3 bogarus questions
 

1. Firebird description says that it brings good fortune. Just flavor text or does it increase luck/good events? I've never noticed an increase in luck scales.

2. Likho description says that it brings misfortune. Just flavor text or does it increase misfortune/bad events? I've never noticed an increase in misfortune scales.

3. Zmey...they have the flying tag and yet...they don't seem to want to fly in battle. They fly away when routed tho. :confused:

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

My guess is Firebird that it prevent % bad event in current province and vice versa for Likho.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

That is the Fortune Telling ability, and if so, the icon would appear in the details. And there is no negative counterpart to Fortune Telling, so..... ;)

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Some pretenders bring good fortune (as opposed to fortune telling), and there's no icon for that AFAIK. It's possible that the Firebird does the same.

If that is the case, it's reasonable the Likho could do the opposite.

I've noticed the same with the Zmey. Maybe it's related to the them having a missile weapon?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

But if they do not have Fortune Telling, nor do the scales in the province change, then it is nothing but flavor text.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I was referring to the ability the Lady of Fortune (unit it# 1344 in edi's db) has - the % chance for an extra good event happening in the province they occupy.

Of course, the firebird doesn't have that ability listed in its db entry so the point is moot. The Likho does have 'causes misfortune' listed though. Perhaps that is a % chance for an extra bad event happening in the province?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

That could be it...have you ever been able to get them to breathe fire? I haven't, they just stumble forward and bite.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Well, flying units set to Fire, will walk rather than fly, to get closer. AFAIK, the only reason they would just keep walking forward to melee, is if the first unit in the squad didn't have a ranged weapon.

Though I have seen isolated (rare) incidents of exotic units ignoring Fire commands, and rushing to melee. It tends to be very expensive and frustrating, that's for sure. I wonder if there could be anything about the Zmey that might actually help JK finally find that bug?


Re: Lady of Fortune..... there is the slight chance that the info in the DB is outdated or incorrect. It's an offchance, but sometimes small changes don't get noticed immediately (especially involving units that people rarely use), so it's possible. I've used her before though and never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Maybe I'll poke Edi and see what he thinks - though he gets ornery when poked. :p

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

The effect is thematic, so I'm not sure why it would be changed or removed between versions. It might never have been there at all, but that begs the question 'why is it in the db?' If it is a genuine effect of the unit, it's pretty subtle anyway. A small chance of an extra lucky event (likely taken from those allowed by the province's luck scale) would be pretty hard to notice anyway.

FWIW, the Lord of Plenty has the same special listed in the db.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I believe the firebird portends fortune to your neighbors because it means they've started near Bogarus. A good omen for many. =)

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Lol. The mystery is solved!

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Dunno if the comments here have meant confusion about the Lady of Fortune, but as someone who dearly loves to use that Pretender...

She does cause extra good events in her province.

Dunno about the Bogarus summons. I'll check it out.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Sorry, I didn't really notice this thread before. To end the guesswork:
It minimally increases the chance for fortunate events, yes. Minimally. The value that they contribute to this (which I guess is in percent and works like having Luck or Misfortune scales) is 1. For comparison, the Lady of Fortunes has 25, the Lord of Plenty has 15, the Smoking Mirror has 10 and Minister of Rituals has 1 as well.

Yes, they do, exactly like the Firebird. They have -10. So you'll need 10 Firebirds per Likho to even it out. :) There are some other units that bring Misfortune like this, some Doom Horrors and Demon Lords having -25 or -50, too.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Cool - thanks, Ich.

I wonder if that's a straight percentage chance, as Edi's db implies with the Lady of Fortune?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I haven't looked into how these values are being interpreted by the game. I've had a quick look now.

There are a maximum of 4 normal events to happen per nation. It looks a little strange how it's determined what happens. There are 100 tries to find a valid event for the province in question. If one is found that applies, then the next one is rolled. If there wasn't a valid event found, then fortune tellers get into play. A roll is made against the added fortune teller power in the province from all units. Now, this looks strange, the fortune teller power in % is for FAILING the check, is what it looks to me, so low fortune teller power is better than a high one. In case the checks succeeds, the roll for the failed random event is redone. I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but I think that maybe JK has the inequality in the wrong way.

After these 4 normal events are done for all the nations, the monsters may generate random events, too (contrary to what I said above, where I thought that they'd just affect the outcomes). The unit's value gives the chance in percent that a random event occurs. Positive values for positive events, negative values for negative events. This is done per-unit, not per-province, the Likho isn't balanced out by 10 Firebirds, it's just 10 times more likely to spawn a random event than the Firebird.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

As long as the subject of Bogarus is up, anyone have any play tips for them beyond DrP's original quick guide? I've been messing around with them lately, and boy are their troops terrible.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Your heavy cavalry is good, your swordsmen are 'ok' and your bowmen can fire arrows - what else? :)
Bogarus is a communist nation; reverse communions are their big strength. Also, I do recommend to have water/earth on your pretender. You may have no water income, but if you dont diversify, how do you expect to fare in the late game? Keyword: clams.
With some boosters, your mages can build Golems. You will need these, no matter what.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Excellent interpretation of "communist"!
And I agree about Water on Pretender - I would probably add Nature, too, not necessarily Earth. Or did you mean Nature as you mentioned clams?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

No, Earth. You have no native access to Earth at all. I'm not even sure any of your heroes have it. Access to E3 early on for hammers etc. is really rather valuable.

I'd go with a bit of N too, even though it's easy enough to get some N access from tribesmen. That way you can summon a dryad to go clamming for you.

On strategies: You could try taking lots of Order, and treating your infantry as utterly expendable - they'll probably die anyway, so why not bank on it? You will be able to take on some LA nations just through sheer weight of numbers and hordes of cheap archers. And in some games you can get yourself a diplomatic advantage by pointing out your massive ability to spam banishes at Ermor.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Agree that Earth is generally good - it just wasn't clear from the post in question. At the same time you have E1 on Alchemist, while having absolutely no Nature - and good Nature summons. I would probably try to take both... it seems Rainbow is a good idea for a nation.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

This is not true, check the alchemist.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Well, I've been playing them again recently (as I said above), and this is under CBM 1.41.

Having said that, I've found that you _can_ do a rush to Conjuration 5 (and Bogarus has some of the best research in the late age) to gain access to the Gamayun. You can alternately do Conjuration-3 / Construction-4 (I _think_ Crown of Command is at that level? Maybe only 2).

See, CBM 1.4 apparently severely buffed Lady Midday and the Firebird. They now cost 1 Air/Fire gem respectively, and have other neat benefits. Lady Midday has Flying, Ethereal, Fear(+0), 20Att, and armed with a Plague Scythe that auto-diseases the target. Meanwhile, the Firebird has Awe(+0) and AoE1 Fire attack.

The reason you need Conjuration-5 is the Gamayun, an Air-2 Astral-2 Holy-2 Flying commander. This, to my knowledge, is the cheapest Magical Flying commander available to Bogarus, which you want for the mobility. (Note: All of the gems needed to summon these come from national income, if nothing else.)

Once I have this, I start summoning an equal number of Firebirds and Ladies Midday, constrained either by my Gems income or my Midday capacity (only your Death-random Starets can summon these). Once you have 30 (total) of these, summon a Gamayun to lead them and run amok.

I realize this is anecdotal, but I stopped a semi-competent computer Wyrm with one of these squads. (IIRC, the Wyrm was Earth/Water/Nature, and was trying to buff.) It took about 5 or 6 rounds, tops, with the Wyrm (by itself) retreating after the 4th or 5th round. Total losses: 3 units.

These guys aren't the new uberforce, but they are quite respectable for tier-3 Conjuration units. Clearly, one of their big issues is missile fire. Gamayuns should be able to Arrow Fend them.

Another nice unit is the Rusalka (Ravnica block flashback). Dunno about vanilla, but in CBM it's 6 water gems for a WD mage seductress. At least three nice uses for them. First, they can summon themselves. If you have a plethora of Water gems, they're 6 gems for 4 research plus scale, which isn't much worse than an Quill, and they're so much more versatile. Second, they're Assassins with Death magic. Basically, think Empoisoners that can also throw down Frozen Heart, and have a chance to steal the commander as well. Finally, they are Bogarus's route to Death magic, given a Pretender with W2. W1D1 + Construction-6 can go to W3D1, which is what is required for a Kokythiad, W3D3. From there the progression is obvious.

Anyway, that's what I've gotten so far. This current game, I haven't hired any national troops. I basically 'made do' with mercs (even my pretender is a rainbow) and my starting troops until the whirlwind squads came online.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

You /must/ get early evocation. The Conjurations are nice but they're more of a luxury since Bogarus with even a SC pretender will have a hard time opposing any real armies of any sort. The problem with those conjurations is that they are abominable on mage time. Startets to cast one lady midday is blech.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I suggested water/earth for two reasons. First, your starting troops are crap and you need an awake SC pretender, and water/earth are very good parths for combatants. Second, you have a national summon, Beregina, 3W1E; they have 3W1E2N and can craft most things your national mages cannot.
And yes, you have 1E on your national mages, but thats not enough to cast gnome lore or forge boots of earth.
Gamayun is a rather crappy summon if you ask me. A2S2 - why would you want that? Your national mages can do same things.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

That may be the intention of the code, but there's a bug in it somewhere.

I've uploaded sample game turns (1 human vs 1 human) with 6 random events in a single month, and it's attached to this post:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com//show...7&postcount=38

It looks like event #3 is duplicated and happens in a second province.

Event #4 is also duplicated and happens in a second province.

So, 4 unique events, but 6 provinces getting the benefits of random events.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I remember that I had some turns in MP games a while ago where it looked like the same events were repeated, too. I attributed this to remote spells cast by my enemies at the time, though. I can't see anything in there that would cause more than 4 "normal", not unit-generated, random events. As soon as one is being processed, the next one is rolled, unless there have been already four of them, then it's the next nation's turn.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Lady Midday I think good even in base game. And being cheap they are even better.
To Kuritza: thanks for reminding about Bereginya. Gamayun, though, I think quite useful - national mages can't fly!

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Well, yes... but they can cloud trapeze, and they are recruitable everywhere. :) So while useful and very, VERY thematic - devs really outshined themselves here - I didnt even think about the three sacred birds as possible summons of new Faith, and I sort of live in Bogarus :) - Gamayun is overpriced for what it does. Were it worth 10 astral... or maybe were it A3... Or both... :)

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Oh, I don't doubt this in the least for MP. However, I don't think my post gave anything but a SP perspective. I will say that if I don't go with a Rainbow Pretender, I generally go with a Father of Winter (either a 'safe' SC with good scales or A/W/E/N with poorer scales).

Also, I don't recall offhand, but what's the requirements for, er, wow, the Lightning BE (Heavenly Wrath)? While the Gamayun has limited slots, she can get all the way up to 4A easily (5A if you score the Tome of High Magic or Ring of Wizardry). She's also Lightning-Immune, so can run around cackling madly in the midst of BE Lightning damage.

Another amusing thing about the Gamayun is that she has exactly the slots required to be able to cast Wrath of God.

Kuritza: The reason I consider the Gamayun is that she flies, and she has Magic Leadership. Both are needed to make full use out of the early national summons that Bogarus has.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Best use for these national summons is to store them in your laboratory in form of gems, imho. :)
Only Zmey is worth considering, if you are rushed perhaps, and he doesnt require magical leadership anyway. And for a flying commander you can summon an Alconost for 8 astal gems; a holy-3 summoned commander is extremly good if you have undead-happy neighbours imho.
P.S.
There's nothing amusing about Gamayun and his slots because Starets has more slots and same paths (possibly even better) :)

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Kuritza: I apologize for injecting SP flavor concerns into an incredibly complex, optimal MP situation. Please carry on your discussion without me.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Valken,

When I do a MP bogarus build, the two best builds I came up with are Father of Winter and Gaia, as well.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

VedalkenBear:
If you speak about flavour, then yes, Bogarus summons are very interesting and cool. If you speak about their worth - then it doesnt matter if you play SP or MP; bad and/or overpriced units are just bad.
I thought you were seriously discussing the benefits of using Bogarus summons, sorry for misinterpreting you.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Just to be clear, are you saying Bogarus summons are overpriced at current CB prices (because I believe those were the ones VedalkenBear was referring to)?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

I think that he's saying this is a classic case of a potentically useful summon, that needs to be made a batch spell. 1 summon for 1 gem *and* 1 turn of a Staret's time, isn't working, since you need squads of these things to be very effective. See the other poster suggesting getting 30 together.

I'd guess at 3/3 they'd look a bit more attractive, though 5/5 might be more reasonable, since these guys are more needed to shore up defense when Bogarus still looks fairly tasty to their neighbors.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Unfortunately, Lady of Midday is thematically a solitary being (and was so in folklore). Maybe fudge spell somewhat to be castable by lesser mages than Staretz would be a better solution?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

No, I meant vanilla game. Speaking of CB - having your Starets waste his time on summoning a single, rather squishy, unit is a desperate act. Even if that unit got buffed.
And Gamayun is rather bad even at 16 astral pearls in my opinion - it doesnt open any new paths, its not better at existing path than your national mages, it cannot become a thug etc. Its just a copy of your national mage that can fly.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Consider that winged boots cost 10 air gems and are usually considered useful... why wouldn't a 16 gem sacred mage-priest-leader be?

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Because flying boots cost 7 gems with hammer, and they can be passed between commanders as the need arises. Summoned mage, on the other hand, is just that - a flying S2A2 mage who cannot cast anything your inexpensive national mages cant.
But 16 astral pearls is surely better than 25. At least now I would consider summoning them in a besieged castle, for example, to reinforce communion. Perhaps... some other uses as well.
Actually, I was just aggroed by a suggestion to rush Conjuration tree to start summoning Gamayuns. :) They may be considered a bonus, an addition to something else, but you just cant base any strategy around them.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

You know, Gemayans (and other similiar summons) *might* be useful, if the original casting continued to bring you one creature. However that creature could auto summon one or more of the same, at no gem cost.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

If Lady Midday was D/S to cast, that might work nicely. The paths may not be as appropriate as A/D, but it makes it a lot more accessible.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Yes, or Air without Death.
To Chrispetersen: I'd say that summoning commanders would be too strong. Or did you mean commander birds to be able to summon Firebirds/Ladies? This, while making not great sense thematically, could be workable. (I'll look up Doves' Book in a few days - it may provide some information on these creatures).

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Commander birds summon firebirds/ladies. or similiar.

What would truly be great, would be if you could assign orders to commanders.
So instead of a single 'summon allies' you could have

Summon Firebird
Summon Ladies
Summon Rualka

Giving the Summoning unit options to summon creatures more appropriate to the need at hand, and hence greater value.

Hmmmm but changing the national spells so that they would be castable by the national unit, at no gem cost might work also.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

welll that is not entirely impossible. actually for the makemonster command (which is what you are referring to since you are talking about orders) I think it can actually be done already. One thing though you can't summon the same amount of different creatures.

#makemonster1
#makemonster2
#makemonster3
....5

at least that is what I thought is was

Domsummons also come in 3 flavours. and regular (free, no command needed) summons atleast in 1 and 5.. maybe those in between too.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Not having played bogarus I've got a question.. is it based on same mythologie as "The Witcher" (which is a great game, need to post that in that rpg thread) the creatures seems familiar to me.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Bogarus is based primarily on Russian folklore. "Bogarus" is a somewhat inaccurate translation of "God's Rus". "The Witcher" is based on novels by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, so the mythology is different, but there may be a common East European feel here and there.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Well generically Aezeal, I really like the idea of extending the game engine.

So I would like the ability to add a command to a unit, perhaps which would run a code snippet. Not that I could actually program the code snippet, mind you = ).

But yes, the ability to have a command:
Summon Wolf
Summon Rats
Summon Bats..

For a vampire for example.. would be a useful extension.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

Likely too complex and too much work to make it in a senseful way. Then either Dom3 has to become a totally open game engine, or open source. Not gonna happen.

No, it wouldn't be a useful extension, it would be a singular subjective preference. As you already wrote yourself, this can be emulated well enough by national spells.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

To Chrispetersen:
Rusalka is a commander and mage. And as for summon allies - in Bogarus case, at least, we have different commander birds, so they could summon different allies. I would think that castable (by lower mages) spells would be quite enough - these are useful units, it's just that Staretz can be used more effectively.

Re: 3 bogarus questions
 

There is absolutely no connection between magical birds and all these firebirds etc. So giving birds a freespawn ability would be completely unreasonable.