Cross Breeding
 

What is the best thing you can get? I got a pretty huge ...thing...with it on the demo..but I am wondering can you get things through this that are sc?

Re: Cross Breeding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There is a game someone made which I believe is on sunray site. (someone help me here?) You download it and unzip then play the game already in progress. You will find one province has all 1010 creatures in the game. Some VERY interesting things there that you are unlikely to see any other way. The description would usually tell you if its a crossbreeding result.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

you can get something like an ettin, chimera, cockatrix, a being kinda like Andariel in diablo II, etc.

dunno what has been added in doms II, that would spoil my fun to check all units.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

I always got those little worthless midgets when crossbreeding. Is it improved in DomII, or was I just unlucky in DomsI?

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Unlucky.

What's wrong with those midgets?
I don't think that Poison Spit, Life Drain or Touch of Leprosy are poor attacks.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

I love this spell. With a quite weak mage I managed to crossbreed some spider like stuffs.
I think with high magic you can crossbreed horrific creatures. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Cross Breeding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's with the "regular" crossbreeding (what an oxymoron http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) spell, the monsters Pocus mentioned you get with the improved crossbreeding spell. Btw, I love that spell - what you get is really a *mixed bag* by definition. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Ok, two things about the crossbreeding spell:
1)I think that you only get more "mårrar"(boogeymen) with more powerfull mage. Luck scale is what affects how powerfull midgets with tentacles you get.

2)I have gotten a Grotesque with "normal" Crossbreeding.

3)I think that Improved Crossbreeding is just a "more bang for the same buck" Version of the spell. Not sure though.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's nothing wrong in theory. I mean, they look fine in the stats screen. The problem is, they take time, effort, and magical resources to make, and seem to be less effective than light infantry in the deadliness and survivability departments.

Spending the slaves on devils, soul contracts, empowerment, fiends of darkness, spine devils, or many other things seem much more effective. But I've always been capped at level 4, and never seen improved cross breeding.

Does the mage's blood or nature level affect the quality of the results? There is no mention of that in the description...

Re: Cross Breeding
 

See my previous post.

Edit: I think there could be a couple more of Foul Spwans/other monsters, but we have the mod tools...

[ November 04, 2003, 20:00: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: Cross Breeding
 

I think the skill in blood won't matter. I have Fountain of Blood with 10 BM, and I didn't got stronger crossbreeds. This is odd btw. I think with higher BM you should get better, stronger crossbreeds.
If luck is affecting that what will you get....that is kinda stupid.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Crossbreeding is so random spell that Luck scale aafecting it seems ok to me.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

The crossbreeding spells are some good evil fun, IMO. If I used blood magic more, I'd rely on them much more heavily.

I think the Freak Lord should get a bonus to getting better results though. It seems in his nature, if you catch my drift.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Bleh, still stronger blood magic should affect this spell. Oh well.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Higher blood gives more freaks. Luck gives quality. Improved Crossbreeding increases numbers (and perhaps quality, but I don't think so).

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Just try with luck scale 0 and luck +3, and you'll see what happens. Luck +3 gives you a roughly even chance of getting one of the more powerful freaks (cockatrice, grotesque, ettin, another grotesque-sized foulspawn, chimera, draco-lion, basilisk) every time you cast Crossbreeding. Improved Crossbreeding gives you just more critters for less slaves, not better quality.

I've found this spell to be useful, in a recent co-op game with my friend (we stopped after everyone else was dead), I played as Arco, and found a Bloodhenge very early on. That netted me Bloodhenge Druids with 1 nature and 2 blood magic, so I got into the crossbreeding business very quickly. I could harvest slaves quickly enough to produce absolutely massive crossbred armies while buying enough hoplites was a money and resource problem.

Of course, you get a lot of absolute crap with crossbreeding, but every army needs a stack or two of fodder to soak the first impact so the better units can actually start slaughtering the enemy.

The crossbreeds turned out to be surprisingly effective if used correctly. Basically I used them as follows:
a) midgets, ground-fish (the non-amphibian idiots), werewolves and twin-headed werevolves are soaks that can and will be spent without a second thought.
b) tentacle monstrosities (red, green and lepers) are the actual useful infantry. Slow but they can be effective, as long as enemy doesn't have a lot of missile units and is up to medium or light heavy in quality.
c) spiders are good for cavalry duty, making flank attacks from sides, they can do short work of enemy archers and/or commanders if they don't get bogged down. But they eat like hogs, so supply can be a problem.
d) poison spitters are an absolutely fantastic backup for the tentacle squad, place right behind and watch the enemy die from massive poisoning.
e) big critters are to be used for maximum effectiveness in conjunction with summoned/recruited units or as bodyguards for commanders, because you just won't get enough of them to form squads of a unified type.

Of course, you need the crossbreeds in vast quantities, so for one army of useful size, you need about 90 slaves (6 castings) at luck 0, less if you have luck +3 and a powerful blood mage, so cost effectiveness is pretty limited. But using crossbreeding is not so much a pure cost-effectiveness thing as it is *fun*, or if you need to drum up a number of expendable troops in a hurry.

Edi

Re: Cross Breeding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">An excellent breakdown. Ive had the crossbreed spell save my tail many times when I got surprised in some back province with a lab where my mages were busy researching or creating items. OOPS too late to move troops. I wish the vine-troop spells created abit more units. The season units (fall, summer, etc) I often had but didnt have anyone THERE who could cast it.

Or in provinces where I had taken it far from my home province with no way to even walk an army there. I dropped in, took it, now need a supporting army fast.

I think with the changes to the "moving mass army" spells this use of cross-breeding will be even more popular.

Re: Cross Breeding
 

Forgot to add that the amphibian crossbreeds are one of the few truly underwater capable units available to the landbound nations aside from summoning hordes of undead. Though even the amphibian crossbreed is rather sucky underwater...

Edi