Re: fleeing sc?
 

Wait for Illwinter to fix their bug so that immortal units don't flee in friendly dominion.

Re: fleeing sc?
 

Immortal commanders flee all the time while in friendly dominion in Dom3.

Re: fleeing sc?
 

Life draining weapons and soul vortex will still cause damage to lifeless troops. They just won't restore any hitpoints or fatigue.

Re: fleeing sc?
 

At high difficulty levels the AI get lots of extra cash so they'll often field very large armies regardless of faction. I've had a difficult (not impossible) AI on the 'eye' map throw 1000+ armies for about a dozen consecutive turns at a chokepoint fairly far from my main recruitment areas, while still carrying on the war on other fronts.

If the problem is with the ashen empire in particular then there are more effective ways of beating the hordes than by using SCs. And, as you say, life-draining will not be effective (soul vortex should still deal the same damage, but with no life or fatigue benefit for the SC it's not really worth it).

Re: fleeing sc?
 

happy to start a thread with so many ppl responding.

So although in principle immortal sc wont flee in friendly territory, it does flee because of a bug? So I still need to find a way to make my guy berserk?

And for all of you friendly guys information, I am actually fighting Tien Chi. I kill three fractions. They kill three as well. They now have an army 4 times larger than me. I have tried to keep my main army of 2xx guys with most of the sacred troops away from fighting their main army. Their main army of 9xx guys is pretty invincible and beat down my second army in a siege. (My 2nd army is around the same size as my first army but with fewer sacred troops and only 1 commander with unit sermoning items.)

I think my only hope is to come up with some sc that can at least beat down smaller armies splitted from the main army after they break into my line of forts and spread out everywhere. In the mean time, I wish I can strengthen my first army such that it can kill off a mass of 9xx crappy units.

Whether my wish can come true is one thing that I hope you guys can advice me on.

A problem with me is I cannot afford bigger army. I think I need to keep my income at least 400 more than maintenance. Otherwise, I wont get any bucks to pay mercenaries I am employing and recruit mercenaries when they show up. I am expanding into the sea and trying to use my main army to take down weakly defended province of Tien Chi. This save my income from a dramatic decrease but I cannot expand my army. But the AI, while getting not much more income than me in the graph, seems to be cheating and their number is always increasing after heavy loss.

Shall I give up?

Re: fleeing sc?
 

True. A phoneix with phoenix pyre going on will autorout the instant he is killed even in friendly dominion. Very annoying.

Edi

Re: fleeing sc?
 

Flames from the sky is a very easy way to deal with a 9xx army

Re: fleeing sc?
 

Depends on definition of "easy". If you have the research, the gems, and a mage that can cast it, sure it's easy. Not always the case though.

Re: fleeing sc?
 

That is true, I didn't say that the casting was easy:). But fielding the described (or differently equipped) wrath lords is a similar investment regarding research, gems and mages. Although death gems are probably easier to come by

Re: fleeing sc?
 

I haven't used them too much in Dom3, but in dom2 a well-designed SC can hold a province against any size of AI army pretty much forever. I think that they are more effective than 'flames from the sky' in that respect