Curse of Stones
 

I'm curious about the alteration spell Curse of Stones. How useful do people think the spell is and does it affect people with high encumbrance more drastically than people with low encumbrance?

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Its a niche spell, but it can be pretty darn useful under the right circumstances. It doesn't explicitly affect people with higher encumbrance more, though they are more likely to be suffering from fatigue problems so indirectly yes.

It really shines I find against good non-elite heavy infantry/cavalry (which are very common...say you're fighting Abysia or Pythium or EA Ermor or Man or Ulm or etc.). Cast it opening round with two mages equipped with a void eye - very doable early on. What happens is 2/3rds of that big army of bad *** heavy hitters take a point of fatigue every step so they're more than half passed out by the time they get to. The point of the spell is not to try to make the enemy pass out though, it's to make them enter round one of melee with 50+ fatigue. 50+ fatigue for them gives them -5 attack/defense which is the equivalent of level 10 fire/water blessing for your guys (the high chance of a critical hit due to fatigue is arguably similar to having flaming weapons against heavy armor). If combat drags on (which is what heavy infantry excels at) they *do* pass out. Then, the extra tasty icing on the cake is when they route they keep passing out every other step so even if you've got slow heavy infantry yourself you can kill every one if them (that was affected by the spell at least).

Niche spell, but I've never seen anyone other than myself cast it so I think it's under appreciated because it can be very effective given it's research level and ease to cast.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

I heard it affected your own troops as well. Is this true?

Re: Curse of Stones
 

I cast it once against Machaka and it seemed to affect a lot of my troops as well. At least there were a load of stone icons on my troops. I suppose it is possible Machaka acst it too, but I am not sure it is a spell he can easily cast.

So while it looks good per the manual I am not sure I would dare cast it again....

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Yeah, pretty sure it affects friendly troops too. It has it's uses in late-game rather, but not as a single spell.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

No way, it doesn't affect your own troops, that would be pretty crappy. Maybe that's why nobody uses it if that's the perception. The description even says enemy troops, and it's easy to verify as there's a special icon that appears on the character sheet when it takes effect. It is a +4 to the MR save though so I find it useful to cast it a couple times with cheap penetration boosters to get a good coverage. It also rapidly loses its effectiveness the later in combat you cast it, thus the suggestion to cast it with a few mages turn one.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Oh, also it's a die roll each step, not 1 fatigue. As I implied, I find combined with "hold and attack" from your back row the enemy is roughly at 50-60 fatigue when you start fighting while your troops are fresh.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Dunno, maybe it was bugged at some point? Definitely doesn't now.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Well I'll try it again at some point. Because it certainly seems a very useful spell from the description. And it was possible machaka also cast it as it was a mp game. I certainly saw the icons.

Even if it does affect your own troops it might still be worth casting if you have a decent MR advantage. Maybe after casting anti magic which is another fairly early battlefield wide spell?

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Wow if it doesn't effect your own troops then it's excellent. I always thought it did.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

The description says enemy units.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

I know what description says. I am pretty sure it affects friendly units too, unless it got fixed recently.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Actually it was broken twice. It was broken for a long time (since dom 2?) before IW fixed it. Then CB broke it again and a later version fixed it back.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Ah, that's why I was confused.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

I just tested this. After casting Curse of Stones I could see many (but not all) of the opposing armies had the Curse of Stones icon in their description along with the expected level of fatigue. None of my many armies were affected, despite numerous castings. Perhaps it was bugged and is now fixed to match the description?

I just read quantum's reply. That explains it!

Re: Curse of Stones
 

So Curse of Stones only affects enemy units now?

Neato. :)

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Awesome, I was also under the impression that it was bugged and effected your own troops as well. So for me it was only useful when coupled with relief. It is still borderline useful but for start to mid game can have some usefulness.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

It is a very good spell.

And regarding the battle with Machaka I find it likely that it was cast by your enemy, too. At least I absolutely love using it when I play Machaka - there is something very satisfying in comparing the fatigue of your own naturally low encumbrance troops with that of your enemies' almost passed out heavily armoured ones.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Yeah I was sure it effected friendlies as well. This is really good to know. I'd cast it sometimes anyway when it was broken if I had an E bless or some other fatigue reducer. Handy when you are repelling a seige attempt too.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

When it was bugged and affected everyone- it was really only useful for Earth blessed troops.

Its worked for awhile and is strong.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Are you sure about that? I thought (based on the manual formulas and observational experience) that it was -1 to defense per 10 fatigue, and -1 to attack per 20 fatigue. Thus you're getting +5 to attack and +2 to defense, plus the crit effect, making it more of an F10W4 equivalent than F10W10.

I would use it more frequently if it weren't MR-easy or if it cost only 1 earth gem. I do like your suggestion of casting it with multiple mages--you might get worthwhile coverage that way. Fatiguing 1/6 of the enemy army is less worthwhile than Earthquake or Strength of Giants, but if you could get it up to 1/2 the army it would be worth doing.

-Max

Re: Curse of Stones
 

I haven't noticed any penalties from fatigue - I guess they don't show up on the unit info screen.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Criticals are what matters. While 0 fatigue SC can kill thousands and take 0 damage, when he gets to 70+ fatigue he will get killed by militia.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Not if he has absurd defence and the defence malus from fatigue isn't real.

I have no reason to believe it isn't, just haven't seen it on unit screens. That's true of communion path boosts and other things like that though.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Fatique is deadly.
I've seen an entangled Gargoyle with 98 faique killed by monkey PD (tm).

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Yes, if friendlies really are not effected by this then curse of stones makes for a great anti SC counter. Targeted at SCs w/o good reinvigoration. Clearly, SCs that would be geared towards reinvig. will have to pay in another dept. the blanket is only so long after all.

Now, imagine curse of stones in swamp with cold/heat effect (either from scales or spells). I wonder how would said tartarian SCs that we all learned to love perform against a run of the mill army?

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Should be cast with by a MR penetrate equipped mage of course. Add to that a battery of ghost grippers or sleep casters and voila - toasted SCs :)

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Huh, but Curse of Stones is BE. I don't think it benefits from any penetration boosters. Is it even MR negates? Or just 50% hit with fatigue from some range?

Re: Curse of Stones
 

It's not really a penalty to defense, it's just that the attack/defense opposed rolls factor in fatigue as well as attack and defense. IIRC the formula is something like this:

Attacker's attack + DRN - Attack's fatigue/20 vs. Defender's defense + DRN - Defender's fatigue/10

Defense degrades faster than attack, which contributes[1] to the reason long battles between heavy infantry have sharply-increased casualty rates after a few rounds. Effectively, both sides start getting an attack bonus once everyone is past 20 fatigue.

-Max

[1] Along with the crit-hits, which are actually more important.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Tartarians are 0-enc and are never affected by (melee) encumbrance from swamp or heat/cold scales. Instead of trying to Curse of Stones them (unreliable at best, with that MR-easy check), just Stellar Cascades and THEN hit them with the militia.

Curse of Stones is an anti-army spell, like Earthquake, not an anti-SC spell.

-Max

P.S. If you want to fight a Tartarian with a regular army, try Strength of Giants + Weapons of Sharpness. Although Petrify + an army w/ WoS is even better.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

That was very informative. I'll file the spell on the anti army counter then.

IIRC Demon and Angelic SCs are effected by the above factors but the easy MR check does limit this spell's usefulness vs. anything with decent MR - i.e. SCs.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

That's understating it. mr negates easily means it will never land on anything mr 13+

It isn't like you can multi cast it either.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

As Baalz said, you can cast it multiple times.

It has a battlefield-wide effect, but it is not a persistent BE so more than one mage can cast it (and one mage may cast it multiple times).

It also seems logical that magic-piercing items should work with it (as with any MR spell I think?), so one or two of those items can move that limit to 15+.

Re: Curse of Stones
 

Thanks Fate, this thread had me confused! It's not a BE at all, it's a BF. Of course, once affected by the BF, the "Curse of Stones" attribute remains on the unit for the rest of the battle.

I ran with debug on, but it didn't show the MR checks, so unfortunately I couldn't easily tell if penetration items were working or not.