Most powerful spells?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Yossar said:
Bind Arch Devil + Phoenix Pyre = fun

If you're looking for _funny_ devastating comboes, then the absolute funniest has to be -

(now guess, which combo could annihilate a ~400-strong invading army, half of them hoplites and hypaspists, the rest being mainly Vine Men/Ogres and Claymen, with some flagellants, shortbows and 2 elephants thrown in - when you only have 1 Lamia Queen, 9 Black Dryads, less than a dozen harpies and even less Manikins to defend your province? And I really mean annihilate: I have more fingers than I need to count the enemies who survived that battle)

[Graeme Dice]

That combo would be haunted forest + swarm.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Graeme Dice said:
That combo would be haunted forest + swarm.

Correct.

The Lamia Queen was here only for her undead leadership (I could have used a Panic Apostate instead), as I didn't want to rely solely on the provincial Manikin leader. Undead leadership makes Hauted Forest much more effective, the reanimated Manikins actually move and fight for the whole battle, instead of dissolving almost immediately.

Watching this battle reminded me of Borg assimilation in VGAPlanets.

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:
That combo would be haunted forest + swarm.

So when you have haunted forest up the dragonflies from swarm are manikins ?

[Boron]

Ah descpription from haunted forest says everyone killed gets a manikin .

Does "undead or lifeless are not affected" in spelldescription mean that i can't spam raise skeletons and they get reanimated as manikins too ?

If the manikins created through haunted forest effect survive the battle do you keep them then or do they dissolve after battle ?

Furthermore spelldescription states that it works only in own dominion .
So i wonder how useful this spell is all in all ?

Swarm costs 1 nature gem but is 100 fatigue so the spell scripting ai should use more then 1 nature gem / swarm .

So you have the effect only in own dominion + either invest a lot of nature gems for swarm or have something like militia getting killed that you benefit from the spell ?

Is this really worth it when you can with zero gemcosts either spam false horrors or skeleton hordes ?

And there is always the dispel problem . Per pearl you only get 0,5 nature gems so normally the dispeller has to invest not as many gems as you have to invest + not to forget the continuing investment of nature gems for swarm + the micro you need to do this .

[archaeolept]

haunted forest + swarm is an exploit IMNSHO.

[Huzurdaddi]

haunted forest + swarm is an exploit

Totally.

IMNSHO

Love it! I'm using that from now on.

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Furthermore spelldescription states that it works only in own dominion .
So i wonder how useful this spell is all in all ?

It's a game-winner.

Swarm costs 1 nature gem but is 100 fatigue so the spell scripting ai should use more then 1 nature gem / swarm .

It doesn't tend to.

So you have the effect only in own dominion + either invest a lot of nature gems for swarm or have something like militia getting killed that you benefit from the spell ?

It's not just your troops that turn into manikins.

Is this really worth it when you can with zero gemcosts either spam false horrors or skeleton hordes ?

A dead dragonfly leads to a single manikin. When that manikin kills something, that also turns into a manikin. This snowballs very effectively. Two castings of swarm for example, can easily kill more than 50 devils, and probably much more than that.

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:

A dead dragonfly leads to a single manikin. When that manikin kills something, that also turns into a manikin. This snowballs very effectively. Two castings of swarm for example, can easily kill more than 50 devils, and probably much more than that.

True . Can dragon flies fly during a storm ?

Graeme Dice said:

It's a game-winner.

Hmmmm should be nice for nations which get lots of fodder pd like mictlan/machaka then too .

The only thing which lets me still doubt is if it is worth the massive amount of gems required to keep it up at least some turns .


How many gems would you invest ? 100 ? 200 ? 500 ? 999 ?

Would you try to cast it asap or rather later but with lots of gems ?

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
How many gems would you invest ? 100 ? 200 ? 500 ? 999 ?

I'd invest the minimum, with mabye a small random amount extra at first. Make people waste their gems on dispels.