Re: Guide to communions
 

the important part is power of 2.
2 = 2^1
4 = 2^2
8 = 2^3

...

Re: Guide to communions
 

Don't quite understand your question, but it is +1 for 2, +2 for 4, +3 for 8, +4 for 16 and +5 for 32.

Re: Guide to communions
 

I just didn't understand "the power of 2". Just English is not my native. Now it's clear.

Re: Guide to communions
 

"1 per power of 2"
The first 2 slaves get you +1. Then, every time you double the number of slaves you get another +1.
4 slaves -> +2
8 slaves -> +3
16 slaves -> +4
32 slaves -> +, etc

Re: Guide to communions
 

Power of two, not multiple of two. So it's +1 at 2^1 (2), +2 at 2^2 (4), +3 at 2^3 (8), +4 at 2^4 (16), etc.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Mine is a different question (and pretty basic I would suppose).

I have never been a big communion guy until I ran into a fort filled with Mystics and NEVER could root the guy out the whole game. He had only one fort , but he had that dang fort the rest of the game.

of course I have read about them and even understand a little (enough to try a couple )but I have a question that seems basic but it confuses me.

Say I have 27 Mystics and want to form 3 communions (this isn't about what kind, it is a set up question). Does it matter in the scrpting portion where the CM's are vs the CS?

In other words, from what I understand the CM has to be on the bottom. I just don't see how to do it from the scripting page.

Now, if its done in the battle setup page, I could have 3 separate lines of 1 M and 8 S with the Master on the bottom.

Can I have them in the same row if I have space in between them (say 1 communion on the top of the back row and one on the bottom of the back row and one in front of the other 2). If so, how much space is required between them.

LOL, how much more basic can you get than that,

Thanks Guys!!:up:

Re: Guide to communions
 

Unit ID is set by the order on the script setup screen, with the lowest ID at the top, and the highest ID at the bottom of the list.

Position on the battlefield doesn't affect anything, and all slaves and all masters in a particular battle are part of the same communion.

Re: Guide to communions
 

So what your telling me is that ID is from top to bottom of the 27 Mystics. OK, what does the ID have to do with it other than identifying a certain mage.

I was under the impression that the CM HAD to be on the bottom of the communion. So from what you are saying I just script the top 8 mystics as CS and the ninth as CM 10-17 as CS #18 as CM.
19-26 as cs and 27 as CM.

This makes 3 communions? and the game knows to go UPWARD from the CM? say there was only 6 CS in the first one and 8 CS in the next two.

I am just trying to learn to set it up right now, I will learn the intricacies later.

Re: Guide to communions
 

The biggest part you are missing: there is only 1 communion! you cannot have seperate communions. guys cast spells starting from the top, so if the CM's are on bottom, the slaves can cast before they do, which is good because once the CM's cast, the slave cannot cast in that round

Re: Guide to communions
 

Where top here is as shown in the Army Setup screen, which is determined by unit ID.
Not position on the battlefield.

In battle, spells are cast in Unit Id order. Communion Slaves can cast if no Communion Master has already cast this round. So, if you're trying to put together a reverse communion (Masters casting path boosters so all the slaves get boosted and can spam spells) make sure the Masters are last.
If you're just trying to boost a couple of Masters to cast big spells, then order doesn't matter.
As several people have said, there is only one communion. All masters share all slaves. This is a good thing.

Mystics are generally good for reverse communions, since you can easily get +1S+2E+2F+1W and 4 reinvig on your slaves.

Re: Guide to communions
 

OK, Thanks...I am 1/2 way there.

All slaves are with all masters....THAT was a big revelation.

Now (this may sound stupid) you said that slaves have to cast first because once a master casts slaves can not cast that round. And (this is the part I am having trouble with) Unit ID controls who casts first...How do I know unit ID so I can set my CM so they don't cast first.

Am I really missing something this easy?:doh:

BTW, Thanks for taking the time guys!!

Re: Guide to communions
 

yeah you're missing something big. hit army setup screen. the guy at the top has the highest unit id. the guy at bottom= lowest

Edit: i think jarkko is right. i have it backwards

Re: Guide to communions
 

In the Army setup window (where you script orders for your commanders and regiments) the units at top have the smallest unit ID and those at bottom have the highest unit ID. Hence the phrase "mages on top cast first" :)

Re: Guide to communions
 

OK...LOL, seems one answer brings 2 questions. Sorry guys I never played SP, I just jumped in and took my lumps.

So obviously I want the bottom 3 commanders (out of my fictional 3 communions) to be the CM and the top 24 mystics to be the CS.

But it seems I would also want my CM (bottom 3 units in the order) to have the most paths as all the other CS get those paths whether they have them or not. If this is correct you would think there would be a way to move the units around so the 3 on the bottom that you want to make your CM are the ones with the most paths.

Is there a way to do it or is it just luck of the draw?

Thanks...after this answer I think I will have to test and mess around with it some, seems my brain is full ( and no..it doesn't take much jokes!!:p)

Thanks agian Guys!!

Re: Guide to communions
 

It's all luck of the draw there. Your options are then to not use the some slaves that are placed poorly, use them anyway but without them able to cast, or give the masters some sort of ranged weapon and set them to "fire" commands at the end of your script.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Luck of the draw. There's no way to reorder them.

Just to be clear, the slaves don't get any new paths or even automatic boosts in the paths they have. All they get is the benefits of path booster spells cast by the Masters. For Mystics, that's PotS, Summon Earth & Phoenix Power. +1 to every path they have, +1 to Earth and Fire if they have them.

So for those purposes all I'd really be concerned about is that one of the masters has Earth and one has Fire.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Hmmmm, so if you have 3 really bad units at the bottom you might want to go with 18 slaves instead of 24 and leave those last three out so you have a better communion...correct?

Ok, I was writing this as thejeff was posting...as long as the answer to THIS question is yes, then I think I have a handle (as small as it may be) on communions and can read the guide agian with some knowledge...

Re: Guide to communions
 

It wouldn't actually make the communion better per say to leave them out, no. They just wouldn't be able to actually contribute anything by casting spells, so you may not consider them necessary to bring along.

Re: Guide to communions
 

They help distribute the fatigue. Thus they are useful.

Re: Guide to communions
 

OOOOK, so because they can't cast AFTER the CM casts, they still count in Fatigue distribution....Now, it is starting to make sense...thanks all (I mean it):up:

Re: Guide to communions
 

Even if they could cast they'd count for fatigue distribution! That's a feature of all communion slaves. The fatigue is spread around to them that masters would ordinarily gather from casting spells, no matter what unit id they have.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Quick question: just to make sure, self-buffs cast by masters affect all the slaves, but NOT the other masters, correct?

I had an idea. Reinvig on communion slaves is nice: you can get 2-4 from boots, summon earthpower, etc. But, suppose you dont have enough slaves, and your masters are casting big fatigueing spells. Fatigue damage turns into hit point damage at 10:1, right? Now, what if the slaves have Personal Regeneration? Its around 20% IIRC, which on a standard human is 2 hit points. That is the equivalent of 20 fatigue! All you need is an N1 master to cast Personal Regen.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Sounds right to me. You'll pick up afflictions, but that's better than death.
A nature bless & sacred slaves will work too. And stack with Personal Regen.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Hrm...makes me wonder -

1) If you pick up feeblemind affliction, does it drop you out of any communions you may be in at the time?

2) If you have Life After Death/Ankh active, do you remain in the communion after converting to soulless form? I'd think this would be similar to whatever happens for mages w/secondshapes, but I've never tried...

Re: Guide to communions
 

Interesting idea, but keep in mind that's not gonna kick in until you get to 200 fatigue which is a pretty dangerous place to be. Works as a last ditch thing though.

Re: feeblemind I don't know for sure, but I'd be very surprised if it dropped you out of an existing communion. Pythium's communicants for instance are in a communion with no magic paths so presumably magic paths are not directly tied to communions.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Alternatives to armor in protecting your communions:

Suppose you are on defense. You know your opponent is going to Stone Rain (aka Communion Bane) their first turn. How do you protect your communion? Putting armor on your mages has been mentioned, but I suspect most nations can recruit cheap communionable mages faster than they can forge armor for them. My thought would be, have a crystal matrix on a mage at the end of the ID list (the bottom of the commanders listing), and have them cast Stoneskin or Barkskin or something like that the first turn. The slaves above that crystal-matrix-enabled buffer have all cast CSlave already, so they should be part of the communion when the buff gets cast, so they will get it. You still need armor on the other masters though.

Suppose you are on offence, same problem. If all the slaves have slave matrices and a master has a crystal matrix and an amulet of barkskin, will the barkskin get auto-cast before the beginning of combat and affect all the slaves? In fact if I read the discussions of Crystal Shields etc. in the thread above, it sounds like in this case you don't even need to worry about the order of the slaves/masters. The only disadvantage to this plan is that slave matrices are expensive, it may be cheaper just to forge armor.

If the enemy throws Earthquake against your communion, I'm not sure what to do. Same trick, but use Boots of Quickness, to buff Defense? Does that even work that way?

Re: Guide to communions
 

I'm almost sure that barkskin amulet will not give barkskin to the whole communion because it is just an effect the item gives and not the "auto-cast" spell. In fact, only items that autocast self-buff spells will affect the whole communion when worn by the master with matrix and all slaves have matrixes too. The two items that come to mind are Crystal Shield and Copper Plate

Re: Guide to communions
 

On the other hand, there's nothing saying that you can't have a master at the bottom of the list carrying a crystal matrix and cast bark/stone/ironskin/invulnerability the first turn. That would work just as well.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Not when you're on offense. The only thing I know that CAN protect your mages from Stonerain and such on offense is the Sword of Aurgelmer (and partly the Ankh). And that really makes these items splendid and very important to have. When I have to choose what to forge - Sword of Aurgelmer or Boots of the Planes, I will always choose the first one. And I will prefer the Ankh to the Pain Sickle if I have to choose among them.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Yeah, that only works for defense. I was saying for defense because he specifically mentioned being on the defensive. On the offensive, options are definitely limited.

Re: Guide to communions
 

You don't attack with massive communions, you trick your opponent into attacking your massive communion.

(Well, if you're absolutely certain your opponent cannot nail you with RoS or the like on turn 1, by all means do attack with your communion. But attacking blind with a communion is a recipe for disaster!

Re: Guide to communions
 

Or cast some ghost riders and some such to make the opponent waste gems first. Or teleport a SC, buff him 5 turns and retreat him for the same purpose.

Re: Guide to communions
 

I have one question I haven't seen addressed...I've read through all 14 pages, but not since coming up with this question.

The situation was this: it was late-game and I had an enemies pretender and a few angels fly (or maybe teleport?) on top of one of my castles. The pretender was summoning hoards of elementals (I don't remember the spell, but he was F9 W9, and got like 10 Fire elementals in one casting, and then 10 water elementals).

I had 5 vampires (I was Ulm, but these were the 3D 3B ones that everyone can summon, not the 2D 2B Ulmish ones) that I had a perfect idea for, so I gave one of them the blood tome, a RoS, and the blood Chest-piece (the non-unique one) and a runesmasher and 30 slaves, scripted to communion master, Hellbind, Hellbind, Reinvigoration, Hellbind, Spells. I gave the other 4 vamps crystal matricies and scrpited them to summon skelly hoards. I then stuck some faeries (Or whatever the unit you get with Fairy Queen's Court is) and some Air Elementals that one of my Elemental uniques was summoning to keep them occupied while hellbind did its job.

My question is this: does it matter that my slaves were B3 casters for the purpose of increasing his effective level of casting? Could have I just as easily thrown in some of my (now useless, I've finished researching) 1S Sages to do the job just as well (They couldn't summon undead, and they would take slightly more fatigue, I know)?

Re: Guide to communions
 

The b3 mages don't boost your masters paths more, but they take much less fatigue from blood and death spells cast by the master.

In this case, if you had some 1s mages as well, I'd make two vampire masters and one sage master. The vampire masters cast hellbind, darkness and rejuvenation. The Sage master casts power of the spheres and light of northern stars. Vampire slaves cast first imps and then skellyspam, sage slaves spam paralyze.

Re: Guide to communions
 

Yeah, the elementals and the skelly spam killed off 1 angel, I stole 1 angel, 1 angel retreated, and the pretender was gone. From now on, I'll just use my little S1's as slaves ( have about 40 of them). I just like the vampire army because I didn't mind too much if it died.

So far, I seem to be steamrolling the opposition, but I'm thinking of giving each of those S1s a cap (and maybe a coin?) and (maybe?) a matrix, and reverse-communioning with summon earthpower, power of the spheres, maybe body ethereal, luck, invulnerability...etc

All the slaves would be spamming...uh...that 999 damage spell...mind burn? Does this sound reasonable? What's the best/most efficient way to use them?

Re: Guide to communions
 

Paralyze is better if you are also casting hellbind since a paralyzed unit is effectively dead if you win and can still be hellbinded.

Soulslay is the other spell to consider, but putting caps on all those mages just for that isn't worth the pearls. Better to reverse communion them with Power of Spheres and light of the northern star.

A matrix on a smith is a good idea, but body ethereal can't be reversed since it isn't a personal buff. You want earthpower, mistform (use an air smith) and invulnerability, that should be enough to protect slaves. Then he can cast a couple thunderstrikes or something. Or he could do resist lightning then wrathful skies.

Buffing up vampire counts in reverse commuion is fun too if you are in friendly dom and have a lot of them, don't forget fire shield and astral shield in that case.