Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

"agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)"

Haha, well I play pythium a lot, too, I'll try that out on them one of these nights. (I'm guessing you use VQ to make SC for early expansion?)

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On a more relevant note:

I've been implementing all the suggestsions here, and a few new questions have arised.

First off, higher level blood magic tends to have more than the 2blood most all goetic masters have. How should I go about producing stronger blood wizards? Empowerment is awfully expensive.

Secondly, does SDR effects stack if you place two on one wizard? Is it worth is to place two SDR on one wizard?

Third, in unpatched dominions 2, does the Astral 9 blessing work on sacred units? Or is it bugged? It certainly doesn't to seem to work, because my flagellants still constantly fall to the first arrow fired at them, despite the description that lucky blessing saves them from their first hit.

Fourth and finally, although flagellants make up almost near all of my armies, there is still the tiny sliver that is comprised of those super-duper demonic sorts. On that note, are mass harlquins, or MUCH fewer of their stronger & 5-6 times more expensive counter parts better. i.e. 30 Harlequins (30 blood slaves) or 4 devils (28 blood slaves?)

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

sdr dosnt stack, i dont think anything does. to get a stronger blood mage use your pretender or use boosters (in my test game with DF marignon i had a blood7 fire 4 goetic master).feel free to empower and level or 2 when possible and get your blood economy running fast (standard should be 3 diabolists with SDR's in a 5000+ population province with 0 taxes, try to repeat this set-up 3-4 times.
make soul contracts with you stronger mage(s) when possible as the 1 devil per turn is alot better when you have 5 of them (all traveling with your army to make up losses). i personally dont like harlequins unless you need to mass fodder quickly, 4 devils will probably be better in alot of cases due to higher stats and heat radiation.
casting the looming hell with alot of slaves gives you a nasty little global that can be very annoying to say the least and a very nasty tactic ive discovered is 10 (or more if you want) assasins with lifelong protections and possibly amulets of luck and robe of shadows if the enemy has lots of crossbows or something. while 1 lifelong protection is weak in battle, 10 of them produces a huge number of imps EVERY TURN, with each of them having 2 attacks per turn they are very good at engulfing your foe in a tide of red midgits. the assasins add mobility with their stealth and utility with assasinations but they are by no means neccisary, its perfectly possible to do this with any commander (the bonus of this way being that you have arrow catchers)

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Weapons and shields (and helmets, for 2-headed) stack for their stat bonuses, but not special bonuses (like resistance). I can't think of anything else that stacks with identical items.

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Helmets should stack like armour/weapons (Wyrms, Ettins and perhaps a few others).

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Well, yeah. And late expansion. And pretty much anything else. Unpatched VQs are just plain deadly. A true VQ uber-SC requires either costly empowerment or the kind of points you can usually only spare while playing a dead Ermorian theme, but the results are dizzying. And she's immortal, to boot. And ethereal, so that immortality really counts for something, as your opponent can't just Wind Ride her into a province with hostile dominion.

Research Construction. Secure(either through empowerment, Pretender design, Blood boosting items, recruitment at a special site, or some combination of the above) at least one Blood-4 mage, and at least one Blood-X, Earth-Y mage(don't recall the numbers at the moment). If possible, complement them with a Blood-X, Nature-Y mage. Have them forge Brazen Vessels, Blood Thorns, Blood Stones, Armor of Souls, and that cursed Blood/Nature armor thing, whatever it's called. Allocate these items as necessary, and have a nice day.
For the really high-level juju, you might also want to secure a few Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry and Robes of the Magi.

Pretty sure it works. You didn't empower your Pretender or something, did you? Your blessing is only affected by your starting path levels, boosters and empowerments don't count. Nor do afflictions or other path losses, thankfully.

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

/\"Pretty sure it works. You didn\'t empower your Pretender or something, did you? Your blessing is only affected by your starting path levels, boosters and empowerments don\'t count. Nor do afflictions or other path losses, thankfully.\"/

No, the pretender wasn\'t empowered. He started at fire9/astral9.

...hm.. what exactly does the Astral 9 blessing do then?

Furthermore, I\'ve been grappeling to find something to do with all that astral on my pretender. Astral corruption is certainly viable, and so is Arcane nexus, but those are both late game spell. Anything useful earlier in the game, other than Aschasic record, I could spend astral gems on?

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Alchemize them into water gems and build more clams http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Send your lazy friends over here to read up why the unmodded, and esp unpatched game is a poor choice for MP.

Also send em to the MP forums to see how many people use CB mod =)

I think your friends would like the changes to the scales, making every race have useful heroes (everyone likes that), and national units getting a price break across the board.

Re: Diabolic Marignon Pretender
 

Reascension gets you B3F3 Fallen Angel. B3S1 (Blood 3 Astral 1).


Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry are awesome. They only require Astral 4 and 5, and with Starshine Skullcap or Crystal Coin even S3 is enough.


As for blessings, S9 gives the sacred units Twist Fate -effect, that is, the next time they would take damage, they won't. Flagellants are weak and die fast, so this effectively doubles the number of hits a Flagellant can take before death. It also helps to save the occassional mage from e.g. stray arrows.