Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Ooops, I guess I have not mastered the "quote" function yet. GP's suggestion still seems to be the best resolution to this issue.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Chalk me up as another one who thinks it's perfect the way it is.
The spell can be quite a powerful tool but has so many conditions that have to be fulfilled for it to be used that i'd consider it a lot weaker overall than earth attack for example.
MR negates
It needs a SC with many kills to work, and an SC that can not dispose of arbitrarily large armies of chaff (no king of elemental fire will ever be afraid of VotD)
Casting several times can produce a lot of kills but here comes MR into plaz again. If you have a 10% or so chance to succeed having to succeed five times doesn't make the spell that cheap anymore.
There aren't many recruitable or summonable caster that can cast this spell.
Target must sleep. (many of the best SCs are undead)
You can shield against it with 100% effectiveness in a provice if you get a decent chaff-killer. Sure, they're not too easy to get but how many provinces besides your home province do you need permanently protected anyway?
If you manage to get all the conditions right the spell can be very damaging, but so can be many others.
A tactic isn't too powerful if you get hit once and loose because of it. If it's truly too powerful youd get hit by it all the time because everyone would be using it exclusively.
Removing the turn limit or making the defender survive on a draw would render the spell totally useless. Nothing worth killing with the spell would ever die to it. Any thug or SC hardy enough to rack up a few hundred kills will never be killed by the chaff, so overwhelming him and getting him auto-killed after turn 50 is the real point of using the spell.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

So, if you have a SC pretender with hundreds of kills and you know there's a spell like VotD around and you do not have the effective counters to it yet, WHY is your god sitting still in the capital waiting for the axe to fall?

The enemy must be able to pinpoint the location of the god before he can nail it with VotD and if you move your god around, instead of a single VotD, he needs to blanket your whole damned territory or at the very least several provinces with the spell and that gets expensive gem and mage-turn wise very fast.

To be blunt, I read the whole thread through and all I'm getting from your post is a sense of outrage that your god got killed because you
a) failed to take certain possibilities into account
b) lacked the equipment that would have made the difference because you had not traded for it yet at that point
c) knew you were getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell and SAT STILL, waiting for the axe to fall.

Let's see, sympathy meter reading...yep, big, round zero.

The turn limit is necessary, though some increase might do good and the default resolution of exceeding the limit is up for discussion. The default resolution for VotD and possibly also for attacks spawned by Looming Hell are easily explained by the target of the attack running out of mental resources to resist if the turn limit is reached.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Oh, no problem at all, its mutual. I just love ignorant people.
>> a) failed to take certain possibilities into account
I failed? How come, do you read my mind? I knew this might happen, and I couldnt do anything about it. This is where frustration comes from, no valid coulter in my situation, I was made a sitting duck by game mechanics. Besides, I was kinda caught by surprise by the fact these zombies dont ever rout, I expected mindless undead to dissolve in the end.
>> b) lacked the equipment that would have made the difference because you had not traded for it yet at that point
Abyssia just researched lvl 4 construction. Nobody else could craft it; not all nations go into construction first, you know. I'll receive firebrand next turn, too bad my 25+ MR didnt let me surivive more than one round. See the point? Let me show you: VotD is just a lvl4 research spell which kicks in early, I simply had no way of preparing for it. I had nobody to trade for it with, period.
>> c) knew you were getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell and SAT STILL, waiting for the axe to fall.
I knew I am getting hammered with a potentially lethal overland spell still and I SAT STILL IN A FRIENDLY DOMAIN BECAUSE I COULDNT HIDE FROM IT, ITS OVERLAND! THATS THE WHOLE DAMN POINT, YOU CANT HIDE FROM THIS AXE IN MANY CASES.
And the fact the spell is situational doesnt make it less OP in these situations.

Lets see, sympathy meter reading... yes, below the ground.

The default resolution for VotD and possibly also for attacks spawned by Looming Hell are easily explained by anything, as usual with fictional things, and I can come with 2x as much good explainations why attackers should lose, you can even find some good ones in this very thread.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Dude, ya gotta relax a bit.

Here's the deal: sometimes, either because of the side you've chosen, or how you've built your God, or how you've equipped your SC, you may not have a counter for certian things. It's called "balance". Get over it and prepare yourselve better next time.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I always thought that balance is when you can find a counter for arising threats. Like, equip an SC against F9W9 sacreds, or paralyze enemy SC to let your sacred overwhelm him. When you cannot, its lack thereof.
I'd agree that its my failure to find a countermeasure if there were and AOE lightning weapon, for example. But so far, only a few items are fit for SCs, despite the many choices. Same applies to armors and shields, sadly - mostly because of encumberance. But thats another story.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

So, moving around, as in not giving the enemy a sitting, guaranteed target he knows where to whack every turn isn't a potential counter? I know magic attacks come before movement, but if you manage to move out once you know you're being targeted, he needs to take the shotgun to targeting. You may not be able to hide 100% effectively, but you can try to dodge and based on what has been said, it seems that you did not try that.

Make a SC god, run the risk of having it pasted by something unexpected in the early game, because SCs actually take some time to develop. You're still screaming about sour grapes related to one game because you ran afoul of that risk.

Get back to me when you have some actual evidence of VotD being as overpowered across the board as you are making it out to be.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

And then there are spies, ok? I never said my God didnt move after turn 1. Or, for arguments sake, you may be pushed back by initial attack far enough not to have much provinces to hide in. 2x bless rushes do such things to people.
Get back to you with actual evidence... and you will dismiss it again? I just gave you an example of what can happen when your nation doesnt have an access to fire brand and you rely on SC god for repelling the early rushes. Nearly every time there's some 2x bless van, or Ermor, or Mictlan, or all of them. And its fair, but 'SCs should take time to develop', so countering these rushes is not fair.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Well, if his enemy has scouts out, moving the SC will probably just leave him vulnerable in a different province. Probably one with lower dominion and thus lower mr (since it was his god).

I know I try to blanket my enemies lands with scouts as soon as I can.

For the record, I don't really have an opinion of VotD being overpowered. I do think the Dead not routing when they should ("special monsters are routed" message) is cheesy and quite possibly unintended.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

>> I don't really have an opinion of VotD being overpowered. I do think the Dead not routing when they should ("special monsters are routed" message) is cheesy and quite possibly unintended.

I couldnt have said it better. I had no problem knowing 400+ units will attack my God, he's a SC after all. Or that my mages wont surivive even 30-40 zombies, its ok. Thats what this spell is for, if you ask me.
Its the autokill thing that freaked me out.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

This discussion has gotten to the point where no one says anything new:

These are the three positions.

1. VotD is fine as it is. Some targets are immune, MR helps, real SCs
can handle the task, hide the target.

2. VotD is overpowered. It is very low level, it's available to bless
rushing nations, MR eventually fails, if a SC is hiding he is not SCing.

3. VotD default resolution is counterintuitive and exploitable. The
rule is 'defenders win a stalemate', constant doubling of the task will
soon make it impossible, it's stupid when the hero is unharmed but dies.

It is clear from my posts that my position matches #3. It is just as clear
where everyone else stands. This thread has descended into name calling.
Until one of developers tells us whether the current outcome is what he
had in mind, the discussion is pointless.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Well put Tuidjy. I'll go ahead and chime in and agree with #3.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Did your god not have Air magic? The Evocation 2 spell "Shock Wave" seems like it would be great for taking out swarms.

Since the attack takes place in the commander's dream, I suppose bodyguards are left out?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Very well put Tuidjy.

I'm a #3 guy myself.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Incidentally I think a couple of points made in this thread are not quite right.

Firstly the 81% avoidance isn't right as I understand it. Assuming the enemy mage has zero penetration nad your guy has MR 25, I think the chance of the spell getting through is less than 1% (see the +15 entry in the DRN table at the start of the manual - if my memory serves correctly in only actually goes up to +14 so the chance is off-the-scale small and you were very unlucky).

Secondly moving around can't help you with 'dodging' since rituals happen before movement. So if your enemy can see you with scouts (not too hard) he has a 100% chance of getting the right province.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yeah, I can't count. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Several points:

1) MR is not as effective vs. remote map spells as one would predict. I have done extensive testing with Mind Hunt and have come to the conclusion that MR is effectively 2 less vs. remote spells compared to battle field spells (i.e MR 25 acts like MR 23).

2) VOTD can kill immortal pretenders in their home prov. Immortals that die in friendly dominion due to the 75 turn autoroute rule do not reappear in their capital the following turn. I have lost a Risen Oracle (with 750 kills) in friendly dominion to this spell.

3) No matter how awesome your SC, there will be a number of undead which can not be defeated in the turn limit. I have had a lot of SCs with over 1000 kills. There is no way (that I know of) to take out that many undead in 75 turns. And even if you could, the next go around you would be facing 2000 undead. The end result is inevitable.

4) If the only true counter to the spell is to run away and hide in a remote part of the map, then the SC is effectively killed as soon as he finds himself targeted. He certainly isn't going to be hanging around on the front lines doing any good.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Equally many points:

1) I hadn't noticed this. Is it possible that your testing failed to account for another factor that was present in all remote cases, but not all battlefield ones?
(dominion, astral magic, enchantments?) I'm not questioning your metheods, of course, just trying to verify results.

2) This is weird, and probably unintended. I had also noticed weirdness with immortality and the turn limit.

3) Of course correct, but I think this highlights an important fact: Any SC (or unit, for that matter) can be brought down by expenditure of a given number of resources. In the case of VOTD the resources expended are mage-time, gems. The SC killed by VOTD must then be more valuable than the sum of the values of the mages, the gems expended, and the values of the units he killed before the Vengeance kills him. In many cases, vengeance of the dead is not actually a cost-effective solution (eg. a MR 23 W9 Dragon with no magic items and 100 kills. -not really an SC, I know.)

I believe that killing 1200 undead in 75 turns is very possible. I personally have used (against LE Ermor) an archangel with the forbidden light (and SC equipment), casting fire storm. Actually, anything that scales with the numbeer of opponents (battlefield enchs., mainly) would probably work.

4) As per above, you can also not counter it except with good equipment and high MR, and rely on cost effectiveness and economics. Alternatively, you could teleport/cloud trapeze/one of the five million other movement spells to somewhere totally different, or sue for clemency (ie. diplomacy). Or you could put up a dome of flaming death.


In all honesty, VOTD really isn't any better, even considering its low cost in research and gems, than earth attack, mind hund, manifestation, disease demon (AAH!), etc.

Granted, I'm a pretty awful MP player with almost no experience, so what do I know?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It's not an easy issue. While VotD is less than ideal in some ways - undead adding to the unit count, death by turn limit - it is designed to be an anti-SC spell, and a nicely ironic one at that. if the turn limit had no negative effect, there would be yet another defense against it in the form of very good armour.

er... so I agree with all three of Tuidjy's positions. VotD in its current form has to be overpowered in some situations to be effective in the rest. the default resolution, likewise, is not very satisfying, but 'you wake up and find it was all a dream' is not an improvement.

the questions I'm having trouble resolving are whether VotD does what it's supposed to do. are the special cases we're discussing broken or not according to its intention? should there be a more powerful version where the enemies pose more of a direct threat, rather than victory by exploit? these are all balance questions, and I'm not good with those. All I know is that while invincible SCs are only nice if you've got one, irony always rocks.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Buff up the MR of the SC or equip yourself with items that will kill undead quickly. The end.

P.S.
Don't get so attached to your SCs.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Vengeance against a high-kill SC is far and away the most effective ritual to use when presented with such a target. It is effectively a save-or-die situation once the kill counter hits critical mass (around 800 or so should prove too many to kill in 75 rounds for most SCs, even a quickened AE weapon only hits 6 ghosts per round...even with a damage aura on top of that it'll be hard to keep up)

Granted a battlefield-wide spell will work, but if you have to script that to counter Vengeance then you've already lost your SC since all of a sudden he's a support mage and not an SC since you'll have to keep the BE scripted at all times, and this also requires high paths or boosters which take up SC slots. A BE cast to kill the ghosts is not an effective counter for the same reason that hiding in your capital behind 4 domes isn't...your SC might as well be dead, even if they're not actually buried.

It is massively more effective than any other remote spell because spell-sent assassins will get destroyed by any half-decent SC (earth attack, manifestation, etc.) and mind hunt has a variety of counters. The other reason that Vengeance is so annoying is because it will always target the same commander, so you can't recruit decoys.

SCs are pretty damn counterable by the correct tactics without having Vengeance in its more powerful form, and even if the 75 turn death was removed it would still be effective against any thugs that can't last for 75 turns (meaning no fatigue accumulation and a way to regain HP in battle for most of them or they'll get pinged to death) as well as any artillery mages that get a decent kill-count. It would be a niche spell at that point, but still usable when the occasion arose instead of being the go-to for a 0-risk SC kill. Lowering the gem cost to 1 or 2 in return for weakenking it would also be fair.

I guess my thing is that since SCs are on the front lines they're wading into battle turn after turn as it is, and there's plenty of chances to kill them once you're in a fight. (Soul slay, paralyze, life for a life, drain life, spamming an elemental attack they're not resistant to, beating them to death with buffed up troops, teleporting or air trapping a counter-SC in to do righteous battle...there are plenty more)

Even if the spell isn't overpowered on its own I strongly dislike any spell that is hard enough to counter that it might as well not be counterable, as is the case here (I argued against a fully-functional wind ride for the same reason). It doesn't allow an opponent a way to respond to your tactics. Doing something unexpected should be rewarded but everything should have a reasonable counter available for it.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Valandil -

As for mind hunting and the success of remote magic overcoming MR. . . I have carried out extensive testing of Mind Hunt (and limited testing of VOTD), literally simulating thousands of attacks with mages of different levels equipped with different combinations of penetration boosters vs. targets with MR ranging from 20 to 27 and with either drain or magic scales. All the targets in my simulations were in friendly dominion, but I don't see how that would affect much beyond the MR of pretenders and prophets (and the possible influence of magic scales which were already accounted for). None of the targets had astral paths since I was targeting 50 at a time and they would have just feebleminded my casters.

A a5 mage with +5 penetration casting Mind Hunt (+1 penetration due to level) on a target with 25 MR (in a prov with neutral magic scales), will kill said target approximately 8 or 9 % of the time (as if the calculated difference were -7 instead of -9). When the target has a MR of 21 the Mind Hunt will be successful approximately 25% of the time (as if the difference were -3 instead of -5.

When a target is in a prov with drain scales the target is more resistant to Mind Hunt, and when the target is in a prov with magic scales the target is more susceptible.

Bottom line - Mind Hunt is more effective than Soul Slay, (i.e. it has a higher kill rate).

I assume the observations that I have made with Mind Hunt carry over to VOTD, but cannot be sure at this point due to limited testing.

As for the possibility of killing 1000+ undead in a battle. . . . yes it is possible, but only for an SC that is specifically kitted and scripted to the task. If you are fighting Ermor this may occur by natural happenstance. But if you are not engaged with Ermor or fighting alongside friendly forces when the VOTD hits, it is unlikely that one would have firestorm or like spells scripted. Most battlefield spells that would work against such large numbers of undead would also injure your own troops and have significant gem costs. They are only scripted in specific scenarios.

Ohh, and I am in total agreement with Micah.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Just lost a long post due to connection trouble so here is a new one:

Im in agreement with Micah and Sant_Dude. Its too powerful and effective for its cost. If your SC is running from or specifically prepared for VotD it's probably not doing his job or is atleast not doing it as well as it could be.
Its not an expensive or high research spell and unlike certain other assasination spells its not hard to cast so dosn't require the time of a very powerful mage in many cases.
With its cost, path requirements and the seeming penetration bonus for overland spells it dosn't seemunlikely that you could get one penetration per turn.
If you managed 1 penetration per turn on, say, a 250 kill SC(after his first decent battle) then in its 4th battle against the undead, assuming it won the previous battles(a difficult task), it would be in battle with 2000 undead - a number near impossible to kill without being specifically prepared for that many undead.
Of course, after winning that battle(a feat that would probably require very high level magic making him more of a mage than an SC) he would have to face 4000 undead, if that many can evil fit on the enemies side of the battlefield.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

By variety do you mean having Astral Mages? Not exactly a lot of variety.

Unless you have an SC with just a giganto-huge number of kills equipping him with a charcoal shield or casting fire shield is usually enough eat through enough chaff undead. Unquenched Sword, and the Ark are also artifacts that will do this.

Personally - I think Mind Hunt is much stronger/unbalanced, simply because mind dual/seeking arrow can counter any astral presence. Without astral presence Mind Hunt is evil.

I would agree that there are too many remote leader killer spells (it stagnates the late game) but as compared to say, Mind Hunt, I don't think it is much worse.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Thanks for the info, Saint Dude. I did not know that.

Obviously, the battlefield enchs. were not really proposed as a counter to VOTD, just as a way to kill 1200+ undead.
I was responding to the OP, who stated that VOTD was uncounterable, which it is not. As many of you correctly point out, these 'counters' are impractical in that they deprive your SC of the ability to act in an SC role, effectively neutralising it. This is, I think, true of several other remote assassination spells.

It is possible that VOTD is unbalancing, but it seems unlikely, given the rare occasions where it is useful. The bell of cleansing would be pretty imbalanced if it targeted non-demons too (maybe...actually, probably not).

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Decoys were the other option I was thinking of Vel, which obviously doesn't work whatsoever against Vengeance. It's not optimal certainly, but it helps out a good deal (I'll usually recruit a commander in a province I just took over since that happens before rituals...30g for a 50% resistance to mind hunt with no MM is a fairly good deal) If your opponent is launching volleys of them that'll go through the chaff then yes, having your own mages is the only real viable solution, but if you don't have any mages that far into the game you're kind of screwed anyhow. And it's a sweet bonus when you feeblemind their mages with astral casters, which won't happen with Vengeance.

Plus since intelligence isn't optimal the appearance of astral mages is usually enough to stop the mind hunts, even if there isn't a mage in the province. It's a lot riskier to spam it.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

That's exactly why I recommended a game option where the player can choose the battlefield turn limits. I have two fast computers which can easily triple the battlefield turn limits. I'm sure some gamers have systems even faster than mine. It's sad losing a battle because the attacker runs out of turns. It's like some union law which forces all soldiers/commanders to flee at 5pm... and golems can stay until 8pm.

on a side note

During DOM_2 I lost my attacking SC during a battle because my SC was paralyzed from the dispossed spirits and the dispossed spirits couldn't flee because my SC was blocking the way. As a result after 100 turns... my SC was auto_killed. This should be changed to auto_retreat.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Possible solution- in some results, 'ghost version' of the target attacks the mage.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I also vote #3

This spell is fine except for an obvious bug that causes the defender to lose a turn limit stlaemate. Defender should win that. Submit to bug list and see what devs say.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I also vote #3.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

So, if we agree upon #3 (I sure do), who's going to submit it to bug list? I dont know how it's done.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I've done it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

On this whole doubling the horde of undead after each successful casting of VotD - should undead kills count for this spell in the first place ?

The spell isn't Vengeance of the Undead. Do mindless zombies have souls which need to be avenged ? I don't think so.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Having read all of this thread, I would tend to agree with Edi. However, a few points I have thought of:

1) VotD, Dreams of Rl'yeh. Do these work like Arena fights? (If so, this would explain why Immortals still die.) If not, then auto-destroy at turn limit killing Immortals seems like a bug.

2) Assuming a 4% chance to work (and this may be high), odds are it will take 16 castings for VotD to affect the target (0.96^x=0.5; x*log 0.96=log 0.5; x=(log 0.96)/(log 0.5)). This, therefore, requires 16 mage-turns of, what, a SSSD or DDDS or whichever it is, which is, in itself, 96 Research, as well as the upkeep of those mages. Assuming it's not even a threat to a SC with less than 100 kills, well, it seems rather fair. That's 16 times the cost of the spell (2 pearls, right?), 16 mage-turns of a decent mage type, and to have already killed 100+ troops. And, yes, it's a God in this case, so he can be called back. This by Caelum, in this case, which doesn't even have to worry about losing Mage-turns to Call God.

These are the numbers to look at. Is _this_ considered fair? (And, of course, understand that _this_ particular case involves someone without a weapon that can hurt Undead. It is conceivable that with a better Weapon (which I understand the OP didn't have access to) he could have lived through this attack, and caused the number of castings to double.

Any error in the numerical analysis?

Wyatt Hebert

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Part of the problem with this discussion is that the two sides of the debate seem to be talking past each other.

One side, largely, is saying that dying because the attackers don't auto-rout when they should is wrong.

The other side is saying the overall chance of killing an SC is low, so the spell is balanced.

These are different arguments. They're not even opposed. The spell can be balanced, but achieve its affect in an unfair way. I'd say that's where I stand. The balance is likely fine, it may even be underpowered, but losing an SC due to time limits when the attacker should rout first is a lousy way to achieve that balance.

I'd suggest either strengthening or cheapening the spell, but allowing the dead to rout, by giving them a few non-mindless commanders if necessary.

Are there any other ways to get an attack force (either assassination or province attack type spell) without a commander? Phantasmal attack, maybe? (I think that's what it's called. The one that sends phantasmal warriors to attack a province?) Are they mindless?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

>> These are the numbers to look at.

The numbers lie. I am not sure why, but astral spells with some penetration items work FAR better than beforementioned 4%. In my case it took exactly 3 castings to pass through 25 MR, supposedly without any penetration items on casting mages. Heck, I routinely have my 25-MR SCs paralyzed with the very first casting for 40+ turns, and I have given up hope of ever using a SC against R'lyeh.
Your 16 attempts number looks really, really overestimated.

And in case of Caelum you can count the turns you have to spend recruiting priests for calling back your God instead of recruiting mages and the losses your army will suffer without him now that your God doesnt stand between your mages and enemy sacreds. Probably you will simply lose the game.
Ah, and the mage-turns for equipping your god again.
Oh, and why bother calling him, he still has all these kills on him and will eat VotD again.

And one more thing to consider. This is not just a highly situational SC-removal spell. Most mages dont stand a chance against 40-50 zombies they will likely have to face alone, which is a very good result for 3 astral pearls.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

How about...removing the turn limit entirely for VotD attacks?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Highly agreed with Kuritza's last point.
I'd always considered it much more useful against battle mages who've racked up a decent number of kills, than against SCs. I just assumed most SCs would survive it. Hadn't considered the turn limit.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Thats the ideal solution to me (there might not be a stalemate in VotD, but default), but all exceptions require the devs to change game code usually, which they hate.
I am not speaking about the Dominions devs now, of course, but I guess there are serious reasons for such trend.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Removing the turn limit can cause serious problems. Some immobile units might be targetable with VOTD, but unable to kill or be killed by the spirits. (Eg only deals cold damage). Upon hosting, computer go boom!

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yeah, removing the limit would be a bad idea. (And in general require weird exceptions in the code, which is usually a bad idea.)

Better to change it so that the undead will auto rout when they hit their turn limit.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

You say the numbers lie. Very well, they may. However, do you even understand the information assumed by the numbers? For example, what is the probability that it will take as few as 3 castings (Given it has a 4% chance each time)? Exactly 3 castings is .96*.96*.04. Exactly 2 castings would be .96*.04, and Exactly 1 casting is .04, by definition. This leads to a probability of 11.52%.

Now, _assuming that 3 castings will penetrate 50% of the time_, the actual probability of failure is x^3=0.5, or ~79%. This gives the chance of success at 21%. If this is accurately the chance of success, then the game code does have issues.

I guess the other consideration is the path combination required to cast VotD. I _think_ that only MA Ermor has the requisite paths innately (i.e. giving the cost information is correct), though I could easily be mistaken on that score. The other check is that, possibly, it's overpowered in Ermor's case. Granted, from what is apparently a subtext of this message, Ermor has the capability to not only use double blessed Shadow Vestals AND VotD. Now, is THIS overpowered, and, if so, what could be done to fix the combo without changing VotD.

Oh, and please note that I _estimated_ nothing. I simply applied binomial statistics. _Given_ a 4% success rate, there is a probability slightly higher than 50% that the first 16 trials will fail. Stated slightly differently, what is the probability of rolling <49 on a d50 16 times in a row? ~50%. If the success rate is wrong, of course the result will be wrong. That's why I did the secondary calculation assuming your case was an average one. I doubt your case was average, however. I think the Ermorian player got lucky with a roll at some point. ~21% chance of success is to hit someone with, I believe, only 2-3 points higher than you. That would, I believe, imply something on the order of +12 Penetration, which is nigh impossible that early in a game.

Let's figure out how the numbers fall out, and then we'll start worrying. If astral spells have a bonus to penetration overland, that needs to be verified and fixed, unless that is working as intended. Honestly, VotD might require one higher in one of its two paths, and that probably would help. On the other hand, I think some of the stuff in the next patch is Shadow Vestal being reduced, so that might help this kind of situation, too.

Let's look at the issue holistically, rather than the specific cause of death. Can we agree on that?

Wyatt Hebert

P.S. I am planning, time-allowing, to run a test scenario with VotD. Ermor vs. Ulm, and I will be paying close attention to Penetration vs. MR score each time. Combat occurs before dominion change, and spells happen before Combat, so the numbers I read on the turn should be the numbers used in the calculation, correct?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

No, we can't. That's the point I was trying to make earlier.

By holistically, you seem to mean from a balance point of view, not a thematic one. But I'm not arguing a balance issue.

I'm not arguing that the spell is overpowered. I'm arguing that auto kills because the undead don't rout or die when the attacking side is supposed to are a problem.
If that gets fixed, then VotD may need a cost or path decrease , or a boost in power to compensate. Or not if the auto kill was unintended.
The spell would remain useful taking out evocation type battle mages, regardless.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

You mean 3*.96*.96*.04 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Sorry, couldn't help it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Perhaps if non-mindless units didn't count towards kill numbers...?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Did you mean 'if mindless units' rather than non-mindless?

I'd imagine it hard to get into the hall of fame.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yes. That.

if mindless didn't count towards kills. Or at least if mindless troops weren't counted under the Votd thing.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

If surviving a VotD means you get twice the number of happinesses the next time around, I doubt there's a second stat for mindless kills, or a stat for "unavenged" (the VotD thing) kills. Depending on what the code is like, adding a new stat for all units could be a pain, especially for such a small thing as a single spell making copies of ghosts, but it's the only solution I can see that wouldn't change anything else in the game.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Why not just make it so that if you survive 75 turns, you live? Nothing else
gets changed, and the exploit stops working.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

No, he was right. If the order doesn't matter, then yeah you'd times the odds by three. However, he's assuming EXACTLY 3 castings, which means only the last casting can be a success. Ergo, order is important, and the only order possible is Failure, Failure, Success. If you want to know the odds of succeeding in three or less trials, you need to independently figure out the odds of succeeding an exactly 1 and 2 trials and add them together (with 3 trials, of course).

On another note, maybe its possible to meet both positions halfway. A, it stinks to die due to a game mechanism clearly designed for other situations. B, it can be thematic and the spell works fine as it is.

My idea would be to simply start "mindless dissolution" on turn 50. This is the rule that mindless beings left with out a commander have a 33% chance of spontaneously dieing every turn. In addition they won't move and will only attack units already adjacent to them. This means any individual soulless unit will only have a ~.5% chance of going all 25 turns with out dissolving. Clearly in large numbers some will remain. That's not the point. Now, the target actually has a chance to finish off the chaff. If they still can't do that by 75 turns... let 'em die.