Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeldor
Fantomen:
Sickle - hidden income of 30D/turn is not game breaking? It's more than you can get from Well of Misery, and that globals is "I want to win" sign already. There should be no hidden gem profit. Also there shouldn't be a way to kill your own troops for some gains. With Sickle you can just happily turtle and use huge D income for nasty stuff.
Ankh/LoD - sure, I have nothing against that thing, if used as supposed - to get back some fragile afflicted mages as they had bad luck in one battle. But not to create tens of reanimators for nation that is not supposed to have them. Or for having upkeep-free researchers.
Bogus - have you ever seen it in action? Scouts or air mages with bows scripted to 'fire mages'? Flying anti-thugs scripted to attack commanders? I have. And it's not cool and there is no way to use it against your enemy, unless you find another Bogus around. I've heard about people contemplating plans on what scales to pick with N nation to get the most chance for Bogus to appear, so he can be charmed.
Jarkko:
I have, many times. Just put 1-2 really cheap items on a diseased mage, it should be enough to trigger the script.
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I think you exaggerate quite a bit Zeldor. The sickle is not 30 free D gems every turn after you forge it. You need to have a thug - with probably some other equipment which adds cost on top of the sickle. You also need an ally you trust, to manage the micro of shuffling everything around, pay the gold for PD (or whatever) to feed the sickle, lose the income from the provinces turning over. Also, at the point in the game you're forging artifacts it's virtually assured that your use of the sickle won't go unnoticed for very long so if you're using just a thug fighting chaff it's not too hard for somebody to drop in, soul slay you and take off with your sickle. Is it a useful artifact? Sure, but hardly a game breaking 'I win' button. It's about as good as having 2 provinces full of decent bloodhunters.
Ankh abuse is more of a 'I win' play, but it's also easy to spot and takes a good deal of ramp up time to really be a problem. You wouldn't leave a strong player alone with the Forge of the Ancients, I don't really see this as being any different. Again, a worthwhile strategy but hardly something that breaks the game.
Bogus' orders - yet again, useful but far from game breaking. This is a game where you can drop wrathful skies, get mount chaining or put up Gift of Health, so having something that gives you an edge along one angle is part of the game. It's silly to say their is nothing you can do about the orders.
1) Have a bunch of chaff commanders, guarded by thug killing bodyguards
2) Have a bunch of cheap, nasty commanders like banes to smush the guys trying to take out commanders very economically. Or just use indie commanders with things like hammer forged doom glaives (or whatever makes sense)
3) Put cheap shields on your mages and/or rings of tamed lightning - this will make them virtually immune to arrow fire
4) You don't need to find another Bogus - you just complained about being attacked by units who have the orders you want! Charm/HB them if its worth your trouble...
5) Assassinate/mind hunt/earth attack/manifestation/seeking arrow..etc. etc. etc. can go a long way towards reducing snipers.
Again, certainly it can be useful but you're just not trying if you think there's not much you can do about it.