Send Tupilak

[Lingchih]

A question about LA Atlantis' Send Tupilak spell. If I send one to a besieged castle province, does the Tupilak attack a besieging commander, or a defending commander?
thanks

[Reverend Zombie]

Don't know, but I probably wouldn't bother.

It's not going to take out anything that's not a vanilla commander with no bodyguards.

Save your gems.

[Sir_Dr_D]

It isn't even guaranteed to take out regular commanders.

[Lingchih]

Ahh... such a cool spell description. For such a worthless assassin. Kind of ties in with everything else which seems really cool about LA Atlantis, but which in reality sucks.

[Torin]

It would target anyone in that province. It`s not that bad. Mainly tou would like to assasin researchers and clam holders.
You don`t send any assasin to a tartarian, do you?

[Saxon]

I don't do this often, but I vote for powering that spell up. It is just too cool not to see more action.

The tupilak is a bunch of skins tied together with magic. I say the hit points should be boosted 5 - 10, it is just a bunch of old leather and is durable. Given that there are no vital organs, I would kick protection up 2-5 points as well. The combination would make it a fair bit more durable.

The result would be a more powerful summons, but nothing overpowering to commanders of substance.

Alternativly, make it particularly vunerable to magic and magic weapons, but boost up the hp and protection to make it hard for mundane characters to kill.

We need more magically animated, stitched up, dangerous bags of leather in this fantasy world of ours!

[Reverend Zombie]

Torin said:
It would target anyone in that province. It`s not that bad. Mainly you would like to assasin researchers and clam holders.
You don`t send any assasin to a tartarian, do you?



Who said anything about Tartarians?

Clam holders are apt to be stealthy, and the spell won't target them.

It might work on a researcher who doesn't have access to decent battle spells, but I've never assassinated anyone successfully with this spell.

Again, I say:

save your gems

[Dedas]

Well, if you find the "Cedar Pillars" or some of the other (there are quite a lot) enchantment boosting sites it could be marginally useful.

[NTJedi]

Reverend Zombie said:
Again, I say:

save your gems



I would agree, the spell might of had some use if you were able to keep the assassin... since the game has very few assassin summons which stick around permanently.

Since the ZIZ bird almost never gets used because of the high gem cost it could be changed into being an assassin, thus making it a possible spell worth casting.

[Kuritza]

First of all, raise Tupilak's attack skill. A lot. He is so harmless because he cannot hit a broad side of a barn; how is he expected to kill stuff if he cannot hit it?

[Reverend Zombie]

This would be cool:

switch the way Unfrozen and Send Tupliak work (need to adjust cost, obviously):

Tupilak gets you a leader summons (assassin or not, I don't care)...

Unfrozen results in an enemy commander being attacked by all the units you currently get for the spell--that would be something!!! Multi-unit assassins!!!

They'd go away after their attack, obviously...

[Bananadine]

I've sent a number of tupilut (sp?) lately and they've mostly succeeded at killing their targets. Weak commanders and strong mages alike have fallen to them. I consider it a good spell, though not an excellent one. Maybe I've just been very lucky....

[Bananadine]

Hm, I now recall that I started playing LA Atlantis shortly after it was improved by a patch. Maybe that's why the spell is doing well for me?

[HoneyBadger]

Att could/should be atleast 12. Giving it a high Cold Aura and an extra claw attack (and/or a Gore horn attack, since it's part reindeer?) wouldn't hurt anything, either.

[Swan]

i would like it with 1-2 more shapes

[HoneyBadger]

That's an interesting idea, especially if it's going to be an assassin you can actually keep.

I'll try to find time to read up on the lore.

LA Atlantis has a lot of interesting points where it could be improved. It's good now, but I think it could be better.

[Swan]

I'll see what i can do...

Tupilak gains +4 hp!(66)
Tupilak gains +2 prot!(8)
Tupilak gains +4 atk!(12)
Tupilak gains -2mr!(10)
Tupilak learns a new attack!(gore)

This is just a begin, i'll work on it more later.
Pantokrator, why do i feel i'm going to work a lot on this frong-fish dudes?

[Bananadine]

I still don't know what y'all are on about. I just loaded a test game I made (for unrelated reasons) a while ago, and sent eight tupilut at miscellaneous enemy commanders. Six of them met generic human or triton commanders and won their fights pretty easily. One met a dryad, and killed her with some difficulty. One met a centaur, which promptly destroyed it.

These results match what I've seen in my present multiplayer game. Clearly, this is a spell that pretty reliably destroys unguarded commanders of low quality, and that can sometimes destroy high-level mages (ones who don't happen to choose good spells to defend themselves). It's pretty cheap, and its skill requirements are easily met by the only nation that can cast it. Since it can't reliably destroy high-quality commanders or well-guarded commanders, it's not a very good spell, as Earth Attack is. But unguarded low-quality commanders are often used to lead troops, or to support other mages, and so assassinating them is sometimes useful. What's the problem?

I'll tell you the real problem: Every tupilak I've seen so far has been in the shape of a bear. Even underwater, where the monster gets an underwater stats penalty! That's crazy! It's crazy enough that I have already reported it as a bug.

[Bananadine]

Also: If the tupilak were to be improved, I think it would be more thematic to reduce its cost than to strengthen it. The unit is similar to a corpse construct or a soulless, and those units are pretty bad at fighting. It has lots of hit points and great strength--these attributes fit its description. High attack and defense values, even as high as 10, would not fit so well. But I think a lower ritual cost would fit--look how cheap Corpse Man Construction is! This isn't very much different from that.

[Swan]

What i posted before was a just a quick fix for a unit someone called underpowered; now tha i have plenty of time i was thinking about 3 shapes, all with the same stat as it have now(ofc hp will be 21 each shape), maybe i'll change some weapon.
About underwater, a simple #watershape should fix it, but 3 sprite, all of them without something to modify as base are gonna take me a lot of time(plus i'm not so good at drawing from scratch) so what i was thinking was to write the code and hope for some goodheart modder to do the sprite work

[Agema]

Send Tupilak is a spectacularly useless spell.

Considering it's a Polar Bear corpse and thus quite large and heavy, I'd consider just giving it trample, so it becomes a weak Earth Attack like spell.

[Bananadine]

No one loves the tupilak but me

[Swan]

No one loves the tupilak but Bananadine

[Baalz]

Tupilak is fine for what it is - a relatively cheap niche spell which can be spammed with no preparation if ever a good opportunity presents itself. Ever been invaded by somebody who wasn't expecting assassinations and has critical mages without bodyguards? Knock out a couple communion slaves to throw the rest into critical fatigue mode, take out the guy who was gonna cast fog warriors for the big fight, kill the guy holding the sea king's goblet, cause the guy spamming bloodletting to burn through his blood slaves early, or kill a couple indie commanders thus unexpectedly splitting the enemy forces and the 5D per casting looks pretty cheap. Sure, it's a narrow niche, but not all *that* uncommon. Also, 5D is a hell of a bargain for taking out research mages holding skull mentors, clams, hammers, etc. Might even get lucky and kill a lab mage holding a ring of wizardry, etc. Like I said, it's a spell to spam when your opponent wasn't expecting it with no particular preparation or special research on your part. Take out ten expensive, cap only Abysian warlocks along with a couple boosters they were holding, then come back and tell me how spectacularly useless it is again. You might even get a shot at a tasty rainbow pretender strolling around site searching...its only level 5 in a school you may be researching anyway so it can come into play fairly early.

[Kuritza]

Still, it might cost a bit less. With a bit more research, you can send an Ashen Angel for the same price.

[Bananadine]

Still, it might cost a bit less. With a bit more research, you can send an Ashen Angel for the same price.

But not underwater! And maybe not on short notice or in great number, since Manifestation has a rather high skill requirement.

This makes it even more important that Send Tupilak be made to work properly underwater!

[Baalz]

Manifestation is level 8, in a different path and requires a D5 mage (as in a skull staff + an expensive booster...so tack on construction-6 to the requirements), and has a drawback that can come back to bite you. Sure it's a good spell, but comparing it to a spell you'll probably have access to in year 2 and can cast with 25% of your naked Angakoks isn't really appropriate.

[HoneyBadger]

Why wouldn't they expect it? Using a dodgy spell to take advantage of a possibly distracted opponent who might not have read the manual (it's in there, afterall), seems like a whole lot of "if's".

It might happen, and it could be effective, but it's clearly also a tactic that depends on your opponent being stupider than you are (and that's always a bad idea).

The only certainty in that equation is that the spell itself just isn't great (not for a level 5 dual path National, anyway), and could do with some improvement.

[Baalz]

That's rather silly HB, its not a matter of you planning on fighting a stupid opponent. There are plenty of times you can catch even an expert player off guard with a maneuver they weren't expecting - that's the whole point of pitting your wits against somebody else in a strategy game. It'd be one thing if this was a goto spell that pretty much anyone attacking LA Atlantis knew they'd be seeing spammed every turn(like, say, expecting mind hunt from Arcoscephale). The very fact that it's such a niche spell means that even a well prepared opponent might choose not to allocate his resources towards countering it, or forget about it briefly during the course of a war, or unintentionally find himself vulnerable due to something like his troops splitting up, or intentionally make himself vulnerable in pursuing a goal (ie cloud trapezing in somebody who blew through his gems taking out PD and is now vulnerable). Is it a stupid opponent who has his rainbow pretender out site searching year two when you happen to spot him with a scout? Is it a stupid opponent who has mostly expensive cap only mages in his cap along with most of his boosters? Is it a stupid opponent who has only expensive mages to bloodhunt who are out with no bodyguards counting on the PD to help in defense? Is it a stupid opponent who doesn't meticulously assign bodyguards to every troop herding indie commander he uses? The whole point is it's sitting there, available to be used with no preparation if you see an opportunity to do so - which I firmly believe are not so rare if you use a bit of cleverness.

[Bananadine]

Also, in every pair of people, one is stupider than the other (so Send Tupilak succeeds 50% of the time, scientifically)

[Bananadine]

Also

[thejeff]

I haven't used them in awhile, but that screenshot doesn't show amphibian, poor amphibian or aquatic.
They also don't fly despite the flavor text talking about flying.
Giving them flight (and amphibian) would make them much more dangerous assassins.

[Bananadine]

That stuff about flying and swimming seems mainly to be there to motivate the use of this ritual as a remote assassination method--the tupilak can reach anybody anywhere, even if they're undersea, in the mountains, or on an island. Upon reaching them, it then chooses to become a flightless bear, because bears fight well. That is fine on land, but underwater it should be a large, undead seal, if it's always going to be one thing.

I guess a person could just slap together a mod that made this change, as Swan suggests, instead of talking about it so much. But it would be much nicer if somebody official took care of it!

[vfb]

Maybe Tupliak could be given a one-battle-spell modded from polymorph, that turns him into the undead seal, and that spell only works underwater?

[thejeff]

I'm not much of a modder, but Swan suggested #watershape.

[Baalz]

I honestly don't know what the complaint is. It will pretty reliably kill most any human-esq guy who doesn't have bodyguards - just try it. Sure you won't be assassinating vanir with that 5 attack, but as a human squisher it's pretty good. The thing about it is it's got a very large amount of hitpoints so it can take a couple spells to the face and keep batting away until it hits the (generally low defense) mage. If it was powerful enough to mow through bodyguards and thug gear it'd need to be significantly harder to cast.

[Bananadine]

Yes, it does seem to kill triton lords quite well, I was on your side remember? This other problem is more thematic than strategic--the tupilak undersea can become a seal, and it suffers from being a bear, so it should become a seal. It's very silly for it not to be a seal!

[Fantomen]

I say it should definately become a undead walrus underwater...or perhaps the LA atlantis priests should be able to animate walrusses.

Otherwise I'd say it is a good enough spell, when you have higher reseach you´ll get better assassination spells to use but before then the Tupilak is cool enough.

[Sombre]

I could whip up a tupilak mod to give them a seal form. No problem.

HOWEVER.

Is it worth my time given that they're a niche national spell?

[Bananadine]

I could whip up a tupilak mod to give them a seal form. No problem.

HOWEVER.

Is it worth my time given that they're a niche national spell?

Well, I would always use the mod... but there's a fair chance that it would never actually be exercised during the remainder of any one user's Dominions career.

If the main hassle would be making the sprite, or the new unit or whatever (as opposed to the basic overhead of making any mod at all), then maybe you could just slap an amphibian attribute onto the bear and call it done. :)

[Sombre]

Ah, but you could do that in about 5 minutes.

[Bananadine]

Ah, but you could do that in about 5 minutes.

I've never made a mod before, so more like 20-60 minutes while I fuss around learning, trying to test it, and so forth. But if it's that easy then I guess I will, if nobody fixes it properly by the time I start my next multiplayer game!

[Sombre]

It's insanely easy. All you would need to do is download an existing mod. Strip out everything that isn't the basic 'name of mod' type stuff. Then enter this code:

#selectmonster [id of tupilak]
#amphibian
#end

BOOYAH. Done.

[Swan]

in the time you wrote that, you could have done the mod :)
Still, i say bananadine should try to make i himself. We all started from somewhere, didn't we?

[MaxWilson]

in the time you wrote that, you could have done the mod :)

"Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day.
Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

-Max