is great about Dominions. Little things that you arn't looking for suddenly taking you by surprise. Hence, the love of MP.

But, if next time you want perhaps a better idea, you can try the widely availiable Magic Item Quickref back when I was ambitious. Find it here (http://www.dominions-2.org/files.htm) on Arryn's Dominions site. She has kept that thing alive and up to day despite the somewhat haphazard nature of the community here. The site is also chalk full of maps, mods, and other cool things to try after the basic game/map lose their luster.

[OG_Gleep]

LoL I have had that happen a couple times, but never to that degree. That item list is awesome, I have printed out most of the references available...but unless you memorize the list, or look up every item when you build it, you will still get surprises hehe.

[Valandil]

Hmmm... Aseftik's armor is cursed? I seem to have a commander of ulm with 28 prot. Any suggestions?
He was going to be used as a courier...

[Arralen]

Cursed items have a very high chance to be picked up when their owner dies in battle. Just make sure it's the intended next owner who finds it ...

[Tom_Scudder]

Ah, yes, I remember my army of Abysian demonbreds outfitted with an eye of aiming apiece so their big impressive fire spells would actually hit something one in a while. And what happened to his brother officer when one of them died...

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Tom_Scudder said:
Ah, yes, I remember my army of Abysian demonbreds outfitted with an eye of aiming apiece so their big impressive fire spells would actually hit something one in a while. And what happened to his brother officer when one of them died...


Solution: Fill the other misc slot. If nobody has a slot to put it in, they can't pick it up...

[OG_Gleep]

Not always easy to plan like that.