Understanding Reanimation

Aleph · #1 February 10th, 2007, 02:11 AM

I've been getting some great answers in my "Understanding _____" series, so here's another one.

Renanimation is one of my favorite national abilities. I think I have a decent handle on the bare bones aspects of it, but I'm not sure. Here's what I understand to be true.

1. There are only 3 nations I know of who can recruit reanimators for gold; Lanka, MA Ermor, and Yomi. Who am I missing from that list?

2. LA Ctis, Ermor, and Lanka all have variable longdead based on their multiple infantry types. Does anything influence which type of longdead infantry arises? (Note: I am not asking about LA Ermor's domain summons.)

3. MA and LA Ermor are the only two nations capable of summoning Longdead Horsemen.

4. Pangea's (any age) national summons can reanimate Manikins. I have noticed (I believe) a higher distribution of interesting Manikin summons corresponding to higher Holy rank among the reanimators - that is, I mostly notice carrion beasts and basic manikins for Carrion Centaurs, while I've gotten Carrion Elephants and Carrion (regular) Centaurs armed with Vine Bows from the Carrion Lord. Does anything else influence this - forest terrain, temples, types of dead in the area? The manual implies it's random, but I'm thinking that means "not under explicit player control" and not "totally random."

5. Anyone with access to death can summon a Mound Fiend to gain basic reanimation abilities. Nations with national renanimation abilities (Ermor, Lanka, Ctis, Pangea) all use those abilities for Mound Fiends - that is, a Mound Fiend working for Pangea will return Manikins instead of offering a choice between Soulless and Ghouls.

6. Special Bonus Question: Carrion Woods - worth it or not? Discuss. I've only ever used it with EA Pangea, where it screwed with my blood economy, but that was in an SP game where I'd effectively already won.

7. No real answer opinion question - so who has the best undead troop types? It would seem to me that Pangean troops are certainly better individually due to their additional vine attacks, and there is no parallel troop as powerful as a carrion elephant or the like, but massed Longdead Horse are very potent (although that is likely more of a consequence of MA Ermor's easy access to H4 and gold recruitable reanimators).