Who Reanimates?

[SilverElf4]

Greetings all,

I've had a lot of fun playing MA Ermor, with their priests ability to call up undead troops. I was wondering which other nations (of any age) have this ability? Just from descriptions I think LA C'tis has this as well, but none of the others is forthcoming in their description.

I did a forum search but didn't come up with anything, and I also checked the latest version of the DB, but haven't come up with anything so far.

[Scarmiglione]

Any undead or demon priest can reanimate undead, so any nation that has those, such as Lanka, can reanimate. You can also make a demon or undead unit your prophet. there are some summoned units, like mound fiends, that can reanimate. Pangaea Carrion Lords and Ladies can reanimate unique undead. one of the Sauromatian heroes can reanimate undead parthalonians. Probably more I'm overlooking.

[Gregstrom]

In addition - any priest employed by Lanka, even human ones, can animate undead. The same applies to a couple of other nations, but sadly I don't remember which ones. MA Ermor is one, I think.

Carrion reanimation may be specific to the Pangaeas IIRC, in which case a captured Carrion with holy magic will only reanimate normal undead.

[Tolkien]

LA Ermor also allows all priests to reanimate.

[Omnirizon]

I don't think just any nation can ever reanimate by just obtaining an undead priest. I think only certain nations ever have this ability.

I could be wrong, but I thought I saw a thread a while back about this.

For what I know, only MA/LA Ermor, LA C'tis, Lanka, and LA Argatha can. there may be one or two others, but I don't think everyone can.

[Scarmiglione]

Just did a test, prophetized an Unfrozen Lord as EA R'lyeh. He was able to reanimate ghouls, souless, and longdead as expected. Screenies attached.

[thejeff]

Any undead priest can reanimate.
Certain nations have special undead they can reanimate.
You may have remembered that Longdead Cavalry can only be reanimated by LA/MA Ermor.

[SilverElf4]

Wow! Thanks all of you for the replies and the investigation!

Good information to know, all of it. I haven't played Lanka at all yet, may have to try them.

What map is that in the last screenie? I haven't played all the maps yet, didn't know if it was a standard one or a custom.

[Frozen Lama]

Dawn of Dominions

[Scarmiglione]

Yep, it's Dawn of Dominions, along with Cradle probably my favorite map that comes with the game. I edited this one to allow R'lyeh instead of Oceania.

[chrispedersen]

Undead nations receive a +1 modifier to priest level which helps deterine what they can raise.

[Swan]

I didn't know that.
Am i the only one learning something new abut this game everyday?

[Agema]

Question is what use reanimation is as well. My experience of MA Ermor has been that you expend a vast amount of mage time and effort raising a huge army, and it tends to disappear like smoke in the wind when it fights someone.

[SilverElf4]

Yeah I started a game there playing as Agartha. I love the map, any tutorials on how to do editing as you did? I've love to be able to switch around the allowed nations.

I don't know what (if any) is the best tactic for reanimate, but I've been using the ability to create frontline fodder for battles and to mop up independents.

[Ironhawk]

Reanimation is valuable if it does not compete for mage-time or fort-time. Normally thats not the case, tho you can sometimes arrange it.

[Taqwus]

I don't know what (if any) is the best tactic for reanimate, but I've been using the ability to create frontline fodder for battles and to mop up independents.

'Carrion Reanimation' after a large battle with many corpses left behind can get you as many as 100 Soulless (with equipment, from battle corpses in contrast to 'reaper' corpses or the like) in a single remote cast. That's very commander-time-efficient.

There are ways to get lots of undead priests at once ('Life After Death' + cold/poison aura + indy priests packed up against the aura holder), for instance. This might be considered cheese, considering that the priests probably should have second thoughts about where you're telling them to stand, and that it also negates their upkeep.

[thejeff]

I've never been fond of it on a small scale, but with Ermor you can do it on a huge scale. Usually they die fast, but by late game everything dies fast and if you can get the late game buffs on them they're suddenly not so bad.
Army of Lead and Will of the Fates on a thousand Longdead Horse fighting in Darkness?
Sure, SCs will kill them eventually, but that's what your communioned mages are spamming Soul Slay for. And you have your own SCs.

[Scarmiglione]

Silverelf: You can switch around the nations on a scenario map by editing the .map file of the map in your dominions 3 map folder. lets say you want to change Oceania to R'lyeh. Make a copy of the dawn.map and dawn.tga and rename them into something like Rdawn.map and Rdawn.tga (this is to avoid overwriting the original dawn of dominions.)

Then, open the rdawn.map in notepad and look for #dom2title. change "dawn of dominions to somnething like "dawn of R'lyeh)

Next look for #imagefile. Change dawn.tga to rdawn.tga (or whatever you renamed the .tga).

Next, scroll down to #allowedplayer. Look for EA oceania, which is nation 26. Change that to EA R'lyeh, which is nation 22. (the nation numbers fo all nations can be found in the mod manual)

Finally, find the command #specstart 26 49. remember, 26 is EA oceania, so change that to 22 for r'lyeh. the 49 is the starting province, leave that as is. You may want to change #landname 49 to "R'lyeh" for flavor purposes.

Then start a new game on the map "Dawn of R'lyeh" and it should work fine. You can replace any other nations, not just R'lyeh. Just refer to the mod manual and switch numbers where appropriate. You can even add nations from other eras, if you make a simple mod to put them in EA (the mod would use the commands
#modname "(nationname) in EA"
#selectnation X(X = nation number)
#era 1
#end.
Then enable that mod, and do the above steps using whatever nation you picked.

I think I've remembered all the steps, but post if it doesn't work or my description was confusing, I will clarify, or one of the more knowledgeable posters here will probably correct any areas I was wrong about.

[Jack_Trowell]

You don't need to rename the image file, nothing prevent several .map files to reference the same .tga image.

[Sajuuk]

Pan and LA c'tis might have special rules to reanimate different undead, and other nation get them(through enslave,wish or simply mod...)can only reanimate standard undead...

The Sauromatia hero that make partholonian longdead use "summon allies" command rather than reanimate undead.

Note that some nation have speciel soulless/longdead unit,like atlantis, caelum, Niefelheim/Jotunheim/Utgård, C'tis and Ashdod(unclear if Hinnom have,at least Gath cannot reanimate speciel longdead), and anyone that can reanimate have a chance to get these unit, not restricted to national priest.

Sauromatia is an exception, though nomally they can't reanimate because they lack of undead or demon priest, if you designate an undead/demonic prophet, or mummified your dead prophet, or simply summoned one of the ice devil that have H3, you will find that they can reanimate longdead horseman.

[chrispedersen]

Again, certain nations are designated 'dead' nations. They are able to summon as if they were 1 level higher than they actually are. (IE., and h3 undead priest of one of these nations can summon undead horseman instead of only longdead warriors).

This applies both to the number of undead, and the types eligible.

The list is far more than just Sauromatia - although I do not remember whose on it.

[thejeff]

I'm pretty sure that's not true. I could be wrong.
Undead/demonic H3s of Sauromatia and Ermor (MA/LA?) are able to reanimate long dead horse. There may be other nations.
Can undead/demonic H4s from any nation reanimate longdead horse? Can H1-2s from Sauromatia and Ermor reanimate better undead than H1-2s from other nations?

My understanding was that Sauromatia and Ermor got longdead horse, which most other nations did not. That it was not a boost to the priest's level, but just a special type they could reanimate.

[Omnirizon]

I'm pretty sure this is wrong too

Page 70 of the manual lists the reanimation order, and the numbers and types obtained for each level of priest. It even has the special undead Ermor gets, and it says nothing about Ermorian (or any other priest) getting a plus one.

[Graeme Dice]

The manual's wrong. H1 LA ermorian priests can reanimate longdead warriors.

[Omnirizon]

someone needs to add it to the 'lies my manual told me' thread, if it isn't already there :)

[Trumanator]

There is a special modding tag that can be applied to a nation to allow it to reanimate longdead horsemen. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that it has nothing to do with boosted priest levels.

[thejeff]

I just did some testing. As near as I can tell, everyone is right.

LA Ermor (and maybe other nations? Not MA) does get a +1. H3 can reanimate Horse and Lictors. H2 can reanimate Horse, H1 can do Longdead.

Separately, LA and MA Ermor can reanimate Longdead horsemen and Lictors. MA does so per the table in the book. Other nations cannot get Horse even with an H4 undead priest.
Sauromatia (and possibly others ?), but not EA Ermor can reanimate Longdead horse, but not Lictors.

[chrispedersen]

Its more or less like I said. Theres a mod command that allows a nation to reanimate horse. If a nation has that tag, all their priests act as +1 level.

That may not be what was intended, but I did some looking into it awhile ago and never found any nation that violated that rule.
My memory is rusty, but I think the there is a mannikin or similar summoning tag that acts akin.

[thejeff]

I didn't experiment with the mod command, but my testing showed that LA Ermor did get the +1 bonus, but neither MA Ermor nor Sauromatia did.

The mod command may combine the two, but nations in the base game don't need to follow the rule.

[chrispedersen]

Are you saying a Sauromatian Mound King H2
doesn't reanimate as an H3? Because I'm fairly sure it does.

[thejeff]

Are you saying a Sauromatian Mound King H2
doesn't reanimate as an H3? Because I'm fairly sure it does.

Hmmm. You're right. I thought I'd checked that before.

OK, I think the trick is that undead priests get their level boosted with these nations. MA Ermor's living priests, who can reanimate, don't. That may be what confused me.

[Agema]

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure I'm playing two unmodded games, and I'm pretty sure MA Ermor can cast "reanimation" at half gem cost, and they are all longdead velites/legionaries/triarii etc. which makes them very slightly better than your average longdead casualties-soon-to-be.

[earcaraxe]

Do Carrion centaurs reanimate only 1 mainkin each try? i was expeimenting with this a little, trying grasslands, forests with or without temples, with or without corpses. Does any circumstance have an effect on the quality of them?

how about other methods of animating manikins?

[chrispedersen]

It is my belief that both woodlands, and temples in woodlands boost the quality of the reanimation.

Opinion only.

[Fantomen]

Woodlands increase quantity and temples increase quality. But I beleive this is only true for Carrion woods, and has no effect on reanimation done by priests or through ritual spells.

[Jarkko]

Woodlands increase quantity and temples increase quality. But I beleive this is only true for Carrion woods, and has no effect on reanimation done by priests or through ritual spells.
If we are still referring to Pangaea reanimating, that is not true. In non-forest provinces the Pangaean reanimators (either the Carrion summons, or undead priests you have got your hands on them somehow) summon only standard manikin. In forests with temples they reanimate all sorts of carrin things, from the useless wingless carrion-harpies to stuff-for-legends carrion elephants (basically the same thing as the Death spell Behemoth, except the carrion elephant is green and doesn't cost gems :) ).

A Luck-scale is good to have if you want to recieve the good ones (forest+temple is *needed* though). You'll get more carrions if you have a Growth scale. So, in a grassland province with Death or Neutral-growth scale you will very likely recieve just at most 1 single manikin.

[earcaraxe]

Seeing the contradicting opinions i made some experimenting with carrion centaurs animating manikins, under vanilla.
It can be considered proven, that a c.c. always makes one manikin a turn (at least under the circumstances i tested)


(terrain): (total nmbr of manikins,nmbr of mammoths,nmbr of harpies)

the first vector is for growth3, the second is for turm3,luck3

forest: (54,1,7), (29,0,2)
forest, temple: (40,0,5), (24,1,5)
mountain: (41,1,11), (20,0,4)
nonforest, temple: (40,0,8), (29,0,4) (temple was razed halfway)

It seems to me, that there are no significant differences in the quality of the manikins if there are any at all.

there were some losses of manikins because of random events but i dont consider them significant to the conclusion.

[chrispedersen]

How does 54 vs 40 confirm that they only reanimate 1 /turn?

don't get me wrong, I believe they only *do* reanimate 1/turn. I'm just curious how the test confirms it.

[Jarkko]

It seems to me, that there are no significant differences in the quality of the manikins if there are any at all.
Huh? You see no difference in quality between a carrion harpy and a carrion behemoth?

there were some losses of manikins because of random events but i dont consider them significant to the conclusion.
Your data also shows that your numbers don't add up :) Would be interesting to know how you came to your conclusions, because the numbers simply are not correct if your conclusion is 1 manikin/per turn per cc :)

[Digress]

How does 54 vs 40 confirm that they only reanimate 1 /turn?

don't get me wrong, I believe they only *do* reanimate 1/turn. I'm just curious how the test confirms it.

Well it would help if he included number of turns ...

[earcaraxe]

How does 54 vs 40 confirm that they only reanimate 1 /turn?

don't get me wrong, I believe they only *do* reanimate 1/turn. I'm just curious how the test confirms it.

as i wrote: "there were some losses of manikins because of random events but i dont consider them significant to the conclusion."

(like barbarians) (there were no significant mammoth losses thats for sure because i regularly checked them)