Guide: Guide to communions

[DrPraetorious]

One thing not mentioned in this article is the benefit of armored communions.

Communion masters generally carry valuable gems, possibly penetration boosting items, and seldom have to worry much about fatigue, obviously. So it's generally a good idea to protect your investment (vs. stray arrows, for example) by putting them in some armor.

This also goes to the question of how to protect a valuable communion if you are very communion dependent (for example, as Pythium or Ermor or Bogarus).

* Rune Smashers, Eyes of the Void and Spell Foci are all great for masters casting Shadow Blast or groovy stuff like master enslave.
* Masters spamming elemental attack spells want boosters, not for fatigue reduction, but for increased damage and/or area of effect. This is obviously true for most of them (note all the +s in the spell description) - what most people don't know is that the fatigue inflicted by the secondary wave (which is area 9!) from thunderstrike is also air-magic-dependant, so if you can push your air magic up higher it becomes much more devastating.
* A communion matrix is often a good investment even for a communion master who has astral. +1 turn of spell casting is a huge advantage, and for a big-spell communion, it is not expensive.
* 50% resistance to fire and cold more or less assure that you won't go down to a murdering winter or flames from the sky. Various combinations of armor and misc items grant this, but fire plate and a ring of ice is probably the cheapest way to go.

In the late game, murdering winter/flames from the sky are a virtual surety. If you have the Forge, absolutely forge fire plate and a ring of frost for each and every slave.

[Baalz]

Good points DrP, I updated the original post to include this info.

[Agema]

I've got a query.

In a game I set up three masters (two S3E1, one S1W1E1F1) and at least four slaves (S1-2; E0-1; W0-1). I set the S3 masters to earthpower, then blade wind, the other master to cast acid rain. They were placed about mid-way in the set-up area. Instead of doing what I ordered, they cast other buffs and then stuff like mind burn.

I thought I might have been out of range as my enemy was set up at the back of the battlefield, so I put my mages very close to the front. Then, same situation second battle, they just cast buffs and troop buffs.

Is a 25-30 range spell still unable to reach the back of the battlefield from the front of my setup area, or is there another problem?

[Drake49]

I THINK that each player has a 20 square long field with 10 squares between them. I think the field gets wider with huge numbers of undead and such.

[Baalz]

Yes, this behavior is consistent with the mages either not having appropriate targets or not being able to cast the spells you have scripted. I assume earthpower went off correctly? Most of the mid line evocation spells have ranges that make them mostly useful for hitting swarms of guys charging forward to meet your own infantry halfway.

[DonCorazon]

So in the Classic Communion, do you generally have communion slaves casting spells? I imagined they would be scripted to cast Communion Slave and then to Stay Behind Troops and absorb the fatigue, but the guide sounds like in many cases the slaves also make good spellcasters.

[sector24]

Depends on the spell mostly. If you're spamming low level evocations your magic path (boosted through the communion) is high enough, you may only be giving your slaves like 4 fatigue. In that case it should be fine for the slaves to cast themselves to 100 fatigue, and then it will still be a long time before they get to 200 and start taking damage.

On the other hand if you're casting battlefield wide spells that have several hundred fatigue attached to them, you probably don't want your slaves casting additional spells.

[Baalz]

Having the slaves in the classic communion cast spells is a dangerous move best reserved for battles you're not sure you can win otherwise. The reason is because going 15 turns before slaves die will take you through most battles, but if you can only last 10 turns you'll often find your slaves dying as your masters try to hit the fleeing remnants of your enemy. Not much more annoying than that...