Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

I've found that the easiest way to make wight mages is to send indie undead against myself while poisoning the whole battelfield.

Needless to say this is a major pain.

Anyone come up with an easier way?

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Send your mages to attack independents, instead of letting them cast spells. Use hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, stay. Put them up front.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Keep a bog beast next to them in battle?

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Take a prov in dominion, script the wight-mages-to-be in the front doing nothing, cast phantasmal army/ghost riders /lesser horror on the prov.

Other theoretical options:

Have them cast cheap spells at provs with damage domes.

Give them cheap breathing items and take them away (assumes a water prov with dominion, and no weird bugs relating to drowning).

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Do NOT drown them. Twice born does not work in that case.
Its on the bug list.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Can you cast seeking arrow/similar spells on your own provinces? How about assassination spells like earth attack? You wouldn't lose the province with either option (but the mage does have to be alone in it).

You could use fever fetish, but some of the other afflictions might not be cured at death.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Cast Manifestation where no commanders are, so it comes back and kills you instead...possibly?

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Anyone care to educate a noob on what wight mage conversion is, and why I'd want to force it. Cast twice born and kill myself? What's changes/improves?

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Well, you wouldn't always want to force it.
It's not always an improvement, and you lose any special abilities like stealth or regular leadership.

Twice Born, yes. Sometimes the wight mage is a better chassis than what you started with. There are several minor factors, but I'll focus on the big three.
1). No fear of old age.
2). Undead means 100% precision during "Darkness"
3). Occasionally (I have no idea how frequently) you'll get an extra point of death magic.

1). Plenty of fear of banishment
2). Undead means you're vulnerable to no resist spells like cleansing water and wither bones.
3). Occasionally, you'll lose a limb or get a crippling wound that renders them useless.

Crones lose nothing by becoming a wight, as well as becoming less vulnerable to (poison) assassins.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Negative-costs 10 d gems. I can almost always find a better use for 10 d gems.

In the Big game, for instance, I have cast twice born zero times on my Marshmasters or any other mages.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Actually, I must somewhat agree, I very rarely use twiceborn, I'd usually rather just buy liches.

It's nice on rainbow pretenders though.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

My tests say that 10% of the time you get a free Death increase.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Yeah. Best use of twiceborn is protecting a big investment in a weak pretender chasis.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

DON'T read this post Thursday or Friday this week if your alias is Janlm. Honor system. After the turn hosts, though, its fine.




...

It's nice with a rare Sauromancer (D4S1N1). I don't go out of my way to kill them early, but I am currently sacrificing one (and a shaman) for a delaying action, since I'll get that mage back.

I won't like the loss of swamp survival, but since few, if any, undead have it, he'll make a perfect leader for my wight/skeleton/manikin armies. As a plus, he'll be able to use quite a few more spells during darkness than that 100 precision life drain or skelly spam. I'd love to be able to cast Shadow Blast with 15+ precision (eagle eyes) when the unnatural night falls.

I've only twiceborn one other unit this game, a hero w/o any leadership whatsoever - which means no bodyguards. But she can cast Winged Monkeys and abduct non-mages.

I expect to cast twiceborn occasionally in the future. It opens up a few options both before and after their undead rebirth.

I forgot to mention - 0 encumbrance. A big selling point of wight mages. Short of disease (which will likely be fixed in upcoming patch), they'll also be tougher.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

I seem to recall that Wight Mages have no upkeep cost? If you have high-upkeep mages (LA Pangaea comes to mind), and money is tighter than death gems, that's another reason to TB.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Heh. That reminds me- Oracles of the Ancients are expensive and OLD. Twiceborn, they lose a bit of meatiness, but they gain triple the map speed, and gain precision.

Need a skull staff, unfortunately. But there aren't a lot of death spells for Agartha to spend those gems on anyways. If nothing else, it's valuable simply for saving a 400 gold, capital only investment.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

You can pass the skull staff around.

jazzepi

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Yeah... but MA Agartha only has a 10% of getting 2D on their Oracles (though Forge of the Ancients will take care of that, as well as empowerment, pretender paths, independent recruits and trading). That's why its unfortunate. Far from impossible, just awkward to get going.

Other notes -

Titan or Monstrous pretender + Twice Born = Bad
Crone + Twice Born = Good

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Better to just trade for it.

Jazzepi

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

What do you mean there's not much to spend death gems on for Agartha? More Umbrals is always good, and they're two gems each...

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

I didn't say there wasn't anything to spend gems on... just not Much. Darkness? Sorry. Shadow Blast? Nope, you'd need a booster for every mage... Behemoths?

It's not that Umbrals are worthless, just that you can only summon one per mage, and it'll be much easier to spare enough gems to twiceborn a field Oracle than it would be if you were Ctis and relying on wights, bane lords, or darkness. Especially since your battle magic relies primarily on earth.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Another side question : isn't darkness a bit dangerous to cast with Ctis : they haven't got darkvision
Are you only using undeads ?
Not sure of this post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

Yes, darkness is a bit dangerous to cast with Ctis, no darkvision.

But, Abysia, f9e9 blessed is my opponent. Between their fire spells and elites, they suffer more from darkness than I.

Normally, I would have avoided darkness, but I noticed a post where someone pointed out in their own scenario that with attacks/def of 20/10 vs 10/10, before darkness, they have a huge diff on the DRN rolls, of 10 out of the two open ended d6s. After darkness it is 10/5 vs 5/5. Now I only have a diff of 5 on the DRN rolls to overcome when they attack me- much more likely.

The thing to keep in mind is that rolls are differential in this game, unlike, say Master of Magic, where each attack icon was a separate roll. Percentages penalize elites more. And if both sides start out as equal, then we basically end up with an overpriced Mist spell making missile weaponry/spells almost impossible.

Now, I've got a few more ways around the precision penalty than Abysia was ready for, the first time I pulled this trick. But they have been researching. The first time I pulled this off, I had to offer up mixed forces. Burning Ones, even halfed, are still tougher than Raised Longdead Skeletons. Because banishment is precision 100, my local wights were quite smited - something I had NOT planned for. I didn't look at it as hampering half my forces so much as doubling the capabilities of my 'Raise Skeleton' spam from around eight necromancers (reborn and Sauro).

If, on the other hand, I happened to have the elites, or was facing Salamanders (area attack), I'd seriously consider leaving darkness out and Shadow Blasting instead. But a lot of my spells are magic resisted, anyways, so I wasn't losing much compared to Abysia (with resistances of 12 to 13 on national troops).

This delaying action, on the other hand, will consist (nearly) entirely of the undead. Around 80 to 100 before the battle even starts (longdead, mannikins). A few city guard bodyguards, a few dozen chariot (according to the manual, trample doesn't check attack, only defense, so it should be more effective), and one shaman casting communion slave that I hope takes up the entire cost of Darkness before dying, instead of splitting overspill with the master. I have hopes that they actually do serious damage with this delaying action. The more living part of my army is heading east to take care of an army there, and prevent the junction of their forces. Since there are salamanders there, I've decided not to cast Darkness in my main action (just the delaying one) and Shadow Bolt instead (even with the high MR.

That long and unwieldy passage clear up my position?
Short version: they can't flame me to death. On the other hand, my spells aren't reliable, except skelly spam. Might as well make it good.

Re: Best way to force wight-mage conversion?
 

As a side note, delaying actions don't work when your commander runs away, in opposition to your f*ing orders.