Countering Master Enslave...

[Coldshard]

MaxWilson said:

You've been given two other counters that don't involve killing the enemy mage:

1.) Master Enslave right back. He'll take your army (much of it), you'll take (much of) it back, along with his army (much of it). Hence, "He Who Master Enslaves Last, Master Enslaves Best."

2.) Use Anti-Magic/Army of Lead to protect your army. Will of the Fates might work here, I'm not really sure if luck helps against Enslave Mind but it might.

Or, you could use armies that aren't vulnerable to Master Enslave, e.g. hordes of undead chaff or magic beings like fairies or high-MR units.

-Max

I don't see how your response negates my 'primary, and just about only, defense against..'

Master enslaving back requires having master enslave setup. The right kind of caster, gems in place, and likely a lot of gear to push it along. There is also a chance that the caster you have set up to master enslave in return gets enslaved by the first one.. And then, of course, the enemy might be set up for multiple master enslave castings.

Is there a way to have antimagic or army of lead cast before defenders get a chance to cast spells? If not then it doesn't sound all that helpful, by the time they get put up it is already too late.

An entire army that isnt effected by it is nice, but not everyone has good access to that. Plus, those other units have their own set of limitations.. such as if the commanders controlling them get enslaved...

It is definitely a tough spell. I'm guessing it is just another bit that says the farther you get in the game the less focus there is on big armies.

[MaxWilson]

Coldshard said:
I don't see how your response negates my 'primary, and just about only, defense against... [Master Enslave is to proactively kill the mage casting it]'

You're going to have to do SOMETHING in response to Master Enslave, and if using immune armies and casting counterspells doesn't work for you I'm not sure what you were looking for. Proactively killing off enemy mages before they can cast is ALWAYS the best defense against any spell. You've dismissed the notion of using armies that aren't vulnerable to Master Enslave, and aren't happy with the idea of counterspells, so what does that leave?

Edit:Mage commanders will usually not be Master Enslaved, by the way. Most mages have MR 15-17, so they'll be resisting at 19-21 which is something like a 3-5% failure rate.

-Max

[Atreidi]

MaxWilson said:

You're going to have to do SOMETHING in response to Master Enslave, and if using immune armies and casting counterspells doesn't work for you I'm not sure what you were looking for. Proactively killing off enemy mages before they can cast is ALWAYS the best defense against any spell. You've dismissed the notion of using armies that aren't vulnerable to Master Enslave, and aren't happy with the idea of counterspells, so what does that leave?

-Max

True that.

[Coldshard]

MaxWilson said:
You're going to have to do SOMETHING in response to Master Enslave...

I agree... but then, doesnt everyone?

MaxWilson said:
...if using immune armies and casting counterspells doesn't work for you I'm not sure what you were looking for.

Counterspells? The only spells mentioned either rely on a preemptive strike or are can be too late to do much..

MaxWilson said:Proactively killing off enemy mages before they can cast is ALWAYS the best defense against any spell.

Which is why I dont like that answer, actually

MaxWilson said:You've dismissed the notion of using armies that aren't vulnerable to Master Enslave, and aren't happy with the idea of counterspells, so what does that leave?

I didnt dismiss the notion of armies that are invulnerable to the spell.. I just pointed out that such armies arent always easy to come by and typically have their own doom spell (such as undead mastery).

The counterspells, assuming we are talking about preemptive strike spells and antimagic/army of lead, are either a ubiquitous answer to the problem (kills the mages before they even get into combat) or potentially too late to matter. Were there other counterspells mentioned?

MaxWilson said:
Edit:Mage commanders will usually not be Master Enslaved, by the way. Most mages have MR 15-17, so they'll be resisting at 19-21 which is something like a 3-5% failure rate.

-Max

3-5% assuming no extra levels in the appropriate path and no penetration items (although the opposing mage might have enough astral path to get a bonus as well). A ring of wizardry and sorcery along with a rune smasher and maybe even a crystal shield arent all that hard, a few communion buddies can top it off nicely.. I actually had a game recently where I cast master enslave with a total penetration of +10. Get lucky and enslave the enemy enslaver, grab a few of their communion buddies so that if they do manage to pull off one it has a lesser chance of success (especially after your newly larger army just got antimagic/army of lead), and possibly even have their own former troops kill them (or force the AI to decide casting some other spell is better at the moment, like astral shield ).

It gets more complicated when magic items on the defenders are taken into account though. They might have defensive items to help (such as antimagic amulet) but that typically means that they are missing offensive items to power their own spells.

It is an incredibly potent option. It isnt that I am discounting all options for countering it, I am merely saying that it is so potent that if you are unable to do the proactive measures then an opponent making the most of this option could force you to change your entire playing strategy... just from the 'threat' of it being cast. That is power!

[MaxWilson]

Coldshard said:
I didnt dismiss the notion of armies that are invulnerable to the spell.. I just pointed out that such armies arent always easy to come by and typically have their own doom spell (such as undead mastery).

The counterspells, assuming we are talking about preemptive strike spells and antimagic/army of lead, are either a ubiquitous answer to the problem (kills the mages before they even get into combat) or potentially too late to matter. Were there other counterspells mentioned?

What do you mean by "too late to matter"? Are you talking about defender advantage, i.e. Master Enslave on round 1 before the attacker can cast any counterspells? That issue is not unique to Master Enslave. Fog Warriors + Rain of Stones x4 works the same way. Otherwise, Antimagic is a counterspell. It boosts the total resistance roll to +8. Against +10 penetration that's still not going to save your normal troops, but high-MR troops (13-ish) aren't all that uncommon in Dominions. "Counterspell" in this sense means "mitigator," not "nullifier."

-Max

[Twan]

My opinion remain that the defender advantage is far too big in late game, and the late game would be far more interesting with another initiative system, with a casting duration of several rounds for endgame spells, or simply without any instant offensive spell affecting the whole battlefield.

Now as Max said master enslave is nothing special, it's just one of the spells of this problematic category. Rain of stones and bone grinding (combined with fog warriors or high hp mages) are worse for me, as some nations can easily cast them 3 or 4 times in round one (if you can cast it 4 times bone grinding is the nastier spell against human nations, as it kills even the mages who had an armor to survive rains of stones). Undead mastery and arcane domination are more niche, but being lower level can be cast with better penetration bonus (and considering late game troops often include some feebleminded tartarians, undead mastery may give excellent returns for its price).

ps : red text hurts my eyes

[Ironhawk]

Originally, I was opposed to your view, Twan. But I think I am begining to agree. I'm in a very late game now and I expect to be Enslaved / Stoned so I will know soon if it is trully possible to resist them in a meaningful way. However the posts in this thread have me worried...

[Baalz]

*shrug* Very late game has nuclear weapons and as the analogy suggests warfare is very different than before. If your opponent has access to significantly more nuclear weapons than you do...well you're gonna have a very hard time winning using traditional armies. Properly leveraged Tartarian Gate trumps master enslave/rain of stones/etc. Chain wishing, arcane nexus, army of lead....the very late game has a couple flavors of nuclear weapons which can trump each other depending on the situation. If you don't intend to stockpile nukes and shift how you play, you darn well better plan on winning before others do.

[Coldshard]

MaxWilson said:
What do you mean by "too late to matter"? Are you talking about defender advantage, i.e. Master Enslave on round 1 before the attacker can cast any counterspells? That issue is not unique to Master Enslave.

It is not unique to master enslave, that is true, but the defender advantage is pretty big.. and is magnified the later in the game that it gets.

This is just repeating what others have said in this thread though I just wanted to reiterate it again as it is such an important point.

On a side note though, I am currently thinking that mitigation and countering are different. Countering would be stopping something while it is occuring or putting something in place that stops the effect entirely.. They do share some things in common but comes down to degree.. giving all of your troops poison resist 100% effectively counters foul vapors while giving them all 50% (or giving half of them 100%) mitigates the damage. I hope that I am explaining that well enough to get my point across!

[MaxWilson]

I think we've come to agreement on Master Enslave and the defender advantage. You are using the notion of "countermeasure" in a nonstandard way (e.g. ECM in the real world emphatically does NOT preclude the possibility of ECCM, nor is it guaranteed to be 100% effective), but it would probably be off-topic for me to pursue the point.

Hmmm, actually maybe that was my fault for saying "counter" for short, since "counter" actually doesn't have a recognized meaning except "a wooden object that you put things on." Countermeasure = "an opposing, offsetting, or retaliatory measure."

-Max