A few questions

[Boksi]

I've played this game for a bit but I'm still very new to it. The wiki has been a great help, but it doesn't answer everything and it's down at the moment. So I have a few questions I'm hoping you can answer:

1: If a commander has a ranged weapon and none of his troops do, does 'attack archers' target him?

2: When summoning Claymen, do picks in both water and earth increase the number of Claymen, or is it just water? And for that matter, what exactly is the formula for how many Claymen you get?

3: What's better for MA Agartha, a major water bless or a major fire bless? Because I was thinking a water bless would help their golems more, but a fire bless would help their recruitable sacreds, especially for using Ancient Ones as thugs.

[Bwaha]

I'm not certain to the first two, but as to the third I'd go with a regeneration/ reinvig. bless.

It's the best of the lot...

[bbz]

http://wolfsbane.alwaysdata.net/Spells.html

That is quite useful database. According to it only water picks count.(that is usually the case for most of the spells only the main path of the spell counts in increasing its power)

not sure about the first question.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by bbz

That is quite useful database. According to it only water picks count.(that is usually the case for most of the spells only the main path of the spell counts in increasing its power)

not sure about the first question.

Not usually, always.

Also not sure about the first.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by Bwaha

I'm not certain to the first two, but as to the third I'd go with a regeneration/ reinvig. bless.

It's the best of the lot...

Yeah, the lifeless, 0 encumberance statues really need regen/reinvig.
More seriously, I'd generally go with water, for a few reasons. Chiefly:

• Quickness is more valuable than flaming weapons on high strength units, such as the larger statues.
• Flaming weapons nullifies weapon effects of Marble Oracles, which are likely carrying something better around.
• Water generally has more useful summons.

[Legendary League]

Fire and Death blesses overrides any weapon effects that the blessed unit has (fairly certain of this), which means its suboptimal if you plan on using blessed thugs.

I'd go with either a Water, Earth, and/or an astral bless. Reinvigoration is still important with lifeless units (since otherwise fatigue spells can be used to stop them), and the added protection does help. And astral bless is very useful in preventing them from being controlled/other anti-magic/lifeless being'd spells.

But in general, the water bless is better, though I'd probably only go for light blesses with them and deck out a rainbow instead. An Air Bless may work, but probably not. A light death bless is also effective (though keep in mind it's main utility is against another nation's thugs and such).

My main beef with a water bless is that high level water doesn't go into anything. Combined with death and you get Wendigoes and frozen, but Agartha as a nation demands heat so the latter aren't as useful (you can get Kraken, ofc).

[Soyweiser]

The added protection doesn't do jack ****. Bless protection is only added to armor. Not base protection. Most of the sacred statues don't wear armor.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Legendary League

Fire and Death blesses overrides any weapon effects that the blessed unit has (fairly certain of this), which means its suboptimal if you plan on using blessed thugs.

I agree it's suboptimal but it was pointed out to me by Rytek that on a miss the brand's AOE effect does go off. See the attached save game. In the log it says the following when the fire effect goes off:

965 striking with weapon Fire Brand. att23 def40
NextWeapon Small Area Fire has aoe 1 anim 10113 5

So I think Rytek was correct. Like I said, it's not optimal but you can get something out of using brands with D9 thugs.

[Legendary League]

@Soyweiser-Well in that case, then yeah. There's no point to an earth bless (besides some reinvig for your mages).

Originally Posted by Valerius

I agree it's suboptimal but it was pointed out to me by Rytek that on a miss the brand's AOE effect does go off. See the attached save game. In the log it says the following when the fire effect goes off:

965 striking with weapon Fire Brand. att23 def40
NextWeapon Small Area Fire has aoe 1 anim 10113 5

So I think Rytek was correct. Like I said, it's not optimal but you can get something out of using brands with D9 thugs.

That's actually very interesting.

However, the F or D bless is strictly inferior to the effects of thug items, so even if it only fires on-hit, it's a downgrade in their power.

[Boksi]

Just a short FYI - I'm using CBM, not vanilla.

Anyway, I've been considering whether to use a water or fire bless(and yes, I'm rather set on using a major bless, but this is just SP dicking around anyway). The water bless seems to benefit the golems more, but a fire bless combines well with a midget masher for thugging with ancient ones. But maybe that's too niche?

With how encumbered ancient ones are, especially with cold blood, extra actions are just gonna fatigue them even more. An earth minor would help with that though, and a girdle of might gives some reinvig as well.

So I've made two pretenders. One is a F9/E4 Dormant Forge Lord with Dom7 Turmoil 3 Prod 3 Heat 1 Growth 0 Luck 0 Drain 2
The other is a W9/E4 Imprisoned Ageless Olm with 7Dom and similar scales except Magic 0.

I don't really have the time to test them out right now though. Does anybody have any thoughts on them? Would it be worth it to drop Prod 3 for Magic 1 and try to rely more on attentive statues?