Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[Ironhawk]

Recently, it was revealed that the spell Life After Death presented a way to turn many commanders at once into soulless versions of themselves. The primary use of this was to sidestep the upkeep cost of these mages - a clever trick! But if the trick is used on priests, the resulting undead priests gain access to the Reanimate command. Knowing this, practically any nation can now add the ability to create undead freespawn to thier arsenal.

So, my question to the community is: does this qualify as an exploit? Why or why not?

[NTJedi]

I would say it's an exploit and also taints the themes for some nations which are opposite.
** It's NOT only available to death nations, pick any nation and I guarantee they can make this happen.


Suggested Fix:
Prevent the spell from working on any sacred units, thus removing the exploit.

[ano]

No.
First, it's available only to death nations who should also have something that kills with poison or cold (Foul vapors, for example)
Second, it requires recruiting of many priests and a ton of micromanagement.
And if someone really aims for it and has appropriate magics... Actually, why not?

[Dedas]

I like it the way it is.

[Baalz]

Meh, requires level 7 spell and it's not that powerful. You've got to have lots of priests, which means either you're not recruiting mages, you're using mages to generate freespawn, or you're putting temples up where there are no castles and getting weak indie priests. By the time level 7 spells are researched a couple hundred free undead is hardly earth shattering. I see this is being only very situationally useful and thematic. You could maybe use it for something interesting like cranking out a bunch of giant undead, but it's just one of the many, many interesting quirks you can exploit into a useful strategy.

[NTJedi]

By the time someone has researched level_7 they have plenty of time to buy priests from one location which is only fort/temple. 20 or 30 Indy priests have very little upkeep and would definitely be worth changing into undead reanimating priests by middle or late game. While waiting these priests will be preaching dominion and decoys so it won't be a waste. In any case the strategy benefit is strong enough where it will be seen in both SP games and MP games.

It comes down to whether or not KO and JK feels this strategy taints the themes of some nations enough where a change is desired.

[Jazzepi]

I can't imagine that this really matters. It seems terribly difficult to exploit. I guess the idea is to cast a Battlefield wide spell that deals damage to your own mages so that they'll come back as soulless, and then those soulless have to be immune to the spell or else they'll die.

Even if you did this with indie priests, they're only level 1 holy which means they could only reanimate corpses. Even playing Ermor, finding a buttload of corpses for a ton of priests is difficult and requires lots of pillaging, or micro moving those priests around.

I don't think this is worth the effort.

A good use might be killing off your own mages to make them upkeep free. If you could do that for 300-400 a turn worth of mages that could make a big difference in the long term.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.

[Jazzepi]

Baalz said:
Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.



I was under the impression level 1 priests couldn't reanimate long dead? Or am I smoking crack?

Jazzepi

[Kristoffer O]

Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.

[thejeff]

On the gripping hand, as battlefield wide spells become more important, the actual quality of troops seems to matter less than the number of warm (or cold) bodies. With Army of Lead, Fog Warriors, Will of the Fates, etc 100 longdead a turn seems much nicer than the 20-30 chaff troops I'm able to afford in one game. And they're immune to cold, which helps, particularly against Frostbrand wielding thugs.

Still a lot of work and risk and opportunity cost for a fairly minimal advantage.

As as theme goes, there are very few nations that should be outright opposed death magic and everybody winds up summoning at least Banelords anyway...

[Sombre]

Not an exploit. It makes sense and it doesn't even reward you that much.

[Jazzepi]

Kristoffer O said:
Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.



Whoa.

LOL. I've been playing dominions for over 2 years now. I love all the random crap I find out from out of nowhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Jazzepi

[Agrajag]

I don't see any exploit here, it's just the spell working as intended, and reanimation working as intended.
And if your problem is thematic, then what are you doing with those death mages in the first place?

[Jazzepi]

Agrajag said:
I don't see any exploit here, it's just the spell working as intended, and reanimation working as intended.
And if your problem is thematic, then what are you doing with those death mages in the first place?



Man, I get the same question all the time about my stockpile of virgins.

Jazzepi

[kasnavada]

The fact that they don't cost upkeep anymore sounds like the exploit to me...

[PyroStock]

You don't need a W/N mage to do this. A mage could cast Immolation (Alt3) or Soul Vortex (Alt6) or you could even trade for the Rime Hauberk(s) to use it's chill, although a 1W mage casting Breath of Winter (Enc1) would be easier/cheaper.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah I have a feeling that people are assigning too much difficulty to this particular strategy. All you have to be able to do is cast Life After Death - simple matter with a little planning. There is like a million ways to kill off your mages after that in such a way that they are not in danger beyond your control.

As for the people who dont think its worth the investment - I have to admit I'm surprised. You are telling me that spending enough to just get even 10 indy priests is significant? Not really. And it is even less so when you realize you can turn them into undead to remove thier upkeep. At that point you can just churn out what, 50 longdead a turn? Thats like paying 600gold for an undead generator. Who would say no to this?? There is no point in the game where I would turn down 50 free longdead a turn.

[Cor2]

BTW I am pretty certain that it is hit or miss. Just because a unit dies under the spell does not mean it will come back. I have been doing this in a sp game for a while, using the artifact. But I would often see mages die(by cold aura) and not appear as souless. If this si true than it is a big enough nerf as is.

[K]

Yeh, I don't see a problem with a powerful death mage making a ton of undead priests for a nation. It's no worse than creating a pile of Liches or or Spectres for some tooty fruity "good" nation.

[lch]

I like the idea of a powerhungry evil god who is killing his minions to raise them as soulless death mages.

[sector24]

Question for the thematic argument people: Who leads all these free undead? Don't you need death mages to cart them around, or does turning the priest into a soulless priest grant them to ability to lead undead?

[K]

sector24 said:
Question for the thematic argument people: Who leads all these free undead? Don't you need death mages to cart them around, or does turning the priest into a soulless priest grant them to ability to lead undead?



Undead priests get undead leadership.

[Amhazair]

But if you use them to move the undead around, they're obviousl no longer reanimating, so it is indeed an extra annoyance.

Question: if you pull the same trick with regular indy commanders, do they gain undead leadership too?

[Ironhawk]

Undead Leadership is not difficult to get. There are plenty of tricks like above or you could just summon a cheap mound king or bane or something.

The fact remains that a "living" nation with access to 50-100 free longdead per turn just seems like an exploit.

[kasnavada]

Question: if you pull the same trick with regular indy commanders, do they gain undead leadership too?



As far as I know, all undead commanders get undead leadership.

What would like as a solution would be to just to make them reappear as regular troops and not commanders...

This 'strategy' is pretty much a must_do solution in end-game to reduce your upkeep. With enough time you could reduce your upkeep to 0 with insignificant loses given your reduction in upkeep. I can't really believe that some people kept this kind of game-breaking strategy to themselves.

The fact that any nation can pull this trick easily with indy priests seems even more dumb to me.

[sector24]

Ok, follow up question: Is it equally unthematic for a pure and righteous nation to recruit circle masters from the Black Tower or cast the Raise Dead spell in combat? In what way is the Life after Death spell an exploit rather than a tool in the toolbox? Are the thematics of the nation a rigid handicap or just a starting point that can be branched out of?

[Ironhawk]

No, I'm not going to be dragged into a thematic argument. Of course any nation can have death magic, either via thier pretender or mages from sites. But the core of the argument here is about capabilities, not theme. You have the set of "living" nations which, by and large, were designed to operate without undead freespawn. (I'm talking about freespawn here - not something you spend gems on - its a big difference) But now we have a combination of spells which can give undead freespawn to any nation.

To me, this seems like an oversight, rather than WAD.

[NTJedi]

lch said:
I like the idea of a powerhungry evil god who is killing his minions to raise them as soulless death mages.



Yes, but that goes against the themes for some nations which are not intended to be EVIL. And there's a significant gem cost difference between using 5 death gems to change 20 priests(or more) into undead reanimating priests verses using 120 death gems to summon a few liches and several sceptres.

In regards to the gold for buying these priests, this purchase provides multiple uses... it's not a one bucket investment. The priests will not only be preaching dominion, but they provide decoys, item catching and banishment defense. The fort and temple already exist for most strategies, so it's not like an extra pair will need to be built. Not every fort should have a lab in early game.

As mentioned earlier the overall gem and gold cost is extremely cheap for nations becoming undead generators.

[lch]

I don't see the problem. As pointed out earlier, it is a late game spell which requires a lot of research. And Undead are nothing but chaff. Especially at a late game like that.

[Meglobob]

Life after death is just doing what it says on the box, giving a unit wether it be militia or mage or priest a extended unnatural life.

By the time players can pull it off, the battlefield is ruled by SC's, thugs, battlefield wide damage spells and large area effect evocation and master enslave etc, etc anyway. So 50-100 per turn longdead is no big deal. If you could pull it off in the early to midgame it would be a exploit but not as a lvl 7 spell.

Doesn't it also reduce MR to 5 or something low as well? Which destroys the mages/priests usefulness on a battlefield.

I don't think its an exploit and not even unthematic as you can play a evil god with any nation.

[Chris_Byler]

Any nation can be evil with the right God. (Speaking of which, how were your non-death-using nations planning to get a LaD caster in the first place?)

Anyway, even once you do this, it's vulnerable to assassins with anti-undead items, or dominion push with Purgatory since their priests are busy (which will also zap the undead they've already gotten), or just spamming anti-undead spells/items in general to wipe out the freespawn (or the undead commanders; send over a flying thug with Flambeau and watch the soulless dissolve after their leader goes down) after they reach the battlefield. It's not like soulless are some kind of unstoppable killing machines - without something like Storm or Darkness practically any nation can butcher them easily.

As an exploit, it seems to have a long way to go to catch up to clams, and they've been around forever.

[Ironhawk]

Well, the prevailing attitude definitely seems to be that this is not an exploit. Or perhaps better said that it may be an exploit but occurs to late in the game to unbalance things. I can't say that I agree with these positions but if its not an exploit you can be sure I will be using this in my next game.

You may wish you had changed your vote when I overrun your nation with my unstoppable undead hordes in the next game!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Aezeal]

for the costs, does the spell cost any thing?

[PvK]

Yeah, I'd agree it's not so much an exploit as playing a wicked necromantic strategy.

[lch]

Ironhawk said:
You may wish you had changed your vote when I overrun your nation with my unstoppable undead hordes in the next game!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


Personally I'd much rather see your undead death mage machinery than the usual Tartarian SC / Abomination stuff.

[NTJedi]

lch said:

Ironhawk said:
You may wish you had changed your vote when I overrun your nation with my unstoppable undead hordes in the next game!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


Personally I'd much rather see your undead death mage machinery than the usual Tartarian SC / Abomination stuff.



Well Tartarians and Abominations are research level_9 and definitely late game where the massive undead chaff are level_7, so there will be a time window difference.
It won't stop the usual strategies we see... it means we'll only see this added into existing strategies. Minimal effort, small cost, for massive amounts of free undead chaff... oh yeah it's coming.

[kasnavada]

Tartarian are getting changed too. So the chaff armies will be even more problematic.

The thing is that thematically you can justify anything, so dropping this "argument" sounds like a good idea.

From a term of balance, armies of chaff are rather useless at lvl 7. Well, if it were not for the turn limit that guarantee you a victory. However, a 100% reduction in cost of mages and priest for minimal effort ? Doesn't that sound a bit unbalancing ?

I mean, the MR argument is a joke. You can just buy again the same amount of mages and priests in a few turns. Even if half of your low MR resurrected units get killed, you doubled your capacity for buying new fresh mages !

[Agrajag]

kasnavada said:
The fact that they don't cost upkeep anymore sounds like the exploit to me...


They cost no upkeep because they are lame undeads. Even Dusk Elders or Tartarians don't cost any upkeep. WAD.
You might say that this makes this spell too good/overpowered/unbalanced, but that's not the same as an exploit.


kasnavada said:
I mean, the MR argument is a joke. You can just buy again the same amount of mages and priests in a few turns. Even if half of your low MR resurrected units get killed, you doubled your capacity for buying new fresh mages !


1) Doubled? Upkeep is just 1/15 of unit cost, so zombifying all of your mages will increase your mage money by 6.67%. 3.33% for priests.
2) Losing half of your mages is serious business! And it is going to take some time to recruit them back, not just gold.

[kasnavada]

The fact that most summons don't cost any money or upkeep seemed dumb to me in the first place, but that's the way the game works. It's be great if that changed too, something like spending 1 gem every 15 or 30 turns to keep your summons alive would make summons more "balanced" toward regular units.



1) Doubled? Upkeep is just 1/15 of unit cost, so zombifying all of your mages will increase your mage money by 6.67%. 3.33% for priests.



Now, that's a perfect example of a strawman argument.

If you transform your mages and priest, your mage & priest for those upkeep becomes zero. That's a 100% reduction. That means for the next turns (not only one) you can buy again 1/15 of what you just killed FOR THE REST OF THE GAME. Note in capital letter the part that you missed. It seemed so obvious to me that I didn't even write it.

The rest of the game is more than one turn. I'm assuming 15 turns for the sake of putting up a number, so I said doubled. It could be 30 or 45, that means triple or more...

EDIT : the counterargument I see coming is that the upkeep for the new mages will cost money. I will already answer that argument : the combo can be done more than once.


2) Losing half of your mages is serious business! And it is going to take some time to recruit them back, not just gold.


From the thread, it would seem like I overstated this part. It would seem that only a few mages and priests don't get reanimated...

[Twan]

Level 7 mean the game is in a stage where there is probably no neutral province.

So to use this trick you need to *risk* your mages/priests in a fight where they will end with MR 5 and vulnerable to any anti-undead spell (and iirc they will also get morale 50 so you lose all if your forces have to retreat).

This alone balance this use of LAD for me. I can't see how someone can want to reduce the MR of all his mages in a late game battle against a real opponent, so the only possibility I see to use that is in an arranged battle...

But it's also very unlikely I would trust sufficiently anyone to arrange a fight to do that (and imagining someone succeed to arrange such battles, it's like the pseudo sickle exploit : if you have the diplomacy skill to convince someone to let you win battles, instead of trying to steal your artefacts / kill your mages, you just desserve the benefit after all).

Anyway, I understand that some players can consider this overpowered and bad for the game, which does not mean it's an exploit. Personally I consider instant battlewide offensive spells cast by the defender in round one far more overpowered and worse for the interest of the game, but I won't use the word "exploit" to try to convince people of my views. Like other too powerful spells, or unperfect game mechanics, LAD just work like it was designed to.

[Agrajag]

Before I start answering, let me remind you that we are discussing the strength of this strategy, which has nothing to do with it being an exploit or not.


kasnavada said:


1) Doubled? Upkeep is just 1/15 of unit cost, so zombifying all of your mages will increase your mage money by 6.67%. 3.33% for priests.



Now, that's a perfect example of a strawman argument.

If you transform your mages and priest, your mage & priest for those upkeep becomes zero. That's a 100% reduction. That means for the next turns (not only one) you can buy again 1/15 of what you just killed FOR THE REST OF THE GAME. Note in capital letter the part that you missed. It seemed so obvious to me that I didn't even write it.

The rest of the game is more than one turn. I'm assuming 15 turns for the sake of putting up a number, so I said doubled. It could be 30 or 45, that means triple or more...


And if you look over a period of 1500000 turns, you can get 100000 times the mages :O :O :O
More seriously, it's your mage producing capacity that increases by 3.33%-6.67%.
However, if we also assume that out of 15 mages you zombify, one dies (due to accident, or the spell not working properly, or soulless being lame and dying/being banished etc.), that benefit is completely canceled. If more than 1 dies, then the spell starts losing you money.



2) Losing half of your mages is serious business! And it is going to take some time to recruit them back, not just gold.


From the thread, it would seem like I overstated this part. It would seem that only a few mages and priests don't get reanimated...


Now don't forget those that die because they are 5MR soulless.

[Digress]

I guess my only problem is with soulless, mindless priests. That isn't really unholy its just silly - they should really take a hit to their holy magic level to reflect that they have been reduced to zombies.

As for other mages - well they become pretty useless for almost everything other than research (and leading the undead). 1 hit point, poor MR, abysmal precision - and I think mindless beings should take a hit to their research ability.

[Jazzepi]

They end up as one hitpoint mages? D:

Eeeeww. Lord help you if you ever run into anyone casting a battlefield wide AOE spell.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

Digress said:
I guess my only problem is with soulless, mindless priests. That isn't really unholy its just silly - they should really take a hit to their holy magic level to reflect that they have been reduced to zombies.




Clearly you've never seen a Pope.

[thejeff]

And if you're doing this to reduce costs on your researchers don't forget to count in the lost research time in getting them to the battlefield and the risk in exposing them to battle. Which, by the way, has to be a significant enough battle to convince the AI to spend gems...

[Twan]

It may be particularly fun if the AI overwrite Life after Death but not the spell used to kill the mages. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Amhazair]

Good one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Szumo]

Takes just one turn, set mages on patrol so they're outside the castle and cast something that summons independent troops there (horrors, ghost riders, etc.).
You can also use Ankh to make sure Life after Death effect works.
And place mages near a poison cloud or chill creature, with orders to hold, so no need to cast any spell either.
Of course, you'll need to something that will kill the enemy, but not too fast.

[Bwaha]

Hi, the spell in question only works on members of the hall of fame. It would be a really sorry game if there's even one indie priest in the hall of fame. so I don't see it as a problem at all. Bwaha

[Ironhawk]

So, after campaigning against the Life after Death exploit, I found myself in a position to abuse it in my current game. However, I found that without Foul Vapors, its actually quite difficult to kill off your own mages. Quite difficult!

The poison cloud will work ... it seemed about 50% of the time, assuming you could make the battle last long enough. However, half the time, the mages/priests would just get wounded/afflicted and run away. And the mages who stayed and were converted to soulless often recieved 2-3 afflictions anyway due to the slow damage pattern of poison.

To really make this trick work, you need a single spell which will (more or less) instantly kill friendly mages. Unless someone can think up how to do this, then I would consider this trick more of a curiousity, rather than an exploit.

[Taqwus]

Communion + Phoenix Pyre + Breath of Winter? :p

[Ironhawk]

I doubt BoW would kill your mage (and thus cause the chain-reaction) in time.

I wonder tho... if you could call a horror or something.

[MaxWilson]

Bwaha said:
Hi, the spell in question only works on members of the hall of fame. It would be a really sorry game if there's even one indie priest in the hall of fame. so I don't see it as a problem at all. Bwaha



That's Ritual of Rebirth, not Life After Death.

It's probably simplest to use Rain of Stones. You won't kill them all but you'll kill a lot of them--repeat until you have enough. Earthquake x2 would be an (inferior) alternative, if you have them cast a lot of spells to build up fatigue first.

-Max

[PvK]

Heh, yeah you could script them to knock themselves unconscious with fatigue while sitting in some killing zone. Have them all cluster together and knock themselves out with their own poison/frost clouds ...

"Pass the Kool-Aid, Ipobar. See you after we all come back in our more enlightened forms. Praise be to Wafflestomper!"

[thejeff]

The trouble with Rain of Stones is if you do it once you won't kill enough to bother with. If you do it too much you'll kill off the newly soulless mages.

You need something they become immune to. Poison and Cold are the obvious choices.

[Coldshard]

Just put them in a tight group and have another mage cast berserk on them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Taqwus]

Finally, a use for bog-beast spam... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JimMorrison]

Taqwus said:
Another excellent use for bog-beast spam... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Ironhawk]

Rain of Stones / Earthquake, or any other battlefield wide spell of that nature is very difficult to use because it relies on the AI choosing to spend gems. You cant ensure you will get a combat like that if you assume you are restricting yourself to nuetral province attacks to trigger the battle (horrors, GRs, etc).

Knocking mages out works, BUT as I said before, the damage pattern of poison is such that you are almost guaranteed to get multiple afflictions. The optimal way to carry out this tactic would be to kill them all in one blast, using no gems (except for items).

And btw, Soul Vortex doesnt work, either. Its slow, like poison, but beyond that, mages have good MR so they resist it a lot.

Given how often we have all had mages killed off by AI mistakes, it's really surprising how hard it is to kill them off intentionally. If anyone can find a good way to do it, let me know.

[JimMorrison]

Ironhawk said:
Rain of Stones / Earthquake, or any other battlefield wide spell of that nature is very difficult to use because it relies on the AI choosing to spend gems. You cant ensure you will get a combat like that if you assume you are restricting yourself to nuetral province attacks to trigger the battle (horrors, GRs, etc).

Knocking mages out works, BUT as I said before, the damage pattern of poison is such that you are almost guaranteed to get multiple afflictions. The optimal way to carry out this tactic would be to kill them all in one blast, using no gems (except for items).

And btw, Soul Vortex doesnt work, either. Its slow, like poison, but beyond that, mages have good MR so they resist it a lot.

Given how often we have all had mages killed off by AI mistakes, it's really surprising how hard it is to kill them off intentionally. If anyone can find a good way to do it, let me know.




A slow death gives more chances for afflictions, but sudden traumatic death (100% hp loss) guarantees an affliction. Unless you have N4+ bless, in which case, the gradual death is preferable, as the chance per hit goes down dramatically, leaving only the huge hit a decent chance to actually afflict.

Does Fatigue damage give afflictions? You could have every mage cast Breath of Winter, or you could summon some nice undeads with Chill auras.

[MaxWilson]

Well, it's easy to kill them off intentionally. It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive." Restricting yourself to neutral provinces is probably not the way to go here because you put them in danger and lose a lot of time travelling. It's probably better to set them on patrol outside the castle and go for Phantasmal Army or Ghost Riders.

-Max

[Ironhawk]

JimMorrison said:
A slow death gives more chances for afflictions, but sudden traumatic death (100% hp loss) guarantees an affliction.



It doesnt guarantee one, but it makes it very likely, yes. However, having only one affliction is better than having 2-3 which could possibly cripple your mage's value.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah nuetral province attack spells are the only effective way to go. At the time of the game when this tactic becomes available, there may not even be any indies alive.


You know I was thinking... what if you did something like put all your mages together in a clump up front. In addition, you bring like 30-40 archers and put them behind with orders to Fire Closest. Then had a horror marked mage summon a horror (or an ashen angel). So your mages would get all shot to hell by the arrows. Not sure if that would kill thier second form or not - just one volley, I mean.

[PvK]

Hehe, well you could save the indies in one province two away from your capital, for killing your own mages. Just time the Vortex of Returning properly... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

Do survivors of this ritual keep their magic items in soulless form? If so, you might be able to figure out how to give them extra vulnerability to whatever you're deciding to kill them with. Some buff spells with vulnerabilities might give that opportunity, too.

[MaxWilson]

PvK,

Wouldn't that kind of negate the coolness of the "free reanimators" trick? I'd rather pay gold than lose gems on magic items. Nice thought but the buff spells are probably a better option.

-Max

[NTJedi]

MaxWilson said:
It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive."

-Max



Have the priests stand next to someone/something with a chill aura or poison aura... second soulless form easily lives being cold/poison immune.

Fighting any group of weak independents will work or maybe a human ally will help

[Ironhawk]

As I've said before, poison aura works but is not always effective or preferrable due to afflictions. Can no one think of a sure fire way to instantly kill friendly mages?

[JimMorrison]

NTJedi said:

MaxWilson said:
It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive."

-Max



Have the priests stand next to someone/something with a chill aura or poison aura... second soulless form easily lives being cold/poison immune.

Fighting any group of weak independents will work or maybe a human ally will help




Padding your post count by making snap-quick replies without reading the thread. Tsk tsk. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Saxon]

So, this strategy came out two months ago and we only have one person, Ironhawk, who reports using it. If it is such a great idea, why are we not seeing it more often? Further, Ironhawk reports it is a lot trickier than expected. And from what I know of Ironhawk, he is one of the top grade players, so this is no simple thing to do.

Looks like the poll is right, this strategy is not the exploit that was feared.

[NTJedi]

A way to decrease the number of afflictions is casting Regeneration or Mass Regeneration.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah, but that makes them that much harder to kill off, NT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I agree, Saxon. While I still believe that this technically counts as an exploit, it is simply too hard to put into practice to worry about. I'll let you know if I find a way to do it. Or will I?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

MaxWilson said:
PvK,

Wouldn't that kind of negate the coolness of the "free reanimators" trick? I'd rather pay gold than lose gems on magic items. Nice thought but the buff spells are probably a better option.

It adds a cost, though everyone has their own definition of cool. I actually like it in a thematic way - imagine a story where the people of Koobland are routinely attacked by strange cultists of a powerful nation who should be able to destroy them, but always in a suicidal way that involves all of the attackers being killed, but it turns out the bodies vanish afterwards and really they need the service of having their initiates killed by someone else as part of an evil necromantic ritual.

[PvK]

If you have a large body of water and water or air magic, can't you just drown them by removing their breathing apparatus?

[NTJedi]

Ironhawk said:
Yeah, but that makes them that much harder to kill off, NT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif




Actually units of low hitpoints such as priests which receive the regeneration only pickup one hitpoint of regeneration. From my experience the one hitpoint of regeneration on units of low hitpoints has almost no value for preventing death. I see regeneration for units of low hitpoints a strategy for preventing afflictions on survivors of a battle.

Regeneration of 3 or more hitpoints on units with many hitpoints is where they become harder to kill.

[MaxWilson]

[Drowning] won't trigger Life After Death because it happens out of combat.

I tried Rain of Stones but my problem was that my opposition wasn't tough enough and my Cyclops cast Flying Shards instead. I didn't pursue the test after that.

-Max

[llamabeast]

PVK - there's no point drowning them because drowning happens outside of battle, and you can only have Life After Death in effect during battle.

[JimMorrison]

So is the consensus of those assembled that exploit or not, the "mass producing" part is so near impossible, as to render the point somewhat moot? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Endoperez]

Has anyone tried to do this with giant nations? There's one case where reanimating priests would actually be great.

It's easy to kill the targets. The secret is in auras, obviously. 10 Winter Wolves set to guard cold-immune commander will kill his two non-immune friends in few turns. Bog beasts do the same even faster. If you do this with indy priests and get back Longdead Giant/Rephaim reanimators, it's worth the trouble.

The main problem with auras is that you need a fight that last for 5 turns or so.

[MaxWilson]

In that case it's probably easier with the help of an ally than with Ghost Riders, etc. You can have an ally teleport onto your fort and <Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Retreat> from near the front of the battlefield. As long as you give him a province to retreat to it costs him nothing but a turn and 2 pearls.

Edit: Hmmm, I guess your other option is a thug or SC with two shields (who therefore attacks with "useless kick"). Then you could do Call of the Winds after all. It will take ages to kill them all. (At least with Call of the Winds. Not so much with Ghost Riders because of all the newly-Soulless priests spamming Banishment.)

-Max

[Ironhawk]

Endoperez said:
Bog beasts do the same even faster.



As I find myself repeating yet again: poison works only about 50/50 and when it does, you have a good chance of afflictions ruining the mage/priest you are trying to convert.

However I have not tried chill auras. The idea of using a pack of winter wolves to stack thier auras in that way hadnt occured to me. That would be worth a shot... chill causes fatigue damage right? So at least they would not be able to run away, as with poison. However, I think that keeping the battle going long enough to kill from fatigue would be difficult.

Edit:
Another thought occurs - using both Chill AND Poison at the same time. Chill freezes units in place and would theoretically cause more critical hits, speeding thier demise from poison. You know, that might just work...

[PvK]

Plan S: Get a tainted blood slave unit, cast Gift of Reason on her, give her two amulets of vengeance, have a blood mage stand next to her, surrounded by indy priests, script a spell that sacrifices a blood slave, and boom! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

llamabeast said:
PVK - there's no point drowning them because drowning happens outside of battle, and you can only have Life After Death in effect during battle.



Oh, I see, you guys are talking about using the battlefield enchantment Life After Death so you can use indy priests with no magic abilities. I was somehow thinking you had a way to cast Twiceborn on them in advance, but of course that's a caster-only Death spell.

[chrispedersen]

When I have done this exploit, I always just use the frost father, and take a cold dominion.

He has chill 17 with cold power that boosts it up to like chill20 (chill23?) in a cold 3. Also there is a cheap fatigue spell that surrounds you with chill.

I don't see this as particularly hard or an issue...

[chrispedersen]

PvK said:
Plan S: Get a tainted blood slave unit, cast Gift of Reason on her, give her two amulets of vengeance, have a blood mage stand next to her, surrounded by indy priests, script a spell that sacrifices a blood slave, and boom! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Does that actually work..?
And does two amulets work better than one.. seems counter intuitive.

[PvK]

I was mostly joking. I think it might work. It was reported in Dom 2 that tainted unit blood slaves could get sacrificed (and IIRC there was a way to crash Dom 2 doing that). I don't know about commander blood slaves or what happens in Dom 3 though. I also don't know if it would set off the amulet of vengeance or not (it might bypass that), nor do I know if two amulets of vengeance both explode - the second one was sort of an explanation point on the joke.

Phoenix Pyre, however, seems like another possibility. Though I think you're right that simple cold aura would do it, given enough time - you just need to keep the artificial battle going long enough, which is the other half of the "how to make this an efficient factory" question.

[Saxon]

Funny timing on this thread, I just had a big battle involving it. Instead of casting Control Undead, my mage casts the “life after death” spell. Not very helpful, as I am MA Ermor and don’t have a lot of live troops at this stage. Then he casts rigor mortis. I also have a big communion going. Soon, my mages start dying from fatigue, not ideal.

Oh well, they come back to life, so not a problem. They can still re-animate, so nothing changes. The next turn, the army gets sieged by the enemy SC pretender, who has high regeneration due to high dominion. No problem, I will just preach it away and then smack him down. Except that my newly undead priests can not preach…

Seems that getting re-animation comes at a cost.

[Endoperez]

Ironhawk said:

Endoperez said:
Bog beasts do the same even faster.



As I find myself repeating yet again: poison works only about 50/50 and when it does, you have a good chance of afflictions ruining the mage/priest you are trying to convert.



I was thinking of indy priests for nations without easy access to chill/heat auras. Perhaps MA Ashdod/Hinnom or something. You don't care about ruining these now upkeep-free commanders.

[Poopsi]

I say that producing undead priests in general is not exploitish for any nation whatsoever (yes, it taints the theme. But it´s also themish in it´s own right if you dabble in necromancy). Mass production is not kosher, imho, through (what kind of mass production are we talking about here?)

[konming]

No one cares if those 50G indy priests get afflications. They have only one purpose, that is to reanimate skeletons. Why should you care if they get blinded/crippled or whatever. (does feeblemindedness remove priest levels as well for pure priests?)

[Tifone]

I think yes it does.

[Kristoffer O]

???

The poll looks like a malfador disk space poll. Am I the only one with poll problems or is this a known issue?

[Ironhawk]

Yeah something is very wrong with the poll here from the original post...

[AreaOfEffect]

I'd have to disagree about it being unthematic. As Baalz has already mentioned, all nations, with the exception of Marignon, have access to undead pretenders. Death magic itself should be a magic path available to all nations even for those without starting death mages and gem income. It is worth noting that using magic paths that are unthematic with your nation has an opportunity cost. If players are willing to put in the extra effort, then I'm fine with them paying that cost. Besides, it always makes for a nice role plying feel to see a nation using magic that it inherently does not have access to. It truly shows how the pretender has been given so much devotion that his interests override the morals of society. How often have people used blood magic while playing as MA Mictlan.

In regards to the potency of the life after death, the fight where you use the spell needs to be a very controlled circumstance. You first need to guarantee it is a battle you can win or retreat from successfully. The retreating part would be easy except you need to also kill all your priests once, and only once, before they escape and their souless bodies are frail and unprotected. Surely almost any player can set up this situation in single player games, but it becomes exponentially harder when fighting a war in multi-player. It may also not pay off in the end if a SC teleports on top of the stack of priests or if the enemy researched a bunch of undead killing spells, which they can easily do at this point. Also, not to ignore what Baalz has already stated, there are surely opportunity costs involved. The money alone could easily have been 200 well armed national solders.

[Nikelaos]

i really don't see the problem here, the freespawn undead are utter chaff and can be handled very easily with the usual undead counters. There are many more effective tactics which can be employed much earlier in the game.

Just to chuck in one such strat which could tear right through this 'Exploit'.

10 fire+water blessed hydras (can only be blessed playing middle age pythium) under the influence of 'gift of flight'. Ah watch the undead dissolve under 180 blazing poison bites upon their rearmost troops and commanders, YES there will be blood.

[AreaOfEffect]

i really don't see the problem here, the freespawn undead are utter chaff and can be handled very easily with the usual undead counters. There are many more effective tactics which can be employed much earlier in the game.

Just to chuck in one such strat which could tear right through this 'Exploit'.

10 fire+water blessed hydras (can only be blessed playing middle age pythium) under the influence of 'gift of flight'. Ah watch the undead dissolve under 180 blazing poison bites upon their rearmost troops and commanders, YES there will be blood.

I didn't think longdead and souless had blood. I also beleive it is late age pythium that gets sacred hydras. As for the "exploit", I agree. You get a lot more effective undead combatents out of a black servent prophet. I've never heard of that being refered to as an exploit or as unthematic.

[Nikelaos]

late age pythium? i must be missing something cause my game only goes up to middle age: the serpent cult ,

but whatever the strategy remains and this 'exploit' still is too much trouble for the gain and as such can't be treated as an exploit.

[Poopsi]

Serpent Cult is Late Age.

Middle Age Pythium is "Emerald Empire".

And Early Age's Pythium would be Sauromantia, only it´s not like Pythium at all...

[Nikelaos]

oops got mixed up. but yeah late age pythium