Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

You started it by being edible. Well, semi edible.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

There is that small detail. I'm still getting used to this whole multiplayer thing. It's a bit like playing chess to sp's risk. And my chess-fu was just not jiving there.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

Hmm, I'll have a think about the paths. I think they're fairly normal for MA though. I was thinking of Marignon when choosing them. They've got similar diversity to Marignon, but unlike Marignon they have at least some chance of getting level 2 in the rare paths, and they're really quite powerful in death, whereas Marignon have lower level astral with their fire. However, Marignon does have the big advantage of communions.

On the other hand, you could argue that being as they're so expensive, it'd be nice to have a bit more chance of getting a third decent path. Earth in particular seems thematic. Hmm.

You reckon they need a bless? I'm not sure how I feel about that. They are super-holy oriented, so it's not unreasonable. I always think it's a shame when the sacreds supercede all the other units a nation has though (as happened in this game with the Lizardmen - I only built Temple Guard after the first few turns). Do you have any thoughts on that?

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

Well, you might be able to play decently without a bless, it's just very hard. Your units are pretty resource-expensive for what they're worth, and of course normal gold costs. And then they need several priests with each army to cast holy spells to keep your units alive. And your units are vulnerable to banish, dust to dust, and wither bones, the last one especially deadly to you. Their high mr is a bit of a mixed blessing since it makes the holy spells less effective. But they're much more useful on normal units than the astral blessed sacreds I had in our game.

Anyway, your early magic research is going to be hurt a lot from having to use so many priests early on, or you're going to have to take production.

It's possible you could do without a bless but it would make a lot of units much weaker.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

Okay, interesting. Well, I've just been working on improving the buffing spells, and I've made them much better. The trouble I was having was that there is no "MR negates with difficulty" - you can only have MR negates, or MR negates easily, and they give too low a success rate on the buffs. But I had a cunning idea, such that by using #nextspell, each casting of Resilience and Strength of Tomb actually casts it three times. This gives a pretty good success rate - one or two ordinary priests are enough to fully buff a small army. I've also slightly improved the healing spell. I've found that non-sacred troops are now plenty powerful enough to make effective raiding parties. Reasonable prot and high defence gives them good staying power, and enemy troops get tired in prolonged combat. A group of 10 or so Tomb Guards were easily able to fend off some indy knights.

What do you think of the Anubites and Servants of Horus? The idea was that you could use them, alongside the Watchers, to create non-undead armies if the enemy was using a lot of Wither Bones. Maybe I need to make them even cheaper?

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

That does sound like a decent way to get around the mr problem. You may or may not have noticed that I had almost completely stopped trying to use the holy spells there, because they had such a low success rate I could hardly get any of them to stick even when I had plenty of high priests. But having the holy spells work more consistently would go a long way in improving them so that they wouldn't need a bless as much.

The servants of horus and anubites aren't bad. I certainly had a hard time getting many in warhammerama but I had a pretty awful gem income for everything other than death. Making armies of them would be hard though without a pretty robust income. They could maybe use being a little cheaper, I wouldn't make them too much cheaper though. Hmm, anubites have to be repaired in a lab though iirc, so that does make a good argument for making them pretty cheap. Ushabti are almost definitely overcosted at 16 gems for one, but they are admittedly fairly powerful for when you get them, especially with a good bless.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

I'm considering raising the cost of Immortals to 3 death gems apiece, being as they're right pests to fight if they have a strong bless. You could still get at least 20 by turn 20, which is a potent defensive force. Thoughts?

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

Sounds okay. The biggest cost is still the mage-time, as you only get one at a time.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

Psh, by the time you had to fight them, pests is about all they were.... But no, increasing their price is fine. As Ich said, the mage time is by far the biggest price, as it requires an expensive tomb king sitting there endlessly raising them one at a time. And the amount you can get at 1 gem a piece is perhaps a bit silly.

Re: Nation - Tomb Kings - Released!
 

I know I'm about to play these guys soon, but I have a hard time imagining the sacred troops costing 3 death gems apiece. I'm sure they were great in that duel against Sombre, but you were fighting in your own dominion, and in a small battle which means you could bring them to the front lines again and again very quickly. I think in a moderate to large game the fact that you'd have to shuffle them out of their tombs each time they died and drag them back to the front lines severely hinder their usefulness.

Not to mind the fact that it's extremely difficult to guarantee fighting in your own dominion unless you've got blood sacrifice, or are on the defensive, and I don't think you win large MP games by defending.

I think it would be important to think about how much you're getting for the gems you put in.

20 immortal troops = 40 gems and 20 turns of summoning by 420 GP mages
20 immortal troops = 60 gems and 20 turns of summoning by 420 GP mages

Or I could buy 6 skull mentors with 6 turns of forging. Or I could summon multiple bane lords with fewer turns.

20 troops really doesn't seem like a lot to me for 60 gems. To amass an army of 100 of them would cost 300 gems. D: That's a lot of Tarts, and other basically better units.

Jazzepi