Death Match Questions
 

Another newbie inquiry.

So far, when I get the Death Match message early in the game, I've been reluctant to send a champion. I don't want to lose a valuable unit early on.

So, a few questions, if I may:

- Do you send champions to the Death Matches early in the game?

- Do you ever send your pretender or just your best commander?

- A Man specific question; how strong are the Tuatha? Would they make a decent candidate for a death match or would that just be throwing them away?

Thanks for any help.

[ March 29, 2004, 16:43: Message edited by: Amerasu ]

Re: Death Match Questions
 

You'll get a lot of different opinions on this one. In early game I send a champion that would be sure to either win, like say a level 5 priest with water9 blessing, or someone that would atleast take down one other participant, like an assassin or a melee commander with the selfdestruct item, berzerkers pelt or the amulet of lycantropy (the winner will more than likely pick the item up).

I only send the pretender in when I'm sure I can beat the snot out of every other pretender out there. Only a SC will have much use for the trident however.

Tuatha are strong enough to be able to slay most basic commanders, especially if they got the spells to back their melee.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

What Wauthan says is, as usual, 100% right.
If I may add my own tiny opinion: I rarely send a champion, period, unless I really want to eliminate some enemy commanders. I rarely send a champion not so much because I hate losing mine (although I do), but because I hate the prize. It's a halfway decent trident, but it's cursed so that you can never remove it.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

The trident gives quickness, which can be useful for a mage whom you would not give other hand gear to -- e.g. will not be giving a Staff of Elemental Mastery etc.
Early on, the XP bonus is also likely to land the winner a spot in the Hall of Fame and thus a heroic ability.
Even in SP, I sometimes sit out the first match and see what the AIs send; if a pretender wins, I'll prepare a few "gifts" for the next contest.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

So, the winner of the Death Match recieves the magic trident, which is actually a fairly decent item early in the game (since I've seen DM's announced on something like turn 2 or 3).

But, the trident goes in a hand slot, and it's cursed. So .... What happens if a commander that doesn't have hands wins the Death Match? A Dragon, say, or, heh, a Monolith?

Re: Death Match Questions
 

In a deathmatch with n contenders, at least n-1 contenders will die. (It is possible that all n contenders die). Remember this, always.

Thus, unless you are absolutely sure that the contender is sending will win, you are not going to affect the outcome of the number of enemy contenders that will die.

With exception of a special case (dealt with in a moment), the real question is thus: Do you have a commander that
</font>

1. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">will win almost certainly</font>
2. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">can actually use the trident and will never want to dump it in favour of a good sword, shield, bow, staff of elemental mastery &etc</font>
3. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">will at random be forced to participate in future deathmatces, no matter what you want him to do at the time</font>

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
In most cases, the answer is no. Those strong enough to be near certain winners are nearly always magical creatures that benefit much more from magic-boosting or shielding items than from the quickness of the Trident and the extra XP gained from winning. Additionally, the higher the difficulty level of enemies, the nastier things you will meet so the more powerful you will have to be to win - and the less likely that it is a unit that will overall benefit from wielding the Trident.

(Note: In case the winner has no hands, he does not get the Trident. You could base around not even getting that one, but still risking life and limb, I guess, but that is a bit far out.]

In other words, there are exceptionally few cases where it pays to enter the Death Match with the intent to win. This is skewed by the number of human players to AI players, but a good baseline: Don't enter in order to win - it does not pay off.

[Unless you are Ermor and send a spare Dusk Elder. Dusk Elders will kill just about anything in a Death Match and it is hard to afford decent equipment for all your Dusk Elder's anyhow]

I promised a special case before, and this is it. You can enter in order to lose, and still gain. This is done by booby-trapping your contestant such that he will hurt the opposing contenders.

It should be immediately obvious that a booby trap based on inflicting massive damage on a single contender is useless. If you are not going to win, then there is only going to be one enemy survivor anyhow, so your killing off one is completely and utterly irrelevant.

In other words, what you are interested in is cursed items that the enemy will pick up. With a bit of luck, it will be given to the enemy that defeats your contender, who, if defeated, will hand it over to another contender &etc. Eyes of Aiming, Berserker Pelts, Knives of the Damned, Amulets of Lycanthropy, Armour of Thorns - only your imagination sets the limit - so long as you choose something cursed or immediately disabilitating (Fever Fetish). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 29, 2004, 17:46: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

Re: Death Match Questions
 

Another consideration is that if you do defeat an enemy pretender then you would be at war with jpretender's nation. In the early game I try to limit the number of nations with which I am at war, so therefore I avoid the deathmatch early. As stated earlier this allows you to see what the other nations are sending and prepare an SC against a known contender.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

One other thing though is the honour you gain by winning the death match.

Sure, it does not give you anything, but I always try to win the contest to show everybody that my champion rocks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is why winning with a pretender gives them a horrible achilles heel against human opponents, mostly because once they win they can never refuse to participate and the longer the game goes on, the more nasty suprises they could get. I would imagine a gift of kurgi could be somewhat painful for example 8)

Still I don't think you loot anything if your slots are already full, so you could probably avoid most of that irritation by loading your SC up with cheap items.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not always true. Counter-example below.

Quote:

I promised a special case before, and this is it. You can enter in order to lose, and still gain. This is done by booby-trapping your contestant such that he will hurt the opposing contenders. It should be immediately obvious that a booby trap based on inflicting massive damage on a single contender is useless. If you are not going to win, then there is only going to be one enemy survivor anyhow, so your killing off one is completely and utterly irrelevant. In other words, what you are interested in is cursed items that the enemy will pick up.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There are other ways to booby-trap an arena deathmatch and keep your champion. The most effective I've seen is using an astral/nature mage with an item like a Lantern Shield or BOLW, and scripted (Curse)(Horror Mark)(Soul Slay)(Soul Slay)(Returning). With Ritual of Returning on top of it as an extra insurance. There are other variants, but this one is nasty.

[ March 30, 2004, 07:24: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Okay, that one is nasty. I had no idea that ritual of returning worked in Deathmatches http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why wouldn't it? You gotta think outside the box when you play Dominions.

[ March 30, 2004, 15:24: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Death Match Questions
 

Summoning lammashastas and returning would also be a bit mean. Hm. If the lammashastas kill the other guy, who proceeds onto the next round?

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's much more risky, requires gems, and will work only for one round. OTOH the routine I've posted costs no gems, and your champion can repeat it for the whole tournament as long s/he succesfully Soul Slays his/her competitor. In one occasion (in Doms 1) I've had my Wyrm killed by a friend who used a nature Squidface mage. My Wyrm was cursed, horror marked and Soul Slayed in 2 rounds (Squids could equip boots then). This one had the Ritual of Returning mark, Boots of Quickness, a Lantern Shield, a Spell Focus and a Bottle of Living Water, and some other stuff I can't remember. He eventually won the tournament.

Quote:

Hm. If the lammashastas kill the other guy, who proceeds onto the next round?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nobody OFC. The tournament doesn't require a winner if noone survives.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">HAHAAAHAHA!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why wouldn't it? You gotta think outside the box when you play Dominions. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, we are talking about magic powerful enough to force the current record-holder to be magically transported against his will (together with all the other participants who join voluntarily) to some nether realm outside the reach of all other travel magic* where the battle takes place.

That is some damn serious mojo right there.

If the Spirit of the Deathmatch arranged all that just to see people (using the term lightly here) fight for its glory, it is hard to see why it should allow anyone to magically flee, as it has the power to bring them there by magic in the first place. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Possibly a bureaucratic cockup is to blame.

Thinking outside the box? I have been inventing better boxes for decades http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif


* Not even a wish can transport you to the Deathmatch, it can only coerce the Spirit of the Deathmatch to shedule one two months later.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

Pfft, you and your boxes. The reason one could not teleport into the deathmatch is because no one knows where it is.

[ March 30, 2004, 20:22: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or maybe it's unknown and nonexistent... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Death Match Questions
 

In a game with 10 ennemies:

If you send in a champion:
a)Either 10 ennemy comanders die and your commander lives or
b)Your commander dies and 9 ennemy commanders die

If you do not send in a champion:
9 ennemy commanders die and your commander lives

Hence, if you are not too keen on the trident, sending somebody in does not seem to be such an attractive option. At best, you will kill one more commander, but for that, you have to win all the fights. In all other cases, your commander dies and the number of killed enemy commanders is just the same as if you would not have sent anybody in.

For me, this is an argument for making the trident more powerful. In addition to melee bonuses it should have some valuable magic abilities.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

Jowe. the trident already has a strong magical ability, quickness, it just doesn't read in the description.

It's VERY good for some early combat mage pretenders, like a Phoenix with very high magic levels. Also, the phoenix can very easily avoid the pain of being in every DM after that, simply by getting killed in his own dominion. And even on top of that, Phoenix with 9 fire and 6 air (or something) doesn't really care all THAT much of getting killed outside his own dominion once.

Re: Death Match Questions
 

Just FYI : in the current pbem I'm in, there are 11 human players and 4 AIs.
On turn 5 a DM was held : not *one* human player did send anyone, the fight was between the 4 AIs commanders ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...and very low "finger levels". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

(Hmmm, I guess he could wield that trident in his beak, if that didn't prevent him to use his pyrotechnic magic).

Re: Death Match Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Like we're going to waste an early commander to fight one of the Ermor Wraith Lords...

(and I believe one of the AIs had enough sense to keep out of it, but I may be wrong)