R'lyeh Dreamlands and Void Summoning

[Cthuddha]

I've been itching to play as my favorite Lovecraftian race in this game, but I'm having some trouble with summoning monsters from the Void - my pretender, who is a Void Lurker, still manages to go insane after summoning something. I lost another pretender (also a Void Lurker) when he was "lost in time and space." What tips are there for summoning from the Void, and can I summon commanders via this method? My normal Illithids are going insane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[KissBlade]

LoL, summon with the starspawn priests ONLY.

[Theonlystd]

Stick with the priests as kiss said


As for commanders. If you can get some nature magic going. Crank out whips of command.. And have Your starspawn mages lead troops around they seem to be be basicly immune to the insanity.. Or just have extra commanders in every army. So when one refuses to do something you can switch the army to a backup

[Taqwus]

Well... among the recruitable commanders, anyway.

Your national summons also has decent summoning skill, and there's a national hero who's also good at it.

[vfb]

Is it worth putting bodyguards or items on my starspawn priests who are void summoning?

The bodyguards and items help me defeat the creatures who "suddenly attack" me, but I've always ended up "lost in time and space" even after defeating the attackers. Is there any chance not to end up lost if you are attacked?

Any surviving bodyguards return to the garrison, but items of course disappear.

[Humer]

Bodyguards and items are not worth it IMO. Just script 'Returning' and give your summoner some pearls. You will need at least two, maybe three required - the gem usage mechanic escapes me for now. Only one if your priest got S as random magic. In the attack your summoner will be the defender, meaning that s/he/it will get the first turn casting Returning returning safely home.

[vfb]

Heh. I thought of scripting returning, but the void gate is in my capital. The description of returning says it won't work if the caster is already in the home province.

I'll give it a try anyway, it's just a couple of pearls. Hope it works!

[Eressil3]

vfb said:
Is it worth putting bodyguards or items on my starspawn priests who are void summoning?



My lesser summoned creatures and my best ones goes to fight. The average ones serves as bodyguards. The priest need them since he's not that powerfull and can end against some rather powerful monster.
I don't give him magical objects because, as you said, the gate is not a safe place...



vfb said:
The bodyguards and items help me defeat the creatures who "suddenly attack" me, but I've always ended up "lost in time and space" even after defeating the attackers. Is there any chance not to end up lost if you are attacked?




No luck ! I got a different experience here. Most of the time, it cost me only two priests(= I lose only one priest in time and space) to reach the vastness(=one of the most powerfull creature you can summon).

I don't know if scales do help but I tend to play R'lyeh with turmoil 3/luck 3...

[vfb]

Thanks for the tips.

I can't remember the last game I played that wasn't Turmoil 3 Luck 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Ooh, I want a Vastness. It should be Gift-of-Reason-able, right? So far my best summon has been a Greater Otherness.

LA Rlyeh is fun! My Mad Cultist just found 2 temples of the deep, and I didn't even ask him to look for them.

[Hugh Manatee]

Question, is there a way to make insane commanders less insane(or more manageable when they are bonkers?)? Like an item or spell or something?

[Evilhomer]

nope

[Lingchih]

vfb said:
Thanks for the tips.

I can't remember the last game I played that wasn't Turmoil 3 Luck 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Ooh, I want a Vastness. It should be Gift-of-Reason-able, right? So far my best summon has been a Greater Otherness.

LA Rlyeh is fun! My Mad Cultist just found 2 temples of the deep, and I didn't even ask him to look for them.



They are not that great when you GOR them. They don't have any slots. They look really cool in your commanders box though.

[HoneyBadger]

They don't have any slots, but they *do* start with Astral 3 when you GOR them. If you've got a ton of gems lying around, you might want to consider empowering them a bit.

I had a truly EPIC battle in the Arena between my empowered prophet Vastness and a Pretender Wyrm with around 300 hp, tons of magic, and massive regeneration, who just happened to be my worst enemy at the time. After half an hour the Wyrm finally did defeat my Vastness, but at the cost of horrormarking and 3 afflictions. The Pretender bit the dust in the very next fight.

I was sorry to lose such a cool Prophet, but he sure went out with a bang.

[vfb]

Sounds like a fun plan! But I've still been unable to get a Vastness out of the void gate. It's turn 30 already. Does the dominion level have an effect? I only have Dom 5 on my capital.

I won't mind losing a prophet, I've got lots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. But it seems only the 'real' prophet spreads dominion by merely existing, all my other prophets have to preach. Is that right? Conversion Rates showed "Prophet 0" when my real prophet died, even though I had 4 or 5 crazy prophets wandering around.

[HoneyBadger]

I really hope the Devs expand the Void Gate concept, both in the variety of units in it's current incarnation (which is excellent, but more, weirder, and rarer in this case is better-especially if we could see some new, powerful and strange, but specialized units for the long game), and as a type of special location in the game as a whole.

It really appeals to me.

[vfb]

I haven't gotten bored of the void gate yet, but it's the first LA Rlyeh game I've played.

I really dig the summoning sites too. It would be nice if they worked like the void gate. It would be extra fun if my death mage popped into one to go grab a bane or whatever, and was randomly attacked like the void gate does. Maybe in Dom 4? Then all nations could enjoy the suspense that Rlyeh gets!

[vfb]

I had no idea that commanders who got "Lost in Time and Space" could come back (with more astral magic, but less sanity). I thought they were gone forever.

It would have helped if he'd come back to a province Rlyeh owned though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So, I think the best plan may be to depend on bodyguards to overcome accidents at the void gate, but script returning so that when the Starspawn comes back from time and space, into a hostile province, he can follow the script and bail. Have to load up on pearls just in case the Starspawn chews through a bunch in the battle though.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not tired of it either, but once you've played a game to the 240th turn, I could see wanting more out of the VoidGate beyond Vastnesses. Vastnesses are awesome, don't get me wrong, but in a very long game I think, in the greater eventuality, you should get some Pretender-quality summons from it.

[Humer]

IIRC from previous Void Gate threads, two things are suggested having an effect on Gate summonings:

1) Summoning skill. Basically the higher, the better (and more likely) summons. But you no longer get Vastnesses from Gate once your summoning skills gets too high. Quantity (and quality of Otherness) will improve, though.

2) Luck scale. Higher the better.

Wouldn't be surprised if some items provided bonuses for Gate users (Lucky pendant and Nethgul come first to mind). Or summoner's skill in astral magic.

As said earlier in this thread, exact Gate mechanics have never been revealed, so I'd hazard a guess that 'retiring' your dedicated summoner and replacing her with a new recruit could result in more Vastnesses (eventually, if you're lucky), once your summoners skill hits the 'magic range'.

[Psientist]

Has anyone else ever observed their Void Gate "drying up" somewhere around turn 80-100? It has seemed to happen to me a couple of times.

[Salamander8]

I love MA R'Lyeh (I haven't really tried LA yet) and the void gate is a big part why. I always use a priest Starspawn or the Cthugul special hero in the gate myself. You get quite a lot of weird results, from Things of Many Eyes to such lovelies as the Vastness or Greater Othernesses.

I'm curious about the returning scripting as well. It states you cannot cast it if you are already at he capital, so I have never scripted it for this purpose yet. I tend to throw immobile summons as the summoners bodyguards, but I don't give him items. It's not like the immobile guys have a lot else to do.

[Shovah32]

Psientist said:
Has anyone else ever observed their Void Gate "drying up" somewhere around turn 80-100? It has seemed to happen to me a couple of times.



Try using a new summoner. I believe after a certain summoning level it becomes more difficult to summon things(this applies atleast to summoning vastnesses afaik) for balance purposes.

[Endoperez]

I understood it wasn't "for balance purposes" as much as "no one will ever get the summoning skill this high, so there's no need to add anything more" without taking A) the spell Returning and B) Gift of Health and/or Chalice into account.

[Jazzepi]

Endoperez said:
I understood it wasn't "for balance purposes" as much as "no one will ever get the summoning skill this high, so there's no need to add anything more" without taking A) the spell Returning and B) Gift of Health and/or Chalice into account.



I think it would be really cool if they added some super rare, super uber stuff you could get out of the void gate.

Jazzepi

[Salamander8]

vfb said:
I had no idea that commanders who got "Lost in Time and Space" could come back (with more astral magic, but less sanity). I thought they were gone forever.

It would have helped if he'd come back to a province Rlyeh owned though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So, I think the best plan may be to depend on bodyguards to overcome accidents at the void gate, but script returning so that when the Starspawn comes back from time and space, into a hostile province, he can follow the script and bail. Have to load up on pearls just in case the Starspawn chews through a bunch in the battle though.


I know what you mean! I had one of my poor Starspawns go lost in time and space and came back in a province that was packed with over 100 units. I can imagine his thought process...

"Drifting in time and space for what seems like forever... I see a light ahead! It's home! Hey guys! It's me, Cvy Coth! Oh sh........" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

Jazzepi said:

Endoperez said:
I understood it wasn't "for balance purposes" as much as "no one will ever get the summoning skill this high, so there's no need to add anything more" without taking A) the spell Returning and B) Gift of Health and/or Chalice into account.



I think it would be really cool if they added some super rare, super uber stuff you could get out of the void gate.

Jazzepi



Vastness IS that super uber stuff you can get out of the void gate. However, as I said, high summoning skill is much easier to get than the devs thought.

[Kristoffer O]

> However, as I said, high summoning skill is much easier to get than the devs thought.

You might be right there.

[vfb]

Huh, so 'Returning' does work from the Void Gate, if your Starspawn is suddenly attacked. I just saw it happen. I guess the Void Gate is not really in your capital, it's in the void.

No need for bodyguards then.

[HoneyBadger]

Vastness is fine, but it's just one example. I think their are a ton of possibilities here, not necessarily to make units that are so much more powerful than a Vastness (although their could certainly be, as rarities), but more variety and specialization, at that level of power.

[Loren]

vfb said:
Huh, so 'Returning' does work from the Void Gate, if your Starspawn is suddenly attacked. I just saw it happen. I guess the Void Gate is not really in your capital, it's in the void.

No need for bodyguards then.



Yup, I just tried it. My summoner got out fine. However, some insane cultist jumped in the gate afterwards! He even managed to summon something.

[vfb]

That's funny, I've never seen that happen! I wonder if they can even 'Enter Site' without the appropriate magic paths.

Do luck scales affect what your insane cultists do? I'm wondering if it causes more 'become prophets' to occur when you have higher luck. Seems like I've got a whole bunch of prophets running around, and as usual I'm Luck-3. But maybe it's just random.

[Failure]

Kristoffer, is it likely that the Void Gate will be changed/tweaked in future patches for dominions 3?

[Psientist]

I don't think there needs to be more powerful void summons, though top-level alternatives to Vastnesses would be interesting. I think it's more important to provide options to prevent the "drying up" effect of high summoners, even if it's higher numbers or more frequency of the existing void summons.

[HoneyBadger]

I think after Vastness, you should start seeing Commander void summons.

[Vanshee]

Magic scales prevent void gate summoners from insanity?
My summoner got 0 insanity with magic+3 till he reached 10 summoning skill, while another got 10ish insanity with magic+1...
If this is comfirmed, luck magic both +3 will be awesome for massive void summons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Sombre]

Dun dun duuuuuun!

See attached.

[llamabeast]

That looks cool Sombre... what is it?

[Sombre]

I have no idea yet. Something for LA Atlantis I suppose. A pretender, or a blood summon, or a high price recruit.

All this talk of Dagon set me off.

[Bwaha]

If you like vastness, try the greater vastness. Its got three misc slots! Great fun, ring of regen, amulet of luck, and that reinvig item. Lots of fun. (eeek what the hell is that). It won't go away, and "we now serve them" is too much fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[chrispedersen]

Salamander8 said:
I love MA R'Lyeh (I haven't really tried LA yet) and the void gate is a big part why. I always use a priest Starspawn or the Cthugul special hero in the gate myself. You get quite a lot of weird results, from Things of Many Eyes to such lovelies as the Vastness or Greater Othernesses.

I'm curious about the returning scripting as well. It states you cannot cast it if you are already at he capital, so I have never scripted it for this purpose yet. I tend to throw immobile summons as the summoners bodyguards, but I don't give him items. It's not like the immobile guys have a lot else to do.




Returning works great. Using immobiles as body guards help. After summoning skill gets over 10-20, switch to a new sucker, er, priest to avoid drying out.

LA; correct only the real prophet spreads dominion.

[chrispedersen]

I had a pretender who had 2-3 unbreakable globals. So the opponents decided to get rid of the globals the old fashioned way - kill the caster. After 3 Vengeance of the deads - in a row, I saw the writing on the wall.

Sooooooo I jumped in the void gate and got lost in time = ).

[Niarg]

I'd love to know more about the mechanics of the void gate. In some tests I did luck did seem to help with quality and quantity of summons, however I the best result I got was with misfortune. Do you know if turmoil and or magic affect the summons in any way?

[Endoperez]

Bwaha said:
If you like vastness, try the greater vastness. Its got three misc slots! Great fun, ring of regen, amulet of luck, and that reinvig item. Lots of fun. (eeek what the hell is that). It won't go away, and "we now serve them" is too much fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



Greater Vastness?!? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Are you sure you haven't confused Othernesses with Vastness? Otherness is just a huge trampling monstrosity. Vastness is flying, mapmove 10 molecule with blood vengeance and nasty attacks. I have never seen a Greater Vastness, but that'd have to be something really horrible.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, Greater Vastness is just Kristoffer's foot coming down and squishing your enemies, Monty Python-style.

[MaxWilson]

Endoperez said:
Greater Vastness?!? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Are you sure you haven't confused Othernesses with Vastness? Otherness is just a huge trampling monstrosity. Vastness is flying, mapmove 10 molecule with blood vengeance and nasty attacks. I have never seen a Greater Vastness, but that'd have to be something really horrible.



Must be mixing them up--Vastness has 0 enc so it wouldn't need the reinvig item.

-Max

[Taqwus]

Unless you want the Vastness to be using its astral magic. :p

Never saw a 'greater' Vastness, 'tho, just the Othernesses.

[Bwaha]

Okay maybe Dom2, But I've had them. Its really true... and yes, the reinvig is to make up for the spells cast... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif I will look in my old bot to see exactly where it is.

[Bwaha]

Yep, thats what happened. Sorry, (senior-moment) Its a Dom2 critter.

[JimMorrison]

Why not a little brother to Void Lords? Some sort of Void Prince could be possible..... In fact, make the odds of something truly awesome and terrible being summoned start to increase dramatically somewhere after 15 skill. But the thing is, you have a tough choice here - you can either start a new guy, and go after the smaller and easily controlled beasties you know so well, or you can keep hunting the big game, but they have a high chance of coming out hostile. Void Summoning could be very dangerous then. Perhaps even have the chance of Horrors coming out, since they are so connected to Astral magic, it would make sense if they inhabited the Void?

[Bwaha]

Well, this is how to do the gate. I have my Preist cast returning. well in the back. This is the only "safe" way to go thru the gate. I almost allways go for one turmoil and three luck... at least with these guys. Bodyguards need not apply, bceause he says, "i'm outta here", before anything else happens. I think its "frendly territory" so the caster goes first... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I love the idea of the Void Gate. I really and truly want it to be moddable, and to be able to add void critters of my own design. I think it could be as significant a factor to base a nation around something like a Void Gate, as to base one around the ability to cast certain spells or forge items.

Suppose you had a nation that could access Tartarus, or Cocytos, One of the elemental realms, or the Japanese underworld? Maybe a gate to the far future or the far past, from which can be drawn dinosaurs or mechanical beings.

[Tifone]

Or Verne's "Voyage au centre de la Terre" underworld! And come out with survived dinosaurs!! OH MY!!

[JimMorrison]

Land of the Lost: A Nature mage may enter to summon a Sleestak. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[HoneyBadger]

Your "voyage" idea sounds quite interesting, Tifone. Imagine a scenario wherein various Void-sites actually represent long sea voyages to mystical islands and continents, etc. not otherwise accessible by the main map, simply because the map itself only represents the known world? And they're only accessible to those commanders with the Sailing tag.

[Tifone]

Thanks Badger... and hey your idea of making it usable only by commanders with sailing is a great complement! IIRC, because I read that book when i was around 12yo, the characters have to do a difficult travel by a subterranean sea to get to the prehistorical land. So it is very thematic! The site is taking shape http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif What about your idea of the Japanesse underworld? What could you find in there?

[HoneyBadger]

That's an old, old one. I requested the ability to add/mod Void gate for a Shinuyama-based mod, based somewhat on Demon City Shinjuku, where instead of void creatures, your mages could enter and summon Japanese flavoured demons and undead. It would be something like a manga-based mod, with creatures and graphics inspired by various anime movies, which I don't think we've seen yet.