How to deal with Darkness?
 

Just curious if you are playing a nation like Eriu with no death magic how you deal with the BF spell Darkness?
I am guessing the normal way is to summon undead or other creatures that are not impacted by it (is that true?)but are there any other effective counters?

Thanks.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Solar brilliance negates darkness, but you'll need a high astral mage to cast it.

Other than that, undead and demons are indeed unaffected and can help you out. Some other summons like trolls have at least partial darkvision. Otherwise any chaff (or any type of unit really) preferably buffed with army of gold/lead that can survive for long enough without relying on it's defense, while your mages cast battlefield-damage spells, or just large area evocation where their precision isn't that important, can do the trick.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

FYI Tuatha/Sidhe lords have partial darkvision as well.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

IF the opponent has strong high level battlefield spells you will loose if you don't have any.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Doesn't Solar Brilliance also blind your own troops?

I know that the one cast by the Forbidden Light will ruin an army in less than
ten turns. If the regular Solar Brilliance does the same, the cure is worse
than the disease.

We could REALLY use a battlefield Dispell, or a spell that makes battlefield
enchantments twice as hard to cast.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Battlefield Dispel would do something Very Bad:

It would make Astral magic even more powerful than it is. Worse, it would give an effective counter to nearly any strategy that you could develop with battlefield enchantments. It would be a lot better if there were situational counters.

If Death mages can cast Darkness, maybe Fire or Air or Astral mages should be able to cast Light, that can affect Darkvision and/or undead units, or 'dispel' darkness. Have a light/darkness level on the battlefield, the same as temperature. Maybe tied in with Death/Growth scales?

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

I'm not 100% sure I remember correctly, but I seem to recall that darkness and solar brilliance cancel each other out, leaving no ill effects of any kind.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Darkness and Solar Brilliance are cast, in both possible orders.

Both icons appear in the right hand corner.
Units do not experience defense/attack penalties.
Units get blinded. (There appears to be a MR check, but that may be just luck
or the effects of regeneration)

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Pretty sure there's an MR check.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

You can counter Darkness by killing the caster, if he has not fled the battle. If you have an E bless, you should have access to Troll Kings for Earthquakes. The trolls have partial DV too. If you can get blood stones, then a Bean with E1 and boots and the stone can cast Rain of Stones too (Mistform first). The Darkness caster is likely to cast Darkness in any assassination attempts. So Earth Attack his army, and hope you nail whoever is the Darkness caster, since he'll likely pass out from casting Darkness in the assassination.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Bumping this to emphasize that Solar Brilliance should not be considered a general purpose counter to Darkness.

I just fought my first battle deploying Solar Brilliance against an opponent using Darkness, and about half my surviving troops were blinded, even though they were checking with an effective MR of 18 (10 base, +4 from Antimagic, +4 because it's easy to resist). If there was only one check I should expect to have about 3% blinded (6% chance of failing the MR check * 50% chance of being blinded). Solar Brilliance is a Battlefield Enchantment, but the description in the manual could easily be interpreted as saying that the blindness and damage checks are only made once. A little work with binomial probability shows that the number of blinded troops is right around what would be expected if the check is made every round. I think a lot of people have figured this out, but I think it's worth stating explicitly.

The main lesson here is that Solar Brilliance is really more about providing a counter for the large death gem income + mass undead chaff + Darkness + Rigor Mortis combo of doom than it is a general counter to Darkness - that is the niche where the cost-benefit is best. In most other cases just sucking up the combat penalties and relying on precision 100 spells is probably better than blinding so many troops.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

I think basically every nation gets access to units which work fine in darkness, one way or another. Constructs, undead, blind units, plant units, those with aoe attacks etc. Then there are the spells and items.

Now in a lot of cases the counters are way more costly than the darkness + associated troops being used against you. But then no-one said darkness isn't an awesome spell.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Solar Brilliance is an excellent counter to darkness for any nations with good healing abilities, recuperation, the chalice or gift of health.

Any of your troops that are blind, just withdraw to a fort until they are good to go again.

In such circumstances you can deploy solar brilliance just for its blindness effect, in big battles even when facing living troops and not just undead.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Am I correct in my reading of the description that Solar Brilliance's blindness effect only works against troops and not commanders/mages?

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

No. It will blind commanders/mages too (though they usually have higher MR than troops).

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

they probably wouldn't try to cast Darkness during an assassination attempt.

not that I've ever seen that particular scenario, but I have had mages scripted to cast BF spells (like Storm or something) and seen them not cast it during assassination attempts

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

I've assassinated a PoD who was scripted to cast Darkness. He cast it, for immediate 200 fatigue. So my Disease Demon flew over and chopped up the PoD while he was passed out.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

It's probably not Assassination, but the standard trigger on whether the battle is worth spending gems on.

Regular assassins aren't. Disease Demons apparently are.

Re: How to deal with Darkness?
 

Absyian slayers are also considered worthwhile as gem targets.