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.