Charm questions

[Forrest]

I am playing SP EA Caelum with Frost Father F4A4E3S4D3N3.

It is very early in the game and I just found a indie province with a Great mother Hp 135 E4N6 and a Lord of Fertility Hp 90 D3N5 Awe2. Both have MR 18. I want to own these two units. So what should I do?

[Folket]

Probably not something that will happen soon. But once you have a lot of penetration items you should go there with nature, astral and blood mages and cast charm(nature), enslave mind(astral) and hellbind heart(blood).

MR 18 is not that high. Once you get void eye, spell focus and rune smasher your chances should be 30%. Also if you spread magic dominion there the chance will increase(while drain will make it decrease).

So a bunch of mages with pentration items will win them quickly.

[Forrest]

Thanks. That is about what I thought.

[moderation]

Be aware that Enslave Mind will (probably) destroy any items they are carrying, and you will have to GoR them to turn them back into commanders.

[Micah]

Enslave destroys magic items and empowerments, resetting them to the base magic paths for the chassis. Not a great way to get commander-quality units.

[Xietor]

But better than nothing(if you do not have blood or nature magic). Also sometimes resetting their magic paths could be beneficial to you.

Say there is a 3d 1n 1b Lamia Queen, and you need a mage to clam. Enslave mind gives you a shot at some water magic when you gor, if i am not mistaken.

Enslave mind can be cast from a very safe distance, while charm has a limited range. So you may prefer to have 5 s casters spamming enslave mind from the back lines, rather than say your pretender(only mage with n magic?) in the front lines trying to charm something.

[Tuidjy]

There is no point of enslaving these two. For some reason, once you GoR them,
you do not even get the basic magic paths. I did it in a recent game. Waste
of time and gems.

Charm or Hellbind Heart are your two options.

[Folket]

But can he allow these people to be intellegent. They might challenge his divine authority. Is it not better to have them as enslaved thugs?

[Herode]

What does to GoR mean ???

[Endoperez]

Gift of Reason, a Thaumaturgy spell that makes any non-commander unit commander.

[Forrest]

Ok, since I can buy N2 animists I should load them up with staffs and simply wear the victims down is what you are saying. If I want to keep the paths and items. Rune smashers are one of the things I designed my pretender for. Throw in spell focusers, and void eyes then you are talking about a massive astral gem supply I have not gotten started on. Over all this is going to be expensive and late game. Am I wrong?

[thejeff]

Well, Charm is already a high level spell, so it's certainly not early. You can try it without all the penetration gear. If you get enough tries, it will work.

The hard part with charm is the short range. It works a lot better against SCs who will close with you. Here, you have to get your mages close without getting them killed by the troops with the targets, and without killing enough of them to make the targets rout.
It might be worthwhile using some weak attacks to whittle down the defenders first. Be careful not to win, though.

[vfb]

What are the Great Mother and Lord of Fertility wielding in your game? The one time I found them, they were completely nekkid.