Re: MoV usage
 

If they're fleeing on the first serious wound, perhaps one could 'prime' the assassin with a disease-causing item (and that item can go back in the lab the turn after application), so the first wound would make him explode rather than flee.

Harpy / Raptor bombers would seem to be an obvious use. I suppose they'd be marginally useful on an assassin-bait decoy, if the assassin were at least somewhat expensive.

Re: MoV usage
 

What about a combination MoV and slave collar? Assassin go boom, with a chance to feeblemind. That would solve the fleeing problem too, I assume.

Re: MoV usage
 

Hmmm not bad. I may have to try that.

Re: MoV usage
 

I'd never thought of using the MoV with an assasin, thats pretty cool. Couldn't it be useful to just add a slave collar to any flying bombers? IIRC there's some mechanic that can prevent them from flying all the way to the rear where they would do the most damage. Instead they just fly into the mass of the enemy's main troops, I think it had something to do with a morale check which the Slave Collar would solve.

Re: MoV usage
 

Crevan has a good point and agood idea there.

I don't think a strat based on wasting a gem costing item can be that usefull very often. For the same number of gems you could cast a ew powerfull spells which would probably have better effect. Or forge a weapon which might kill more pplz in the end on a well equipped thug or SC etc etc

I prefer not to waste my gems (or better.. gems get wasted enough even if I don't try it that strats based on wasting gems don't seem a very good idea)

Re: MoV usage
 

Maybe its because I tend to play more solo games than mp games, but Ive never been much of a spreadsheet strategist. This conversation sounds fun, and thats good enough for me. :)

Re: MoV usage
 

It's not so much that everyone's going to run out and use MoVs, for me, as it is the possibility of equipping a winged, sacred, cheap, non-capital assassin on a nation, someday, to take advantage of this sort of thing.

I admit it's a stretch, but just sitting here thinking about it, I've already got another nation idea:

Say if you had a nation of pure demons, with lots of Fire and Blood, some Earth, maybe minor Astral and Death, and good forging, but weak troops. You could call it "Dis: The Forges of Hell". And it would basically be a Nation with strong PD but weak troops and no starting army (Imps, Soulless as recruits, Capital-only Devils, maybe a few others, with a collection of interesting, but not overpowered Commanders, all expensive), set up to do diplomacy in MP (it can easily forge the various infernal items, like Lifelong Protection and Hellsword, and then trade them to other Nations, which it needs to do, because it's gem-poor, and very weak-but very useful as an ally-in the Early Game). Eventually it would get really powerful summons, but it would take longer to get them than other Nations.

So sometimes the ideas have their usefulness in just leading to other ideas.

Re: MoV usage
 

Well, with a hammer the Medallion is 3 F gems. So, your "few powerful spells" must certainly be battlefield spells, which definitely come with their own pros and cons. I think the concept of the assassin with the MoV is not that they are a cruise missile, but rather that they MAY succeed in their assassination, but if they fail, they may kill their target anyways. In many cases, 3F is well worth killing an enemy mage. And, of course, if you want to actually damage an army outside of battle, THOSE spells are very costly, and have no guarantee of hitting commanders at all.

I like the idea of the added Slave Collar. I never thought to put one on an assassin, but it's a very clever use for what normally seems like sort of a joke item. :p

Re: MoV usage
 

I like that concept. Though with a weak army, I am not sure about the designation of "gem-poor". I think if they are intended to use forging as diplomatic fodder, it would give them a better niche if they were in fact the best forging nation out of the gate - with a unit that had a forge bonus, and randoms that could potentially give 2 in anything but Nature (seems wrong :p). And then supplement that forging/searing ability with a fairly varied capital gem income. BUT, make them be fairly poor researchers. They're doers, not thinkers - but they won't get too far without doing a LOT of thinking, to get to their top end summons (which could be scattered among a few different schools of magic).

Re: MoV usage
 

Well, they need to get up the Construction tree to forge trade goodies, so I was thinking that's where their summons would be--maybe summons at Construction 5, 7, 9, and 10? I'm thinking their summons would be of the "Infernal Machine" variety. They'd maybe get some National spells in other paths, too.

And it's thematic that "thinking demons" would be good researchers. I don't mind them having access to lots of spells. As far as gems, they could get some, but I was hoping they'd trade for them, or have to expand to get them.

They're very reminiscent of Abyssia as it is, and taking gems away makes them different. Instead of gems, maybe a gold boost? That way, they could buy more PD and potentially trade gold for gems. And they wouldn't have any good blood-dowsers, just blood mages.

I wouldn't make them the strongest forgers in the game, just the strongest at the blood-related items they can build. I wouldn't give them *any* Air, Nature, or Water, because they're meant to be specialized-Air would make it too easy to forge feathers anyway, and I don't want their research getting completely out of control. I'd probably make their access to Fire limited too, in that it would be very common, but very weak (Every mage would have Fire 1, few would have Fire 2, none would have Fire 3), again to differentiate them somewhat from Abyssia.

Their PD would be terrific, maybe the strongest in the game (gargoyles, anyone?), so no starting army. Atleast not one that can be used to expand--I'd probably give them an immobile rush-stopper, like Aksum has. They'd still have recruitables, just not great ones, so they'll eventually expand.