Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Well,

Turns out for all my use of communions I still fail often. I recently had battle that left me in a sombre mood. 100 of my slaves were killed in round one by a very succesful Rain of Stones. This was on attack, therefore my opponent effectively used his first turn advantage for initiative.

Any suggestions?

Maer

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

100 slaves? Ouch. I think that would leave anyone feeling sombre. The only suggestion I could make would be to send some remote summons at him first, to encourage them to throw the rains of stones at something less important to you. If you're lucky he may even cause himself some casualties. Of course many people may think this is a very lame solution, but don't let that stop you. It's not like it will get you banned from games or anything, right?

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

in order to get away from your sombre mood make slave collars and matrix(es) for the master(s) in order to cast turn1 protection spells. that would only work on defense, but than attacking into a rain of stones offensively would put you in a sombre mood for various other reasons...

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Communion slaves (Pythian) and Blood slaves are quite fragile and are frequently the target of big AoE since you can easily nullify a big communion with such a spell while leaving your own, presumably more well-armored, units only lightly scratched.

Generally, when you have a solid communion protecting the members of that communion with some basic armor is usually a good idea. It costs a few gems, but I mean, how many gems are you spending on that one SC right?

Here are some nice items for communicants (this doesn't work for blood slaves--they always die and, therefore, one should never rely on blood magic as a primary tactic as it will fail you once your opponent figures it out). There's no way to protect a bevy of Sabbath Slaves, don't bother. Keep them in your lab for ritual magic. Taking them into combat is dangerous and you should only expect to be able to use them for 1 turn. After that, they're likely to be dead from AoE if your opponent is aware of what you are doing. As a surprise attack you're probably ok, though.

You want Cheap and Effective for equipping communicants. 1 item each, preferably of 5 gem cost and preferably a "cheap" gem which means what... Air gems! Fortunately, air magic has that going for it:

Light Weight Scale Mail (Ax5): Probably the cheapest thing you can put on them. Unfortunately, has 1 encumbrance.
Weightless Scale Mail (Ax10): 0-enc version of above
Shambler Skin Armor (Wx5): Delicious water breathing bonus
Rainbow Armor (Ax5 Nx5): If you can make it these are the bomb with Reinvig +3 and MR+3

Shroud of the Battle Saint (Sx5): IMO, this is the king of mage armors since you can commute your bless effect with it and it's only 5 gems. Unfortunately those gems are astral pearls, but hey... If you have an E4N4 bless you're golden or even just one of the above. A4 gravy is also nifty.

Robe of Shadows (Sx10): I would usually go for the Shroud instead unless you have a 3-path rainbow tender with no significant bless and a lot of extra pearls.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Verjigorm:

Let me see if I understand you correctly. You are suggesting I spend 500 gems protecting 100 communion slaves? This is a very sombreing thought.

Perhaps you misread my post? 100 communion slaves. To counter my opponents Cyclops tart costing 12 death and 15 nature? The economics of your analysis desert me.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

You say that your opponent's Cyclops Tartarian costs him 12 death gems and 15 nature.

If this is the case, there is no way you need 100 communion slaves to stop him as that is a Cyclops without equipment (and we are ignoring all the "bad" Tartarians he has received, which raises the actual average cost of fielding a strong deployable Tartarian like the air-earth Cyclops).

More to the point, you didn't note in your first post that your problem was merely stopping an air-earth Cyclops, just that you had problems facing rain of stones hitting a 100-man strong communion, something that Verjigorm helpfully answered.

So we have two possibilities:
1) Your problem is how to kill a Tartarian who casts rain of stones and you have used a really bad approach; Your real problem in this case is not how to manage communions, it is how to kill Tartarians. Change your strategy.

2) The Tartarian is just part of a force you were facing with a monster communion that made sense in the circumstances (100 man strong communion? Just what were you doing? Even master enslaving can be done very reliably with 32+ S1 communion slaves and PotS+LotNS) and your real issue is how to survive Rain of Stones or other battlefield damage spells that hit in combat round 1 when you are on the attack. Verjigorm has given you a good answer to this - spend the gems necessary on forging armour for each and every communion slave you want to survive (And use Dwarven Hammers to cut the cost down to 3 gems per piece of armour)

If 2) is the case and your gem economy cannot handle creating the items needed, then trying to assemble a 100-man strong communion and using that as an offensive force is really bad strategy on your part and you should come up with another way to deal with your opponent or to get him to use up his gems before your main force hits.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I had assumed that 100 was either hyperbole or a reference to Blood Slaves (which I was leaning towards). Why would you need that many?

1. Fielding 100 communion slaves is 100 castle-turns worth of production. You could have had 100 real mages instead which is a lot more powerful.

2. Nothing requires that many communion slaves, so if you have that many in a single group, you're wasting them and asking to be hit with Rain of Stones.

You should be able to defeat that Tart much more easily than that. In fact, you should be able to defeat several Tartarians with a good communion.

Let's see...

Dust to Dust
Paralyze
Soul Slay
Control the Dead (Great for large communions)
Enslave Mind (for Astral guys)
Charm (Nature guys)
Disintegrate (I've had very powerful SC's with excellent MR die to this spell. It costs only 10 fatigue and can be cast by a 2D mage. Even if he has a 95% chance to resist, if you cast it 30 times....)

There are any number of useful evocations that can kill most anything. Mages are very dangerous to SCs. There are very few SCs that can survive a large-scale mage assault. They're not invincible just very strong. With dudes that have lots of HP, protection, or magic resistance (usually all 3), look for things that ignore these bonuses. Does it have a weakness? Is it vulnerable to fire?

If there's lots of them Undead Mastery and Master Enslave but you need a rather large communion (though 100 is way too many. I think, if you're up against a large force they won't be GoR'ed, so you can probably work with 8 slaves).

When you get to go first cast Arrow Fend (which I think works on ROS) or failing that any basic armor spell like Legions of Steel.

If he's really, really, really nasty.... you can cast Horror Mark on him several times and then Call Horror or Send Horror if you have blood magic.

Marignon has Holy Pyre...

For thugs and SCs:

Herald Lance
Holy Scourge
Flambeau (comes with Holy Pyre so you don't have to melee and can use a more robust commander to attack)
Vision's Foe (Take out his eyes and he'll be useless)
Black Bow of Botulf (Removes his ability to cast spells)

Both of the bows, of course, only temporarily alleviate the situation unless you finish him off quickly. Since your opponent if fielding tarts, he can just drink from the chalice or wait for GoH to fix it.

Also, put penetration items on your communion masters:

Rune Smasher
Void Eye
Spell Focus

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Yeah, but this is not a good comparison. A communion slave is still useful as a normal mage right (S1 right). And you don't always have enough gold to cast a real mage. Which makes me a bit sombre. But perhaps I don't get it.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

It could also be 100 mystics, to use in a reverse communion, or similar mages.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Okay.

You guys missed the irony and thought this was a serious post.

First, the serious part. Yes I lost 100 yogis in one fight. Why? Because I failed to scout and either the tarts weren't there when I scripted the move or I missed them.

Why did I have a 100 slave communion? 100 reversed S1 paralyzers or stellar cascaders kills anything and everything.

Why did I move them on attack? The move looked clear.

Do I need advice on how to keep my 140 member communions alive? Not really. The other 5 in this game are fine.

Second, you might want to check out other threads about user Sombre.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Peter actually has it right. The problem isn't in the rain of stones (per se) its the Verdun strategy.

Now, sometimes, in late game you have to employ verdun tactics. But 90% of the time you do not.

In the 10% of the time that you do, I have one suggestion for you.

LOTS of troops. By stretching the board out, and putting your bloodslaves on the corners, you can cause them to be outside the area of effect of BF or BE spells. (Never remember which it is).

For the other 90% of the time, I'd advise you to use this motto. Move aggressively, attack defensively.

In otherwords - move to lightly guarded provinces that the opponent will feel compelled to attack you.. And then use that communion's first turn strategically.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Not Blood Slaves!

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Verdun strategy? What is that?

(And yeah, I know getting horribly offtopic. I get it ;) :D).

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Your demeanor is insufficiently sombre!

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Additionally, Pythium's Communicants should be generally regarded as "disposable" since in any prolonged battle they are almost ensured to die since they have no magic paths.

Fortunately, they always have Communion Slave active, so if you put Master Matrices on your Masters you can cast a defensive spell on the first round. This generally requires a defensive posture--you need to make him attack your communion by putting it in the way of the thing he wants or guessing his target. This can be difficult as communicants, unlike other types of communions, do not have the ability to teleport/cloud trapeze.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

If I saw 150 communion slaves in a province, I would cast Flames from the Sky on it...

That seems to be a rather poorly thought out strategy since... yes, it can kill anything it encounters, but... it's so very weak. Any wide area of effect spell (especially Rain of Stones, Earthquate, etc.) can destroy it.

It can't attack since you'd be giving your opponent first chance to cast spells, so it can only be postured defensively.

If your opponent can see it, any overland evocation will crush it, and if he can't see it, he's blind because it probably took 20 turns to make.

Beckoning or FFtS ftw

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I think the problem here is that the original poster is playing a monkey race. He says he had an army of 100 Yogis (S1). What else can Bandar Log do with non-cap mages to take out large enemy armies? Spamming paralyze with cheap mages seems to be his best option.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Argh.

I give. You win. Without a giant post explaning the entire game I couldn't possibly explain it.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I would beg to differ. If you are running around with 140 member communions without having equipped them with armour and fire/frost resistance equipment, it seems very likely that you either don't know how to keep them alive and need advice or you are unusually blessed with enemies, who don't take advantage of the weaknesses you present them with.

Alternatively, you are using your so-called "irony" again, which seems to stand for "wasting other peoples' time".

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Oh hey. Thanks krpeters. Exactly. It's BL. Troops suck. And you get a yogi for every 4 crappy bandars. Why not use use yogis? It's cheaper and much less upkeep. Burn em if you have to. They cost no more than some nations sacreds.

And it's a rich game. All my 25 provinces are forted and templed. So I make 25 yogis a turn.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Ahh, well it's only wasting your time if you are stupid enough to read it and reply and fail to understand the real meaning of the entire thread. But I'd never call you stupid. That's a banning offence.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

He's playing in Utopia, which has 300% gold and resources, and the game is almost assuredly at the stage where all research is finished by this point, so I'm quite sure that he can make upwards of 30 yogis and gurus a turn. There's no way that his gem income can support even a single item on every single one of those mages. And an S3 yogi is way, way better than 3 and a bit royal swordsmen.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

More reasons your basic strategy is flawed:

1. How long did it take to deploy the strategy? 20 turns? That means that he has 20 turns in which to scry/spy to discover what you're doing. What is the cheapest and fastest counter strategy to your strategy? Can I do that in less than 20 turns?

2. If it took 20 turns to start the strategy, then if it is annihilated, it will take another 20 turns to restart it which means that you only get one shot at it.

3. Even if you don't get discovered, it only takes probably 3-5 turns to put a counter-strategy in place especially if the large communion person is attacking with it.

4. It's not versatile. It's a one-trick pony, so you can't efficiently change to a different type of strategy if your opponent changes his tack.

5. Its counter-strategies are much, much cheaper in both time and resource cost as you saw.

The best defense, therefore, is to pick a better strategy.

That one's obviously not a winner.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Hehe, thanks Graeme.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

1) 2 turns
2) in another 2 turns. But there are 3 more armies like it in striking distance.
3) It looks like any other stack in any other of my provinces.
4) Why the hell not? Just rescript. Or split them. Or use them as phoenix pyred exploding sacrifices? Or soul vortex them up front with attack orders? Or life after death with soul vortex and turn them into upkeep free S1 soulless?
5) What counters are cheap to 100 slave reversed communions? I'm curious.

And as far as not being a winner it's gained me 3 forts in 3 turns so far. Not sure what other measure you want to use.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

oic... rich game 25 castles. That would have been useful information to include in the OP.

If your question hasn't been answered by now with all of the information provided in the thread, then I don't think there is an answer. If you're such a great tactician.... since you seem to like insulting anyone trying to help you, then perhaps, you, oh wise one, can teach us how to play...

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Its not you helping him, its that you completely missed the point of the thread.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Well, even tho its off topic, I'll answer the rhetorical question.

Rain of stones, obviously =)

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I'm sorry... If there's sarcasm intended I missed it... The OP says...

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Get it?

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I got that he doesn't like Sombre... or that Sombre is his opponent... but he did still ask a question about what to do... so... no, I don't...

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

As I am not, unfortunately, possessed of telepathic abilities, the odds of understanding your "real meaning of the entire thread", which appears to be something completely different from what you actually posted in your first post (or relies on information only known to a subset of the posting population), are low to non-existent.

Cross-indexing against your other posts on this forum might give me a hint as to what you are really talking about, but that really is no fitting replacement for choosing an appropriate subject and posting the thing you want to discuss in the original post of a thread. This includes giving sufficient information in the original post that people can discuss what you really want to talk about. If this (as Graeme Dice seems to suggest) is a particular game with constraints relevant to that game, the appropriate act would to either discuss it in a thread already dedicated to that game or to indicate the relevant constraints when you post in the general discussion forum.

Failing that, you can act like a real smeg-head, though I'd never call you a smeghead. That might a banning offense (depending on the amount of Red Dwarf sympathizers amongst the moderaters).

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Hmmm, this helps a bit to explain the preference for expensive powerful mages over cheap mages. It could be worthwhile to add 5gem armor to a 250 gold mage. Definitely not for an 80 gold mage.

I guess my reverse-communion EA Ermor Augur Astral Fires strategy won't work in MP -- a rain-of-stones would easily kill it.

Your best strategy is to keep attacking him with 25 yogi armies until he runs out of gems for rain-of-stones. :)

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

ROFL

Incomprehension is lolworthy.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

no
no
no
yes

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Peter Ebbesen, I suggest you lighten up. People have been banned from these forums for being sombre, you know.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Thank you for wasting my time on some insipid foolishness.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

To get back on topic, your problem is that even though you're using hundred mage armies, your strategy is too diverse. Moderation will only get you a seat at life's loser table. You need to commit to your course and never stray, regardless of the consequences.

It's like the old quote .. "All things in moderation, including moderation."

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

There is no proper or appropriate response, the mods are taking a sombre mood to further discussion of the subject.

Fixed.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Whose first language isn't English?

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Fixed.

P.S. What, the mods called someone a dumb ****?

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Nobody is making fun about anything. Everybody is a bit sad... Sombre even.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

You've got it totally backwards. Nobody is Sombre on these forums anymore, and that is the problem in a nutshell!

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

We are all Sombre now.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Not me. I'm Sancho.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

I really know I should add something useful to this incredible post. But it's late, I'm tired, and just too Sombre now.

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

And now for actually being sombre for a moment: I appreciate the Dom3 forum because it is usually a helpful place, where people stick to discussing topics related to the game in the appropriate subforums. When somebody has a problem, he can post about it and people will try to help.

I despise the sort of in-jokes that has made the OP post three (or more?) different threads all including the word "sombre", which has the rest of you who are "in" on it in stiches, trolling this thread and finding it highly amusing that people actually tried to give answers based on what the OP wrote in his first post. We've ended up with a five pages (and growing) thread where probably only Verjigorm, Graeme Dice, chrispedersen, and Radio_Star are not in violation of the forum rules and with a signal to noise ratio so low that it is nearly nonexistent.

And if that seemed excessively sombre for some of you, well, so mote it be. I can only hope that this and Maerlande's other recent threads are a temporary aberration and not a sign of things to come. :(

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Do you honestly think that the purpose of this thread is not partially the simple fact that it is in violation of the forum rules?

don't worry. we'll all get banned for breaking the rules anyways. and we won't even get the temp ban that is part of those rules because we have to adhere to them, but the all powerful mods clearly do not

Re: Managing Communions - the sombre challenge.
 

Frozen Lama, how could you so blatantly misquote Peter Ebbesen? I distinctly remember his post being something much more along the lines of: