are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

iirc norfleet said that scouts etc. who hide can't be targeted by seeking arrow .
is this true ?
and can they be targeted by flames from the sky , murdering winter and flames from afar ?
i need this for my guide because i am now not sure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
thnx for your clarification

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

AFAICT Stealth units are ummune to any spell or remote summons or assasination attempts, IF they are "hidden" or
sneaking". Any other command would "unhide" stealthy unit, and he can be targeted.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

oh thnx .

does that mean that stealth units are the "perfect" mules for equipment because noone can target them via any damage spell like the flames from afar ?

if yes i think this is a bad solution and perhaps worth considering altered in 2.13 [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

Yes, as long as you keep them hidden.

BTW when stealthy units are being build, they considered *not* to be "hidden" the first turn they build, so enemy can spot them. This fact can also be used to your advantage, like when you are building a castle with one of your scout next to the border with your enemy: if you produce 5 more scouts in other provinces along your border, they all would look the same to your enemy(meaning they will all be visible), so he will not know at which province he need to strike before castle is finished. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

ok so vans take a province. The following turn i flame them with fires from afar are they hidden?

a.) assuming they order to move/attack out

b.) scratching their nuts

frosted flake

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Attacking hidden units by magic do not unhide them. It doesn't even scratch their nuts.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

Yes, they will be attacked by and can be killed. As I said, any order other than "hide" or "sneak" will make units vulnerable to any type of regular or magical attack by attack by unhiding them.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

In the case of Vans, which have glamour, they have "built in" hide whenever they are in friendly territory, even if they have defend or patrol as their order. So the question might be better expressed as whether glamour-based hiding works the same as orders-based hiding for this purpose.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

oh that's sad . i think that should be changed in the next patch because there is no way to wipe out clamhoarding scouts then other then by completely wiping out the nation who clamhoards or killing all their mages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar..?
 

It wouldn't make much sense to me if Fires From Afar, which is described as striking military camps, would hit sneaking units.

If such scouts are hiding in a fortress when the fortress is beseiged, they will be trapped inside and killable.

I think it does make sense that scouts can hide and avoid such attacks.

For the clam-hording issue, I would tend to suggest a different change:

* Use of clams should only work for mages (minimum 1 magic level, or perhaps minimum 1 research point). Might also limit it to one clam effective per person (or not).

* Fever Fetish should only work on units which take damage from disease.

PvK

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

If the devs limit the number of clams per mage, then they should also limit the number of contracts per person. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

This would actually make good sense thematically - after all you have to be a Used Cars Salesman Of The Year to sell your soul to the Devil twice ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

yeah but this is no so serious issue since blood is better invested in vampires anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

hm btw hidden scouts can't be targeted by assasination attempts too or ? so can a hidden scout be ever be the target of a horror attack then ?

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

I already said - no. He also can not be targeted by "send horror" spells. But the random horors attack would still find him, otherwise you could use any 20gp scout as a devil factory without any risk. That would be cheezy.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

some people do look at the issues in a manner other than just min/max'ing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
It doesnt make sense thematically which does matter to some of us. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

maybe in the late game when you are winning the dominion race anyways, i think. Devils seem better for crushing the heathen in the middle.
In theory, you could pump near twice as many, given hammers, as you could vampires; besides earlier. It is, however, more trouble to organize these devil factories.
A VL can easily summon more of his kith as well as his kin. well, thematically, their sure ain't only one Devil...
;-)

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

All right, I should say "to sell your soul to the Satan twice". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

i was not fully serious http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

but i think that unkillable clams on stealth leaders are not a good idea . this is i think a bit unbalanced .
so you can't target the clams but only the clam producing industry . some nations have here a huge advantage , e.g. jotun , ermor , r'leh , atlantis while their clam industry is either quite tough and can survive 1-2 flames from the sky or almost can't be targeted at all because of underwater .

the problem is imho you are not very competetive in mp lategame when you can't do one of the 3 things good :
- bloodhunt largely (mictlan , abysia )
- clamhoard largely (especially r'leh , atlantis , ermor , arco , pythium )
- forge extreme cheap (ulm)

some nations can't do anything of the 3 good , e.g. machaka , vanheim , man . they have in common that they are good rushers . so in early game the normally wipe out some neighbors but in lategame their chances quickly dwindle because they have to fight against overwhelming enemy hordes + better equipped / stronger scs .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

the problem is 1st you can sacrifice to dominionpush that is quite dangerous . and a vampire lord can cast blood rite if you need fast vampires . each vampire lord gets 7 vampires / turn per bloodrite for only 26 slaves or can summon 1 vampire / turn free .

a soul contract costs 80 blood slaves and as abysia / mictlan who are the main Users of that you can only reduce it to 60 blood slaves with a dwarfen hammer but not more .
so unless you find a site with nice construction bonus it is not cheaper than a vampire lord (55 blood) who too produces 1 vampire / turn and is a good mage as sidebenefit .
sure devils are tougher than vampires but that doesn't count . both are very vulnerable against storm because it cancels their flying . but the vampires are revived as long as you fight in friendly dominion.

i like a main army of vampires and smaller armies of devils or preferable storm demons when i can get them .
the devils / storm demons main purpose is though to destroy enemy temples and raid in order to improve my chances winning the dominionrace to be able to use my vampires without any risk offensive too .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Your experience differs greatly from mine.

I have yet to be in a game decided by clamhoarding, nor by choice of nation.

IMO, the most important factors are, in order:
-skill/knowledge of players involved, in particular regarding early expansion, strategic development of the nation played (design, research goals...) & battlefield tactical performance.
-diplomacy.
-starting location & map choice.

Whether someone bothers building any clams or not would fall pretty far in the list & be pretty minor IMO compared to the above 3. Forging a few clams is not going to save you if your enemy is 3 times bigger than you, and comes knocking at your door.

While some nations might be argued to be a bit better than others this hardly ever becomes the deciding factor in my experience. I would also dispute the reasons you name to justify some nations being better or worse, and the rating...I rather think that the old DomI faction rating by Alex Poger pretty much still stands nowadays, with some minor adjustments (you can google the newsgroup for it).

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

yeah sure . but starting location + map choice you can't influence .
surely an unskilled player who only clamhoards looses .
but a skilled player designs a good god too and knows what to research + battle tactics .
since clams are extremely cheap , only construction 2 so clamhoarding as a sidestrategy is good .
if you survive until lategame and have clamhoarded this becomes really a key factor .
lots of good clamhoard nations like pythium + arco are already strong without and clamhoarding doesn't need much effort . it is almost a "no-brainer" .

i agree that diplomacy is one of the most important factors in dominions . but a good player does this too.

i want to point out that i think 2 things are a bit too strong :
- not clams themselves but that they can't be destroyed by strategic measures like flames from the sky when they are hoarded on hidden stealth leaders .
- a critical mass of vampire lords + vampires . lategame you can even pick battles via stygian paths .
you have to fight these immortal armies endless when you attack a strong blood nation in mid-lategame because they always have friendly dominion while you have to defeat every other enemy army only once ( expect demiliches + wraith lords + vq + the other immortal pretenders but they are all either unique or too expensive / need equipment which is still lost ) .
vampires need no equipment to be brutal when you reach a critical mass .

sure an army with lots of wither bones / holy pyre casters + a staff of storm can defeat a vampire horde easy . but this is one of the really few armies which have good odds defeating 300-500 vampires without at least losing 20% of their own troops . against these special armies you counter then via e.g. storm demons + a few scs ( pazuzu e.g. ) .

finally : you can easy say you have seen no game won by clams because you don't see clams in the gem income scoregraph and don't see the enemy stealth units hoarding them too . so it is hard to tell if the winner hasn't clamhoarded too and this ensured in lategame his supremacy .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

More games are won without clamhoarding than with by a large degree. Too many people have been influenced by the horror stories of people who have either cheated or play lactic games.

Or feel that their SP tactics can work in MP. Of course, maybe in games of negligable and variant skill levels, such things are much more common than where you can afford to waste your time/resources for a 10 turn return.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

yeah sure but imho ( and one of the most experienced / best players who norfleet still is though he cheated shared this opinion too ) you have little other uses for water gems as nonunderwater nation .
you can forge a few boots of quickness , use some sea troll kings courts and 5 water are needed for a jade armor . but this is already almost everything else where it is good to spend water on .
so you gather a big surplus of water gems with many nations and then clam hoarding is the most profitable investition . producing 1-2 clam(s) / turn from midgame on doesn't hurt you but help you greatly . so lategame this is a huge advantage .

i am sure that most skilled players clamhoard and i don't believe you if you say you don't build clams with all your excess water gem income when you can build clams .

i still claim that clamhoarding is almost a "no-brainer" when you can do this with your nation .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

You can analyse all you like but until you have played a significant number of games the analysis is likely to differ from real play experience. Took me 15 years to figure this out but there you are.

Quoting Wendigo
"IMO, the most important factors are, in order:
-skill/knowledge of players involved, in particular regarding early expansion, strategic development of the nation played (design, research goals...) & battlefield tactical performance.
-diplomacy.
-starting location & map choice."

In my very limited experience the most important things I have found are

- Achieving a basic level of competence in the nation you are playing
- Diplomacy
- Winning battles
- Learning to transition from creeping to playing real enemies
- Map position

Hmm these are actually pretty close to yours Wendigo

It is hard to credit Norfleet with any real play ability but I too think the high level water spells are not very good.

Pickles

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

I don't build clams with my 'excess' water gems. Mostly because I rarely have an 'excess' water gem supply. It's invariably being used. (Note: I don't have a philisophic reasoning for not using Sea King's Court, Murdering Winter, Ice Elementals, Wolven Winter, and if possible Water Queens)

You can not believe it all you want, but thats the way it is. I have and will continue to build clams if I have a need for them (with Atlantis for example) but rarely do I go for a clamhoard as I detailed in my TC guide.

I'm sure you can't find it concievable at all; but there it is. Clamhoarding is a red herring that is going to keep getting newbies killed over and over again by wasting their right now resources for turn 50 peace of mind. This isn't to say that there are not that many good upper end summons for Water Magic and that that could be changed. But with the sheer amounts of Jade Armor I tend to go through, having water gems is usually critical to 2/3's my games.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Consider several possible situations:
- you're fighting non-cold resistant nation. Wolven Winter+ Murdering winter are very efficient, especially against opponents that rely on a mass of mages in the battles. This combo is quite costly though, so you're not likely to have any spare.
- you're SC intensive nation. Then you need *a lot* of boots of quickness and jade armors. In this case you'd want to have a lot of antimagic amulets and eitheri lucky coins or pendant of luck. This means that you need about 2 astral per one water, so I'd typically try to forge few clams to have such a ratio of gem income.
- if you're land nation and you're near the water, you want Sea Trolls and Water Queens (if you can get them in time), which again means water gems.

This leaves clam-hoarding strategy restricted to special cases. For example, if you're stuck in the corner, with nearby nations tough for you (Marignon for Ermor, or 2 allied nations for anybody), clam-hoarding (and any gem producing items -hoardig) is a good way to grow power without expanding. Atlantis vs land nations is essentially the same situation: difficult to wage aggressive war and easy to defend.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

whats wrong with FFing as machaka?

about the soul contract...
once you give it to one commander, can you go and give it away to another? this wouldnt make sense thematically

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

AFAIK, you can (but I'm not certain). Logically, it should be a CURSED item and thus unremovable except via the owner's death. Thematically, the contract should be a cursed item. Isn't selling your soul a curse (of the worst sort)?

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Soul Contracts are cursed, and horror marked too.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Makes sense. Being a Horror-magnet will speed your doom, fulfilling the contract sooner. If the devs had wanted to be really nasty, they should also make the contracts reduce the owner's MR to zero, adding yet more insult to injury. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

ok i believe you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
but when you play on big maps they are a really good future investment .

boots of quickness or jade armors are really a good investment .
the seakings + water queens are only good if you plan to invade the sea .

zen do you put boots of quickness or a jade armor on all your mages or only on scs ?

because when you use them only for scs and don't plan to conquer the sea you should have excess water income .
or as ermor e.g. you should have a big excess water income in mid-lategame too and because of your amphibian undeads no need for the sea king trolls and little need for waterqueens .
as ermor clamhoard mid-lategame is imho a must .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Heh, I just had a battle where someone carrying a Soul Contract died and someone else found it after the battle, so he's now cursed with it. I wonder if the devil got the soul of the first guy.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Of course. When the second fellow picked up the contract, he "accepted" the contract's terms, and thus is doomed to the same eventual fate. In this case picking up the contract carries the same consequence of acceptance that breaking shrink-wrap does for software. The moral of the story? You can look at contracts, but you shouldn't touch them. Let your lawyer do that. He's doomed to Hell anyway ...

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

I've been wondering about this WW+MW combo. It seems to me that the Wolven Winter causes the temp drop at the "event" phase, which is after all the far-attack spells are resolved and even magic battle phase.

The practical example of this was in one previous MP I cast WW into a province I also teleported my BoF-using pretender to. The battle was fought in a neutral temp (at least I spotted no enc changes due cold), after the battle reports was "unexpected event"-message of a bad winter and on the map I saw that the said province had a heavy cold scale.

I may have missed or overlooked something, but could it be that in order to WW+MW to be effective the Wolven Winter ought to be cast one turn earlier? Which would make hitting moving targets fairly hard... Anyway, MW in itself is fairly good for killing frail mages.

As to fighting against cold-immune nations, it might be worth noting that even them may have non-immune troops. For example, Nornas and Seithkonas freeze to death easily, thank you very much, and other may have indy troops. Also, in battles, assume a lot of cold-immune troops and a few special non-immune mages (like, Jotun troops and Seithkonas). If mages are scripted to cast cold elemental spells, who do they target? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

hm 5+30 watergems =5 clams
and as you said hit not guaranteed . Furthermore the murdering winter is 5W so hard to reach and not worth imho taking it onto your pretender .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Yea but when talking about hitting an army full of mages five (three actually, unless you have the hammer) clams do very little, don't you think? Of course, hardly worth flinging Murdering Winters around on random, but it's a situational thing. And MW does hit unless target teleports/gateways out of the way in time, it was the time Wolven Winter hits I was a bit confused about.

You can boost anything with water-2 or more with items easily (bracelet, that robe, staff of elemental mastery) to 5W, if you have only water-1 mages you probably aren't having enough water gem income for clams or MWs anyway so the issue becomes quite moot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

(okay, forgot about Sea King's Court, but anyway, water-5 is reachable)

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

yeah but murdering winter does not too much too unless lategame :
because early-midgame you will rarely have a big enough target where it may be costeffective to use (expect enemy capitol perhaps ).
furthermore you need most likely construction 6 before to have a 5W mage + you need evocation 7 or 8 for murdering winter .

so the murdering winter is very situational and against e.g. caelum / jotunheim because of CR it doesn't even work .
with clams you can start on about turn 5 when you reach construction 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif so in earlygame .

then in midgame your clams should provide high enough income that you can chose when the special situations occur to convert some either to water or to fire for murdering winter or flames from the sky http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

clams are underestimated but once you reach lots of in late midgame or in lategame and get 50+ / 100+ clam astral income this is huge and probably doubles your total gem income and you don't have to pay too much for it too :
only your water gems early game and then convert the clam astral income always back to water when you can afford and don't need astralincome items like luck pendant .

when properly done clams provide you doubled - tripled lategame gem income .
and astralpearls are the most valuable gemincome lategame anyway because you can convert them cheap at 2:1 ratio to whatever gems you need or you can wish with them .

once reaching a critical mass you can increase your clams really fast :
from 100 clams you can cast either 1 wish / turn
or convert them back to water and forge 5 additional clams each turn without dwarfen hammer or 7 each turn with dwarfen hammer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Gee, speaking of situational, for Wish you need Alteration _9_, and a mage with Astral 9. That's a bit harder to get then Evocation 7 and Water 5, unless you're a strong Astral nation, you have to take it on your pretender. And conventional wisdom is that it's unwise to put Astral on your pretender unless it's immortal.

That Murdering Winter on the other hand can target the other nation's capitals, it can target their library/sage guild provinces and really nail their research (and quite possibly bunches of items on the sages), it can target armies that are about to attack you, quite possibly killing some mages and causing their magic troops to be left out of the attack.

Doesn't seem all _that_ limitted to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

you always only quote parts of my argumentation not the whole http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

i said the murdering winter is available earliest midgame and costeffective most likely only in mid-lategame too.
when you start to build clams until midgame you can choose what to do :
if you see need for murdering winter you can stop clamproducing for a few turns and use your watergems for that or if quick needed convert clam astral pearls back to water .
BUT with clamhoard you can also cast fires from afar / flames from the sky if you need it .

so you are more flexible and have as bonus a 10-20 higher astral gem income in midgame .
thats what i said or at least what the intention of my previous post was perhaps i had it in mind but didn't say it clear enough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

because against lots of nations murdering winter is of little use :
against caelum , ermor , jotunheim

against abysia , r'leh , atlantis you need probably 2-3 wolven winter first to drop temperature from heat 3 to cold 3 .
furthermore finding the r'leh / atlantis capitol is not so easy because your scouts can't go underwater without water breathing items . and only 1 strat move underwater so if the capitol is hidden in the middle of the sea lots of chances for r'lehs pd to find your spy before and kill him .

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

I think you ignore the circumstantial value of Murdering Winter. It doesn't have to kill the huge amount of troops to be worthwhile. For example, in the recent game formidable army was invading my lands. Murdering winter has killed significant number of troops and about half of mages, on the same turn my release army attacked invaders securing victory with minimal losses due to disorder and death of cruicial spellcasters in the opponent's army. After defeating this army military advantage swung to my side and I was able to drive invader back and conquer a number of his lands and castles. Initial murdering winter wasn't probably worthwhile the number of troops it has killed, but the advantage it created was worth much more than 30 water gems.

50+/100+ astral income looks attractive, but successful expansion can bring you more. How would you fight the nation with 60+ gems income of every kind which would also had much larger gold income? Sitting and clam hoarding is essentially betting that other nations will kill each other and no single nation will be able to emerge dominant. Of course, you can target on the expansion and only forge clams with really spare gems. In this case you're not likely to accumulate that many clams, but that is practical approach, I think.

Again, looking at my example, the single Murdering Winter has allowed me to gain some lands (probably worth 200-300 gold per turn), some forts and 15-20 gems per turn. That's much more than the profit from clams. So in my view, clam forging is for the situation where you have no option to expand, when you actually need more astral gems for your immediate wars or when you have really spare water gems (remember, even if you don't need anything from water yourself, you can forge boots of quickness and trade them for something you need).

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

ok but 60 gems from each looks really high to me .
first only half nations are able to search via accashic record so only they find all sites .
with the standard 50% site frequenzy in mp games you have about 2-3 sites in average per province depending on terrain .
your 60+ gems of every kind would be 400+ gems / turn .
in average i think you get about 3-4 lets say 4 gems / fully searched province .
to get your 400 gems you need so about 100 fully searched provinces .
if you control this amount either the map ( aran , inland , desert eye ) is finished already or almost finished or you control at least half of the map ( karan , other 200-250 province maps ) .

so for a not already almost winning empire or a faerun game i think 100-200 gem income / turn per sites is already quite high .
furthermore this is only fully true for pythium and other accashic Users , e.g. vanheim , man etc. have normally big trouble finding more than 50% of the sites .

you are probably all right that clams are not worth building a strat around but your example looks a bit too good to me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

Personally, I rarely search with accashic anyway, as you expand you find various indy mages, some paths you can cover with summoning, so over the time I could search-cast in all paths. Your calculations are about right, but that game was on Orania, I didn't bother to search conquered lands in paths that I thought the previous owners had searched, so probably income was less than it could be, but about half the map on Orania brings quite a lot of gems.

Usually by mid-game you can get into most magic paths up to level 2 at least (indies, summon, mercs), so you can find nearly every site if you have time and need.

My example looks good, because it was example of successful conquest. However, the clam hoarder needs everybody fail in their conquests, so the whole map is in closely fought wars without anybody gaining significant advantage. This is not impossible and may even be a beter bet for some nation, but personally I don't like to rely on strategy which just awaits particular random outcome and when there isn't much difference I can make myself.

So my point was that by the time one could have had 50/100 astral from clams, the successful conquerer will already be wrapping up the game.

Re: are stealth units targeted by flames from afar
 

yep your points are good .
only 2 small additional thoughts :
-on a smaller map ( inland , aran , desert eye ) having 15-25 well defended provinces + clamhoard is good .
because there when you have 150 provinces as you had you have already won .

-on a big map like orania though your conqueror strat has 1 significant disadvantage :
you need lots and lots of troops + battle mages + small scs etc.
furthermore when you have e.g. 60 provinces on orania and are the biggest power then others will ally against you .

the clamhoarder looks weaker and not of a concern instead and does inner growth .
he has the advantage that he can spend most of his money on researchers and he will have in lategame only very powerful summons / scs etc.

i think the clamhoarder will have a higher research then the conqueror .
and the conqueror has to spend his gems on lots of low-midlevel things too because he can't wait and stockpile and techrush .

furthermore many of the best conqueror nations can't accashic and have bad sitesearchers .
so you have to be lucky and conquer e.g. lots of pythium , arco etc. territory which was already fully searched .

at the moment i like mictlan quite much : they can a bit clamhoard and get lots of blood and with the blood can expand very well in most stages of the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.