First Post: Introduction and Request For Help Getting Up To Speed

[MaxWilson]

Even though the mount is not explicitly modeled (in most cases at least), mounted commanders differ from regular commanders in several ways:

1.) They can't wear magic boots,
2.) Their melee encumbrance is not affected by the shields or armor they wear,
3.) They get an extra +3 to defense.

#2 and #3 are positive, #1 is negative. In some cases, the mount sticks around and fights for you after the rider is dead (most mounts are upkeep-free, i.e. goldcost per turn is 0, but their MR is usually pretty poor too). Some mounts stick around only for the duration of the battle (Serpent Cataphract mounts and those lobster rider guys that R'lyeh or Oceania has), others stick around until they get killed (Machakan spider-rider mounts).

Anyway, the slots on a pretender are sometimes an important consideration. One major difference between a lich and a master lich, for example, is that a master lich has 3 misc slots, which is sometimes the difference between needing to buy an extra level of magic in order to cast a certain spell (e.g. Arcane Nexus) vs. being able to plan to just stick on another booster. And as the manual points out, you don't want to plan to use a skull staff to cast Utterdark and then find that you picked a Monolith with no hands.

-Max

[markmayhugh]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

...
Anyway, the slots on a pretender are sometimes an important consideration. One major difference between a lich and a master lich, for example, is that a master lich has 3 misc slots ...

That is good to know! Do you know of anything that documents what slots are available on which pretenders?

A couple more quick questions if you don't mind:

1. I made the Chalice because I have some diseased crones. I equipped the Chalice, but the crone is still diseased. Is there something I need to do to invoke the power of the Chalice? Is there a better way to heal my diseased crones before they die?

2. From what I read, Longbowmen are supposed to be amazing archers. But I have two squads of 40 archers that maybe damage 2-3 enemy per turn, and not very heavy damage at that. It seems that ranged units are not very effective, even against unarmored barbarians. Are my expectations too high?

3. Is there something that can be equipped that improves that stats of the units under a leader's command, other than a standard?

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by markmayhugh

That is good to know! Do you know of anything that documents what slots are available on which pretenders?

Edi's database does, iirc.

1. I made the Chalice because I have some diseased crones. I equipped the Chalice, but the crone is still diseased. Is there something I need to do to invoke the power of the Chalice? Is there a better way to heal my diseased crones before they die?

2. From what I read, Longbowmen are supposed to be amazing archers. But I have two squads of 40 archers that maybe damage 2-3 enemy per turn, and not very heavy damage at that. It seems that ranged units are not very effective, even against unarmored barbarians. Are my expectations too high?

3. Is there something that can be equipped that improves that stats of the units under a leader's command, other than a standard?

1. Read the healing section in the faq at the top of this forum.

2. I don't believe 80 archers are doing that little damage against unarmoured barbarians. They should be absolutely shredding them. Please give a different example - what you expected to happen and what did happen.

3. Nope. The standard /ability/ increases morale of troops, that's all. There are various spells to improve troops, but not passive abilities, unless there's some weird case KO and JK put in for kicks.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by markmayhugh

2. From what I read, Longbowmen are supposed to be amazing archers. But I have two squads of 40 archers that maybe damage 2-3 enemy per turn, and not very heavy damage at that. It seems that ranged units are not very effective, even against unarmored barbarians. Are my expectations too high?

As vfb said, it does help if you use other (shielded) units to block them long enough for the archers to hit them at point-blank range. Even so, unless you're hitting low-Prot + unshielded targets like barbarians, archers are less for killing things than softening them up and routing them. 80 longbowmen are likely to damage 50 heavy infantry moreso than kill 20 of them, and the routing algorithm pays a lot of attention to who is at partial HP.

Wind Guide and Fire Arrows improve longbowmen significantly. Overall, though, I think your expectations are too high because longbowmen are not so much "amazing" archers as the best archers available. (Well, crossbowmen are better in some cases.) They still have to hit a square with an enemy, and win the dodge check, and do more damage than he has Prot, in order to do even 1 point of HP damage. Generally that's less damage per longbowman than you would get out of a foot soldier with a mace or something--although longbowmen also scale better.

-Max

[markmayhugh]

Thanks for pointing out that the dom3_db documents item slots in AllUnits. I had looked in Pretender Summary, which did not have the info.

Suddenly, some pretenders are looking more interesting, like the Crone with 4 misc slots. Before seeing this, I was not sure why anyone would ever pick the Crone. Anyway, the slots are important to know to plan appropriately. I ended up having to use Empowerment to boost Earth in my current game because my plan was based on using boots to boost Earth on an Arch Druid with no feet slot.

As for archers, I noticed in several battles that they were not having that much of an effect on the battle compared to melee units. When I attacked an independent with 20 barbs and a commander, I paid close attention because I wanted to see the effect of weak armor. My 80 archers only damaged 5 units before they got into melee range, which I thought was pretty poor performance. Once in melee range, they were decimated so quickly I could not tell if the damage was from archery or my melee troops.

Other battles against larger forces (usually armored), even at close range the archers seem far less of a factor than my melee troops. Just my initial observations as a newbie.