Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Just had my preneder God killed with vengeance of the dead. Over 400 undead in an 'assassination'-type combat couldnt even break through his mirror image, yet he died because of turns limit.
Yes, they cannot retreat, they fight till the end even after the 'special monsters are routed' message and defender gets wiped automatically. Even though he didnt lose a single HP, he had no fatique etc.
Tell me its 'working as intended', for God's sake.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I agree that if turn limit is reached, should not result in death. Or cap the number of troops at 100.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Capping the number of units would not only be unthematic (hey, this guy killed thousands, but only a hundred of them bothered to show up), it would make the spell totally useless, too.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

The way it currently works is pretty cheap though, when it kills a SC via turn limit.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It requires a MR check to kick off in the first place, and you're only up against undead chaff. So in case your commander fails to beat both, I wouldn't call him a SC anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Even with MR 20+ you are going to fail the check eventually, spell costs just 3 astral gems. As for 'kill them all', he WOULD kill them all were it not the turn limit. Did you even bother reading the post? He killed about half of them without even being scratched, he WAS an SC. But because of the turns limit, he was auto-killed. Can I say 'it calls for a fix'?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I don't see a problem with the spell. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Well, I think the turn limit is there as a catch all. In programming terms, you can't have a situation that doesn't eventually resolve itself. Creating an infinite loop in combat where two SCs stand there and stare at each other forever is a bad idea.

Perhaps the ceiling for auto-routing should be raised, or perhaps your SC should get better at killing undead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Jazzepi

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Doesn't the attacker auto-rout first?

Shouldn't the undead, or at least the undead's leader retreat when they rout? Or does this special attack not have a leader?

If so, maybe that's the solution.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

>>Yes, they cannot retreat, they fight till the end even >>after the 'special monsters are routed' message and >>defender gets wiped automatically. Even though he didnt >>lose a single HP, he had no fatique etc.

Sometimes units stay on the table even after their side has routed. I've seen this multiple times in big fights even with units that are not undead/beserked. Apparently these undead never retreat.

Actually, I think undead with morale 50 never retreat, even when their side is fleeing. What happens is that the undead leaders leave, the units continue to fight, and then they suffer whatever the enormous penalty is for not having magical leadership in the battle and start to dissolve. It sounds like that these special attackers have no leader to flee, so instead of that leader running off and the units dissolving, they just stay and wail on the SC even though they've routed.

It seems like to me the fix would be to give the special attack a leader. Unless I'm completely off base here.

Jazzepi

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Well, yeah, as others have pointed out you need to fail a MR check for it to take effect, so would you prefer to be mind hunted? MR fail = insta death. Ah, but you can counter that by having an astral mage present...well, you can counter Vengence of the Dead with effective chaff killer stuff like a strong fire shield, trampling, the ageis... or script returning, or having access to cleansing water. There's lots of times where MR fail = you're screwed, and VotD is only terribly effective in a handful of situations.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yep, I certainly did. Failure to kill a hundred undead before the turn limit hits you makes it sound an awful lot like your commander either does not have enough reinvigoration to never pass out from fatigue or didn't use area attacks like Fire Brand, and didn't employ what SCs usually do: passive effects like a fire shield, the aegis, or other weapons of mass destruction. And as Baalz repeated again, there are far worse things to happen after a failed MR check. Mind Hunts are only 2 astral pearls per cast, BTW.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It does sound to me though like it should be the undead who die, and not the victim if the turn limit is reached.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

1) Mind comparing the research levels needed for a mind hunt + soul slay and vengeance of the dead?
2) Mind hunt is easy to counter.
3) Caelum has no way of crafting a fire brand or fire shield, and it was FAAAAR to early for Aegis. My ally was just about to make a fire brand for me ofc, next turn, but alas.
4) For aoe, my pretender had a frost brand, but of course, these undead are immune. Still, he was good enough to slay anything that went his way. My point is: its rediculous that unkillable otherwise SC dies to a lvl4 spell without a chance to defend himself just because special mobs in an assassination-type combat dont have a commander (or he is just as mindless) so routing doesnt affect them.
5) Not hundred. Over four hundred.


As for 'its a resistance check' - he resisted it several times in a row, but eventually any repeatable roll WILL be failed. Even despite friendly dominion, rainbow armor and an amulet of antimagic, there's nothing you can do about it.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It's a powerful spell, that's fine. But when the turn limit expires, the
target should wake up, i.e. win. I consider this a bug. And I am scared.
My pretender in one of my games has 1073 kills. She may or may not be able
to kill them in 75 rounds. In the same game, I have a wraith lord with 247
kills. He is set up for SC hunting, and I know he cannot kill 247 targets
in 75 rounds. His MR is nothing to write home about, either.

Just make it so that they rout or dissolve at the end of the turn limit.
It's both fair and thematic.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Purely on an RPG thematic argument (translation: getting Kristoffer to bug Johan about this)...
it seems to me that if someone is attacked, and outlasts the combat, that should be considered to be a win. If you want a thematic result to the fact that the combat ran into overtime with attackers still on the field, then toss them into a general combat as if they were attacking the province.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

An "unkillable SC" is ridiculous, everything should have a counter.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yeah, the thing is there is no such thing as a un-killable SC, that's the way the game is designed. Your unkillable SC could obviously fail a MR for a soul slay, or disintegrate, or be hit by another SC, or simply be banished to inferno. VotD is designed to be a SC stopper, but even still is only that effective (referring to a time limit death) if you have:
An astral + death mage
A guy who has killed hundreds of people
Who also has a low enough MR to be vulnerable (just try to cast it at an in-dominion god with a lead shield, starshine cap, and amulet of antimagic)
Who also doesn't have aoe damage that hurts undead.
Who isn't expecting it (because you've been casting it for a couple turns), and scripted something more appropriate to dealing with hoards of undead. (returning, wrathful skies, etc.)

Plus, it always targets the biggest kill count in a province, so if you start getting hit by it you only need to set up one "shield" guy, and you know who it should be.

Sure, Mind Hunt is counterable...if you have astral mages. In some situations though mind hunt can be completely devastating. Many spells are devastating if used in the right situation.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

He is not susceptible to Vengeance of the Dead since undeads never sleep. One of the exceptions to it, just like Mind Hunts have theirs. And since Vengeance of the Dead takes two different magic paths to cast, your enemy needs Spectres or would have to be either Ermor or Agartha, or something. And I like that they have a thematic SC-counter. Why should you have an unbeatable unit that they can't counter? In any case, important commanders should carry MR-boosting items like the amulet of antimagic before anything else.

You can even prevent your thugged out unit to get too many kills. I'm not sure about Fire Shields, but somewhat certain that the Snake Bladder Stick doesn't raise your bodycount.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

1) Please do read the post and comments. His mr was high, I equipped him for it, but you are 100% likely to fail one roll eventually.
2) He was unkillable for this stupid chaff. Otherwise, he was just a very strong combatant. You can still kill him with thugs if you catch him (eye of the void to take care of his main protection, mirror image), paralyze him and swarm with F9W9 shadow vestals (its MA ermor for a reason) - same lvl4 thaumaturgy research btw, shoot him with massed nether bolts etc.
3) For a soul slay to work on him, he should end up on the same battlefield with a soulslaying mage. I used my god to finish off small parties and to harass to avoid it, successfully.
4) I had no astral caelum mages, but I could counter mind hunt with indies - lizard shamans and sorceresses, I had both.
5) Yes, it was MA Ermor, so what? Lvl4 spell killing SCs on overland map is still stupid.
6) Preventing SC God from killing too many units? Is it a joke?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I vote for GP's solution, sounds good. I also agree anyone who survives 75 turns of an assasination attack should be the winner.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I do read everything, could you please stop insinuating that I don't? "High" is a subjective number, 20 is not "high", more like 25+ and this should cancel MR-based remote attacks (almost) all the time. Your enemy would more likely waste more than a dozen turns trying to have one successful cast which still would not be a guaranteed kill in any case.

Just as that chaff was not possible for him to kill in that time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif The turn limit is a necessary evil which I use to great advantage. You don't have to be in a position to beat an enemy army, you just have to have units that can't be taken down in that time, causing the enemy to route. Then you need to make sure that there is no province around them to retreat to, and you kill off the entire enemy army.

Do I look like I'm joking? I have used exactly that to keep the bodycount for my pretender down in a game of mine. A pretender is important, contrary to an expendable SC, I don't want it high in the HoF with lots of kills. It seems like you didn't know what you're up against and now you're just bitter. Vengeance of the Dead is a good anti-HoF spell which will get to you in time, since even if you had defeated all those enemies you'd have doubled your bodycount by that and would then have to face double that next time.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

If I may, I think the whole problem is the 50 turn limit.

I guess this limit has been set up to make sure that all battles eventually end, so battle resolution cannot lock-up turn resolution; and I can think of many more-or-less theoretical situations where a battle might not end in a reasonable number of turns, like two SC's fighting heads up, each one with a life drain attack; or a skelly-spamming high-reinvig necromancer against a good banishing priest.

But maybe the 50-turn limit should be made more flexible; for example, once turn 50 is reached, give another 5-turn grace period, after which the battle is ended, unless at least one unit has been killed, in which case we reset the countdown to another 5 turns; or, instead of counting the number of units killed, take into account the net amount between units killed and units created.

This proposition should take care of the "SC against horde of chaff" situation raised by Kuritza.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

A draw you mean, I hope. Suggesting that both, assassin and victim, survive the combat. Regardless who would "likely" win.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I have to agree with Kuritza here. Very crappy. I like GP's solution.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

The problem is not that there is a 50 turn limit, but that the defender loses
when the limit is reached.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Non-summons units, perhaps. If you just kill battlefield summons, the battle may be at a stalemate (ex. two skellispammers facing off...). If you're killing the -original- components of the armies, those numbers can't increase during battle.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

The problem is not the limit, or even that the defender loses, the problem is that these attackers don't respect the auto-rout limit.

If they did, then they would auto-rout properly and flee, before the target auto-routs himself, and well before the auto-kill kicks in.

Now, changing that, which seems buggy, or at least unintended, to me, might weaken Vengeance too much. It's always seemed more useful against battle mages who are vulnerable without there meat shields than against true SCs any way.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

A draw would be better. But the game might not support a draw. In some cases that would mean that the attackers would still be in the province (altho not with the vengeance of the undead thing in their dreams I guess). But in cases like that, I would feel that I have "won" the test or conflict if it ends without my death.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I think its very important that SCs can be killed this way. If they couldn't, then the best and only tactic in the game would be to eventually create SCs. Right now you often can't kill an SC even when you have brought your anti-SC tactics into the battle, since even reasonable protections can be brought by the SC player (like a few Fire or Astral or Death or Water mages for the W9F9 Shadow Vestal assault mentioned above).

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

As it is, SC's are extremely powerful. This keeps them from winning the game on their own, thankfully.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I don't like draws. If an army attacks and cannot conquer, it should flee the
province. If an assassin cannot kill the target in a set time, he should be,
at the very least, made to attack the province during the battle phase. The
army camp was alerted, everyone encircled the commander's tent, let the assassin
try to take them all on. If he wins or manages to flee, more power to him.

Of course, in the nightmare case, i.e. special monsters, the attackers should
just go 'poof'.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

So the arguments are that first, Vengeance isn't really a big deal since it's easily avoidable with mr and a proper SC can kill them all anyway.
And second, that it's an essential counter without which SCs would be unstoppable?

(Ok, it's different people making the arguments, but it was strange to read.)

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It is always a big deal when any unit dies due to a bug. A defender dying because
of the time limit is a bug, or at least goes against precendent and common sense.

Once again, I believe that the number of vengeful souls should remain uncapped, and
that the spell should remain relatively low level. But I also think that the
target should survive the experience if he wakes up before shades get him.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

What it boils down to is that OPs thug was not as awesome and unstoppable as he had hoped it to be and it was brought down by a cunning move of his enemy. Being catched off guard by this surprise element of the game he felt wronged.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Since it Vengeance Of The Dead a magical nightmare attack, I'm not sure the realism argument holds - maybe if the victim doesn't kill the hordes in time, the dream ends with them carrying him away to Hades. Or not.

On principle I agree I'd prefer it if a time limit resulted in a draw and not an attacker win.

As far as balance goes, I think VOTD is a nicely thematic anti-SC spell. Similarly, I personally think the game is more interesting when not dominated by SC's.

Ideally, I think I'd prefer to see time limits resulting in a draw, and VOTD being more interesting, such as including the slain units more like they were in life, for example with different types of undead based on who was killed, slain mages retaining some of their magic, some slain warriors as armed soulless or longdead, slain elephants as undead elephants, etc, but also not multiplied by killing souls during VOTD - it doesn't make sense to me that killing a returning soul (or mindless living unit) would cause it to appear twice in the next VOTD attack.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Yup, I have to agree that I don't think that this is thematic in any way. Killing VOTD undeads should not count towards the ghosts that haunt you in your dreams, because there won't be another spirit to haunt you after you killed its body the second time, at least it's not understandable why it should.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

It would be great if the vengeful souls reflected the slain enemies, but I am
afraid that no such information is kept at this time. After all, every single
troop(!) has a kill counter, it would be unthinkable to remember the type of
enemies killed.

And yes, the kills during the nightmare should not count, but I am pretty sure
that the counter is incremented during the 'die' method, and it may be too
much bother to fix that. After all there are plenty of other examples where the
enemy lacks a soul and still increments the counter.

And because it is impossible to prevent the doubling of enemies until the
target fails to kill them within the time limit and dies, I think that if he
wakes up, he should live.

As for the souls carrying the target to Hades, they wish! They had plenty of
time, and could not manage to subdue him. Empty handed they leave :-)

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I lost a W9 Blue dragon really early in a MP game because of this spell. He had a 20+ MR but after 2-3 turns of 4 mages spamming it he eventually lost one and couldn't defeat all the ghosts. I was pretty bummed out.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

How about in a draw, you survive but is feebleminded.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Ah, it seems that if the poor victim can't kill off those that haunt his dreams in time he just NEVER wakes up. So what? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Kind of a side question, but related to VotD. I know your guards don't help against this spell, but do say, Dai Oni's wolf pals appear for this spell?

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I also agree that I don't like the turn limit. I understand that something is necessary to avoid infinite battles but I see other fixes:

1) After reaching the turn limit compare the total hp of real units (not anything that was summoned for the battle and won't persist afterwards) for the last 5 turns vs the 5 turns before that. So long as the current number is lower than the previous one the battle continues.

2) Retreat from an infinite battle should not be deadly unless there is no other way to resolve the situation:
2a) The defender keeps the province no matter what.
2b) Assassins and other such stealth units go back into stealth.
2c) It should be an orderly retreat instead of a rout. All units should remain with their leaders and go back to a single randomly-chosen province. Even units like mercenaries should do this.
This leaves only one truly deadly situation: Attackers who teleported in and can't go into stealth.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

No I can't because if you do read what I say, you ignore it. Lets see. 18 MR base, +3 mr rainbow armor, +4 antimagic amulet. Thats 25 already; also he was in a friendly domain. Is that HIGH to you?
Also, about counters. Paralyze alone takes care of SCs, its got an enormous penetration so even if units fail to kill an SC, said SC wont do anything during a battle. SCs dont dominate Dominions 3 as they used to in Dom2 anymore.
What I object against is taking care of an SC anywhere on a map with a low-research spell by exploiting an autorout by generating a 'no-retreat is possible combat' and multitudes of rout-immune troops, its CHEAP. You keep pointing out that everything should have a counter. So, 25+ MR is not a counter, astral mage (as with mind hunt) is not a counter, being invulnerable to these zombies is not a counter. If thats not a glitch, I dont know what is.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Being a good fellow reader of all your posts I'm fairly sure that this is the first time that you posted any actual numbers. Give it a rest, will you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif So, I'm not that good at statistics, but not counting any other kind of bonus, I think that your enemy beat you at a 81% chance (or better) of resisting said spell. Good for him. Especially since he caught you "off-guard", wielding an uneffective Frost Brand against cold immune troops.
I keep pointing out that this spell is ineffective under certain situations, yes. It won't work against undeads, it won't be a danger if your pretender doesn't waltz through the enemy lines and kills hundreds. I think that it might not work against glamor or even stealthy units, not sure.
If you employ a SC-type pretender then usually you should be aware that he is going to go down at one point or the other. I for one would not like if there weren't any early-game counters against those - yes, even with low-tech research.
The turn limit is a necessary evil that we have to live with and raising the bar doesn't help against reaching it eventually. Alternatives to what happens after the turn limit are open to discussion and pro's and con' have to get weighted. Most suggestions here would help to make SC types even stronger and cement them as unbeatable foes in game.

They should, same about undead from the Wraith crown or water elementals from the bottle of water. Anything you summon will help, and these auto-summon at start of battle.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

So basically, with a MR as high as you can get, you have a 20% chance to die even if you sit in your capitol. Which, in turn, means that all Ermor needs is 15 astral gems or less (12 in my case, 2 attempts per turn for 2 turns). Please tell me how is it fair? Isnt a goddamn paralyze not good enough as a counter?
Did he catch me off guard without an aoe-weapon? Pray tell me, how can MA Caelum make a fire brand early in the game then.
SCs are unbalanced? Really, in a game where 2x bless vans or shadow vestals etc can rush you into oblivion before you even research construction 4? So SCs need a low-level global spell that kills them 1/5 of the time. Makes so much sense to give a reliable and uncounteralbe overland map counter for my counter, its not enough that SCs are very easy to counter on the battlefield for an astral-using nation.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

I'm going to have to agree with Ich on this one. VoTD killed your SC. It sounds like if your SC had a firebrand in hand he would have ripped through the hordes of undead and this conversation wouldn't even be happening right now.

IMHO, you were ill prepared for a well placed attack that had a low 1/5 chance of penetrating your MR, but did. Perhaps it was cast multiple times in the same round, I don't know what kind of message the spell gives if it fizzles. Or maybe it was cast by a mage with lots of spell penetration items, it's not hard to get +5 with construction 4 and a rainbow mage.

In any case, I think the way to look at it is like this.

VoTD has three checks/requirements before it kills the target
1. The victim has to have high enough kills.
2. The victim has to fail an MR roll.
3. The victim has to fail to kill all the undead in 75 turns.

So instead of complaining about the fact that the SC routed and died after 75 turns, I think it's just more interesting to think about it like a third check that VoTD has on it.

Also, friendly dominion doesn't mean anything for MR saves unless it was a prophet or God.

Jazzepi

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

Sigh... yes, it was my God. I'm still open to suggestions about how to make a non-frost aoe weapon for a MA Caelum early in the game with an SC god.
And while we are at it, how to avoid getting many kills if you rely on your God to survive agains 2x bless shadow vestals and hordes of undead.
Which leaves us with just one condition, namely MR. Which means its just a matter of time when your God dies, you cant do jack about it.

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell
 

You trade with people. There isn't always going to be a way to shield your SCs from death, and that's the whole point. They are suppose to die eventually. If he got attacked by 400 ghosts, your SC definitely did his job.

Jazzepi

Re: Vengeance of the dead, what the hell