Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

It is now, for me, because I know how it works now. But see I knew how Petrify worked before I ever cast it, because the spell's description says how it works!

I know most of my units are supposed to die, and I know a fair number of them will and probably should die stupidly, even. I had an extremely powerful and important commander get mind hunted, in my last game, just before the big Fire Storm he'd been ordered to cast, and without that fire, all his important, powerful friends couldn't beat the attacking army, so they died too. That hurt me much more than this will! And if I'd thought things through more thoroughly, I could have predicted and prevented that mind hunt without a lot of trouble, so it was pretty stupid that it happened. But that incident didn't get any forum thread! Stupid deaths are normal. This is an ugly, fiction-breaking death, arguably caused by a bug. It should not be normal.

(making it sound like a great big deal again)

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

see that's what makes dominions fun!

it's just like life: things work unexpectedly, and we just redefine 'bugs' as 'features' (VotD is only one amongst many many examples).

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

Hm well I don't find Nagot gik fel or whatever very fun!

But this Vengeance of the Dead thing does make a much better "feature" than a random crash does, it's true.

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

I've never tried to cast the spell in game, but the literal reading of the manual suggests that it's an insta-death spell, MR saves ("The commander in that province who has killed the most units in combat has a chance of being killed in a nightmare by the souls of his victims. The target can escape by making a successful magic resistance roll"). What is the spell description in-game?

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

In terms of game fiction VotD is not bad. The literature has plenty of examples of people sucked into magical nightmares, where if they cannot emerge in time they will die/be lost forever in the dream. Same thing here; if you can't beat your nightmare in 75 turns, then you are lost forever.

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

It should be rebranded "Suddenly, the previous Pantokrator has returned and kicked everybody out into the void" :)

Could be a S9D9, conj9 ritual even, a nasty last resort for somebody about to bite the dust.

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

That's true, it kinda makes sense for the spell to have two ways to kill: by directly killing the target in the fight, and thus subverting their belief in their own life so severely that said life ends--or by distracting the target long enough that they can never find their way back to wakefulness. There's some poetry to that.

But the description doesn't say anything about that, and it's just as easy to imagine the target surviving long enough to awaken, too. Especially if every measure of the battle's progress indicates very clearly that the target has been winning! Judging only from the fiction, and not from the normal mechanical rules of battles, you could easily expect either outcome, I guess.

But how silly is it to think that, after beating 280 out of 300 dead ones, a commander would suddenly become unable to awaken, just because a magical alarm clock went off RIGHT THEN! That's not so poetic. Maybe I will try to make a mod that somehow or another causes Dead Ones to turn into super-strong Horrors at turn 74, ha! Then at least you wouldn't have to feel badly about the extra ten rounds you didn't get. Your commander would go down in style, instead of ignominiously collapsing amidst a bunch of stupid Soulless-looking things!

Hm, I intended that as a joke, but I wonder whether there's really a way to do it. :)

Yes, that's the spirit! It's a dramatic game, everything must be dramatic.

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

Also, Carcator is teh awesome against VotD. Because of the "compounding souls" issue though, eventually you're going to have to suck it up an get some MR.

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

What happens if you cast undead mastery during VotD? Do you get to bring your new dead ones back home with you after you control them all?

Re: Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!
 

Sorry for the inconvenience. The only issue I see with VotD is that the undead number increases as you cast more of them, which is why I won't spam that spell against a single province or commander. Still, it's magic resistable, unlike teleport+magic duel+returning, which is often very efficient at taking outt super golems or even pretenders.
The routing rules are clearly spelt in the manual I believe. However, I agree that they are annoying.