A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Trick One:

I've discovered a funny little trick you can do with mercenaries.

1. Hire a mercenary. Give it defensive buffs so they are more likely to not kick the bucket easily - armor, rings of regen, etc. Don't give any offensive buffs or weapons!

2. If you can make it, forge a stone idol and give it to them.

3. Have them declare themselves your prophet.

4. Stop paying them!

What happens is they are quickly hired up by enemy nations, and then sit safely converting enemy provinces to your dominion. Even if they are used against you, they will still be busy converting candles to YOUR dominion.

Downside (bug?): eventually, the AIs stop paying any given mercenary. If they aren't hired for long enough, they go away permanently... AND YOU DON'T GET TO DECLARE ANOTHER PROPHET because the last one never died.

But the "stone idol" trick seems to have no real downside against AIs.

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Trick Two:
1. Forge a bunch of unpleasant cursed items, with no real offensive capabilities like "slave collar".

2. Give them to a bunch of cheap commanders (or commanders you're ready to get rid of, like feebleminded or soon-to-die from disease). Script them to attack rearmost or something similar. Put them way at the front lines.

3. Send those accursed commanders into battle against an enemy province (not one with a fortress) where enemy heroes, gods, or prophets are camping, skewing the odds against yourself.

4. You will lose the battle horribly... but enemy commanders will "find" those cursed items, get cursed, and lose an item slot. Hopefully a KEY enemy commander or hero... even pretender!

Downside: those items can come back. Keep lots of cheap extra commanders in your decks, and your key commanders with full item slots.

Thought for a little game spice - mod a special unique cursed item that has no benefits at all but is sort of a "hot potato" for players to try to give to each other! (e.g., "Amulet of Giant Albatross")

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Hmmm... a quick thought occurred to me based upon my last posts - if you ever want to stop paying a merc, but don't want him used against you, give them a slave collar. Make your enemies waste some cash.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

i reckon the stone idol thing is better done with some spies, just make some indie spies somewhere (i know there are some), put stone idols on them and send them forth into enemy lands to reduce fatih, works even better if you're a nation with lots of stealthy or glamourous troops (vanheim, helheim, tir nan og, pangea sorta counts because harpies can fly which is a bonus.)

the pretty muuch awesomest use for me would be as bogarus,

1. make a castle with lab and temple

2.turn taxes to zero and move some chaff there to patrol

3. use the castle exclusively to make 5folds and Khlyst

4. forge some stone idols

5. send the 5folds(holding stone idols) with their khlyst together into enemy lands, target enemy castles and camp there ruining the enemy economy and diminishing their dominion.

6. the enemy should try to crack down on you (if not you've basicly won) once this begins to happen you're 5folds can scatter causing unrest and dominion loss all over their lands, you may want to leave a few random khlysty in a few random provinces causing unrest and acting as decoys.

7. start empowering some of you're later bought 5folds in astral (1 astral shall do - yes it's expensive but it'll help later)

8. Send in the cavalry (other troops just suck) to attack the enemy whilst their armies are scattered patrolling their lands.

9. Any enemy who stands a chance now will be using magic to fight you (you ruined their economy), prepare to see SCs and communions/armies with heavy mage support. You know those 5folds empowered with astral? it's time to use them, group em up with some other 5folds and target the enemy SCs and communions - you're dominion/economy killers have now turned into a stealthy blood communion targeting the enemies strengths and sabotageing them by calling horrors into battle (make sure to horror mark the enemy lines first)

10. the war is won, gather up those Khlysty you left hiding around and move onto you're next victim.

11. spam chaff and summon simgarls (probs spelt wrong) to patrol the lands you took and make them profitable again.

12. (optional) you're awesome.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Those are pretty good.

Also, send out scouts to find the enemy on the OTHER side of your enemy.

A) Having a scout in the AIs territory tends to cause the AI to build up an army there. So dont keep scout in his provinces near YOUR border, keep them in provinces near the other guys border. Bounce the scout back and forth between the two AIs forcing them to build up armies on each others border. It ties up their funds. And is likely to make them fight each other.

B) You might even be able to find a really weakened province in their war and take it with the scout (or better yet a sneak army. Put one turns money into PD for it, then recruit there. It will force the enemy to shift attention the other direction for awhile.

C) Send equipment to the AI on the other side of your enemy. In many cases it can be things that will assist that AI against your enemy, but not be of much use to them when you attack your old buddy. Such as; if they are on the other side of Ermor then send them the herald spear that does solar spells vs undead. If its Ctis that you are working against then send them protect vs poison. Neither item is likely to cause your troops much problem when it come time to attack your old ally.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

pretty nice gandalf,

too bad it only applies to sp

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Not necessarily. At least not on large maps. Sending scouts to the far side of an enemy then making sure they are seen can give false reports on which side they should build up on. And the grab-a-province and hold it (on the far side) works also if they havent found your real location yet

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

true though perhaps it still doesn't work to the same extent, especially if it's Caelum or something but whatever it's still pretty cool.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Re: trick 2 in the first post. I had heard that slave collars are never picked up by enemy commanders, so that part of it may not work.

Loading 10 indy commanders up with 2 eyes of the void each and sending them against your opponent's Cyclops pretender is still a fun idea though :evil:

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

that is pretty evil i must say, bet something like that will work wonders vs fomoria and their 1 eyed sacreds, though a visions foe is probably better as it'll hit units aswell as the leaders, and offcourse it's a one time fee rather than having to make several.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

And I'd change eyes of the void with the far less useful (for melee fighters) eyes of aiming (which effect would also be negated by the blindness) ;)

As you called for vision's foe, don't forget eye shield too.

But with those, you lose all the pleasure of imagining your opponent smiling when reading in the messages that the Cyclops has not only won, but also taken a magical item from the defeated, weak enemy, and then realizing that... it's not that great :eek:
:D

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Cylopes don't have that much use for +pen, and I liked the idea of dropping enemy MR by 2.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Yep, you're right, didn't think of the MR :)
The +pen on a Cyclops could help anyway if the enemy puts him to cast remotes with his high E-magic... not unlikely.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

That theory is cute in practice, but AFAIK slave collars are one of the items that will never be picked up after battle, including other things like magical eyes and so on, probably because of their abuse potential.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

I'm pretty sure I had someone pick up a void eye after a battle just a couple of weeks ago.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

There was a report in the Hall of D'oh! thread of a Cyclops picking up an Eye. That behaviour could have been patched out since then, of course.

Armour of Twisting Thorns is another interesting possibility for cursed item planting, by the way. +1B/N isn't a big issue if your enemy doesn't have those paths, and the 5 enc is a pretty big penalty for just about anyone who ends up with it.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Slave collars, hearts, Flesh Ward, Twisting Thorns and all eye items are non-findable, as are Lifelong Protection and Soul Contract. They can never be found by ANY commander if the owner is killed, they are gone when that happens.

Knife of the Damned is an annoying one that can be used for this, but there are far better uses for the astral and nature gems that would otherwise go to its making, especially in any sort of quantity.

In case someone wonders, the reason for why Lifelong Protection and Soul Contract are non-findable is found in the item descriptions. It is a contract written in blood between the Infernal Powers and the recipient and once the recipient dies, the Infernal Powers claim his soul and the contract ends. At that point it's just a scrap of parchment, though it could just as well go up in flames upon termination (for dramatic effect).

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Heh. For bonus coolness, an independent Demon Lord of some sort could appear for a turn and then cast Returning (or just retreat, if it had stormflight).

Thanks for the info, Edi.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Lychantropos' Amulet could be a way of getting rid of a bunch of Eagle kings sitting on your capitol ... if they have free misc slots. You're paying 10N (or 7N) to turn a thunderstriker into a research mage. And with flight they'll die pretty fast if you catch them in combat.

Would not be a terrible plan versus a Gorgon (or other SC god that depends on magic) who's got free slots and uses Mistform/Ironskin buffs etc., if you've run out of other ideas.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

You are definitely wrong Edi.
In Jotunland, I had a squad of scouts with black hearts. My prophet with unequaled obesity picked up a black heart and got like a 15 encumbrance value.

As for other items this works with: Bane Venom charm.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

I just tested this, with Eyes of Aiming, Lifelong Protection, Soul Contracts, and Slave Collars.

Losing armies never pick up items.

Winning armies will never ever pick up an Eye or Slave Collars from an enemy army.

Winning armies will pick up Eyes of Aiming, Lifelong Protection, Soul Contracts, and Slave Collars in battles when dropped by friendly commanders who died in that battle.

So, I think Edi's post just refers to items dropped by enemy commanders. And Chris, this also does not conflict with what you saw, since your prophet picked up the items from friendly commanders.


I wonder what happens if a slave collar-wearing caveman is snagged with an Enslave Mind then killed? Who could pick up the collars?

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Hmm, then some of the flags lch has uncovered work differently than expected. Well, more info to puzzle out then. I may also remember some of that list of items wrong, so I need to go over it again.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

No-one, I suspect. The collar would likely disappear forever when the Enslave went off.

If he was Charmed, however...

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Things in brackets were unconfirmed guesses. Maybe it's something else then, or it doesn't work like expected, though that mechanic was the most reasonable thing to assume. Which Eye is never going to be picked up, vfb?

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Erm, wouldn't somebody with a slave collar be immune to Enslave Mind, being Mindless?

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Are they mindless? I thought they were just feebleminded and had boosted morale.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Actually, we just recently had that discussion - that the Slave Collar would actually have a niche use if it gave the Mindless flag, which it currently does not.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

Sorry, I have bad grammar!

Any item dropped by a friendly commander can be picked up by the army that wins the battle.

None of the 'restricted' items (Eyes, Contracts, Collars) Edi lists which have been dropped by an enemy commander can be picked up by the army that wins the battle.

Re: A couple of sneaky tricks
 

I agree with your analysis vfb; I do think you can only pick up those items from *your* side.

I would prefer to see that they wouldnt be picked up at all.

I've had commanders go blind from picking up two of them =(.