Murdering Winter
 

Hello!

I have a question about the Murdering Winter. First, here is the description found on pg. 215 of the manual:

"This is a long-ranged cold attack on an enemy army in a distant province. The strength of the attack is 7 armor-negating points + 2 x the province's cold scale. This spell will never kill more
than half of an enemy army, as at least half of the army is out of camp at a given time, and this spell attacks the camp."

My question is, is the damage dealt from this attack cold damage or normal? Should I assume that because the attack is cold that the damage dealt is also cold-based?

I ask because my opponent has several troops with 100% cold resistance. The description makes me think that the damage is normal though you would think it would be cold-based.

Any help here is appreciated. Just looking for a confirmation. Thx.



Sea_Dog

Re: Murdering Winter
 

I think it is cold based. Dunno for sure. But most water spells are cold, and most fire spells are fire.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

I'd say it's almost certainly cold based.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

it is. cast it on undead to test it. it will kill none of them. flames from the sky though, murders undead

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Does this sort of spell work on units hiding in castles?

What about if i have a besieging army, can i use it on the castle and my units not be affected?

If i cast wolven winter in the same turn, what order are the spells processed in?

Thanks.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

You can cast it on castles, it won't affect your sieging troops, and the spell order is random.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

You have an equal chance of Wolven Winter being cast before Murdering Winter or after it. However, spell casting order most certainly is not random! :)

Re: Murdering Winter
 

It is randomly either in caster ID order or reverse ID order, which is effectively random for most purposes. There are ways to abuse this, of course.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

As casting 2 wolven winters and the murdering winter in between.
btw. do wolven winters stack? Can i change heat 3 to cold 3 by two wolven winters?
And another question: Is murdering winter affected by season? As being most effective in winter?

Re: Murdering Winter
 

- The scales effects of spells stack.
- Nope, murdering winter is affected by scales, not the time of winter. (iirc). Of course, it is just a little bit more effective if old units get diseases/never healing wounds, on the same turn as you cast murdering winter. But that is only marginal, and not something you should ever try to use.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Hmm, I'm surprised you say this (though I don't doubt you!). I thought the general point I could rely on is same-spells-don't-stack. Since there are so many situations, how can you know which do and which do not?

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Well those are ritual spells. Casting summon crazy monster twice gives 2 crazy monsters right? The same with ritual scale adjustment spells. 2 wolven winters make cold 3 out of heat 3. 2 astral star curse spells from who I forgot the name reduce the luck of a province to -3. Etc.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Errr, OK, if you put it like that... :)
OK, so Rituals are each separate. Whereas battlefield ones are more the ones I was thinking of, I guess.
Thank you!

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Well, frozen heart spam is cumulative, but gaining elemental resistances mostly do not stack. :D

Re: Murdering Winter
 

I'd like more info about this ID thing as I want to abuse it.
Thanks!

Re: Murdering Winter
 

I think this is what they meant by abusing it. At the cost of an extra wolven winter instead of just 1 you get 100% chance to increase the effect of the costly murdering winter.

Anyways you can see which units have higher ID's imporcance in one city. So when you click inside the army setup screen commanders are sorted by their ID number from top to bottom.

Also, as you might know already, in actual combat they will cast their spells by that order(from top to bottom) not "randomly" as they would casting ritual spells.

I'd also be interested to know if you can use/abuse that "random" order in casting global spells, or forging unique items.(maybe its possible to order the mage with highest ID and the mage with lowest ID to forge an important unique artifact(I don't think it will be worth it but there might be certain situations) to make sure that someone else doesn't forge it before you do.( not sure if the ID's are shared between all the players)

Some more info regarding the ID from a veteran player would be appreciated:)(or if it would be possible to use it the way I mentioned in the last paragraph)

So there are several questions here:

1.Is there any way you can see the exact ID number of your commander/troop?

2.How exactly are units given their ID numbers(is it decided by the turn and time that you buy it?)

3.Is the casting of ritual/forging "random" between the nations in the same way as it is inside one nation.
clarification: if Nation 1 and Nation 2 have 3 mages each.assuming the ID is shared between the nations(which might not be true).
Mages with ID 1,3,5 is from Nation 1 and mages with ID 2,4,6 are from Nation 2.

When it comes to lets say forging a uniqe item. Given that nation 2 will use Mage ID 2 to forge the item. Can nation 1 ensure getting the item by forging it with Mage ID 1 and with Mage ID 5 at the same time? (thus no matter which way around the forging starts Nation 1 is always the first to forge it)

If that is so this can be used in many ways.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Yes, you can increase the chances of successfully forging artefacts by double forging them with a low/high ID mage. Of course this doesn't guarantee success unless the two mages are both the highest and lowest ID-ed mages in the game respectively. As if another player forges the same artefact with a lower or higher ID-ed mage than you did (depending on the order the turn resolution was resolved that turn), then they would be the one who forged the artefact successfully.

The same mechanics apply for summoning unique monsters.


RE: Wolven Winter in particular.

One common bit of misinfomation regarding this spell, and in relation to abusing ID orders, is that if you are planning to launch a ritual attack, lets say Cloud Trapezing a thug onto a coldblooded C'tis lizard army. Then you will sometimes see advice that says you should try to have a Wolven Winter caster on either side of the Cloud Trapezing thug. The idea being that this will guarantee that at least one Wolven Winter will be cast before the fight regardless of whether the turn is resolved high-low or low-high. But there are two errors in that analysis :-

1 - All rituals are cast before combat from rituals takes place (apart from remote assassination spells which are resolved instantly)

2 - Wolven Winter is a spell that simulates an in-game event. Therefore while it is cast in the ritual phase, the effects of the spell do not occur until the event phase. Meaning the temperature scales will not have changed when the ritual battle occured. This is one of the most common and false arguments used in discussions relating to coldblooded units. (eg. "coldblooded units are useless as you just have to cast Wolven Winter and drop a SC on them".)

Re: Murdering Winter
 

edit: ninja'd :D but ye thanks for the confirmation.


After some testing I think the speculation that I mentioned might be true.
After 10 tests the results were that every single one of them the ID ordering I assumed was true.

The tests were: Nation 1 with Awake Cyclops with earth 9.buys some commanders but that is all.

Nation 2 summons several debug sensei(unit with 9 in all magic paths)(I use debug mod for most of my tests)

Couple of turns later (and wishing for gems)

Nation 1 summons 1 last debug sensei

Then the casting begins: Nation 1 orders Cyclops and debug sensei to cast: riches from beneath. Same turn Nation 2 uses 1 debug sensei to cast riches from beneath but with some extra gems to ensure override.

Result: Nation 1 is always casts riches 1st either with Cyclops(presumably one of the first ID numbers) or with debug sensei (presumably one of the last ID numbers)
Then nation 2 casts riches with its own debug sensei(presumably some middle ID number)
It overrides the current riches.
Then nation 1 casts riches again with the commander or the cyclops depending on who cast the spell at the first time.

This means that you can almost ensure casitng of a global/forging as long as you have awake pretender with the required magic and a you can buy/summon mage with the magic.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

1 - Not from in-game. You can get a unit's ID (known as unit number) from the log file. Look for an early entry that looks like this

deploy_side 4673

The 4673 will be that unit's unit number. (and will be referenced in later log entries as either 4673 or unr4673)


2 - Units are assigned a unit number the first moment they appear in the game. So that is the point they are summoned or recruited. AFAIK this unit number never changes for the life of that unit. But when a unit dies, their unit number is freed up for future use. That is to say a unit does not keep its unit number after it has died.

It appears that units are assigned the lowest possible free unit number available at the time. Which is why your sometimes see newly bought mages appearing at the top of your mage list. Which indicates that mage has been assigned a unit number of a previously dead unit, as this unit number has now been freed up for re-use by that units death. Proper testing would be required to confirm this though, but it does both match and explain what regularly happens in games.


3 - Nations are irrelevant when it comes to the turn resolution squence. All that matters are the unit numbers. If the turn is resolved low-high then the unit with unr1 acts first, followed by unr2, then unr3 etc etc. And vice versa for high-low. It does not matter which nations these units belong to, as that plays no part in the turn resolution.

(Disclaimer - The above answers are correct to the best of my knowledge. If someone has tests to show otherwise though, then please post them, as all the community would benefit from seeing them and help bring understanding to a rather unclear/high guesswork, aspect of the game)


I think my answer to 3 clarifies and answers the above. Although please say if there is anything that your are still uncertain about.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Thanks a lot for the nice info;)

Re: Murdering Winter
 

3 questions left then:

1) Ok, so it's no trying to use Wolven Winter the same turn as Murdering Winter. But if you use Wolven Winter on turn 56 and Murdering Winter on the same province on turn 57, is there some cold scale remaining that enhances the Murdering? Or is it better to just forget it and use directly Murdering Winter on turn 56?

2)The explaining text makes me doubtful. 7 damage doesn't seem much: a militia has 8, a simple maenad has 10, human mages have 10, human soldiers have 10-12. Can you really make casualties by using Murdering Winter on a province without cold scales? Am I overlooking something? Or is this spell better used not to kill but mainly to soften a big army the same turn you launch a conventional attack against?

3) A very specific qustion: if I know that Enemy 1 is siegeing a fortress of Enemy 2 and I launch Murdering Winter over there, who will be struck, Enemy 1 or enemy 2?

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Question is indeed quite specific, but I'll give not that specific (I hope still useful) answer on it:)
There is a thread on dom3mods where similar issues are elaborated: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=964

Re: Murdering Winter
 

1. That would depend on the strength and temp scale of the dominion in the province, as well as other things that affect temperature shifts, like sites, season and a few special units. Generally speaking if you WW the province to cold 3 and there is no strong heat 3 dominion to shift it then it would still be cold the turn after.

2. 7 armor negating damage + DRN is a LOT more than it sounds. If the province is cold and the units not cold resistant you'll do a lot of damage. But since the spell is very expensive and only targets half the enemy army that is only really worth it against a big army with lots of human HP mages IMO, most of the time I would spend those water gems elsewhere.

3. Testing @ dom3mods indicates that the sieging army is always targeted (enemy 1), but there is anecdotical evidence to the contrary. Like every scientifically schooled person knows, anecdotical non-reproducable evidence is worthless. So I assume the tests show the the truth and those spells always targets enemy 1.

Re: Murdering Winter
 

Thanks a lot!

With some luck, these informations will help me get my first MP victory. :p