thejeff: By holistically, I mean the problem of MA Ermor being one of only a few nations that have recruitable mages easily able to cast VotD combined with the double-bless Shadow Vestal rush. The problem seems to be that he couldn't move around due to the rush, and he got lots of kills (and didn't have time for an efficient anti-Undead capability) due to the rush, then got dropped by VotD. Without either one, VotD wouldn't have been as big of a deal.
Honestly, without the capability to spam it, there are much better answers, even Overland answers, to a SC (from what I read).
llamabeast:
I do hope I didn't make a mistake. It would have been bad if I had, but I did check it the inverse way, too. The probability of NOT getting a success in the first 3 is 0.96^3 (starting with three failures)*, ergo 1-0.96^3 is the probability of getting a success in the first 3, which is still 11.52%.
Let's see if I understand something about the rules. 1) All units are set to autoroute after 50 turns. 2) Mindless units without a commander or with a routing commander dissolve instead of routing. 3) You cannot retreat in Assassination attempts. 4) VotD is an assassination.
Are any of these incorrect?
This looks like a problem induced by the bug-fix to complete shut off retreat in an assassination attempt. Without substantial changes to the code or changes to the gameplay (allow retreats from Assassinations, which will kill you), or both (allow retreats, but you don't die), I fail to see how this problem can be resolved. The simplest solution might be to allow mindless units to be tagged to retreat in Assassination attempts; this will, of course, have its own share of consequences.
Thoughts?
Oh, and VotD is hardly needed against most combat casters. Earth Attack is probably superior for that purpose (I might be wrong, but that's one tough Elemental, and it tramples quite well). It takes a single path (typically easier to get), costs a bit more, but has no MR check. The only other issue is that it's easier to 'hide' from, but enough races can cast and spam it that it's not a huge problem?
Wyatt Hebert
* I realize that the actual probability will be the summation of the probabilities higher than 3 successes (using that formula), so that yields Sum{x=4->Inf}(0.96^(x-1)*0.04). However, without going through it, it comes close, if not exactly, to the 11.5% chance, so I just left it at that.
I might be wrong; my statistics class was quite a while ago, but I think I'm remembering it clearly.