Pocket Lich gone Wild

[Lingchih]

Saw something strange last night. I was playing my first game with 3.10, Formorians (a totally bad *** race, btw, but that deserves another thread).

Anyway, I went to take a tough indy province. The commander there had in his possession... Caracator the Pocket Lich! I have never seen an artifact on an indy commander before. But I thought, well, that's kind of cool. Makes it possible to get an artifact early on, without the need to research construction 8. That's kind of a cool change, I thought.

As the battle was winding down, my giants went chasing after a straggler, but I could not see who. Then I noticed an odd looking softball bouncing around the battlefield. Lo and behold, it was Carcator, on his own and running (more like bouncing) like hell.

He wasn't very fast, one of my Giants crushed him. When the turn was over though, one of my commanders had Carcator in his misc. slot. Very cool, I thought, got him.

When I went to battle with him equipped though, his behavior was very odd. He never casted spells, like Carcator usually does. His first action would be to jump out of the commanders bag, and rush into battle like some crazed softball. He always died very quickly, since he had no attack. So his behavior was, I guess, like the Pocket Knight, except he's not much of a Knight.

Weird, eh?

[Ironhawk]

Thats interesting. If indies really can have artifacts tho that could be overpowered. Imagine finding Aegis or the Soulstone or something on turn 3!

As for Carcator's behavior: perhaps you had no spells researched that he could cast so he decided to go for melee?

[archaeolept]

heh how are you going to get the soulstone, unless you already have an army that can take it...

however, i would need more reports to think things have really been changed. Once, in a DomII game w/ norfleet's ermor neighbouring, a nice independent provice bordering my start had lamias and a lamia queen.

the lamia queen had the soulstone.

it stayed indepent for a long long time. though i did try assassinating her (f9s9 marignon bless) for funsies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Lingchih]

Ironhawk said:
Thats interesting. If indies really can have artifacts tho that could be overpowered. Imagine finding Aegis or the Soulstone or something on turn 3!

As for Carcator's behavior: perhaps you had no spells researched that he could cast so he decided to go for melee?



No, I don't think so. I had plenty of death magic researched, since I was playing the Fomorians. He never casts spells in battle though. I'm still playing the game, and the commander still has Carcator. I'll let you know what he does when I get back to it.

[Lingchih]

I should probably mention that I am playing the Mac 3.10 patch (the one that masquerades as 3.09), so that could make things a bit dubious.

[Lingchih]

Ahhh. He does cast spells. You must be right Ironhawk, I must not have had any death magic researched when I was first using him (he does have a Bite for 2, so he can attack). I just played a new turn, and he skelly spammed for the whole turn.

[RamsHead]

archaeolept said:
heh how are you going to get the soulstone, unless you already have an army that can take it...

however, i would need more reports to think things have really been changed. Once, in a DomII game w/ norfleet's ermor neighbouring, a nice independent provice bordering my start had lamias and a lamia queen.

the lamia queen had the soulstone.

it stayed indepent for a long long time. though i did try assassinating her (f9s9 marignon bless) for funsies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



I had the lamia thing in one of my Dom 3 SP games. Except it was wearing Fenris' Pelt.

[Morkilus]

I love stories like this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I've never seen an artifact on an indie, though. It's not a specials map?

[IndyPendant]

Hmm, interesting. I got him too, but I haven't checked to see what he does in battle. He curses everyone, so I've currently got him on a solo commander perma-parked in an out-of-the-way province until I figure out what to do with him.

Got him from an indie myself--but I was playing EA Caelum, and this happened *before* I patched to 3.10.

[Cor2]

I have seen the Pelt of Fenris turn up on an Indy in mp 3.08 .I guess it happens ocassionally that indies get artifacts, not sure why or what causes it.

[Lingchih]

Morkilus said:
I love stories like this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I've never seen an artifact on an indie, though. It's not a specials map?



It's the base Parganos map, with no mods. He's getting to be quite handy, and hasn't cursed anybody yet.

[Edratman]

I've seen indies have artifacts quite a few times. It might be because I always set idies to 9, maybe not.

I hae noticed that the indies that pop up and take one your provinces almost always have at least one item, unless they are barbarians. A couple nights ago I watched the battle when I lost a province to pop-up indies and there were 5 or 6 artifacts between 2 indie commanders. I haven't had a chance to take it back so I don't know if they are all right now. (The strength message I get says there are fewer troops there now than there were during the battle.)

[Folket]

Edratman, are you talking about artifacts or plain items?

[Burnsaber]

I gor Fenrir's Belt in a mp game from independents. (Lamia province and insependent strenght 5)

[Gevaudan]

In my experience, every version of the game has items aplenty in indies, even in mercenaries you hire, though those usually suck. The items tend toward low level and tend toward later game pops I believe. I've played with high misfortune in long game and had the same event happen multiple times. item distribution has never been identical, except that bogus always has his stuff.

[Ironhawk]

archaeolept said:
heh how are you going to get the soulstone, unless you already have an army that can take it...



Its not hard to take the Soulstone in dom3. It only autocasts Howl once at the start of battle, not every turn like in dom2. Unless that has changed in the latest patch? Soulstone is far more useful now as a never ending chaff generator via the werewolves.

[NTJedi]

Ironhawk said:

archaeolept said:
heh how are you going to get the soulstone, unless you already have an army that can take it...



Its not hard to take the Soulstone in dom3. It only autocasts Howl once at the start of battle, not every turn like in dom2. Unless that has changed in the latest patch? Soulstone is far more useful now as a never ending chaff generator via the werewolves.



The soulstone in Dom_2 also allowed the werewolf and his wolves to show up on a targeted province. In Dom_2 it was stronger because the defending province had wolves casted at the start of every battle turn.

[NTJedi]

Going back to the pocket lich... this could be a busted artifact. Someone may want to test and report the issue.

[Edratman]

Folket said:
Edratman, are you talking about artifacts or plain items?



Yes, you are correct about my careless use of terminology. I usually seen plain items.

[Cor2]

NTJedi said:

Going back to the pocket lich... this could be a busted artifact. Someone may want to test and report the issue.



I just saw the pocket lich work in a 3.10 game.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, he seems to be working as designed now. I guess I just had one of the very rare occurrences of an Indy holding an artifact.

[sum1lost]

I've run into a mummy carrying a very potent wand and hat.

[Valandil]

katafugus, maybe?

[Wick]

No, Katafagus is a lich, I think. The divine mummy is... Ptah? This is probably in the data base but it's more fun as a pop quiz. There's Solaris, Polyperchon, Tiamat, Anre, and others. Starke, Andromeda?

[Edi]

Actually, the special province defenders are not in the DB (the items are, though).

These are the special guardian commanders and the sites they are guarding that I can remember:
Bolivar the Illusionist (Bolivar's Tower of Reflections)
Anre the Eternal Knight (Holy Crypt of Anre)
Katafagus the Lich
Ptah the Divine Mummy (Desert of Ptah)
Solaris the Paladin
Sativa the Sorceress (Twice Walled Tower?)
Tiamat the Wyrm
Oberfuehrer the Hoburg Hero (Hoburg)
Polyperchon the Cyclops (Mine of the Cyclops)
Starke the Ice Druid (Stakre's Ice Cave)
King of the World (Throne of the World)
Great Mother & naked Lord of Fertility (The Primal Forest)
Golem

EDIT: Updated Anre to the list.

[Mind Elemental]

Anre the Eternal Knight guards the Holy Crypt of Anre, actually. I ran into him one game, and that is burned into my memory. >_< Never met Solaris.

[Humakty]

Yes !! Just found a special indep province like you describe, must now put up a plan up to get my moisty hands on the potential artifacts that could be found there.
I'll let you know if there is a chalice.

[Lingchih]

The guy that had the Pocket Lich was a Chimera. I don't remember his name though. It may have been a special site... it had very nice defenders. The Chimera flew right by them though and quickly impaled himself on my front ranks. I guess Chimera's are not real bright.

[Edi]

Thanks for correcting me, Mind Elemental.

[Edratman]

I ran into the Great Mother and Lord of Fertility once. I used 5 fully equipped Bane Lord SC's and came away with nothing. Didn't have any losses so I never even looked at the battle replay. I guess I should have done it differently.