Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Wow! I'm gonna git me some herald lances, yee-ha!

So, those flambeaus were 13 damage + 19 strength = 32 x 3 = 96 armor piercing damage. OMFG. So your super-mega demon SC has a 50 protection and 200 hit points? Dead in 3 hits. Muhuhahahahahaahah!!!!!

A herald lance would be 6 + 19 = 25 x 3 = 75 damage. Nice! Especially for a 1-handed weapon, that's superb.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Well I knew that those Flambeuas would crush all of my SC's so I only engaged those banes of death with troops. It was quite painful for me to have to rely upon troops, but what are you going to do? Lucikly I had those crazy soul contracts to pump crap out like crazy!

You had better beleive it. Now I just have to find some nice low level kind of summons to put it on ( bane lords would be perfect ... aw hell I'll just use bane lords what the heck am I thinking about ! ).

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Seems to me that the obvious thing to do is to test how well a fully equipped bane lord with either a flambeau or a herald lance + shield would do against a fully equipped ice devil. Pity I'm at work at the moment.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Eh, give a Flambeau to a Niefel Jarl in-dominion prophet with Heroic Strength, and see how it fares against an Unfettered Eater o' the Dead after it's eaten a few thousand corpses (Black Death, Black Death, Volcano, Black Death...). *WHAM*

I once had a heroic Jotun Herse with STR at least 100, IIRC. That would really, really hurt.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Since no one took me up on my suggestion, I performed the tests myself.

I used Gandalf's minimap for testing and basically altered the map to let one player start with a banelord and the other to start with an ice devil (I picked Mr. Cimejes since Boron recently used him to wipe out my whole army single-handedly). I had the two SCs move simultaneously into the neutral ground between the two capitals.

I ran three sets of ten battles each. The bane lord always had this: herald lance, lucky coin, jade armor, starshine skullcap, winged shoes, burning pearl, antimagic amulet.

For the first two sets, I gave the ice devil this: blood thorn, lucky coin, starshine skullcap, copper plate, winged shoes, burning pearl, antimagic amulet.

The bane lord was always given orders to be placed as far back as possible and attack rearmost immediately.

For the first set of 10 battles, the ice devil was given orders to be placed as far back as possible, cast quickness, breath of winter and attack rearmost. I did this to simulate an ice devil being "surprised" by a bane lord.

Out of 10 battles, the Bane Lord killed the ice devil in the first turn in 6 battles. In the other 4 battles, he took two turns to kill the ice devil.

For the next set of 10 battles, I had the ice devil cast quickness, then attack rearmost. In 6 battles, the Bane Lord killed the ice devil in the first turn, in 3 battles he took 2 turns to kill the ice devil and in one battle, he took 3 turns to kill the ice devil.

For the Last set of 10 battles, I gave the ice devil a jade armor in place of the copper plate and had him attack rearmost immediately.

The results were:

1) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (14 hp left)
2) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (30 hp left)
3) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (14 hp left)
4) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (41 hp left)
5) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (41 hp left)
6) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (37 hp left)
7) Ice Devil kills Bane Lord (35 hp left)
8) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (34 hp left)
9) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (30 hp left)
10) Bane Lord kills Ice Devil (18 hp left)

So the Bane Lord wins 9 battles and the Ice Devil wins 1.

However, I encountered an anomaly. Although both were equipped with winged shoes, it was always the Bane Lord who flew over to whack the Ice Devil. I never once saw the Ice Devil fly over to whack the Bane Lord.

Thinking that perhaps certain nations always move first before some other nations, I did some tests. In a Tien Chi vs Vanheim match-up, I managed to get a game where Tien Chi got the bane lord and Vanheim got the ice devil, as well as a game with the reverse. I found that regardless of who got what, it was always the bane lord who flew over to whack the ice devil.

I have no idea why this is so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

I'm curious: try a set with both the BL and ID having exactly the same equipment, including weapons. I'll leave the choice of weapon up to you.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

I ran some more tests:

With wraith Swords each, the ID beat the BL very decisively every time.

With the original equipment configuration of herald lance vs. blood thorn, I moved the ID into the neutral province first, then moved the BL. I did this to force the ID to be the defender always, which worked in getting it to fly over to whack the BL instead of the other way around. The BL won 7 out of 10 battles.

I then tested with a flambeau instead of a herald lance / lucky coin combination. I found that in 7 out of 10 battles the flambeau equipped BL killed the ID in the first successful hit. The BL won all battles, but in two battles the BL was reduced to a handful of HPs. This was mostly because it kept missing the ID while the ID continued to whack it. I should really have restored the luck effect to the BL by replacing the antimagic amulet with a pendant of luck. Then, the BL would have won much more handily.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Thank you, Deccan. Your tests are a superb supplement to Cherry's combat sim, and more illuminating.

It's very much as I thought. The choice of equipment is key, and I wanted to make sure that readers of this thread got the correct impression, as your original post about the tests might imply to newbies that the BL is superior to the ID (which as you just demonsrated, is arguable).

IMO, the BL is too cheap & easy to cast for what you get, especially compared to the ID or other comparable summons. But that's a discussion for a different thread.

BTW, I don't suppose I could trouble you to try a set using a Wraith Lord vs. the ID? The WL is a "comparable" summons (it's still cheaper than the ID, but at least its in the same ballpark). I expect the results will be similar to that of the BL, but I could be wrong.

Thanks again for all the work you're putting in.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

And perhaps more importantly, the BL is not unique so you can mass them.

Re: how do damage multipliers work?
 

Nice tests deccan. After IW confirmed that indeed it was #2 I figured that the herald lances would be amazingly effective. And indeed they are.

Good. If it is easy to kill SC's then good I say.

Now how the hell to kill those AQ's that's the question.