Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I do hope I won't be shot down for failing to RTFM...

As I have said in another place, I am presently EA C'tis. Lots of Death magic. I seem to have a number of spells --- some ritual, some battle --- whose description talks of "animating corpses", or similar. But I think I seem to cast them regardless of the current corpse-count (or at least on the strategic map)??

Am I being unobservant? What's the low-down on corpses, both on the strategic map and for fallen in battle, please?

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

some spells are dependent upon corpses, others aren't. animate/raise skeletons for example is independent of corpses on the battlefield while animate/raise dead is dependent on them. same goes for Rituals, some depend on them and some don't. there are also a few spells that don't actually need corpses but do get better with them, Undead Horde comes to mind, not sure if there are any other examples of the like.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Can I (reliably) tell from the descriptions --- on screen, vanilla --- whether a spell requires corpses?

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

For example, I just fired up my EA C'tis. Home province, no corpses. I can cast "Reanimation". The description says "corpses", later talks of "skeletons". Does it require corpses??

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

The main difference lies between soulless and longdead.
Priests or spells that reanimate longdead (skeletons) always have the same effect, no matter where you cast them. That's because they reanimate dead people who have died a long time ago, and there's never any shortage of those.
Priests or spells that reanimate soulless (zombies) are different, because they reanimate dead people who still have some flesh on them. Thus, they're a little bit wasteful if there are no fresh corpses around (i.e. your mage reanimates fewer total people/hitpoints than he would have reanimating longdead), but are better when done in provinces that have corpses in them (in which case you'll reanimate ~ the same number of undead, except soulless are generally much better than longdead man-for-man).

The same is true for battles BTW: in the first turns of a battle animating skeletons will get you better results. A few turns in when some people have died on either side of the battle animating zombies becomes more efficient.

Finally, there's the Raven Feast spell, which turns Air gems into Death gems based on the corpse count of the province it's aimed at.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

And to answer your question: nope, Reanimation doesn't care about corpses - because it reanimates Longdead.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

OK, so, from the "Reanimate" description, I should ignore "corpses" because later it says "skeletons", and skeletons (being longdead) tells me I won't need corpses? Is that right?

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I think our posts may have crossed. :)

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I know this game has lots of depth I keep discovering, but I had no idea that there are actually two kinds of corpses/undead...:D I just thought dead was dead...

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Welcome to Dominions, where the learning curve was modelled on the cliffs of Dover :)

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I think it's just Animate Dead, Raise Dead, Carrion Reanimation and Raven Feast which care about corpses. Oh, Army of the Dead too I guess. I could have forgotten some others though.

Edit: But the rule is that raising soulless always requires and consumes corpses, and no other kinds of undead require or consume corpses.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

The game also distinguishes between armed corpses and unarmed corpses. The former can get you soulless armed with weapons, while the latter (produced through e.g. population dying from a deadly dominion, Black Death and the like) gets you your unarmed zombies.

Aside for use as Soulless, or for conversion to air gems, the Eater of the Dead finds corpses tasty. :D

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Sort of aside from the original question, but it was always my impression that longdead where better than soulless. I mean, soulless may have more hit point but I could count the number of times I saw one actual hit something on one hand. The longdead are more like actual soldiers except their hit points are lower and their equipment is substandard (rusted, I believe). And you know, they are undead with everyting that that brings.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I think on the whole you're right Khepri. However when corpses are present, you tend to get more soulless than longdead. So I guess if you are trying to produce damage absorbers then soulless are better. I suppose also if they were buffed they might become quite good.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Hrrrrm. Interesting; I don't think Corpse Constructs actually requires corpses, despite the name and the units essentially being beefed-up soulless. IIRC, I've done mass summonings of them (via the unique book, and perhaps also the lighting rod) in a capital province w/o corpses and still gotten 'em. Perhaps the caster was murdering the population to get them, but I didn't notice. ;) Haven't played Agartha for a long time, so I don't have any recollection of trying with flame corpses.

Aside from skills, another significant difference between them and the longdead is that longdead are poor amphibious, while soulless are landlubbers.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

I actually think it's hardcoded into the "Soulless" units that they required and consume corpses when summoned. You can't make a summon spell for them which doesn't require corpses (well, without some mod trickery - it just so happens that I was working on such a spell only last week).

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Well said... I've been playing since the summer, and I still feel like I know almost nothing.

Re: Corpses (or, what's the use of dying)?
 

Hi earwicker7, me too, I just love reading the stuff here ;)

Like, when I started this thread, I thought I was just being dumb about corpses. Seems there's more to dying than just being dead...