Control and horrors

[shonuf]

Hi,

I am new to the forums, haven't tried MP dominions yet since I was living in brazil when I discovered the game, and my internet was too unstable for that.. Anyway, I was trying out this interesting tactic with LA Ulm that seemed really promising, but I couldn't get to work.

What I tried to do was to create a communion with 10 or so initiates of the second order as communion master, and a bunch of vampire counts - one master and 10 or so slaves.

The initiates were set to cast communion master, control, control, control, control. The VC master was set to sabbath master, hell power. The slaves were just slaves.

The idea was that the 11x hell powered guys would generate masses of horrors that my initiates would cast control on to steal them over to my side, thus quickly generating a vast army of horrors.

My initiates happily cast control on the horrors, but to no avail. Is it because I can't get through the MR roll, or are they simply impossible to control?

Edit: All my mages died in the test battle, and I'm too lazy to build a new army to test again... :p

Edit 2: I tried first with hellbind heart, but that wouldn't target the horrors at all. I guess enslave is the same?

[Anaconda]

Hi,
Edit: All my mages died in the test battle, and I'm too lazy to build a new army to test again... :p


Next time copy the files so you dont need to build the whole battle again, but you can run the same test over and over again?

[shonuf]

Thanks, that's probably a good idea. Do I have to change anything to reset the random seed so I don't get the same results every time?

Also tried it with Lammasthas, but it's kind of hard to see if control undead lands, since they're being treated as hostiles anyway. Is there an easy way to see who the "Owner" of a creature is?

[Anaconda]

Wat?

Well I dunno if theres a hitech way of doing this but I personally think you only copy the appropriate files away from that game folder, then hit "end turn," check the results and write down the data. Then copy the files back and click "end turn" again; repeat as many times as necessary.

When you think you have done this often enough your statistics to be reliable, analyze!

[Admiral_Aorta]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've seen mages cast control on horrors successfully and the horrors just dissappeared after the battle. This was horrors attacking mages on their own though, not with hellpower active.

[Soyweiser]

Units that are summoned in battle disappear after the battle. So, even if your mind control stuff had worked, you would not have kept them. (iirc)

Horrors do have high MR (20). Without penetration boosters you are not getting them that easily. http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Horror

Also, horrors have the (attackfriends) tag. I don't know what that does. I think it makes them attack after a certain while. So horror mind control isn't that great of an idea.

[Admiral_Aorta]

you could test that by wishing for a lesser horror and seeing what happens I guess.

[Shardphoenix]

Also, horrors have the (attackfriends) tag. It makes them attack allies during a battle.

[Soyweiser]

you could test that by wishing for a lesser horror and seeing what happens I guess.

Enjoy your doom horror. Wishing for lesser horrors or any horrors gives you doom horrors.

@shard, yeah I know, but what makes the horrors leave after a while?

Doh... vanish after a while. Which horrors and lesser horrors do not have. Perhaps they stay then.

[Diabl0658]

Even if you do take control of the horrors they will still attack everyone indiscriminately. No matter what side the horrors are on they will attack anyone and everyone. And like what was said above they will just disappear after the battle is over anyway.

The only way to have a horror under your 'control' is to wish for one. You will get a random doom horror which has a 50% chance of outright attacking the mage that cast wish, and a 50% of being under your control. When I say hes under your control I mean you can give him orders on the world map, like move to this province, but he will still act like a horror in battle and attack both friends and enemies. After a few turns he will disappear though. Generally not worth it, wish for a chayot instead.

[BlanketThief]

If you want a horror, might I suggest the send dream horror spell (Defiler of Dreams); They don't vanish from my experience, and while I haven't sent them into a battle with allied units they're pretty crazy on their own with some minor equipment.

[Admiral_Aorta]

uh they're a remote summon that hides in a province, how are you going to equip one with anything?

[Diabl0658]

If you want a horror, might I suggest the send dream horror spell (Defiler of Dreams); They don't vanish from my experience, and while I haven't sent them into a battle with allied units they're pretty crazy on their own with some minor equipment.

Did you mean the harvester of sorrows? http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Harvester_of_Sorrows

Those aren't horrors by the way, just an undead.

[Redeyes]

Do horrors actually attack other horrors? An all-horror army sounds pretty fun.

[Diabl0658]

I think I've seen horrors attack other horrors that have been horror marked. I know for a fact that I've seen horror marked horrors, which suggests that they've been scratched by another horror's astral claws.

[Fantomen]

uh they're a remote summon that hides in a province, how are you going to equip one with anything?

I suppose he casts it on himself and then patrols with mages casting charm or the like to catch it. Seems incredibly wasteful, but maybe "fun".

[BlanketThief]

uh they're a remote summon that hides in a province, how are you going to equip one with anything?

I suppose he casts it on himself and then patrols with mages casting charm or the like to catch it. Seems incredibly wasteful, but maybe "fun".

Right on the money.

[Diabl0658]

uh they're a remote summon that hides in a province, how are you going to equip one with anything?

I suppose he casts it on himself and then patrols with mages casting charm or the like to catch it. Seems incredibly wasteful, but maybe "fun".

Right on the money.

Wow, I never thought to try something like that.

[Soyweiser]

Yeah, because it is a stupid tactic, in SP fine. But in MP it just makes it easy for other players to kill your charm mages, and you waste time and resources.

[Diabl0658]

15 blood slaves for a powerful thug seems like a good tactic to me.

[Admiral_Aorta]

15 slaves for a ****load of unrest in a province, probably the loss of a number of units trying to subdue it and no guarantee of actually getting control of it. what a deal

[Fantomen]

I wouldn't write it off before testing though. If you can find a patrol setup than consistently captures it and set aside a low pop province, and keeps that thing going so you average a thug every other turn... Dunno, it's always worth testing.

[Valerius]

Lol, funny idea. Pan should be able to pull this off nicely (well, once you get hold of an SB mage anyway). Maenads as patrollers/bodyguards and a Pan or two to charm the horror. Of course you'd just have to give it a black heart in order to get a flying, map move 10 assasian. Combine with Pan assasians ftw.

[Diabl0658]

I am definatly going to try this out in a multiplayer game and get back to you guys on how it all works out.

[Soyweiser]

Lets see, you need a b3s4 mage to cast the spell, 15 slaves, a half a dozen charm or enslave mages with boosters (the dream horror has 20 mr).

All to get a thug that has attack friends. While risking your charm mages and equipment.

And the same time, your send dream horror mage could just send the dream horror to your enemies, or just spam regular horrors as raiders.

[Diabl0658]

The dream horror does NOT have attack friends, which makes it a very useful map move 10 stealthy raider.

Il admit it takes some investment to set up, but after that you pay 15 blood slaves to get an amazing thug each turn. Obviously its gonna be a late game tactic. MA or LA abysia with a rainbow mage could easily set it up though.

[Admiral_Aorta]

The dream horror does NOT have attack friends

nice try
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62961939/attacksFriends.PNG

[BlanketThief]

The wiki might be wrong on that part; I haven't seen it attack any allied units yet. Seems to act as your normal every-day scriptable commander.

[Soyweiser]

That data is extracted from the game files iirc. So it has it. Perhaps it doesn't work and it is a bug.

[Valerius]

I've been testing this and it seems like the horrors primarily don't like each other. I started out with four. But already in their first or second battle there was a falling out and two of them killed the other two. You'd think the remaining two were now friends, and in fact things went ok for a few battles, but sure enough they decided there was only room for one of them and they had a run in. Now there's only one left and he seems quite content with that state affairs and is diligently plowing through enemy chaff in battle after battle and showing no sign of attacking his Pan compatriots.

[Admiral_Aorta]

I wonder if some testing with call horror or send horror might shed some light on this? Like if you summon lots of horrors to a battle field do they attack each other eventually as well as any troops hanging around? Can remote summoned horrors attack each other if there's more than one of them?

[Valerius]

That seemed odd to me too. Maybe some horrors turned on me and the loyalists immediately attacked them? I couldn't quite make out from the log what was going on other than the horrors were launching attacks on each other. Let me set things up again and I'll post a savegame.

[Valerius]

Ok, here is a savegame along with a modified CBM that makes Send Dream Horror a level 0 N spell. There are four dream horrors hiding in 15 ready for testing.

Edit: I just made send/call horrors also level 0 N spells so they could be included in testing. And ran a quick test with four castings of send horror in which the horrors did attack each other as well as the indies they were sent to attack. Which jogs my memory that they are quite willing to attack each other and not just other targets on the field of battle. So if you want to use this trick (and if they prove not to attack your other troops once charmed) you'll likely only want to use one with each force (or just use them solo).

[BlanketThief]

Going by a glimpse, it appears that after it's moved it has an equal chance to attack any square; If you're being bombarded with horror marks and the like it won't move towards those (allied) units and still engage on the enemy. As long as you don't mix in any additional fliers with your dream horrors, the friendly-fire aspect should be minimal.

[Valerius]

Ok, that makes sense. I ran my initial tests with troops on guard commander, so the horrors were alone on offense. Setting the harpies to attack alongside the horrors I now see log entries with the horrors attacking harpies.