Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Unfortunately though i now play i guess about 2-3 months mp i still have only finished 2-3 games and the others are still ongoing because they run at slower pace and are not very lategame . I am not sure when i really experience these situations in a game because they are probably not very common .

So once lategame is reached and the game is still not decided though gemincome is huge and everything is researched do battlemages then keep their value or loose it ?

First a question about targeting ai for magic spells :
If i use spells like charm / soul slay are the biggies ( the SCs ) are more likely targeted or not ?
If i use 50 devils and 5 SCs e.g. do i have a chance to hit a SC with a soul slay of 1/11 because each target is as likely to get hit or is it higher for the SCs because they are more often targeted ?

The disadvantages which i see with Mages are the following : The best devastating massdamage spells are Fire and Air . These 2 are resisted though by every SC with better equipment and fire is resisted by devils / lightning by storm demons .

So you have to use rather weak single or few target spells . Gifts from heaven and Banefire are 2 exeptions because they can't be resisted and do huge damage .
Any SCs with air though ( lategame wished airqueens ) can cast mirror image against banefire as Cohen said today on the board . So they survive normally quite a few and are likely to survive the first 5 scripted spells . Then the mages start to mix in lots of stupid spells and are less of a danger .

Gifts from heaven with EEES is not that easy to get too . Ok lategame you could empower your earthmages to S . But this leads to the danger of magic duel .
If you empower the other way round good astral mages to earth 1-3 this is even more expensive and doesn't fully save you too .
The opponent can empower an immortal then to good astral magic and teleport him in when you attack on friendly territory . This way you have always losses without doing much damage .
If you play pangenea cw or ermor you will give your vq/lich anyways something like astral 3-5 first for sitesearch and later with wish in mind .
So in lategame you have an almost unbeatable magic dueller when attacked .


So i ask if one player focuses more on mages and the other one more on SCs and if both meet in a key battle .
One has lots of battlemages with backup and perhaps a few SCs but not as good equipped / as numerous because he spent lots of his resources in his mages .
The other one has lots of good equipped SCs but very few mages . The SCs are backed up by an army too to soak up lots of nasty 1 target spells .

Who is more likely to win ?
I guess it will be the SC user because after the first 5 scripts the mages already lose some of their power and after a few more rounds they often fatigue out anyways if you don't have lots of possible reliefcasters i think .


So please tell me from practical experience what happened in your games there . My own practical experience there is unfortunately still a bit limited and since most of my current games are still in an early stage i think it will be perhaps on x-mas when i see that hopefully .

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Soul Slay Questions:
It depends from which troops you're facing. Usually it goes for biggies but not always.
In a game against Vanheim who's using Militia as meatshield Soul Slays before killed the Militia then Vans.
In a game against Ryleh the Soul Slay ignored the infantry and went directly on Ether Warriors and the commanders.
In other battles often seek "dangerous" guys, but for dangerous guys AI means too Devils, or Earth Gnomes or such.
The nearer is the enemy the most are the chances to get targeted too. I'm talking about Soul Slay only however.

Gifts from Heaven is reachable by some nations without empowering. Some items, or summon earthpower or power of the spheres.
About Magic Duel was bugged before 2.14, so almost no pretender has astral magic unless he's by default. Even if Immortal a guy lose all its eq.

This is a little realistic situation. Mass of troops get spotted easily, and you'll try to lower their number by remote spellcasting. Even more probably you won't waste your SC along with troops due to the lack of mobility of those one meanwhile usually SCs fly or teleport/trapeze.
However if the player with SCs has good intelligence and for this has the right elemental immunities/high mr depending from your magic paths is going to win easily.
Otherwise when the SCs will jump forward they'll get closer than your troops will be targeted mostly by the mages and probably get killed by massive spellcasting.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Exactly how was magic duel bugged before 2.14? I am asking because most of my pretenders have 7-8 astral around turn 40, and I want to know if they are somehow very vulnerable.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Thanks Cohen .

With remote spellcasting do you mean Flames from the sky / afar and the like ?

Or do you mean mages with only little backup casting 1-2 e.g. shimmering fields and then retreating ?


Devils are immune to flames though . So you would need murdering winter . And they could at least fly so you have still some mobility .



Your SCs alone have of course high mobility . But i once looked close at Saber Cherries dice odds and if my understanding was right even with a real high MR of e.g. 24 you always have 1-5% chance that a spell like soul slay succeeds .
Single SCs i think would have severe problems with e.g. pangenea . They could just station lategame everywhere 2 pans and with the generated maenads they serve as meatshield while they steal away your SCs with charm .

I asked all that because i had an idea :
When i have less games running i would like to try out a special setting of playing dominions if there is enough interest :
A 50 turn now rush match .
In a normal game it most likely really never gets so late but i think i would enjoy that from time to time too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif .

E.g. the world map would be good for this then about 8 players could be included and everyone can conquer an area like europe and for 30/50/60 turns there is a no-rush rule and after this the carnage begins .
I think this would lead into a gorgeous lategame war because everybody could try then to get his favourite lategame strat running without having to fear that the game ends before http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Magic Duel was bugged because often a S1 mage could kill an S6 mage, probably getting killed himself but it could be a good exchange unless your 1S mage has also many other paths.
What I think is strange is that this goes only vs Astral mages ... I'd believe Magic Duel should go against every mage, and Astral Mages are advantaged.

Yes I mean flames from sky, murdering winter, seeking arrows, flames from afar, beckoning and such.
Devils usually aren't a big problem if you have Air Magic, otherwise they could be painful even for SCs.
For Soul Slay you've to get prepared... Rune Smashers and Spell Focus, a Banner of Northern Star and if you can boots of quickness and starshine skullcap (but usually you don't have so many gems to forge all those stuff, and especially to give to frail mages ... but in a game with a no clam rule I had that eq for many astrologers).

And of the "standard SC equipment" are you really able to have for each base SC like a Banelord a Starshine Cap that costs 10 Pearls, and you lose the +1S, and obtain only +2 MR ... and have you too the Amulet of Antimagic? Or perhaps you'll need some elemental res? (Banelord fixed eq: Jade Armor, Boots of Fly, Pendant of Luck - this not so fixed but this always work against every opponent... - Drain Life Weapon and eventual shield or 2nd weapon. So you've 1 Misc 1 Head slottage free).
You can kill too a MR 25 guy (Banelord with Lead Shield, AMA and Starshine Skullcap, suited to survive to Ryleh Starspawns ... he died meanwhile the lobo mindless guards held it at bay) even if you'll need your time to accomplish that.

About playing in 8 in world map isn't very balanced.
There're Nations that have better access to long run strat, like Atlantis for Clams.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

Thanks again Cohen .

Yeah thats why i said 8 nations because in this extreme setup i think few will play e.g. man / marignon etc. because they have little abilities to hoard anything .

It is now with 2.14 not as good as it was but my favourite equipment for a sc was : Boots of quickness , Blood thorn , Luck pendant , Burning pearl , copper plate , amulet of antimagic and starshine skullcap .
This way he lacks flying if he hasn't built in but since staff of storms is so omnipresent boots of flying are only good for strategic mobility .
If i would play jotunheim niefelheim or for ice devils because they have water magic they can cast quickness so they could get boots of flying anyways instead of boots of quickness http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Now with 2.14 luckily this setup isn't as good anymore because burning pearl gives only 50% fire resist this way .
So now you have to pay if you want +4 attack and 100% fire resist because burning pearl only gives now +4 attack and 50% resist .


But with this setup i said above i think Niefel jarls , ice devils and similiar were really quite good alround SCs . Only protection was not so high but the listed equipment is not too expensive .

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

Every nation has something that they can forge for long term investment fairly easily using only their national mages.

For example:
Abysia: Soul contracts, clams.
Atlantis: Clams.
Pythium: Clams.
Caelum: Clams.
Arcoscephale: Clams.
C'tis: Fever Fetishes, clams.
Ermor: Clams.
Jotunheim: Soul Contracts, clams.
Man: Clams, fever fetishes.
Marignon: Clams, fever fetishes.
Pangaea: Earth blood stones, soul contracts.
R'lyeh: Clams.
Ulm(Default): Soul contracts.
Ulm(Iron Faith): Soul Contracts, clams.
Ulm(Black Forest): Vampire Lords.
Vanheim: Clams, earth blood stones, soul contracts.
Mictlan: Clams, soul contracts.
Machaka: Fever Fetishes.
T'ien C'Hi: Clams, fever fetishes, earth blood stones.

Every nation has the ability to invest their gems. Some just take a bit more work than others.

Strategic mobility is the major point of flying boots.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

How can ulm default produce Soul contracts ? They require blood 5 !

You are correct if you say that each nation can hoard clams with either a random * + a water bracelet or by summoning spectres .
But nations like pythium don't require a rainbow pretender while e.g. man should have otherwise it finds only the air + nature sites . Thats what i meant nations that have little abilities . They have the abilities but normally 10-20 turns later than e.g. pythium/arco http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

Use scouts to hunt for blood in provinces with 5000 people. Empower a master smith to blood 3. Have him forge a brazen vessel and blood thorn while using a hammer. That's a total cost of 145 blood slaves to get started. Then they only cost 40 blood slaves each.

Which they all can start by about the same time as a clam hoarding nation can get started.

You must not be very effective at site searching if you only use your pretender to look for sites that your national mages don't have immediately. Take your mages that have their randoms in a path you want and have them site search.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

Not to mention that Man and Pangaea (as nature nations) can always summon Lamia Queens for some randoms. If you pick a nation that doesn't have randoms (Ulm or New Age Pangaea, for instance) then you would be well advised to craft a pretender accordingly : #1, magic paths that complement your nation's hard-coded magic, and #2, at least one of the following : death, nature, or astral. Any of those three give you the long term potential to find all magic sites.

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Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

It was an openended d6. It wasn't supposed to be. Now it's an ordinary d6.

A mage with astral lvl 7 is now fully immune to astral lvl 1 duels.

Equal slays both.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

Yeah i said you can always use a rainbow . But hey this is expensive and the pretender can only search 1 province every 2 turns .

If you search with those 1 point randoms first it takes you a very long time to get them and second you find only lvl 1 sites this way . And your research is hurt if you search this way .


At least with my special no-rush setting i have in mind Pythium accashicing everything should have his gemincome earlier than other nations . And they could take rather good scales this way or a strong SC pretender .

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

No, you could use a sturdy half-rainbow. One with, say, 3 paths the nation doesn't get, each at least level 3. It travels with an army of conquest, meaning that it 'wastes' every other turn searching, but the other turn is conquering a province.

This also gives the benefit of being able to forge path-increasing items, so when you get a random in the appropriate area, you can forge something to take the mage to ?2, which lets it cast the site-searching spells. (Actually, a single random in Astral or Death covers those paths.)

And frankly, this line of instruction came about because you said, "Man only finds the air and nature sites".

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

I know Caine that you can do this but Pythium can e.g. just Accashic . Blood hunt nations can start searching later and begin with forging soul contracts instead .

Man has severe problems doing all these things .
It is of course possible but you should never reach Pythium's gem income .

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

You make it sound like Acashic Record is free or something. It's freaking expensive 25 astrals is a lot of gems.

I'm playing with Pythium in a game with you and let me tell you I would love to cast Acashic Record but it's just very expensive!

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

It's right 25 Pearls.
For all the 8 paths you'll spend 15 gems and 2 slaves. And usually you lack of some king of magic to site search via magic and you've to waste time sending your random pick guys to site search for 1st tier magic sites.
Then you use 8 mages, so on 8 research/forging/battle round wasted for that/those mage/s.
Then you don't site search for Holy and Unholy sites, but they're so few that usually they're not so important. (however having the luck to find tha undead burning site in a chokepoint of your borderline with Ermor is useful but it works even if you don't discover it).

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so far :(
 

I think that SCs are better than armies of mages at pretty much any stage of the game. But it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. If you want to do well, I suggest you aim for as many SCs as you can get, and plenty of mages too. The SCs mostly require gems to summon and equip, the mages mostly require money, so there's no reason you can't have both.

There are other spells besides Banefire and Gifts from Heaven that I would worry about late in the game (although I'd certainly worry about those). Long before the end game I could have an army of level 1 Water mages casting Quickness and then cast Frozen Heart over an over again. That ought to make an impression. If I was C'Tis or Ermor I might go for hordes of Life Draining mages.

So the points is, there are options beyond Fire and Lightning. And if we're seriously talking about a situation where I've researched everything (something I've never even come close to, although I'm sure it's been done), well then if you've any sort of variety in your supply of mages then you ought to be able to find something your enemy isn't prepared for.

Re: Curious :Lategame questions. I never was so fa
 

Yeah exactly my reasoning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
The only nation with which this works ok is though pythium and to a much lesser degree with arco / ryleh / tien chi .
You need to be lucky but when you start in the provinces with landscape that gives better sitefind chances it normally really works .
If you are really lucky you already have an archtheurg who can forge clams so you have +1-5 extra astralincome furthermore http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif