Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

This fellow is more a annoyance than a threat, so I will take the road of just sealing him up in his own tomb until he just fades away.

I learned a lot by asking this question. Necessity is the mother of invention. This game gives you challenges that are difficult to solve, but also many ways you might use to deal with them.

Great game, I've had it only a month now and haven't scratch the surface of all there is in it.

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

The problem with Shatter in this situation is that you need to spend at least one turn to get in melee (with Flying Boots), so you can cast the spell only four times at most, and Earth mages will definitively not default to Shatter. The 50% chance of losing a spell in melee may also affect the script of your mages, but I'm not sure.

Shatter also has harder prerequisites than Hand of Death (especially research), and only works on specific creatures, but deals the same amount of damage as Hand of Death, so you should use Hand of Death in these situations, if possible. There is, incidentally, no attack roll needed to hit with this sort of spell, so the Sphinx being immobile does not really help here.

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

Well, 'loosing' 5 gems per turn probably more than a mere annoyance on smaller/medium sized maps...

There definitely some passage inside the manual talking about a penetration chance of x% if fatigue is over y, where I believe y to be 80. However, since I am currently moving I wont have my manual available until 3 more weeks, so I cant check myself.

I think that there is always a chance for plops to travel, but the further away from max-dominion the current province is, the less likely is the plop to travel...so you are right that low starting dominion and high max dominion due to temples is a hinderance for dominon spread...

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

I don't follow you. Why do you think I'm loosing 5 gems a turn just because this Sphinx is holed up in his castle under siege?

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

From manual: if (2d6oe - fatique/15) < 2, Protection is halved.

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

Im guessing he means the 5 gems you will probably get from the magical site in the province, since the Sphinx can only be in the capital, and most capitals have a daily income of 5 gems (from the national sites).

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

^ Oh, doh, my bad.

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

Here is a passage from page 15:
There is no special treatment mentioned for unconscious units. So, you're right that Protection can be reduced by fatigue, but it doesn't drop to zero.

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

Easiest way to take down a sphinx in combat: dusk daggers and gate cleavers. Both cause armor negating damage, and tossing a squad of mid to high level thugs armed with these weapons will chop the sphinx up in no time. Especially the gate cleaver, 29 armor negating damage is quite a wallop. Machaka should have no problem producing either one of these, as gate cleavers are earth only and dusk daggers are earth/astral, so you just need a random astral pick for black sorcerer.

Edi

Re: Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?
 

Right, Gate Cleavers, not Hammers of the Mountains. My mistake, I got the two mixed up.