.com.unity Forums

.com.unity Forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php)
-   Dominions 3: The Awakening (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138)
-   -   Guide: Guide to communions (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37499)

Baalz January 24th, 2008 11:45 PM

Guide to communions
 
Alright, seems like every couple months a new thread with questions about communions pops up so I figured I'd write a guide about communions, answer the common questions and go over the basics of how to use them effectively. Communions are potentially very powerful, potentially very dangerous, and definitely kinda confusing.

The basics.

Communions (and their interchangeable, less well known blood brother Sabbaths) are a way for mages to work together to become greater than the sum of their parts. The slaves both boost the magic power of the masters and soak up the fatigue of the spells cast resulting in masters who can cast big spells much longer than otherwise possible. Because of the fact that they keep soaking up fatigue after exhaustion - all the way up to 200 fatigue at which point they start taking damage and quickly die, it is often the case that a mismanaged communion causes catastrophic loss of mages even when you win. Many the player has sworn off communions after watching a dozen mages perish as Armageddon is opened up on the terrified and fleeing PD. In Dominions, bad luck can always render any carefully laid plans asunder, but understanding how to use communions will result in them being much more useful and much less dangerous (to you, hopefully they're quite dangerous to your opponent).

First it's important to understand the basic mechanics of the communion. Slaves boost the power of both slaves and masters inside the communion by 1 per power of 2. This means +1 at 2 slaves, +2 at 4, +3 at 8, etc. The masters are boosted in all paths which they already have, while the slaves are boosted in all paths whether they have them or not. The slave power is important for calculating the fatigue they receive for spells cast by the master. The specific mechanics of how fatigue is parsed out is not entirely clear, but roughly slaves will receive fatigue as if they cast the spell themselves (which is why the power level is important), divided by how many slaves there are. Encumbrance is not added to this calculation and significant extra fatigue is accrued if the slaves could not cast the spell themselves after the communion boost - another reason the slave power is important. The communion bonus does not show up on the character sheet, but it is effected by buffs. This means that so long as there are at least two slaves, all slaves will benefit from such spells as phoenix power for the purpose of soaking up fatigue. All commanders resolve their orders in the same order that they're listed in the strategic screen from top to bottom. This is particularly important to note for communions as any slaves acting in a turn sequentially before any masters act will be able to cast spells (and indeed will do so by default). This can be a really good or really bad thing (see below), so make sure you anticipate it. Note, there is no known way to alter the order the commanders act in, just to anticipate it and change which ones will be slaves and masters (and which ones you bring to battle). Note, all spells are resolved before movement or archery, so the order the commanders is only relevant for resolving spells - slaves will not be able to take any action other than spells regardless of what order they come in if any master casts a spell.

Here's a good example about how fatigue is split:

Quote:

MaxWilson said:
3. The short answer is that fatigue is split between master/slaves BEFORE adjusting for path levels, but slaves also get the communion bonus to their paths for these purposes. If a spell is cast which requires D4 and 400 fatigue, and there are 4 slaves in the communion all with no Death paths, each slave and the master will take 80 fatigue, adjusted for path levels and drain (plus fatigue, for the master). With the +2 communion bonus for 4 slaves, each slave is D2 casting a D4 spell, and since they are 2 levels short they take triple fatigue damage or 240 fatigue (which I think means 40 fatigue gets converted to 4 HP damage). If you are N levels short you take (N+1) times fatigue, if you are N levels over you take 1/(N+1) times fatigue.


Putting together a successful communion is a lot like baking. You've got several different basic components which need to be properly balanced, and a few optional extras which can be used to add an interesting twist if you want. Just like baking, you can't stray too far away from the correct ratios or the bread won't rise resulting in best case reduced effectiveness of the communion, worst case a bunch of dead slaves. The basic components of course, are the masters and slaves, and choosing the correct ones to use is not as easy as it first seems. First, you've got to decide what type of thing you're baking, is it bread, or cookies, or a cake? There are several different types of communions, here are a couple recipes. Once you become familiar with them you will be able to tweak them without unbalancing the important factors and come up with your own recipes.

Classic communion - This communion is intended to rain down mid-line evocation spells in a never ending barrage. Masters should have an elemental path and you'll want to script something like falling fires, falling frost, magma eruption, thunderstrike, acid rain, blade wind or gifts from heaven. Slaves will either need one level in the same path or one of the masters will need to cast power of the spheres (or phoenix power, etc if all your masters are the same path). The really important thing to keep in mind with this communion is critical mass. You need to have *at least* 8 slaves, 10 is much safer to have a buffer against those stray arrows. Outside of that, as you add masters make sure you have more slaves than masters. 14 slaves, 12 masters is fine*, but if you're short on mages you'll want 10 slaves and 5 masters. The * is because you'll need to add a few extra slaves if you're spamming particularly fatiguing spells like Thunderstrike. Your masters will have +3 to all paths, which really helps those spells which scale with mage power. Your slaves will be at least level 4 after the boost, which means they should be taking only 1-3 fatigue or so per spell that is cast as the spells you're casting all have requirements of 3 or under and fatigue in the 30-50 range - this is important in order to keep your slaves from accumulating fatal fatigue. No worries as these are the spells the AI will choose once your scripting expires, and you should be able to go 15 or so turns before slaves start dying, making this quite a rare occurrence (not much stands up to 10 turns of such a barrage, you'll generally have won or lost by then).

Reverse communion - 2 or 3 masters then as many cheap slaves as you can muster. Your masters will cast power of the spheres then whatever other booster is appropriate (phoenix power, etc). For air spells you can use the third master to cast storm so that air power is an option. Now, all your slaves have been boosted 2 levels, so they can cast fun things like falling fire, thunderstrike, etc. Even lowly S1 mages are now capable of Soul Slaying. The fun thing about this one is it's a great way to use all those cheap researchers you've got with no other preparation. Leading a fight with three rounds of 10X Falling Fires makes quite a difference considering how cheap the mages are. Note, this communion takes advantage of one of the quirks of the communion, the fact that slaves can cast spells so long as they act sequentially before all masters in the turn sequence. Commanders resolve their orders in the same order that they're listed in the strategic screen. If for whatever reason you're not comfortable trying to get this order right you can have the masters retreat after casting the buffs - the buffs remain in effect. Note, the communion bonus does not affect slaves casting by themselves, only the buffs the masters cast help. Apparently the slaves are acting by themselves outside the communion.

Linebacker communion - 3 or 4 masters with varying paths and at least 10 slaves. This communion takes advantage of the fact that self buffs which affect a master also affect all slaves. The masters will cast as many self buffs as possible before the slaves wade forward into melee. This tactic works best with slaves that have more hitpoints and a good attack (like starspawn or vampire counts), but even just passing out frostbrands to your average poindexter before he is buffed with invulnerability, mistform, regeneration, quickness, luck, fire shield, astral shield and breath of winter - well, there are worse uses for a slew of S1 mages. Note, for this to work it's important that you have a sufficient number of slaves, otherwise the slaves will rack up too much fatigue during the buff cycle and be worthless for combat. Also, the slaves will not move or fire if any masters cast spells that round, so you can either have the masters join in the melee attac, retreat from the battle, or equip them with bows and script them to fire after all the buffing is done.

Kamikaze communion - 4 slaves as cheap as you can manage and 4-6 masters. This one is straightforward enough, the point is to boost the masters up two levels to give them access to the next tier of offensive spells (ie, giving A1 mages the ability to cast Thunderstrike). As the name implies, the slaves are not expected to survive. This can be a good way to pack a lot of firepower in a pinch.

Superman communion - The numbers on this one vary depending on what you're trying to accomplish, but the idea is to have a whole bunch of slaves and only one or two masters casting those really devastating spells. The classic example of this is Master Enslave communions, though there are other good choices for more modest uses like flaming arrows, fog warriors, darkness, etc. The important factors are that there are enough slaves and that the handful of spells which are cast are devastating enough to make the opportunity cost worthwhile of all these mages doing nothing else.

Alright, there's some basic recipes for your book, obviously you can start mix and matching them as you become more comfortable. Now for the optional twists previously mentioned.

The blood spell Sabbath Master is equivalent (and mutually interchangeable - you can join a communion by casting Sabbath Master) but functionally there are two big differences. The first is that Sabbath Master costs 100 fatigue, so casting it with a B1 mage will result in a pass out once you account for encumbrance. What makes up for this in a big way though is that nice little blood spell reinvigoration. If a master casts reinvigoration not only does it remove all his fatigue, it removes all the fatigue of all the slaves. For this reason strategic use of a single blood mage can as much as double the effectiveness of your communion.

Crystal/slave matrixes. These magic items allow non astral/blood mages to join a communion (note: they must still be mages of some type). The potential uses of this in combination with the linebacker or reverse communions should be obvious. One note of caution however, because of the fact that slaves rack up fatigue really fast if they don't have the paths for the spell the master is casting it's very important to have enough slaves to compensate for this if masters are casting spells which the slaves don't have paths in.

Keep in mind penetration goes up with the mage's power and sometimes extra penetration can be worthwhile even if you're not enabling extra spells. Have that S9 pretender lead all those S1 researchers you have in a communion before spamming enslave mind. It beats whatever the heck S1 mages would otherwise be casting.

Phoenix pyre can add an amusing twist to the linebacker communion as it can set off a devastating chain reaction. Expect this to be a fairly kamikaze move. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Some magic items cause their effect by autocasting a spell at the very beginning of combat such as a charcoal shield or crystal shield. These spells, if they're self buffs will effect slaves who are part of the communion so long as the item is worn by a master who is in the communion. Since the timing on this is such that the buff is cast before anyone can cast master/slave communion, this generally only effects people wearing crystal/slave matrixes (though pythium's communicants are an exception, and there may be others).

Hellpower is an interesting spell in combination with Sabbath, but rather difficult to use effectively. A master casting hellpower will result in every slave being effected by all the effects of hellpower, including being horror marked and having a chance of calling a horror. Obviously you seldom want a bunch of people calling horrors immediately after all your mages have been horror marked. This can be useful in two situation though. The first is if you are fighting a SC (or really anybody) who has already been seriously horror marked (if you're particularly baalzy, you might try to horror mark them the same fight before casting hell power) - horrors will attack the most horror marked units first. The second situation is a kamikaze linebacker move where you uber buff the slaves then don't care if they die. This is pretty wasteful though unless your slaves are tough enough to survive a couple AN hits from horrors. I have used this tactic successfully with LA Ulm's vampire counts (2b 2d), resulting in a dozen uber buffed, life draining, flying thugs...who happened to be immortal so no worries if they died. The nice thing about hell power is it not only increases magic power, it increases attack, defense, strength (hitpoints, I don't remember) so it's particularly useful in this case. Note, your slaves are going to rack up horror marks when you do this even if you win the fight, so use it sparingly even with immortals.

Quote:

DrPraetorious said:

Communion masters generally carry valuable gems, possibly penetration boosting items, and seldom have to worry much about fatigue, obviously. So it's generally a good idea to protect your investment (vs. stray arrows, for example) by putting them in some armor.

This also goes to the question of how to protect a valuable communion if you are very communion dependent (for example, as Pythium or Ermor or Bogarus).

* Rune Smashers, Eyes of the Void and Spell Foci are all great for masters casting Shadow Blast or groovy stuff like master enslave.
* Masters spamming elemental attack spells want boosters, not for fatigue reduction, but for increased damage and/or area of effect. This is obviously true for most of them (note all the +s in the spell description) - what most people don't know is that the fatigue inflicted by the secondary wave (which is area 9!) from thunderstrike is also air-magic-dependant, so if you can push your air magic up higher it becomes much more devastating.
* A communion matrix is often a good investment even for a communion master who has astral. +1 turn of spell casting is a huge advantage, and for a big-spell communion, it is not expensive.
* 50% resistance to fire and cold more or less assure that you won't go down to a murdering winter or flames from the sky. Various combinations of armor and misc items grant this, but fire plate and a ring of ice is probably the cheapest way to go.

In the late game, murdering winter/flames from the sky are a virtual surety. If you have the Forge, absolutely forge fire plate and a ring of frost for each and every slave.

Quote:

Meglobob said:
I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it?

Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest.

An often overlooked aspect of the communion is the fact that it also buffs holy levels (as does power of the spheres). The flip side of what Meglobob suggests can be good - H6 priests spamming banishment are hideously effective at clearing out low level undead due of the exponential increase in effectiveness the power boost brings. You can even use crystal matrixes if you don't have astral priests, though keep in mind that they do need to be some flavor of mage for the matrix to work. No reason you can't, say slap a crystal matrix on a High inquisitor (3H 1F) then have lowly astral slaves boost him up to an undead popping juggernaut. Since banishment is 0 fatigue this makes a lot of sense to combine with a reverse communion - your buffed masters can banish away without fatiguing the slaves.

Sometimes it can be useful to pass out items which can "cast spells" to communion slaves so they can use them fatigue free (outside of encumberance), this can be a little dangerous though as you'll have to script your slaves to "cast spells" after your script runs out which means the AI might decide to cast something unexpected driving up your fatigue rather than the 0 cost item spell. Still, this works particularly well with standards of the damned because the life draining effect removes fatigue. Not cheap, but if you can manage to get one on each of your slaves you can have an effectively unlimited casting out of the communion on top of a slew of sniper slaves.

DonCorazon January 25th, 2008 01:24 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Thanks for taking the time to write this!

I for one have been too lazy to even figure out communions (and a little scared I will accidentally microwave all my mages). While communions still sound like a pain, this guide may be my inspiration to try and figure them out, at least in SP. Sounds like a powerful tool I have been neglecting in my effort to conquer the world, which is failing miserably in all my MP games!

llamabeast January 25th, 2008 01:46 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Are you sure about reinvigoration working on all the slaves? I thought I'd tested it once, and concluded it didn't work.

Baalz January 25th, 2008 02:07 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

llamabeast said:
Are you sure about reinvigoration working on all the slaves? I thought I'd tested it once, and concluded it didn't work.

Absolutely sure, I've used it several times.

llamabeast January 25th, 2008 02:17 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Ok, I must have somehow tested it poorly then. That's very powerful!

Zeldor January 25th, 2008 06:44 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Baalz:

I guess Phoenix Pyre, not Phoenix Power as a way to suicide your mages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Yrkoon January 25th, 2008 07:34 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
A bit of an exploit with communion : magic items auto-casting spells worn by communion members equipped with matrixes affect the other member of the communion.

In my case, a mage with a copper plate and and crystal matrix made the other communion members (matrixes too) have charge body at the beginning of the battle. Other items would certainly do the same (crystal shield for example, which auto-cast power of the spheres, ring of regeneration too).

I don't know if it works only for mages members of the communion before the start of the battle (matrixes), of if it works with members joining the communion on turn 1 (communion master and communion slave spells). Or if it works with non mages (a tug with a crystal matrix getting buffed by the mages's items).

It's an exploit in my opinion, so I didn't investigate it further. People with less ... morals ... might want to give it a try.

Endoperez January 25th, 2008 08:25 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
That can be done without items, simply by casting a spell with range: personal. A Master casting Power of the Spheres will give the effect to all slaves on the battlefield.

vfb January 25th, 2008 08:38 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Yrkoon said:
A bit of an exploit with communion : magic items auto-casting spells worn by communion members equipped with matrixes affect the other member of the communion.

In my case, a mage with a copper plate and and crystal matrix made the other communion members (matrixes too) have charge body at the beginning of the battle. Other items would certainly do the same (crystal shield for example, which auto-cast power of the spheres, ring of regeneration too).
...

Not the ring of regen. Only "Charge Body" is auto-cast in the battle, resistances and regeneration are persistent outside battles. I don't know about the shield though.

If you had a big enough mass of slaves to spread out the casting fatigue, Hell Power followed by Returning might be fun to try sometime. Or would all the slaves have a 20% chance per round of being attacked by horrors too?

MKDELTA January 25th, 2008 08:49 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Nice guide!

A theoretical question: A blood equivalent of a reverse communion. Let's say...a handful of Mictlanese mages, and some leaders. They go into Sabbath, with Reivinvigoration and all that. Then...the Master casts Hellpower. Now, will the chance of Horrors popping in be calculated as if all the mages had cast this spell, or as if just the master had cast the spell? In other words, does the chance of horrors popping in multiply with communions/sabbaths? I imagine Sabbath/communion + Hellpower could result in insane magepower, and since it gives such a huge boost it would sizeably cut down the fatigue burden of slaves...let's say we have a bunch of Rain Priests and uh oh hmmm High Priests Of The Sun as slaves. We got the magical mass destruction spells of evocation and so on. For masters, we got a HPOTS, a Priest King and a Moon Priest. They go into communion. HPOTS casts Summon Hellpower, the next one Casts Reinvigoration, Priest King casts Eagle Eyes and other nature buffs, Moon Priest uses Power of the Spheres and Astral buffs...now we have a bunch of Rain Priests and Sun Priests with +3 to all paths, increased precision, buffs etc. That is an INSANE boost. Not to mention the masters... I wonder how soon and how bad horrors would come in. Maybe some decent (magical, blessed?) bodyguards could fend them off...if not, it could be used as a kamikaze communion of sorts. If using moon priests you could use regular communion, save some bloodslaves...with Hellpower & Power of the Spheres and maybe some booster items your Master(s) could be up in Master Enslave levels, or maybe beyond...

Someone has to test this. It might be insanely powerful, or then just a suicide.

Endoperez January 25th, 2008 09:08 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
You could start it with a few castings of Astral Geysers, horror-marking enemy units.

I think horrors would, indeed, come. Phoenix Pyre, as an example, makes the caster explode and reincarnate upon death - but both caster and slaves are affected. Similarly, Hell Power gives the caster +2 magic and gives 20% chance of horror attack. I presume both effects also affect the slaves. They are part of the same spell. Otherwise, it'd be like Phoenix Pyre bringing the dead slaves back, without explosion or fatigue. You shouldn't get one without the other.

Zeldor January 25th, 2008 09:13 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Endoperez:

From what I've seen Phoenix Pyre makes communion explode and not reincarnate. Probably because of fatigue

MKDELTA January 25th, 2008 09:18 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Endoperez said:
You could start it with a few castings of Astral Geysers, horror-marking enemy units.

I think horrors would, indeed, come. Phoenix Pyre, as an example, makes the caster explode and reincarnate upon death - but both caster and slaves are affected. Similarly, Hell Power gives the caster +2 magic and gives 20% chance of horror attack. I presume both effects also affect the slaves. They are part of the same spell. Otherwise, it'd be like Phoenix Pyre bringing the dead slaves back, without explosion or fatigue. You shouldn't get one without the other.

Yeah, but we'll never know for sure unless we/I test it. Also, would horror marking actualy make the horrors prioritize enemy units? Oh joy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That would make it a neat ultimate sadistic and hilarious kamikaze (maybe not if you got Returning) sabbath.

Baalz January 25th, 2008 10:27 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Added a section on Hellpower at the end. I have tested and used it, I didn't originally include it in the guide because its very difficult to use effectively.

Also added a section regarding item autocasts.

AlgaeNymph January 29th, 2008 01:08 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Baalz said:
This means that so long as there are at least two slaves, all slaves will benefit from such spells as phoenix power for the purpose of soaking up fatigue.

So if I have 8+ S1 slaves boosting a fire mage, they won't have fatigue penalties if the master casts phoenix power?

Baalz January 29th, 2008 10:54 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Not sure I understand exactly what you're asking, but 8 slaves who have no fire magic will get a +3 boost, resulting in a fire level of 3. The master casting phoenix power will boost this to 4 (the slaves will take fatigue from that spell as if they were level 3). At that point they will soak up all fatigue as F4 mages.

LDiCesare January 29th, 2008 11:48 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I don't think magic paths you don't have are boosted, so " no fire magic will get a +3 boost" is probably wrong.
Otherwise, communion would open all paths to all mages (except you may not script them without copying orders from another commander). I don't think it does that.

thejeff January 29th, 2008 12:26 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Apparently they're boosted for the slaves for the purposes of absorbing fatigue from the masters only.
You still can't cast (with either slave or master) from paths you don't have.

Slaves do pick up the side effects of the booster spells: fire resistance from Phoenix Power and reinvig from Summon Earthpower.

Torin January 29th, 2008 02:44 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
the manual doesn`t say the slaves are boosted. do you know this by testing?

llamabeast January 29th, 2008 02:57 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Yeah, they are. The manual is not too hot on communions.

thejeff January 29th, 2008 03:10 PM

Communion/Fatigue
 
The manual, as far as I can tell, says nothing about how fatigue is divided in communions, other than that the slaves share the fatigue.

I tried doing some testing this weekend and what it proved to me was that I couldn't even get fatigue without communions right. The manual says fatigue should be the given fatigue for the spell times 1/(1+(magic skill - minimum skill)) plus spell casting encumbrance.

I tried this with Arcosephale, because I wanted to see how fatigue got spread around communions with various paths boosted and/or missing.

Before I even got to the communion I saw:
My prophet casting holy spells (0 fatigue) with 10 encumbrance, got a straight 10 fatigue every time.
A Priestess, with 3 encumbrance, got 3 fatigue for every holy spell.
Then she cast Protection, which is N1, 20 fatigue and gained 27 fatigue, not 23.

Mystics are also 3 fatigue and those with 1S also got 27 fatigue when casting Communion Slave
A Mystic with 2S got 15 fatigue from Communion Slave, not (1/(1+2-1))*20+3 = 13
Casting Body Ethereal, which is still 1S, but 30 fatigue, the 1S Mystic got 39 fatigue and the 2S got 21.

Once the Communion was up with 8 slaves, the Master cast PotS and got 6 fatigue. He started with 1S.
The slaves who started with 1S got 4 fatigue and those who started with 2S got 3.
I can't even try to calculate that out, until I understand the non-communioned results.

So, is the manual wrong about fatigue calculations, or am I misinterpreting something?

Baalz January 29th, 2008 03:22 PM

Re: Communion/Fatigue
 
I also tried to figure out how fatigue was calculated (before throwing my hands up and saying it wasn't obvious). On top of the things you mention I also saw weird stuff like different levels of fatigue on slaves who had the same magic paths and were the same unit type, and reinvigoration not removing all the fatigue from some of the slaves (or perhaps it removed the fatigue on some before fatiguing them for the casting, and some after). Some of this is probably rounding type differences.

All in all, my conclusion was that the fatigue calculations in the book were not exactly correct but were close enough for rough strategic planning. Use the formula you reference above (don't count encumbrance), divide by the number of slaves and that's *about* how much fatigue each slave will get. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Torin January 29th, 2008 03:43 PM

Re: Communion/Fatigue
 
The encumbrance added fatigue itīs twice the encumbrance according to the manual

thejeff January 29th, 2008 05:26 PM

Re: Communion/Fatigue
 
I don't have the manual in front of me, but I think it's only encumbrance from armor that's doubled. And that's reflected in the spell casting encumbrance shown under the detailed fatigue.

On first glance, it looks to me like fatigue from encumbrance is boosted based on the base cost for the spell. But not in any even or obvious fashion. I'll have to look at casters with different encumbrances.

AlgaeNymph January 29th, 2008 11:33 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Baalz said:
Not sure I understand exactly what you're asking, but 8 slaves who have no fire magic will get a +3 boost, resulting in a fire level of 3.

But since the slaves never had any fire levels to begin with, wouldn't they incur a fatigue penalty without the phoenix power?

(I should've been clearer with my quote selection.)

Baalz January 30th, 2008 12:38 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
No, the slaves gain the communion bonus for all paths, including the ones they don't have at all - solely for the purpose of calculating fatigue absorbed through the communion. So that gives them 0+3 in this case, plenty to cast phoenix power.

thejeff January 30th, 2008 11:28 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
OK, I've figured out what I was missing in the basic fatigue calculations: Drain.

The real calculation is:
given fatigue for the spell time (1 + .1*Drain scale) times 1/(1+(magic skill - minimum skill)) plus spell casting encumbrance.
The battle I was examining took place in Drain 2, so for Body Ethereal, 30 * 1.2 = 36 +3encumbrance = 39
or 36/2 = 18+3 encumbrance = 21.

Communion fatigue makes some more sense now:
PotS becomes 120 fatigue/8 = 15
which is 15/4 = 3.75 ~= 4 for slaves with 1S(+3)
15/5 = 3 for slaves with 2S(+3)
Which is right
The master got 6, which isn't clear. 1S+3 +encumbrance should have been 7.
Encumbrance only applies to the master, but is also reduced somehow? Which makes sense, since I'm pretty sure some of the later spells only gave 1 or 2 fatigue.

LDiCesare January 30th, 2008 04:17 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I wonder, if slaves' level is boosted for soaking fatigue only, what about the reverse communion?
You have a master and, say 8 slaves. The master leaves or stops casting. Do the slaves get the fatigue level boost for casting their own spells?

Baalz January 30th, 2008 04:39 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
No, the point of the reverse communion is that a bunch of level 1 mages get the benefit of power of the spheres and phoenix/earth/air power (and whatever other self buffs the masters cast). They gain no benefit implicitly from the communion as when they're casting spells they're doing so outside the communion.

So, a 1S 1F slave gets +1 F from the master casting phoenix power, and +1 from another one casting power of the spheres - this bonus (after it is in effect that is) is not tied to the communion. The slave acting on his own is now a level 3 fire mage and can cast falling fires. The master can leave the battlefield, or if he acts after the slaves can still cast spells without mucking things up.

DrPraetorious January 30th, 2008 05:43 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
One thing not mentioned in this article is the benefit of armored communions.

Communion masters generally carry valuable gems, possibly penetration boosting items, and seldom have to worry much about fatigue, obviously. So it's generally a good idea to protect your investment (vs. stray arrows, for example) by putting them in some armor.

This also goes to the question of how to protect a valuable communion if you are very communion dependent (for example, as Pythium or Ermor or Bogarus).

* Rune Smashers, Eyes of the Void and Spell Foci are all great for masters casting Shadow Blast or groovy stuff like master enslave.
* Masters spamming elemental attack spells want boosters, not for fatigue reduction, but for increased damage and/or area of effect. This is obviously true for most of them (note all the +s in the spell description) - what most people don't know is that the fatigue inflicted by the secondary wave (which is area 9!) from thunderstrike is also air-magic-dependant, so if you can push your air magic up higher it becomes much more devastating.
* A communion matrix is often a good investment even for a communion master who has astral. +1 turn of spell casting is a huge advantage, and for a big-spell communion, it is not expensive.
* 50% resistance to fire and cold more or less assure that you won't go down to a murdering winter or flames from the sky. Various combinations of armor and misc items grant this, but fire plate and a ring of ice is probably the cheapest way to go.

In the late game, murdering winter/flames from the sky are a virtual surety. If you have the Forge, absolutely forge fire plate and a ring of frost for each and every slave.

Baalz January 30th, 2008 05:54 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Good points DrP, I updated the original post to include this info.

Agema February 4th, 2008 02:30 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I've got a query.

In a game I set up three masters (two S3E1, one S1W1E1F1) and at least four slaves (S1-2; E0-1; W0-1). I set the S3 masters to earthpower, then blade wind, the other master to cast acid rain. They were placed about mid-way in the set-up area. Instead of doing what I ordered, they cast other buffs and then stuff like mind burn.

I thought I might have been out of range as my enemy was set up at the back of the battlefield, so I put my mages very close to the front. Then, same situation second battle, they just cast buffs and troop buffs.

Is a 25-30 range spell still unable to reach the back of the battlefield from the front of my setup area, or is there another problem?

Drake49 February 4th, 2008 02:34 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I THINK that each player has a 20 square long field with 10 squares between them. I think the field gets wider with huge numbers of undead and such.

Baalz February 5th, 2008 11:06 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Yes, this behavior is consistent with the mages either not having appropriate targets or not being able to cast the spells you have scripted. I assume earthpower went off correctly? Most of the mid line evocation spells have ranges that make them mostly useful for hitting swarms of guys charging forward to meet your own infantry halfway.

DonCorazon February 10th, 2008 02:31 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
So in the Classic Communion, do you generally have communion slaves casting spells? I imagined they would be scripted to cast Communion Slave and then to Stay Behind Troops and absorb the fatigue, but the guide sounds like in many cases the slaves also make good spellcasters.

sector24 February 10th, 2008 03:11 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Depends on the spell mostly. If you're spamming low level evocations your magic path (boosted through the communion) is high enough, you may only be giving your slaves like 4 fatigue. In that case it should be fine for the slaves to cast themselves to 100 fatigue, and then it will still be a long time before they get to 200 and start taking damage.

On the other hand if you're casting battlefield wide spells that have several hundred fatigue attached to them, you probably don't want your slaves casting additional spells.

Baalz February 10th, 2008 10:51 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Having the slaves in the classic communion cast spells is a dangerous move best reserved for battles you're not sure you can win otherwise. The reason is because going 15 turns before slaves die will take you through most battles, but if you can only last 10 turns you'll often find your slaves dying as your masters try to hit the fleeing remnants of your enemy. Not much more annoying than that...;)

Jazzepi February 10th, 2008 10:57 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Baalz said:
Having the slaves in the classic communion cast spells is a dangerous move best reserved for battles you're not sure you can win otherwise. The reason is because going 15 turns before slaves die will take you through most battles, but if you can only last 10 turns you'll often find your slaves dying as your masters try to hit the fleeing remnants of your enemy. Not much more annoying than that...;)

I think this really just depends. When I was playing Arco I was able to always have my slaves spamming soul slay. Since my communions were built around a Banner of the Northern Light + Power of the Spheres, a guy who already has 3 astral isn't going to be paying much fatigue to cast Soul Slay.

Jazzepi

Meglobob February 10th, 2008 10:59 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it?

Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest.

Zeldor February 10th, 2008 11:20 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Jazzepi:

But problem is that you can just script for 5 turns, in late game when you have expensive spells researched masters will cast them, even if they are totally useless [for example enemy slowly routing]. And casting 100+ fatigue spells every turn is exhausting. Especially when you add Phenix Pyre to that you have nice effect http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Baalz:

Many nations can access higher level battle spells only through communions, so hard to avoid them or use just low level spells.

Gregstrom February 10th, 2008 01:35 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
The simple answer is not to leave the casters with surplus gems. Then they flat-out can't cast anything with 100+ fatigue.

triqui February 10th, 2008 03:14 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Baalz said:So, a 1S 1F slave gets +1 F from the master casting phoenix power, and +1 from another one casting power of the spheres - this bonus (after it is in effect that is) is not tied to the communion. The slave acting on his own is now a level 3 fire mage and can cast falling fires. The master can leave the battlefield, or if he acts after the slaves can still cast spells without mucking things up.

Does the last sentence means that if the master cast a spell before the slave does, slave cant cast spells on his own?

Shovah32 February 10th, 2008 03:49 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Yes. If any master has cast a spell, no slaves may cast for that round of battle.

Baalz February 11th, 2008 03:11 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

Meglobob said:
I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it?

Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest.

Oops, yeah I forgot to mention this, adding it to the guide.

IndyPendant February 11th, 2008 05:14 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
I have another question:

In one of my MP games, I tried to take Indy provinces (it's a big map) by having five Thaumaturgs (1S1D2H) lead a horde of Shadow Vestals and Longdead Horsemen. I had them each scripted thus:

Com Slave/Divine Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Unholy Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Prot of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Slave/Pwr of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Master/Spells

When I reviewed the battle results, these orders were ignored. They cast the Communion Master and Communion Slaves spells, but then ignored *ALL* of the holy/unholy buffing spells, and just cast essentially random spells instead. Did I do something wrong?

Edit: Meanwhile, in another battle with another player, by Grand Thaum cast the holy/unholy buffing spells when fighting just some PD of 10-20 or so...

--IndyPendant.

vfb February 11th, 2008 05:23 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

IndyPendant said:
I have another question:

In one of my MP games, I tried to take Indy provinces (it's a big map) by having five Thaumaturgs (1S1D2H) lead a horde of Shadow Vestals and Longdead Horsemen. I had them each scripted thus:

Com Slave/Divine Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Unholy Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Prot of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Slave/Pwr of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Master/Spells

When I reviewed the battle results, these orders were ignored. They cast the Communion Master and Communion Slaves spells, but then ignored *ALL* of the holy/unholy buffing spells, and just cast essentially random spells instead. Did I do something wrong?

Edit: Meanwhile, in another battle with another player, by Grand Thaum cast the holy/unholy buffing spells when fighting just some PD of 10-20 or so...

--IndyPendant.

Only the communion master gets a boost to his paths.

You could have added more casters and done:

Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Master/Divine Blessing/?
Com Master/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Master/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Master/Pwr of the Sepulchre/?

In this case if all scripted spells are H? and the battle doesn't go too long, your 4 slaves won't die of fatigue.

Edit

Oops, got confused, you are talking about H2s. So a single cast of Power of the Spheres would be sufficient boost:


Com Slave/?/Divine Blessing/?
Com Slave/?/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Slave/?/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Slave/?/Pwr of the Sepulchre/? <-- edit: H4, won't work
Com Master/Pwr of the Spheres/?

OR

Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Master/Divine Blessing/?
Com Master/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Master/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Master/Pwr of the Sepulchre/? <-- edit: H4, won't work

IndyPendant February 11th, 2008 12:47 PM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Aha, very simple error. Slaves only have their magic levels increased for fatigue calculation, not for determining what spells they can cast. Thanks, vfb.

DonCorazon February 12th, 2008 03:32 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Does the order of casting matter? I noticed in these examples, the CS always casts Communion Slave first, the the CM casts Communion Master? And if order does matter, is there a way to rearrange the order of how you set up Commander's actions?

Thanks

Gregstrom February 12th, 2008 04:35 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Mages cast in the order you see them on the army setup screen.

Baalz - perhaps this information should be in your guide. It's very important for setting up communions to do what you want, and doesn't appear to be widely known.

vfb February 12th, 2008 05:20 AM

Re: Guide to communions
 
Quote:

DonCorazon said:
Does the order of casting matter? I noticed in these examples, the CS always casts Communion Slave first, the the CM casts Communion Master? And if order does matter, is there a way to rearrange the order of how you set up Commander's actions?

Thanks

As explained in Baalz's excellent communion guide, slaves can only cast spells in a round if no master has cast a spell in that round yet. As Gregstrom said, commanders act in order from top to bottom. Some of the examples had slaves casting, that's why I put them first.

There is no way of moving commanders up or down to change the order. But, of course, you may have some choice in which mage will be a slave, and which will be a master.


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:44 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©1999 - 2024, Shrapnel Games, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.