Question on SC\'s
 

Awhile back in a MP thread, someone complained to Stormbinder (?) about a very tough SC that they were unable to counter. The only stat mentioned for this SC was that it was an airqueen and had Prt of 35. As I have looked through the equipment lists including the artifacts, I began to conclude that even without wishes, you could make some god-awful, one-of-a-kind SC's that would be hard to combat.

Consider a helio with crown of Amon Hotep, Bone Armor, Fire Shield, Sunslayer, boots of anteaus, etc. Not invulnerable, but very high MR and very effective in combat.

While could debate the merits of a single unit with that equipment (too many eggs in one basket perhaps), I am still curious what combinations of scripted spells and specialty equipment people have come up with that go beyond some of the run-of-the-mill SC designs. The design does not have to be repeatable, although ideally, if you mention it, you should have actually tried it once http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

One Last note: ignore 'wish' potential.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Spells like quickness, ironskin, mistform, body ethereal, mirror image paired with the right pretender chassis can give you an SC very early that will mow through independents like chaff, with a minimum of equipment (I like paired main gauches myself, but paired enchanted swords or ice swords work very very well too.

For added punch fire shield or breath of winter really help.

Requires some spell research and item forging but a lot of nations can have their pretender ready to start slaughtering indeps by turn 8 at the latest.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

As I was saing in the thread about damage multipliers almost all SC chassis are either magical beings or are undead/demon. Since damage multipliers add strength before doubling all that is required to kill any SC which is based upon one of these chassis is a couple of high strength chassis equipped with one of the weapons to which the high powered SC is vulnerable.

There are some exceptions to this: Nifel Jarls, Furblogs, and smoe pretenders. But for the rest an mini-SC equipped with an anti-SC weapon should do the trick.

For the Air Queen in question a couple of banelords equipped with moonblades, rings of the warrior, and burning pearls would do the trick. Their attack would probably be sufficient to hit and if they did hit they would kill it. Jade armor is optional as are boots of flying.

Enjoy.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Copper Plate or Ring of Tamed Lightning - no reason to let Queens get their freebie armour negating lightning attacks hit home. Won't hurt much per attack but since quickened Thuella (I admit, worst case scenario) hits with lightning six times per turn it will count.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Heh. Field anything decked out like this, leave it outside of a castle
for one turn, and expect to have a anti-SC squad teleported on top of it.

Talk about coincidence. This JUST happened (i.e. the turn hosted) In a game
I'm playing, Marignon was pestering me with a well-equiped Archdevil (Att/Def in
the thirties, magic resistance up the wazoo). I killed it by teleporting a
crystal mage to cast petrify, an archtheurg to cast stellar cascades, another
for thunderstrike, a lowly theurg for frozen heart, and a meat shield with
lotsa Hps. Yes, it was an over kill. But it was a very clean overkill, so
when you leave ANYTHING in the open, without a dome overhead... expect it to
die. Now, setting up traps is a different matter.

When I said 'coincidence', I meant that the same squad would have dispatched
your proposed SC just as effortlessly.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Uhm probably not. You would have held it for 5 rounds and then you would have died as it is certianly immune to thunderstike and probably immune to frozen heart. That is unless your meatshield can actually do damage, which is possible.

That's true it will hurt. But the problem with the air queens is their defence hence you probably will require both of your misc slots to hit. You may not. It all really depends. Check the SC in question before attacking it is always the best answer.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Actually, in that case, by the end of round two, the archdevil was at fatigue
near a hundred, and at the end of round three was dead. The meatshield was,
of course, undead with a life drain weapon. Not a match in a fair fight, but
certainly able to keep an unconscious enemy down.

And that's the gist of it. Everything has a weak point... When everything
fails, there is petrify and life drain. But still, I am partial to Air queens
and Doom Horrors because you can't ground them.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Hi Incognito.

Yes, it was my AQ prophet that was cause of frustration for my opponent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif It had 35 Defense though, not Protection. She didn't use any artifacts, her good stats were combiantion of W9 blessing, 4 stars of experience, Heroic Quickness and good battle gear(but no unique items).

The main mistake of my oponent was trying to counter her with conventional armies and Ghost riders, which she could eat for breakfast. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Ironically at the end I lost her to Dom2 bug few turns ago and had to resummon her Last turn. My scout somehow attacked the enemy province _before_ my Ghost Riders. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif As the result the retreat route for AQ that I was counting on was not created and she was lost after the PD and regular soldiers routed.

Regarding your questions - you are correct, you can design some very tough SCs, especially with unique artifacts. Although they would still be vulnerable, since you can't cover all your vulnerabilities, even on SCs that have more than standart number of slots.

Although you can make the life more difficult for your opponent by often shifting the equipment on your SC between the battles. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif You can also suppliment your tough-as-nail SCs with high level battle mages, casting spells that cover the "missing" slots in your SC design. However most of these spells require gems, and your opponent can try to counter this tactic with 2 waves of attacks - strong magical one magical and even stronger regular one, forcing your mages to spend gems before the main battle. Than again you can also try to anticipate it and counter it carefull scripting and generious gem suplly to your critical mages. And so on...

As for particular SC designs - the game that you mentioned with my uber SC (my Throne of Heavens game) just entered the end-game phase, and I am currently in war with all major nations there. I am planing to use some nasty surprises on my opponents in the next few turns, so I can't comment on SC designs I will be using unfortunately at this moment. If this thread will still be around some time later I'll be glad to post some of my favorite designs, if it'll not be mentioned by other people by that time.

Regards,
Stormbinder

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

You can't actually combine Sun Slayer with a shield on anything except an Ettin (or Ettin Mandragora) or Nataraja chassis, as Sun Slayer is a two-hander. One might note that it also doesn't drain life, unless you forgo the attack and use it to cast drain life, and therefore does not reinvigorate or heal the user. It is a fun toy, however, combined with the aforementioned Bone Armor and some other source of decent prot like Amon Hotep or an Invulnerability spell.

One might note that high def is meaningless against spells (and there are unresistable high-damage spells like Magma Eruption (or whatever it's called) and Gifts from Heaven, as well as unresistable paralysis from Petrify... which also negates all defense while it's in effect, as would unconsciousness caused by Drain Life spamming), against missiles (although these usually won't be that damaging, except for the Black Bow which causes unresistable feeblemind), and the Harvest Blade (which automatically hits, and automatically cripples as well). High def is good, but not unbreakable.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

I wouldn't call that a bug since it's quite consistent behaviour. If you have scout on a province with "attack current province" orders, he attacks before GRs, always. The only way to perform GR-scout joint op is to have scout move in from neighbouring province. Of course, with this the province becomes yours only after battle phase B...

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Yes, you are correct. I have figured it out already and using it in my planing, but it still looks like a bug to me, although a consistent one. According to the manual the magic movement phase should happen before normal movement, no exceptions were mentioned.

BTW I think there are other possible bugs related to GR and stealth. For example, if GR was casted on the province where your stealthy unit is located, and the unit would be given order to *move* and attack other province, it could sometimes be "intercepted" by other units and forced to fight over the empty province.

(and no, the unit in question would not be "detected" )

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Hm, indeed, there isn't a mention of 'attack current province' command in the manual. Anyway, it should be mentioned that command in question results in an attack on battle phase A (magic), thus giving you ability to use sneaking units to boost teleporting army and vice versa. After all, the sneakers are already in place, why should they wait for armies to move?

I'd vote for an oversight in documentation instead of bug, but your mileage may vary.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Really? Interesting, I didn't know that. In my case my scout attacked the province before GR did, but than again GR are "neutral" units, unlike scouts.

So you are saying that if I would teleport into province some of my troops, they would attack together with the stealthy units that are already there? Have you tried it or is it just a guess?

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

I've tried it. I've used call of the winds along with hidden centaur warriors and had them arrive at the same time, and before the rest of the army moved into the province later in the turn.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

lol, that would be an interesting summon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

As Graeme said, yes it works like that. Pretty sure I've used some Villains in conjuction with different CoWs.

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

I believe I have had it not work - stealthy scouts attack a full province then the GR turn up later. But this was in a big confusing game & I may have got the orders wrong.
The solution is to have the scout next door & use a normal move to enter the province.

I know you can engage cloaking device to avoid the magic movement spells. It can be a real pain chasing stealthy flying raiders, though they may only attack every other turn.

Pickles

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

Two different subjects - what works is using stealth units in conjunction with teleporters, what doesn't is to use scout with "attack current province" when you GR it simultaneously. You already told the solution to scout - GR synergy.

Anyway, I'm not totally sure about this, but I'd think that the battle order, if several factions attack same province in same battle phase, is random. With exception that independents always show up Last to mop up.

What this would mean is that if you GR a province when also teleporting (or having sneak units there with orders to attack current) your teleporters fight first, and the survivor is left to face the undead horsemen.

I think this also applies to normal random event indies and battle phase after normal movement - I've met several occasions in which I have got a message about invading barbarian event, said province is conquered by enemy nation, and that nation's troops have suddenly faced the barbarians.

Not sure, but well, at least it would be logical...

Re: Question on SC\'s
 

That is good to know, thanks.

Heh, it was a long time since I've learned something new about Dom2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif IMHO it is great that the game can still hold some suprises for you, even after dozens and dozens of MP games.