Racial Specific Pretenders (Limitations)

[Treebeard]

Rainbow Pretenders like the great sage and such are very nice until they get shot by an arrow coming from nowhere

Too risky, imho.

[Sammual]

You can't play a Pretender that doesn't have any HP. They can be killed via a luck strike from any number of spells. The AI does it to me in the late game and other players do it to me in the middle game.

Sammual

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by Sammual:
You can't play a Pretender that doesn't have any HP. They can be killed via a luck strike from any number of spells. The AI does it to me in the late game and other players do it to me in the middle game.

Sammual

There are ways to protect him/her from just about any attack. Guided Arrow? Amulet of Missile Protection. Earth Attack? Tough bodyguards. The list goes on... Also, any assassination spell can also be guarded against by moving around with a stack of dummy targets (scouts, priests, etc). Elemental resistances and MR protect against spells of mass destruction, and having Retreat as the first order helps against sudden attacks from stealthy armies or troop-sending spells.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sammual:
You can't play a Pretender that doesn't have any HP.

There are ways to protect him/her from just about any attack..

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There are indeed. In Dom1 a friend tested pesky arrows from afar vs cloaks of missile protection and never got killed - he may not have tested long enough but you get the idea. If you don't use your Rainbow Mage in combat (you shouldn't) you should be able to keep them alive with forethought. Indeed due to their desire to remain out of combat Rainbow Mages have always seeemd very safe pretenders compared to Super combatents who give the opponent every opportunity to come up with a counter and cripple or kill them. I find SC pretenders very vunerable and have always appreciated my opponent giving me a good shoot a killing off their pretender.

Cheers

Keir

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

The only rainbow mage I'd really consider would be the Druid -- because it has stealth.

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nerfix:
I have found myself using immobiles lately. The Void Lurker of R'lyeh is about the best pretender they can get, and i still think that scales are rather important. He gets two attacks, is ethereal and has a poison cloud effect(iirc) and costs hefty 0 points.

But i do find it srange that Oracles can't scry...

Their archmage is also zero points, but can be used to sitesearch underwater... or with an amulet of fish, on land, too. Not a bad deal! The disadvantages are weak astral and low HP (assassination, seeking arrow).

But who cares how many attacks an immobile pretender gets? I really don't see that as ever being important.

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R'lyeh gets mages with randoms and has a great acces to Acashic Record. The 0-cost Archmage is weak, starts with weak dominion, you'll have to pay yourself sick to get 2 in all the paths, and if you want more, you pay more wich drains design points that are sorely needed for scales and dominion strength. RB's seem to be even more weaker than they were in Dom I... Too bad, i realy love RB's.

OTOH, i constantly use RB's with vanilla Ulm.

The amount of attacks(or lack of them) with a immobile pretender is quite important because the immobile pretender can defend itself from the enemy attacks if he has attacks(apart from spells). The Void Lurker even gets a poison cloud effect(iirc)!

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:

and having Retreat as the first order helps against sudden attacks from stealthy armies or troop-sending spells. [/quote]

Truly inspiring actions of your god! All bow to his unwavering heroism and self-preservation instinct!

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
...Retreat as the first order helps against sudden attacks from stealthy armies or troop-sending spells.

Watch out however, as there's currently a bug such that units with retreat orders during an assasination just die.

I lost Angerboda while site searching to this in my first demo game. :-/

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:
The only rainbow mage I'd really consider would be the Druid -- because it has stealth.

Stealth is certainly great for a Rainbow Mage but I still like Master Liu, The Great Sage. The research for a drain race is great early.

On a related issue I lost a commander building a Castle to Fires from the Sky - only commander in province. I didn't get any option to continue building the castle when more commanders arrived. I didn't get the gold back either. How does the continue building option work?

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

I lost a scout building a fortress to assasination once, and had to restart as well. Sounds like a bug.