vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+ ?
 

Hi!
I have been the target of the vengeance of the Dead spell this turn. Several times. Each round of the spell, i killed each and every ghost, but the problem is that the next round, each and every ghost killed count as a dead by the SC, so each and every round, the number of ghosts double.

What happens when there are 1000, 2000 or 9999999 ghosts? (assuming i can kill them all). Is the game stalled at round 75? I die? (i guess the ghosts dont run or break morale in round 50, do they?)

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

brain: pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

pinky: i think so brain, but those kind of girls aren't into that.

brain: pinky, don't you think we're stigmatized enough as it is?

pinky:...

brain: I'm going to give an SC the Sickle Who's Crop is Pain, then have someone cast VotD on them. can you just imagine the death gem income you'd get turn after turn!?!

pinky: Egadz brain! NARF!

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Hum, I read the other thread you resurected. It sums things up nicely...

The only counter I can see to that is
- using the "returning" spell until your opponent runs out of gems or get tired of trying to blast him,
- teleport your SC every turn until your opponent gets tired of trying to blast him (and hope the teleport ritual happens before the VotD ritual),
- have a stealthy SC. I don't know of any item that can give stealth though...

Either way, your opponent countered a SC with half a dozen cheap mages...

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Omnirizon:

Hmm... that Sickle idea is brilliant, if it works it is rather a bug though or at least exploit that should be blocked in game.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Hmm...
I will suggest changing the Sickle so it can never harvest gems from mindless units, who are obviously out of "pain".

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

IMO Vengeance of the Dead is buggy too, for including undead kills in its dead count. It's the souls of the dead you slew coming back to haunt you. So when you double up, where the heck did those extra undead come from?

I think it's unfair to cast this again if the unit you are trying to kill survives. Once is fair game though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Vengeance does have an MR check, so you should do what you can to increase your MR to reduce your chances of being affected.

Undead are immune, so if you're really desperate you could use Twiceborn and kill yourself.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Its the same mechanics as reincarnation. If reincarnation is true, than how does the population of the world increase? The person living now is only the soul of someone who lived before. They don't die and create a soul of their present life in addition to their last one. So as population increases, where are all the extra souls coming from?

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

That's not an option, it will die next turn , mathematically http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I liked the Sickle of crop idea, though. A nice exploit to answer against a exploit i guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Well, obviously reincarnation as you have interpreted it is logically inconsistent: If "the person living now is only the soul of someone who lived before" and "the population of the world increases" are mutually exclusive, and we know "the population of the world increases" to be true, then "the person living now is only the soul of someone who lived before" is false. In conclusion, Bandar must take death scales. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

To get back to the point, there's no need for Vengeance to be inconsistent like this. If undead kills aren't counted towards the kill count for the raised souls in Vengeance, then everything will be fine.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Errr...

The people killed in the dreamed caused by the spell shouldn't be counted, that's true even from a logical point of view. Think of it : the guy that got killed now has two, three or more soul ! It's completely illogical !

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

That might work as a partial solution (at least it avoid the cummulative aspect, and allow you to retire the character for a while, until you have access to better equipment, like more MR). However, it still makes VotD the most powerful anti-character overland spell, when you compare the resarch cost and gem cost. It is much better than mind hunt for example.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I do not agree with that. VotD won't ever be able to kill a researcher in a province, while mind hunt can. It is however more powerful than mind hunt when the targetted person has killed many people.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

but it is not that hard to put a couple lizard shamans in your research provinces to counter mind hunt (if you dont have astral yourself). What can you do to stop VotD kill your pretender in turn 15?

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I agree it is currently abusive, since it's cumulative and kills the target on timeout.

If either of those were fixed, a decent SC pretender should be able to survive hordes of lousy undead chaff indefinitely.
It should rarely work on a pretender with an Antimagic amulet even now.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Taking a non-SC pretender makes it pretty much immune.

I'm not arguing that the spell is not powerful enough or anything, nor defending it. In fact, after having read the entire other post you necroed, I quite agree that something is flawed by design in that spell. Thematically speaking : the dead shouldn't be able to avenge themselves with more than 1 soul, and maybe not more than once. Furthermore, there is no real counter apart from hoping that MR will resist the spell (which is not a counter at all), and it is really quite cheap... Another idea would be to put rituals "behind" movement in initiative order, or give a chance for ritual targetting moving units to fail (50% chance ? or more for fast movement / units ?). But that might change the gameplay too much.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

taking a non-sc pretender makes your pretender inmune, but still leave your other non-pretender SC vulnerable. It is not a pretender-killer, it is a SC killer. It does not work on non-SC, but on SC it is pretty much uncountereable. I dont have a problem with SC dying (they die constantly to other spells, like mind hunt), but i dont like it to be uncountereable no matter of what, and i dont like it to be so damn cheap. The ice on the cake is that it actually *shouldnt* work that way, as the rules say that the *Attacker* loses in 50 turns, not the defender. (i agree you neet to have a turn limit, becouse other wise 2 characters spaming raise dead with enough reinvigoration can stall the game forever and never be able to kill each other. But if the rule says *âttacker* lose in 50 turns, the it should not be the defender the one that dies)

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

New souls right? Do the "mechanics" of reincarnation say anything about brand new souls entering the mix? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

There might also be, just to give numbers, a total of 1 billion souls in many places, with "only" 1 million "alive". Leaving place for extension.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Yeah, there could be a lot more available souls then souls "in use". The more people there are, the less time it takes each soul to reincarnate.

As for a counter, how about a sufficiently strong fire shield? If it is strong enough to kill a soul in one hit, then all the souls will be annihilated fairly quickly, as a new soul comes to take the place of a killed soul in the same turn it is killed. (I've never tried VotD, so I don't know how tough the undead are to see if such a thing is possible/viable)

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+ ?
 

It's my understanding the undead from the dream do not flee at turn 50... thus at turn 75 your mage/commander flees and is auto-killed.


This has a few issues which are just logically wrong:
1) Being auto-killed while fleeing during an assassination. Historically and logically incorrect.

2) Successfully fleeing during a dream should at worst cause the target to awaken... maybe with the battle fright affliction.

3) Killing these undead within a dream should not count as kills. This results in one soul being doubled or tripled and appearing in future VotD castings.

4) The battle turn limits... as I understand are 50 the attacker retreats, 75 defender retreats and 100 all attackers are killed. As computers become more and more powerful it would be nice if us gamers had the option of adjusting the battle turn limits. Currently every game we play has this all powerful organized union which forces non-golem attackers to retreat at 5pm... and then forces non-golem defenders to retreat at 8pm. I hate this organized union.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

When you wack a soul of a previous victim they split into two equal souls. I thought this was obvious! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif We all know that there is no law of conservation of souls! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Actually, killing the avenging soul should be SUBSTRACTED from the future VotD castings. I killed you. Your soul came back seeking revenge. I killed your soul. You are definitely dead, period. You dont have "extra souls" to spare to keep avenging you forever.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

maybe these are just "dream" souls. So each soul killed is implanted in the killers mind for each time it was killed. During the VotD dream, each one of these killed soul implantations is attacking the dreamer, not the soul itself.

Its a mind thing man!

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

The sad thing is that works only on living killers, you do not have a spell that could do similar harm to undead and demons, so it favors many nations.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Another idea I wrote in the other thread would be a "ritual of forgiveness" which gives your unit 0 experience and 0 kills again.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Yup. I came across a description of a real-world thing much like VotD, and I think the Devs used it as the basis for the spell. After battle, some New Guinea tribesmen have nightmares where they are cut off from their friends and are battling all the people they've killed recently. It's apparently related to what we call "post-traumatic stress disorder". Lawrence Keeley mentions it in War before Civilization.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I have a great fix for this problem. Let's don't fix it! Do we really want to limit how we can kill Supercombatants? Do you really want to create an endgame where as soon as a Supercombatant is equipped, the player can breathe a sigh of relief because he has won the game, the rest of the turns just being an exercise of moving around the map flipping flags?

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Demons are affected by the spell. My Moloch is. However, demons and devils have several other weakness as well (like banishment). Normally i consider the trait "undead" or "devil" as a negative one. That's why undeads and demons tend to have better stats for the same cost than other characters.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

This is not an "endgame" spell. It is thaumathurgy 4. It can be cast easily on turn 15 against any awake pretender (it has been on my game). Do you suggest that only valid strategy should be imprisoned pretenders for scales or dual bless?
In endgame there are much better options than VotD anyways. Mind hunt KILLS you if you fail the MR, instead of making you to fight against ethereal zombies.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

There are a lot of other ways to take care of supercombattant in a battle, and a lot of threads speak of it... what you basically said here is that if I choose the wyrm as pretender and give him a few anti-magic items, I already won the game. Pardon my bluntness, but it's stupid.

The proposed fixes would also have other repercussions that you can take advantage of.
Example : 20 artillery mages with 50 kills each are forever protected as long as an SC is there. If every ghosts comes back only once, that means that the next casting of the spell will kill one of those artillery mages, which have lower MR and, for most of them, have simply no chance to beat up that many ghosts without a meat shield.

Besides, relying on that spell only to kill SC means something else. That whoever has that spell and the mages to cast it has won the game against an opponent that uses SC. That's about as balanced as the imaginary "invincible" first SC you speak of.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Exactly. There are SEVERAL ways to kill them without needing to exploit a BUG in a spell that make the defender lose the battle at round 75 instead of the attacker as the RULES SAY.

Right.
If you remove the kill when you fight them in the dream, as i suggested, after one single round of combat the big bad SC will have 0 kills, and the next spell will affect the combat mages.


They are relying on it to kill the SC becouse it is the fastest way to do so by far. It is only 360 research points away from the start of the game, easy to do at turn 15-17.

People need to realize that some nations (like bogarus), really NEED an awake pretender SC, if only for early expansion and protection versus bless/elefant rushes? How in the hell are you going to defend yourself in turn 15 against a rush with bogarus if you dont have an awake SC? With your late age precision 8 *shortbows*?

I dont want SC to completelly rule the game from start to end. But awake combat pretenders should be a viable strategy, and this spell pretty much destroy it with no chance of survival, not becouse of the spell, but becouse of the BUG in the spell.

EDIT: rereading your post, i think you are actually talking to the poster above me, not me, so sorry for my previus post :p. I edit properly

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

You guys are assuming a lot. Can you point me to the MP thread where someone with MP experience has complained because an enemy is spamming VoTD against him?

An opponent's SC has to make it into the hall of fame to be a realistic target. Then a nation that actually has the paths to cast the spell has to find the SC and cast at that province. Then the nation that casts the spell has to hang tight with the SC, following him around the map to know where he is, to cast the spell again and again. This is really only feasible if the SC is in the casters provinces, because one misstep by the spotter scout and the SC is safe.

The spell is not stupid, the spell has never been an issue in any of my MP games. If it needs any tweaking, it needs to be fixed where when an Immortal dies to it while targeted in his own dominion, he goes back to his capital. As it stands now, it seems the combat takes place in a neutral zone, causing immortals to die. There does not need to be counters to the spell that nullify it or completely protect an SC. I should add, if the SC has any amount of magic resistance, the spell fails frequently.

If you guys do succeed in your quest to nerf fun and unique spells in this game such as Vengeance of the Dead, what is to stop the same player from spamming Horror Mark on your precious SC? Maybe we should nerf that too seeing how it is equally a death sentence, and even worse for a pretender. Maybe after that, you guys can petition to get rid of "Curse" or have it made curable. I mean, it is not fair that you created that supercombatant pretender just to have some indy shaman curse it forever. Hopefully by the time your done, all we will have is generic fantasy game spells like magic missile and fireball.

I guess in short what I am telling you is:

"Cry more noob."

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Duh. The OP is victim of this and started the thread. Not to mention all people in the other thread just a few post before.

There is no "assuming" anything here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

And the reason is that it's an abuse :
- the fleeing attackers rout but stay,
- automatic "turn limit" kills the SC, not a game action.

The automatic turn limit is something that doesn't make sense. Comparing it to curse and horror marks is ridiculous ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Finally, personnal attacks such as "cry more noob" defeats the point of answering... it justs destroys your credibility.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Duh, he has about a month of playing the game under his belt. Maybe when he has two months, he will equip an amulet of antimagic.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Why I am wasting time here... That point about the anti-magic amulet has already been countered in the 10 pages of this thread and the other one.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I am too lazy to look through all these tears, but I guarantee I can show you several posts explaining to you two how to counter the spell.

The game should not be "I don't want to counter this spell so nerf it please."

The beauty of this game is the complexity, the counters, the counters to those counters etc. I would think a fan of the Dune series would appreciate such a system of complexity.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I have killed enemy SCs with Vengeance of the Dead very, very early. I was
playing a rainbow bless with MA Ermor, and I think I had it before the end
of the first year. I attacked a province with neutral dominion with a
bunch of mage/priests, set them to preach for the turn and retreat in combat.

The enemy Pretender came, and routed the priests, but on that turn the dominion
was 3 for me. I cast a few VoD. The pretender, a Virtue, failed her second MR
check, and died. Note that it was not because of the bug, but because of her
encumberance and her 100+ kills. But still, there was no way she was going to
kill them all in 75 turns. And even if she had some form of quickness and
reinvigoration, next time, there would have been 200+.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Sure. Wish granted
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1
(althoug i think you should had used your only wish to find cancer's cure for example)

Which bassically menas "using the SC". Also notice that the spell is DOUBLED every time it is cast. I got 5 casts in a turn...

It needs to be fixed so it actually follow the rules (ATTACKER loses in turn 50, not the defender). The sentence "the army of Ryleh is routed" can be read clearly. Just that the fact there is no leader retreating and the troops are a special form of undead that need no leadership to fight made the designer forgot to add a way to the army actually being defeated in that turn
Nothing at all. Notice that I'm not advocating that SC should be invincible. I'm saying that the BUGS in the GAME should be fixed. This is a bug. Like Mist of deception is. Probably related bugs (mindless special units created by a spell that do not die when they have no leader). I dont want a dull game, but i do want a game as free of bugs as possible.

Oh, that's insightful. At the very least it shows your own level of reasoning i guess.
I'm pretty sure you are aware that amulet of antimagic is construction 4, and this spell is thaumaturgy 4, so in order of your brilliant suggestion be able to be used the nation
1) need astral
2) need to rush to construction 4 as soon as the other nation rush to thau 4
3) need to have better and faster research than the VotD caster, which might be impossible depending on the nations compared research mages
4) even if you run as much as the other guy does, you need 1 turn to craft the item and 1 turn to equip it, and only 1 turn to cast VotD, so it still beats you
5) it is reported that the out of combat spells reduce the MR (see the link). Being it a WAD or bug, it is there.
6) penetration items also are available.
7) it cost 3 damn gems, it is easily spamable for the right nations
8)the original poster in the original thread that i linked you at the starting of this post had MR 25.
9) did i say i did not have an amulet of mr?

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

It's funny Foodstamp. I think opposite to you about the fact that inmortal units really die to this spells is a good thing not a bad one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif: Everything should be killable. But not because they reach a 75 turn limit.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Vengeance of the Dead is definitely a better spell than mind hutn, but it does have its limits.

1) A nation needs access to a combined Death and Astral Mage (3S,2D) to cast the spell. Not a lot of those floating around.
2) It requires an MR check. Pretenders have a base MR of 18, meaning assumming no other modifiers the spell will only work 8% of the time. The use of Penetration boosters is obvious, but so is the equiping of MR boosters. Finally, dominion will alter MR.
3) If the MR fails, the avenging dead still have to kill the unit. IF the unit is an SC, chances are he or she will be equiped to deal with masses of low level troops. Obviously, the spell become more powerful with each casting, but this combined with the MR check is enough to balance the cost of the spell.

Personally, I think its almost better suited for picking off evocation mages than SC's. But as players have mentioned SC's rarely need any further help than what they've already got.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Really, this is the best argument you have? You have equal chance of getting to magic resistance items as your enemy has to cast the spell. On top of that, for him to spam it, he needs multiple mages that can cast it. Not many nations can pull that off. The scenario you list step by step above is not unbiased in the least bit. It is infinitely easier to forge an amulet than it is to spam vengeance of the dead.

So while you try to point out how impossible it is for you to counter this spell, I would argue that it is more difficult to get the spell going. And you are trying to tell me that your SC failed his MR against all attempts with an amulet of antimagic you had equipped. I am calling shenanigans here, you did not mention an amulet until I did, and if you are being honest about having one, then that is some pretty terrible luck and will not likely happen to you in future games.

To the MR 25 comment. I have used this spell in quite a few games, as I love to play R'lyeh. And to hit an MR that high would be close to impossible without penetration items. For every time I have had the spell work on a powerful target, I have had it fail numerous times. Sometimes when people get butthurt over game mechanices, they have a tendency to remember the event a little different than it actually happened. I am guessing in your case an Amulet was added in retrospect, and in the other guy's case, the ratio of success/failure is probably a bit skewed.

Or maybe you are right. You guys have found the end-all-be-all I win spell in this game. Many people will read this thread and from here until the game is patched to fix this heinous spell, it will be the focal point of every strategy conceived from this point onward.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Utgarde, LA ryleh, and MA ermor comes to mind. And honestly i dont think this is a good argument. Mist of Deception, in it's buggy state, it is completelly overpowered and exploitable. Even if there are fewer A6 casters than there are S3D2 ones.

If you read the original post i linked, MR is not as good as it reads vs this spell, and being easily spammable, it is not a guarantee of nothing. Beyond that, It is Thau4. Antimagic items are Cons4. Not that easy of a counter, plus several nations do not have astral or earth2 easily achieavable.

Actually, they don't need to kill the SC at all. THey only need to hang around dying in masses until turn 75 bell sounds.

I dont see it as help needed for SC. I see it as a bug problem, and a bug exploit. Same bug than Mist of Deception for that matter: mindless units without a leader *should* crumble. This zombies should not be mindless, or should need a freddy krugger type. Either way, they should rout in turn 50 as every other single attacker does.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

That's completelly pointless. Not a lot of nations can pull off a Mist of Deception + Wrath skies + returning home combo, and it still is a overpowered combo for those that can. The fact that only a few nations can benefit for this tactic is an aggravated insult. It makes those nations to have access to a very soon and very fast to research anti-awake spell that you have very little chances to survive against due to a bug in the combat resolution. That only some nations can abuse it is what make it less widely known, nothing more.

BTW, Supercombatants probalby dont need further help. But late age ryleh does not need it either, that for sure...

And for the last time, i'm not asking for a nerf to the spell. I'm asking it *works* as the *rules* say it *should* work. Which means attacker loses in turn 50 if defender manage to survive.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Simplest solution to VotD would be to add leaders for it. Maybe 1/20 or so, so that it's not too easy to just kill the leader to win. Make them as indistinguishable as possible so it's hard to target them. Same size, also mindless, etc.

Then, they'll rout at turn 50 and the chaff will start to disintegrate.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Ohhhhhh! Another Vengeance of the Dead thread! When I thought everything that could be said about it has already been done so.

The easy fix to the whole dilemma would be: The devs hack the spell so that the kills from the VotD assassination attempt does not count towards the units kill count.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

I believe VotD should be adjusted not because of balance reasons, but because events occur which do not make any sense.


This has a few issues which are just logically wrong:

1) Being auto-killed while fleeing during an assassination. Historically and logically incorrect.

2) Successfully fleeing during a dream should at worst cause the target to awaken... maybe with the battle fright affliction.

3) Killing these undead within a dream should not count as kills. This results in one soul being doubled or tripled and appearing in future VotD castings.

4) The battle turn limits... as I understand are 50 the attacker retreats, 75 defender retreats and 100 all attackers are killed. As computers become more and more powerful it would be nice if us gamers had the option of adjusting the battle turn limits. Currently every game we play has this all powerful organized union which forces non-golem attackers to retreat at 5pm... and then forces non-golem defenders to retreat at 8pm. I hate this organized union.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

NTJedi:

Actually Golem vanishes when his turn limit comes. He just suddenly stops to exist.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

If you did not become auto killed when you fled from assasination it would be very hard to use assasins except on commanders moving with armies. Every player would put all important commanders not currently headed for combat on retreat.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

johan osterman:

Nah, you wouldn't do that if they would land in neighbouring province. If enemy decided to retreat commanders it would be rather more useful than getting some random kills with assassins.

Re: vengeance of the dead, how it works with 1000+
 

Which is why I wrote they would put the orders on important commanders not heading for battle. Such as mages researching, casting rituals, site searching, forging. All those would become immune to assasination and assasination spells.