Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Hrm...not at the game right now, but the spell description for Arcane Nexus on the wiki says half and it's usually verbatim...I've never tried to measure it to confirm though.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

The manual text has "collects one quarter of all gems", the spell text in the game says half.

I did a quick test with the Debug Mod.
Casting Sea of Ice with 150 Water gems total the same turn the Nexus went up earned me 38 gems.
Having another nation cast Well of Misery with 200 total D gems the next turn got 52 gems.

I'm not sure where the extra 2 came from, though the game text does say "absorb some ambient magical energy", but it looks much more like a quarter than a half.

If you want to reconcile the description, assume it collects half the gems, then converts them to Astral pearls through alchemy, cutting them in half again.

Even at a quarter it's a game winner. In a decent size game, you'll have enough gems after a turn or two to cast it again at or near max. Meanwhile everyone else is crippled because they don't want to give you gems.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Well, game winner not so much....

It costs 150 pearls to cast it and makes you King of the Hill. It also invites the much-easier-to-999 Astral Corruption to counter it.

In order to make AN unassailable as specified earlier, you have to put a lot of gems in it since, at base cost, it can be dispelled with only 30 pearls, so if you assume that you're using say 300, it costs 180 to dispel and 200 to dispel with certainty.

Once it goes up, people stop casting non-astral, non-blood spells for fear of enabling you to be come God of Wishes and switch to Astral/Blood.

I would say that you should be expecting Astral Corruption, Dispel, or to be imploded by your neighbors unless you agree to pay pearls to your neighbors to prevent attacks.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

LOL...actually, I was just wondering.

However, IF I was going to put up AN I would wait until I had enough to put 999 in Utterdark AND have 999 to recast AN in case someone dispelled my AN.

If I have Utterdark up, I probably don't care at that point if you cast AC or not, I just don't want you casting wish.:p

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

I don't know what kind of games you all seem to play. I never had anywhere close to 999 gems to put in a global in MP :confused:

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

But at that point in the game, assuming there are more than a couple of nations left, you're going to rake in hundreds of gems a turn.
You can put a couple hundred into it, and brag about how strong it is. If your enemies want to pool gems to dispel it, they'll have to wait a turn - more income for you. If they cut way back, you'll get less but they'll be hurt. Not everyone can go full Astral/Blood even late game. Forging gear if nothing else.

When they take it down, you use the gems you got from it and throw it right back up again, stronger. It does really depend on how much you can get that first turn.

On the other hand Grudge, AN doesn't affect any one casting Wish. Astral and Blood are exempted.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Arcane Nexus is definitely a game winner...

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Under appropriate circumstances it -can- be. Nothing is certain. It just significantly skews the win in your favor.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Hmmm theoretically speaking, arcane corruption looks like a pretty good counter to arcane nexus, you may even be able to spin it that way and not attract the wrath of the mob.

Consider how easily you can amass virgins with a blood nation, you should have no problem replacing a random global and putting up a big AC, though if you overwrite AN that would be hilarous and definitely get you mobbed.

Re: Arcane Nexus
 

Only to have it put up again, this time with even more pearls gained from the AN?

If you have AN up, you'll accumulate enough gems to dispel AC soon enough. Your chances are pretty good with a caster capable of casting AN in the first place. And with Returning scripted you also have a good chance of avoiding horrors.