What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

I'm in a pbem game, and I just cast 3 "Call of the Winds" spells on an enemy province. The description of the spell says that it summons a Black Hawk with a large flock of hawks.

The results, sadly, were quite different: I am now the proud owner of 3 Great Hawks, with zero hawks to command between the 3 of them.

I have double checked the messages that I received this turn, and I did, indeed, cast Call of the Winds all 3 times. There was no battle in the province.

What happened? 3 Commanders with nothing to command in a far away province is useless, not just in my current situation, but in just about any conceivable situation. Why did I get Great Hawks instead of Black Hawks? And why didn't I get the flock of hawks to accompany them the way the spell description said I would?

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Everytime I have cast it, I have got 20 hawks.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Great Hawk is now the leader you get with that spell. A nice change. Not sure why you didnt get any followers. Ive been casting that spell all day and it hasnt failed me yet.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

What sort of information should I spend Illwinter to debug this? .trn files, .2h files, anything like that?

My game is basically over at this point. Those 60 missing hawks are the difference between successfully taking a VP point and just being wiped off the board. But, if they can figure out what the bug is from the game, it would be worth it.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Sounds like a fluke. I've never seen it fail that way, it has always given me the Great Hawk and 20 Black Hawks. The -trn and .2h files could help. Best if you just zip the whole save game folder into a package and attach it to this thread.

Edi

EDIT: 1000th post! WOOHOO!

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Black hawks are rubbish in combat tho, if you were attacking an enemy province they surely wouldn't last long.
If you now own 3 great hawks, but there was no battle report... where are they? Is it possible you selected the wrong province by mistake? Even getting 1 commander in an enemy province should cause a battle. Have you checked the unit list for that province? Black hawks are small & dark so you might have missed them if they're not assigned to commanders.
If there was a battle report, I'd say 'pause it at the start and double check' black hawks die so quickly it's possible they got slaughtered without you noticing.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

If there was a battle (where are they otherwise?) I bet they fled almost immediately. When flyers flee they look like they just disappear, an if the province is in enemy territory everything that fled would just die.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

I might make you mad to ask this but are you sure that they are missing? They are small and black against a dark background. On one of my machines I cant see them unless I click on them. Then the no-combat thing might be that there was no one there to fight.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

They could have all died as well, I have had 40 hawks die in 2 rounds, every single one of them, its usually the cheap flying commanders I am after anyways. Everything else is a bonus for 5A gems.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

I hate casting Call of the Winds because they die so quickly. I've never had the spell quit on me, though. Are there any other spells that you can cast on an enemy province and get troops?

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Call of the Wild, Call of the Winds, Army of the Dead, Arouse Hunger, Hordes from Hell, Imprint Souls can all be cast into an enemy province for friendly troops that remain if the survive the resulting battle and don't get eliminated by fleeing without a neighboring friendly province.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

They all have their pros and cons.

Call of the Wild is weaker for attacking a province than Call of the Winds. But if it does survive then it can sit there and generate more wolves, or it can slink into the neighboring provinces to pop up someplace else (stealth). I even cast it on my own provinces near the front line when Ive found someone I want lots of sneak attacks on. Casting it on my own province makes sure it arrives.

On the other hand, the Winds gives you good patrollers so casting it on your own newly-taken high-population province can be good. Or when you need a flying leader.

Both can take a province but its best to use them with scouts as spotters to not waste them on provinces that are too strong.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Is call of the wild really weaker than the call of the winds? I thought it was the other way round.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

I would think so but the wolves seem to rout easily.

If you shoot blindly, the birds seem to win more often. But if you do multiple castings, stacked wolves seem to do better than stacked birds.

This is all impression. I use the spells alot but Im terribly at doing scientific testing.

Re: What happened: Call of the Winds?
 

Of course, Call of the Winds is way cheaper than Call of the Wild (5 air gems vs 15 nature gems, if I remember)...