Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..

[Graeme Dice]

Soapyfrog said:
And on the subject of undead, I cast 4 undead hordes and a bunch of raise dead at the start of the battle and the doom horrors ignored them and went right after my casters.

Look at the numbers on undead horde, and compare it to raise skeletons and animate dead. The only reason to cast undead horde is if you have a pretender with very high level death magic. Three castings of raise skeletons gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde. Two castings of animate dead gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde.

Not that skeletons would be able to HIT the doom horror, and even if they did they would probably just die from the blood vengeance.

Sure, but you have an infinite supply of them from the combination of drain life and raise skeletons. After all, the AI casts drain life as soon as its fatigue nears 100.

[Soapyfrog]

Graeme Dice said:
Three castings of raise skeletons gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde. Two castings of animate dead gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde.

Yes however you dont have the luxury of time since the doom horrors will be eating your casters... actually they will eat them anyway since the skeletons run forward and the horrors fly in behind them and start to dine. Seriously I found this tactic wildly ineffectual.

And its even worse whent he doom horror(s) are not alone.

Sure, but you have an infinite supply of them from the combination of drain life and raise skeletons. After all, the AI casts drain life as soon as its fatigue nears 100.

Did I mention drain life didnt work on the doom horrors?

[Graeme Dice]

Soapyfrog said:
Yes however you dont have the luxury of time since the doom horrors will be eating your casters... actually they will eat them anyway since the skeletons run forward and the horrors fly in behind them and start to dine.

Looks like you got unlucky then, and attack rearmost worked. Most of the time it won't if you have any other troops on the battlefield.

[qutoe]Did I mention drain life didnt work on the doom horrors?

[/quote]

Yes, you did. I didn't give it much weight, since my own tests show that it works very nicely. Take 8 D4 sauromancers, or 8 demiliches. Have them cast raise skeletons on the first turn. Have them cast drain life on all other turns. For me it works with about 4 dead mages in about three combat rounds.

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:

Looks like you got unlucky then, and attack rearmost worked. Most of the time it won't if you have any other troops on the battlefield.

[qutoe]Did I mention drain life didnt work on the doom horrors?

Yes, you did. I didn't give it much weight, since my own tests show that it works very nicely. Take 8 D4 sauromancers, or 8 demiliches. Have them cast raise skeletons on the first turn. Have them cast drain life on all other turns. For me it works with about 4 dead mages in about three combat rounds.

[/quote]
8 demiliches cost 200 deathgems so unless you fight in your own dominion this is costy then . But you are right demiliches are very good and they have 18 MR so the blood vengeance is not so horrible . And most important they are extremely useful for defense anyway since their function as drainlife/undeadspam brigade works quite well against almost everything .

In some ways i think the king of the world horror is better because he has 2x lifedrain and 2x astral claw as attack while the doom horror has it only once each and 2 mr - negate attacks .

Graeme what do you think is a better wish then ?
The doom horrors because they are rather cheap ( little equipment ) but still quite impressive ?
Air queens ?
Natarajas ?

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
8 demiliches cost 200 deathgems so unless you fight in your own dominion this is costy then.

I picked demiliches because it was easier to run the test with them than with sauromancers, since I didn't have to bother making skull staves.

But you are right demiliches are very good and they have 18 MR so the blood vengeance is not so horrible .

Blood vengeance is not horrible on most mages, since even sauromancers, for example, have a MR of 17. Most mages sit around MR 15.

Graeme what do you think is a better wish then ?
The doom horrors because they are rather cheap ( little equipment ) but still quite impressive ?

The most useful wishes are for power and magic power on your pretender. After that, I'd wish for artifacts that someone else has and you want. At that point, I'd start using my astrals for something else probably.

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:
The most useful wishes are for power and magic power on your pretender. After that, I'd wish for artifacts that someone else has and you want. At that point, I'd start using my astrals for something else probably.

What's the something else ? SC-wise i still think wishing for SCs is quite good .
100 astral pearls are "only" 50 converted gems so i think wishing is not that bad . I personally like wishing for blood too since you get such a nice output .
I still haven't really figured out in which lategame things i should put in most of my resources to get the best overall return

[Soapyfrog]

Ah well, if drain life works then my bad... just that when *I* tried drain life, my sauromancers insisted on casting it on everything BUT the Doom Horror!!