Attack Order
 

Quick Question...

I made a mortal mistake of getting my Tart that casts Rain of Stones moving along with my regular army. I was jumped and he did a MAGNIFICENT job of decimating BOTH armies and then he retreated (Sigh).

Which made me think...What if I wanted to attack province A and had the Tart in Province B and my Chariot army in province C.

IF I had the tart move attack province (or at least move it first) into A and then move the Chariots into province A will they agian both attack at the same time OR because of the magic phase will the tart have the rain of stones cast abd retreated BEFORE the Chariots arrive?

Does this make any sense to anyone...:confused:

Re: Attack Order
 

the magic phase is the magic MOVEMENT and rituals phase. Unless you cloud trapezed or teleported the tartarian, it would fight at the same time.

Re: Attack Order
 

what you want to do is teleport or air trap in, then ritual of returning out.

This, by the way, is what we were doing in NAV.. with Squirrel.

Re: Attack Order
 

So I could use boots of teleportation IN...and ROR out....THEN my army attacks what is left. OR, does it HAVE to be magic like CT etc IN and ROR out so it is all magic?

And BTW, isn't using a magic item (boots of teleportation) the same as using magic?

Re: Attack Order
 

that will work just fine.

Re: Attack Order
 

Somewhat related (I hope), I seem to have mixed results with casting Ghost Riders and Call of the Wild to same province. I seem to remember I have been able to first hit with GR, and then my CotW took over the empty province, but in a game recently my CotW combat happened first and then th GR. Is there any way to predict which attack happens first in the magic combat phase?

Re: Attack Order
 

It checks against the ID of the caster IIRC.

Re: Attack Order
 

The rituals are cast in that order yes, but the actual combats seemed to happen in a random order. I *thought* the combats would be in the ID order too, but that didn't seem to be the case. Damn I wish I had the save of that left :(

Re: Attack Order
 

You should assume random order; half of the CotW casts will be useless.
Better use scouts, but only moving from other provinces not targeted by GoR.
I tried different variants and it's the only one that works always.

Re: Attack Order
 

the tart retreated because the Rain of Stones killed more than 70% of your army, or at least that's the most likely reason. so yes, I agree with Chrispedersen, you want to teleport in, cast rain of stones than ritual of returning out, than let your army move in and finish off whatever survived.

Re: Attack Order
 

Isn't that a little tricky since the standard Earth Air Tart cyclops doesn't have Astral?

And unnecessary. If you've got more magical back up with your army, which you should at this stage, just have someone acting before the tart cast Fog Warriors or Army of Gold/Lead. Your buffed army will shrug off RoS.
Or if your tart Cloud Trapezes in and kills the defenders with RoS, then there won't be another fight when the army moves in, unless the other side is also moving a new army in. If there is a second fight, you're not likely to have the gems left for more RoS, so your army will be safe.

Re: Attack Order
 

I believe I have done something similar with simply retreating the Rain of Stones caster. This works fairly well in general: RoS happens in magic phase, then caster retreats to adjacent province, then in normal combat phase the army attacks.

It would be theoretically possible to mess this up, in a way that would surely give style points. Suppose entire defending army is set up at the back edge of the battlefield scripted to retreat. They do, and leave the field before the RoS caster's script is finished. RoS caster is now in the province. Then, in the movement phase, the attacking army moves in. The defending side sends in one high-hp/high-prot guy. Now the RoS caster decimates his own army!

Anyway, my main point is that Ritual of Returning is not necessary, though it could be useful, and sometimes safer.

Re: Attack Order
 

Well, the ONE thing I DO fear on retreating the Tart is....

If you have only one way to retreat and it is only protected by PD, someone could anticpate your move and use Ghost riders behind you...Dead Tart.

Re: Attack Order
 

If you're moving in troops to attack in the movement phase, you have at least one province with a good force in it. Unless you're flying or sailing in, I suppose. But the original context was Chariots.

Re: Attack Order
 

well returning (via armor of virtue has the advantage that
it returns you to a lab ...

Re: Attack Order
 

But it does that when you are first hit hard...what if I wanted to cast 3 or 4 Rain of Stones...guess you have to give in order to get sometimes.

Re: Attack Order
 

Actually it does it the first time you take any damage at all. So if you want to cast multiple rains of stone with it on, you have to be functionally immune to RoS.

Re: Attack Order
 

This is interesting. And probably useful.

maybe try playing a game with the -dd switch and check the log it makes. Its lots of info altho connecting it to whats happening in the game can take more patience than I have.

Re: Attack Order
 

In an on-going game I did cast Ghost Riders x4, Call of the Wild and Cloud Trapeze, with the GR casters casting their rituals first (1st mage cast GR to province A, 2nd and 3rd to province B, 4th mage casting GR to province A, Call of the Wild to province B, Cloud Trapezed to province C). The combats took place in the following order: 1st the GRx2 attacking province A, 2nd the GRx2 attacking province B, CotW taking over the now empty province B, Cloud Trapezer fighting in province C.

Re: Attack Order
 

I'd assume that the castings take place in either mage unit ID order or reversed mage unit ID order. That's how they'll be listed in the messages.

Battles are resolved in either forward or reversed province id order. Which leaves unresolved the question of what happens when there are two battles in the same province. With regular movement phase it seems to be by nation id order, possibly reversed. It might be by order of the first casting mage, but I doubt it.

If so, then in a given turn, all Special Monster (GR, etc) attacks should come either before or after a nation's magic phase attacks. You won't have a mix of some before and some after.

It also suggests that Special Monster attacks sent by different nations would join in one battle. Does that happen? I can't remember seeing a case either way.