Send Horror and Scouts
 

When you are using Send Lesser Horror in combination with sneaking scouts to capture provinces, is it random whether your scouts will attack the provinces prior to arrival of the lesser horror?

It doesn't seem to make any difference to sneaking scouts: if I Move to attack, or if I just Attack the current province I'm hiding in, the majority of the time, my scouts lose against the PD, and then the lesser horror arrives and turns the province indy.

It's weird that when previously hidden scouts attack, they fight in the Magic Battles phase.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I haven't really looked at the turn, so this is why you don't own all my provinces.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Ha ha ha! :)

Well, I've got to try something, with you having 3 globals up, a bunch of elemental royalty, artifacts, iron order adepts and everything! Meanwhile all I have is a couple blood slaves and a few old priests.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Yeah, I've seen that happen numerous times. Seems to be a random as to whether your scouts attack first or after the magic phase. Does not seem to be working as intended though.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I thought sneaking troops attack DURING magic phase, at least in some cases such as remote summons.

Did you try moving to a neighbouring province instead of attacking the province your scouts started in?

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

No, it was always scouts attacking a prov that had a magic attack going against it. Seems about 50 percent chance that your magic attack hits first.

That is, scouts already in prov.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Some of my scouts stayed in their province and changed orders to 'Attack'. Some of the scouts moved into a neighboring province. There didn't seem to be any difference between trying these two approaches.

Of the few scouts that survived, the weird thing is that the "We have now taken control" messages appear alongside "normal movement" battle messages. But the scouts that died all had "there was a battle" messages in the magic phase, immediately prior to a "there was a battle" for the lesser horror.

Hmmm...

failure: Scouts that did "Attack" current province

failure:
Had a scout in hiding province #55, with orders to move into #40.
Had a scout in hiding province #62, with orders to move into #55.
Cast Send Lesser Horror on 40, 55. Result:
1st battle, magic battle phase: Scout moving from #55 to #40 attacks #55! Weird.
2st battle, magic battle phase: Horror attacks and takes #55.
3st battle, magic battle phase: Horror attacks and takes #40.
4th non-battle, mvmt battle phase: Scout from #62 takes empty province #55.

failure: cast send lessor horror on province I took with call of winds. :P


It looks like:

- If you cast Send Lesser Horror on a province where there is a scout hiding, and the scout has new orders to "Attack", the scout can fight the PD first.

- If you cast Send Lesser Horror on a province where there is a scout hiding, and the scout has new orders to "Move" to a different province, the scout does not move but instead fights the local PD, before the horror.

It looks safe to:

- Move a hidden scout from province A to attack province B, so long as you don't also cast Send Lesser Horror at province A.

Maybe.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I would recommend asking Executor how it works. ;) He took at least 8, maybe 10 provinces from me with Horror+Scout in Timewarp game, and I don't recall seeing any erroneous attacks by his scouts. As far as I could tell, he had 100% success rate. :p

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I'm suffering this in a game currently. 3 times I've had a province lost to the horror and occupied by a scout. Only once has a scout attacked a province, but there was no horror attack, so I assume my opponent simply forgot to cast the horror. So that's 100% success against me by some mechanism, although there's no adequate statistical significance from only 3 results.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I have used horrors + scouts successfully in MP.

It works about 80% of the time.

I try to always move into a adjacent province (from hiding), after attacking that adjacent province with a horror. It works most of the time but occassionally the scout attacks the province he was hiding in and obviously dies. I think when you change from hiding to move there must be a chance that the PD detects your scout and fights a battle in the magic phase with your scout.

Giving a attack order to a scout hiding in a province and sending a horror in works alot less often. Probably 50%, depends wether your horror or scout attack 1st.

Got to say I am okay with how it works at the moment as its a resource cheap, effective tactic, worse case scenario you lost a scout and some blood slaves, no big deal.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

This came up in the IRC channel some time ago, Zeldor knows how it works...

namad2: ugh!
namad2: scouts can attack BEFORE teleport attack phase?!?!?!!?
namad2: fuccccccccccccccck
namad2: i lost like 4scouts and wasted about as many horrors as a result
namad2: ****ed up thing is i made the same mistake in a previous game
Zeldor: if scout moves FROM a province that is being attacked in a magic phase, he will move in magic phase too
Zeldor: I learned it the hard way
Zeldor: and afaik you can conquer 2 provs at once if you are lucky [by magically attacking both the prov where scout is and where is moving]

"Attack current province" works like a zero-distance movement for that matter, the same applies.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Yep, that's pretty much what I saw.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I have a problem with how it works as a non-blood nation on the receiving end ;)
To do the equivalent as non-blood requires the gem/gold expense of a thug or a high gem cost for an effective province attack spell - Call of the Winds doesn't exactly cut it.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

I've used the same approach with Ghost Riders. You can beat any PD if you cast it often enough on a province, as they are stacking, of course. For low PD up to maybe 10, one casting is enough.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

That's true, but I'd perceive 10 (or more) death gems compared to the cost of a horror as a lot more proportionately expensive.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Ghost riders is only 5D. It's the research (Conj 9) and path requirements (D6) that make it less common than Send Lesser Horror.

The horsemen are pretty much crap, but the Wraith Lord leader is the energizer bunny. An scary ethereal, chill aura, protection 25, immortal energizer bunny that never routs.

It's quite a bit more durable than a lesser horror. Except for PDs that get good mages or priests at 20, one casting of Ghost Riders is usually enough for a 30PD province, I think.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Interesting. This could actually be a boost for a certain few nations.

Suppose you are pan. You have 30 stealthy troops in a neighbors territory. He has a vacant territory, but one he is going to move through.

If you cast horror on your province, you move in the magic phase, and take the empty territory. I wonder if it prevents the move through, or if that will occur anyway.

Ie.,

ABC
DEF
GHI

You have stealthy troops in his province E.
You hit E with a horror and attack H.
He has an Army in I moving to G.

I presume the army will fight in H.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Why would there be a fight in H? He's not moving to H.

If you take H like this in the regular phase, his army should arrive in G. If you take H in magic phase as well, his army should remain in I.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Chris, when you hit E with the Horror, the formerly-sneaking troops in E are forced to fight in E, in the magic phase.

Anything else those troops do, such as heading off to H, happens in the regular movement phase.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

one other wrinkle, if forces from the province you are attacking w/ the hidden units move into the province the hidden units are attacking from, there is the normal chance that the battle might be in the original "hiding" province... pretty relevant if there is a big army there and you lose all of your van thugs...
/me shakes fist

but, generally, vfb, if you hadn't have attacked the province you were attacking from w/ a horror it would likely have worked out.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Now, one weird thing I encountered playing MA Abysia 1, maybe 2 patches ago was:

Scout hiding in province A, ordered to attack province B. Send horrors to both A and B. Result (assuming horror attacks succeed) is I owned both A and B. This was 100% reproducible in that game (I used it *many* times over years of game time - I was heavily horror spamming), but doesn't seem to work that way when I try it now. Weird...

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Maybe it was part of the movement verification stuff done a patch or two ago?

It would seem that as it currently is there is some sort of flag on each phase whether there's a fight. If the flag is no for a fight in a province during magic battle phase, previously sneaking now moving from A to B don't fight in A. But if there's a magic attack on prov A the game gathers all non-sneaking troops present at A during magic phase (which includes our sneaker) and resolves the fight in the usual order (nations first, then the last man standing fights independents).

Same flag applies to the drowning check, see the thread couple weeks ago about troops moving out of water without items or drowning if there's a magic attack on the province...

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Nice check Atul. And you are right Baalz... something seems to have changed.

I'm at a loss to say what it is though.

Re: Send Horror and Scouts
 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could take off water breathing gear and move to land and live some time ago. Now you die.