Reanimation Question

[Hellboy]

Here is a very basic, noobish reanimation question (I did try the manual and searching, but no luck on the precise answer).

I've got a Mound Fiend hanging around for a not particularly undead kind of nation. My question is, whether it's worthwhile to use him for reanimation, in order to pick some zero cost chaff. More specifically, he can reaninmate ghouls, longdead or soulless. IIRC, in tips I've seen that if I reanimate ghouls that'll reduce population, so that seems like a bad idea - or is it?

OTOH, in most of my provinces I've got no corpses, will that place a limitation on how many soulless and/or longdead he can reanimate?

Finally, does the Sword of Justice raise his priest level for the purposes of reanimate?

TIA,

Hellboy

[Wish]

best to re-animate longdead.

sword of justice will increase how many longdead, etc, he gets, but won't let him re-animate lictors.

[Sombre]

If you can get to corpses, soulless is best. If you're in a 'sink' province (possibly at risk of being conquered), ghouls are best (theoretically) and if you're just hanging around at the capitol or something, longdead are best.

I personally think the choice between ghouls and longdead is more of a falvour thing than anything. But I'd like to know this - Do you get more ghouls at a higher pop place? (similar to blood slaves)

[PvK]

I think the "ghoul rate" is constant for the same priest level (until you run out of population).

All three types have their advantages, so it's up to you. My feeling is Sombre's guidelines are generally good for which to reanimate where in generic circumstances, unless you know you want a specific type.

Yes, corpses limits the number of soulless available (and whether the corpses were created by dying troops or population determines what kind of soulless you get), but has no effect on the rate of other types (I believe).

Yes, items that raise priest level (like Sword of Justice) do increase the reanimation rate, as well as possibly giving you more types of units to reanimate (e.g. Longdead Horsemen are very, er, nice but not available to an unboosted Mound Fiend...).

PvK

[TirAsleen]

Ok....a guide how to use what reanimations:

1. After a battle do use reanimate soulless and nothing else. You get soulless warriors, more hp than longdead and better att/def than normal soulless.

2. Do not reanimate soulless out of dead population, you get just normal soulless that are armed with bare fists. This chaff is only meatshield and you need to have vast numbers of them to kill something with it.

3. Reanimate ghouls, if you need to defend a castle, cause they are not mindless they won't get any penalities there, like other mindless undead do, on the other side they cannot walk through water.

4. In all other circumstances use reanimate long dead.

[PvK]

Ghouls are also good if you face an opponent with mental attacks, since it gives you "mind fodder".

Unarmed soulless have their tactical place, even though they're clearly worse than armed soulless.

[TwoBits]

I'd consider recruiting ghouls instead of long dead in low-end provinces (say, with incomes of less than 20). Any loss in income over time will be insignificant compared to the number of "higher value" undead gained.

[Sombre]

Are ghouls actually better than longdead though? They've always done really badly for me.

[TirAsleen]

yes, i use unarmed soulless as meatshield barrier for my commanders.

[PvK]

None of the types are better in all ways. For plain melee, armed longdead tend to be better fighters than ghouls. But ghouls have minds, so they absorb attacks like Mind Burn, Soul Slay, Ithilid Mind Blasts, etc., which makes them very useful against those dangerous threats, when they exist.

And for another example, even unarmed soulless are better at soaking up some kinds of attacks than longdead are. It's more a question of how it makes sense to organize and use them all in what circumstances, than which is the best. Best is making the best use of all of them in each situation.

[Salamander8]

All very good points. I know when I face hordes of undead as MA R'leyh (or R'Leyh in Dom2) if they didn't have at least some of the undead with brains, my Ilithids tore their commanders to shreds with Mind Blasts. This produced some lop-sided victories this way.