tide turning items
 

so im still playing dom2 (being a broke college student really sucks) but from following this forum I can tell that a lot of things carried over from dom2. I like to play pretty huge maps against a difficult AI, and I tend to go pretty slow to the point where the ai has huge substandard armies that win by virtue of being so big.

So I was kitting out my water queen and decided to forge the soulstone of the wolves, and holy crap this item is awesome. The fact that it constantly calls wolves is pretty cool, but the best part is that it completely throws off the opposing army, archers shoot in all directions and you can forget a cavalry charge, by the time my water queen gets into the thick of it there is guys running around all over the place. So with this item on a SC and a little army of living statues i'm able to decimate armies 10x larger.

Are there any other items that can win a battle all by themselves? If there are some new ones in dom3 lemme know too since im hoping to get it eventually :smirk:

Re: tide turning items
 

While not an army, a spell -- Mass Enslave -- will do it. If you can get the spell off, then it isn't uncommon for half the enemy army to be yours (depending upon thee and their magic penetration/resistance) and they will spend another chunk of time fighting amongst themselves until they route.

Re: tide turning items
 

The aegis is probably the best example. It will destroy armies of the sort that you're fighting pretty easily. There's also the ankh that automatically casts life after death in a battle... not quite a battle winner, but still potentially pretty good for that. Or the ark, which kills and diseases anything that isn't yours and sacred.

Re: tide turning items
 

On paper gate-stone (I never used it) looks pretty nasty too. If I read it right it's an infinite astral pathway without the laboratory restriction, with large number of provinces, I don't see how you can defend all your provinces against an unrestricted teleporting army.

I'm unsure whether assassination spells / mass mage teleport can intercept the gate-stone army, and frankly the gate-stone holder will have great MR and likely astral magic, not to mention a pretty damn powerful thug (I wouldn't trust anything but the best with a gate-stone), a vortex of returning script vs mass mage intercept will make for a slippery army indeed.

Gate stone's price certainly seem to speak for how powerful it is, 65/65 S/E ...

Otherwise I like the sword of Auregelmer (or however it's spelled), not game breaking but oh-so-nice.

Re: tide turning items
 

The gate stone is a very powerful item. I just didn't include it since it seemed he wanted items that were powerful in battle. Which it isn't exactly, though it could definitely turn the tide on the strategic map.

The sword of aurgelmer is a pretty powerful battle-winning item that I missed though. Funnily enough, I combined that with the gate stone in a game, on a fog warriors mage. It was an SP game so I was not that worried about teleports :P

Re: tide turning items
 

The unquenched sword can easily decide battles.
Armor of virtue allows you do to very cool things.
The sword Aurelgelmer.
The horror harmonica in VERY niche cases

The arks only real use is against undead, but especailly mendahr.

Re: tide turning items
 

The Chalice does not change battles BUT it will eventually win the war because it heals undead.

Re: tide turning items
 

I've never used the sword of Aurelgelmer (is it in dom2?) and whats good about it? And i've never forged the Ankh, the description sounds cool but i'm not sure how it works, does it just give life after death to the wielder or to your army or what?

I use the gatestone and the chalice a lot, so I know how those work.

Re: tide turning items
 

Aurgelmer casts will of the fates in every battle, so all your soldiers automatically have luck. No idea if that sword is in dom2 or not. And the ankh gives life after death to your entire army.

The ark isn't *great* because it takes a while for it to do its job. And it's not that useful against things with high morale. But it can still make a difference, especially on AI-like hordes of chaff.

Re: tide turning items
 

Being a broke college student anywhere (or american military) gives you a 10% discount with Shrapnel . Watch the sales and add the discount to one.

Re: tide turning items
 

I love the ankh. Being an autocast on a 4? gem spell makes it a battle changer.

And it is: swarm (or similar) + ankh or other spell makes for a very handy, portable, potentially stealthy army. Toss in a coupe of wraith crowns on some druids and you're good to go

Re: tide turning items
 

I notice now that I said the ark isn't great on things with high morale. Um. This was a mental typo, it was supposed to be things with high Magic Resist.

Swarm and life after death does sound like a very annoying combo.

Re: tide turning items
 

Stone Sword is good for SCs also. Monolith Armor maybe (but you need to be both high-hp & pretty fast to really benefit from it).

Re: tide turning items
 

Alright, so another quick question, when i'm playing against the AI towards the late game i'll usually wish for a few doom horrors to knock the AI down a peg to manageable levels, and occasionally i'll get one stolen from me, so whats the best way to kill them? I've found that casting a bunch of "Angelic Hosts" is the easiest way to catch them before they get away. And one time I kitted out an Ether Lord with a Mage bane (i think thats the right sword, or whichever one destroys magic beings) and had him chase around my rogue horrors.

Re: tide turning items
 

If you want to put the computer in their place, I haven't found anything much better than Astral Corruption for the long-term...they just kill off all their mages with it and waste all their gems. Of course, the micro if you're still planning on actually casting anything is a bit...terrible.

Another good way to take out some of those armies is to build tartarans (that you heal) or elemental royalty. Then, just kit them out with some nice items, and watch them go to town on the armies. Make sure that they don't go too deep, though, as they could easily be killed just by being retreated (sometimes at turn 50) and cut off.

Re: tide turning items
 

Hmm, never used astral corruption before, i'll try it out.

I'm real fond of having 3 Air Queens and 3 Water Queens kick the crap out of anything thats really giving me trouble but I like Doom Horrors because I can get them to trouble spots a lot quicker than my Queens.

Re: tide turning items
 

Does that make you the King of Queens?

Re: tide turning items
 

I guess it depends on if I have the elemental kings too :confused:

On a side not that would be kinda cool to more elemental royalty set up like a deck of cards, i'm sure thats not an original thought though

Re: tide turning items
 

Well, nobody prevents you from making a mod for it. ;)

Re: tide turning items
 

Just keep an air queen (or two) at a lab and have her cloud trapeze to wherever you need her. I usually try to keep labs scattered through my empire (especially as an air nation) so that the most any unit will take to get to a defending province is 2 turns (one to move to the lab and one to cloud-trapeze).

Re: tide turning items
 

Got another quick question, what exactly does the "gift of kurgi" item do?

tide turning item == the moon

Re: tide turning items
 

Horror marks the hell out of you
makes you ethereal
Fear +25.

Going from memory.

Re: tide turning items
 

We owe so much to the moon!

Re: tide turning items
 

Extra attack, etherealness, fly, luck, fear+25, cursed & curses wielder + horror mark, automatic Call Horror at start of battle, spell : Send Horror
In CBM : also renders you insane

Despite the insanity I really like it especially on chassis with few slots. Only miscellaneaous item that gives fly outside of air

Re: tide turning items
 

At some situations it's more effective to mass produce the exact cheap items needed for your mages\thugs\SCs rather than to shoot for the holy grail artifact or aim to quickly hoard the worthy ones. This approach also saves your research for key spells in other schools and leaves gems for globals/summons.

The shiny gadgets are cool but careful deliberation is required prior to making the investment. The key questions for me are how soon I estimate to return the investment and whether same gems+research time has better use.

Last observation - no unit is invincible. Kit a Seraph with the coolest artifacts (at a steep gem cost) and it can still go down to any number of things: anything from mass seeking arrows to VotD, horror mark spam or custom made ambush. So sometimes it makes sense not to put all the eggs in the same basket :)