Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The Dead
 

In a previous SP game, I was playing EA Ulm with a rainbow Master Druid with plenty of nature and death for using him as a devoted summoner to bring extra support to the Steel and Warrior Maidens.

After a bit of research I created a small army of Vine Ogres with the help of an Ivy Crown + Druid's bonuses. When I hit Conjuration 5 I summoned a couple of Bane Lords, very nice commanders indeed, but I had no undead armies to command...

How can I create an effective undead army to join those nice undead commanders?
Having a single summoner, It'll take so many turns casting Summon Shades or Revive Wight to bring forth a mid-sized army.
Legion of Wights won't be available until late stages of the game, and Spirit Mastery brings a useful but rather weak horde.
I read something about Carrion Reanimation before, but it is corpse dependant and I'd like to keep my population alive paying their taxes and bringing resources...

I'd be very pleased if any Necromancer out there could give a lesson or two to this puny apprentice...

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Early on revenants to site search for more death gems.

Then summon Mound Kings to reanimate and use them, spectres and liches.

The pretender summons summoners. No need to waste him summoning chaff.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Yeah I concur with thejeff. If you want a large undead army with a nation that doesnt support it, you should make efforts to summon mages which can reanimate or can summon mage who can (or search for sites where you can recruit said death mages too).

On the nature side you should definitely not be using your Druid to summon Ogres, that is far too menial. He should be summonging Ivy Kings who can in turn summon the Vine Ogres. In the same manner that you would booststrap your undead army production.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Oh yeah, almost forget. Lamia Queens.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

IMO ghosts are an excellent troop summon. The spell summons extra ghosts if you have high magic levels. IIRC a death 7 summoner will get 7 ghosts per casting. Death is quite easy to boost with items so it's quick and cheap to gather a powerful army.

Ghosts have a chill aura so don't use them with regular troops. They are frightening, ethereal, drain life and can enter the sea as well as having good stats across the board except for prot - and their etherealness makes up for that in sp at least. Also, unlike wights they don't suffer from exceptionally low battlefield movement. Against the AI they should be overwhelmingly powerful.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Thanks to all for the quick replies and guidance.

Now I see that my "scalable" summoning approach is not the most efficient way to proceed... I'll keep my rainbow pretender doing (serious) pretender stuff: boosting research and looking for magical sites early, and bringing powerful summoners later on.

I'll give a try to Ghosts, they have plenty of abilities including stealth, excellent for raiding alongside the Steel and Warrior Maidens!

Another very good Death/Nature trick is the Gift Of Reason + Tartarian Gate combo, although it has a steep death requirements (D7) it's easy to achieve forging some items.

Apart from the Mound Fiends, which other undead commanders have the "Reanimate" ability?

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Wraith lords can summon ghosts.

Any undead priest can reanimate, so you could make one your prophet.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

mandragora are the quinticential nature/death undead.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

I’ve been looking for an unholy priest summoning in the manual, and the only result I’ve found is "Revive Wraith Consul" from Conjuration 7, as described in page 172.
Unfortunately, I think this spell is misplaced in the manual because the Wraith Consul is a LA Ermor specific summoning, and not available to the other Nations.
On top of that, the manual says that the Consul is a Holy 4 priest whilst in Edi’s dB he’s just a level 3 priest.
I suppose these errors have been spotted before, but I haven’t found a post related with this item, sorry.

Due to unholy or non-divine magic is Nation specific (C’Tis Desert Tombs, Ermor Ashen Empire and Pangaea), all the remaining Nations shouldn’t have access to any summonable undead priests. Is that statement correct? Is there a way to get a 'generic' unholy priest (via magical sites maybe)?

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Mound fiends, summonable by any D3 mage with the research, are undead priests and death mages.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Thanks Shovah, I've had a look to Edi's dB and you're right, Mound Fiends (Id 439) are Reanimators, D3 Mages and H2 priests, all in one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Most of my previous comments were based upon Sunray's "units_dom3.xls", where Mound Fiends have the following incorrect description: can reanimate but does not know unholy spells. For that reason I thought that there was no unholy priest summonings available for all Nations.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

I've created a list with the summoners (creature summonings with magic skills) available in Death/Nature schools for reference purposes.
Although I've tried to make it as accurate as possible, expect some flaws because I found some difficulties understanding some bits of the data I used (e.g. the random magic skills).
The data was taken from in-game menus plus Sunray's and Edi's databases.
Here we go:


Id# <> Summoner <> Gems <> School <> Path <> Spell <> Summoner's Magic <> Other comments
641 <> Ancient Presence <> ??? <> ??? <> ??? <> ??? <> D3N3 <> Unique (Infor Vadul)
780 <> Lord of the Hunt <> 50 Nat <> Conj 9 <> N6 <> Wild Hunt <> E1N5 <> Unique (Herne)
621 <> Treelord <> 35 Nat <> Ench 7 <> N5 <> Awaken Treelord <> E1N4 <> Unique, Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
980 <> Treelord <> 35 Nat <> Ench 7 <> N5 <> Awaken Treelord <> B1N4 <> Unique, Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
627 <> Faery Queen <> 40 Nat <> Conj 8 <> N5 <> Faerie Court <> A3N3 <> Summ. Allies = 3 Sprites, Heal others (20% chance)
931 <> Ivy King <> 30 Nat <> Conj 7 <> N4 <> Awaken Ivy King <> N3 <> Summons +X extra Vine Men/Ogre
609 <> Lamia Queen <> 25 Nat <> Conj 6 <> N5D2 <> Contact Lamia Queen <> D2N1?? <> Shapechange Into Sepent Queen (Id# 610)
439 <> Mound Fiend <> 28 Dth <> Conj 7 <> D3 <> Summon Mound Fiend <> D3H2 <> Reanimator, Sacred
396 <> Revenant <> 9 Dth <> Ench 3 <> D2 <> Create Revenant <> D1 <>
329 <> Spectral Mage <> 20 Dth <> Conj 6 <> D3 <> Summon Spectre <> D!! <>
771 <> Tartarian Cyclops (Lightning) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> A2E3 <> Possible Afflictions
772 <> Tartarian Cyclops (Ench. Sword) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> E4 <> Possible Afflictions
777 <> Tartarian Monstra <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> ** + ** + * + * <> Possible Afflictions
776 <> Tartarian Monstrum <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> ** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
773 <> Tartarian Spirit <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> E3D2 <> Possible Afflictions
774 <> Tartarian Titan (Ench. Spear) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> *** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
775 <> Tartarian Titan (Ench. Sickle) <> 10 Dth <> Conj 9 <> D7 <> Tartarian Gate <> *** + ** + ** <> Possible Afflictions
181 <> Wraith Lord <> 40 Dth <> Conj 7 <> D5 <> Call Wraith Lord <> D3 <> Summ. Allies = 1 Ghost

? -> Random Magic 100% Chance WDNB
! -> Random Magic 100% Chance WESD
* -> Random Magic 100% Chance FAWESDNB

Does somebody know how to invoke the "Ancient Presence"? Besides it has a unique name, it isn't tagged as a Hero, so it should be available to all the Nations (I presume)

I think the best Nation for supporting a hardcore death/nature summoning strategy is EA C'Tis: they start with +4 Death and +2 Nature gems and have a couple of interesting Pretenders with starting Nature and Death Magic; Father and Mother of Serpents.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

The ancient presence shows up in a random event. It's the leader of an attack by independents on a province - kinda similar to Bogus and his lads, except it just has a bunch of manikins for company.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

i love charming that guy, cause hes a pretty good death-nature mage.

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Hi Managarm,
the summoning table was made for dom2 but most data are still useful for dom3. With 'does not know unholy spells' I mean 'is unable to cast special unholy spells like Unholy Blessing'.
Cheers

Re: Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The De
 

Hello Sunray, nice to hear from the spreadsheet creator itself!!

Mound Fiend's unholy spell comment is a little bit tricky at first sight, but now after some digging I understand they are H2 priests with divine magic only.

Yep, your table IS VERY USEFUL indeed!! If I'd like to give a try to a new Nation, firstly I read the manual's description and then I open your spreadsheet to get a better overall idea about that Nation (units/commander stats, magic and priestly capabilities, etc).

The spreadsheet contains some flaws but it is still a nice document to use as reference. Thanks a lot for your efforts creating it.

If you plan to do an update, you can use the ammended death/nature summonings data from a previous post of mine (sorry for the selfish propaganda) if you find it useful.