what the heck are my Communion Slaves doing?

[Chazar]

Zooko said:
So it sounds like you can get a bonus of up to 4 fatigue back when you are over 100.

I dont want to be nitpicky, but on page 15 of the dom2 manual, section 6.2.8, reads: "At 100 points, a unit falls unconcious. Unconcious units recover..."

[alexti]

To my knowledge, helping master to cast spell requires slave's attention in that round, so if you want your communion slaves to be active, script the master to cast some spells and then attack (or do anything else but casting). I still couldn't make communion slaves to advance though.

[Zooko]

alexti said:
so if you want your communion slaves to be active, script the master to cast some spells and then attack (or do anything else but casting). I still couldn't make communion slaves to advance though.

Err, what are the other options? "Stay behind troops"? I always figured if I told him to stay behind troops then he would cast spells anyway (as long as he was behind troops). Oh, does that mean *immediately* behind troops? As in -- follow troops around? That would be interesting..

[alexti]

Zooko said:

Err, what are the other options? "Stay behind troops"? I always figured if I told him to stay behind troops then he would cast spells anyway (as long as he was behind troops). Oh, does that mean *immediately* behind troops? As in -- follow troops around? That would be interesting..

The obvious one is retreat. Another sort of option is to get killed, that in the case when you're bringing disposable weakling mage just to cast buffs. Stay behind troops will not work I think; the mage will still try to cast spells.

[Zooko]

More communion questions:

I have six mages. (I hope my enemies from the Argitoth MP game aren't reading this thread.)

I could make one be Communion Master and five Communion Slaves. This wouldn't give the master any more magic path boost than four Slaves, but it would spread the fatigue out a bit more.

Or I could make one be Master, four Slaves, and one neither.

Or I could make two Masters and four Slaves. Now if I did that, would each Master get a +1 boost and spread the fatigue among two Slaves each, or would each one get a +2 boost, and spread the fatigue among all four slaves?

[archaeolept]

the latter. however, in any battle not excessively short, the slaves will have a good chance of being killed off due to fatigue. it helps if you have a nature 3 mage casting relief.

[Zooko]

General fatigue question:

Why did my Magus go from fatigue 0 to fatigue 45 after casting Body Ethereal. I double-checked and there were no extra fatigue effects such as "excessive heat". His encumbrance was listed as "6", and his spellcasting encumbrance was listed as "6". Body Ethereal is listed as costing "20-" fatigue. It is an A1 spell and my Magus has A1.

This is kind of irritating. If there is some reason why he gets extra fatigue then the game should tell me what it is!

P.S. I'm irritated because I scripts my Magi to do Body Ethereal, Luck, Body Ethereal, Communion Slave. However because the spells inexplicably cost twice as much fatigue as expected, they tired out and didn't cast Communion Slave, thus screwing up my tactic.

[Zooko]

the latter. however, in any battle not excessively short, the slaves will have a good chance of being killed off due to fatigue. it helps if you have a nature 3 mage casting relief.

Well my Communion Masters can cast Summon Earthpower. I think that will help a lot!

Question: does the +1 Earth that Summon Earthpower gives to the Slaves have any effect on their fatigue? That is, in general, do the magic path levels of the slaves have any effect on Communion?

[Zooko]

All this time I thought that "A communion with two communion slaves will grant all masters one extra level in all their paths" meant in all the slaves' paths, but now I'm beginning to realize that it means all the masters' paths. So a 1-Astral mage is just as good as a 1-Fire, 1-Water, 1-Air, 1-Earth, 1-Death, 1-Nature, 1-Blood, 1-Astral mage when serving as a communion slave ?