How can you use heretics?

Edratman · #1 October 31st, 2007, 07:33 AM

Last night I found the site "Temple of Sacred River" and that made two mages avaialble, Renata and Renatus.

The description of one of these is that he is a heretic that takes people away from the true god. I cannot figure out how to use this mage. In fact, the new LA serpant cult has similar mages and I haven't played it for the same reason.

How do you use this mage? What does he do? The description reads like he will lower my domain. EA Arco has a heretic, but at least he has stealth and I've sent them into opponents territory to lower domain. But this Renata chap doesn't have stealth.

I assume I am missing something about this chap.

Humakty · #2 October 31st, 2007, 07:44 AM

No, it seems you are true : they are worst than useless, they are dangerous for who dares recruit them. I think Serpent Cult have them to compensate for their top notch army.
But maybe that if you have dom 9/10 and need them to diversify your magic, then it is worthy to buy some.

Juzza · #3 October 31st, 2007, 07:50 AM

1.way to use them is if you yourself have a weak dominion to lower enemy dominion in your own lands.

2. if you have, lets say a -3 drain dominion but you want to be able to research alright, well just chuck a few heretics in a province (not too close to your capital, god, or prophet) and research away in a nice 0 magic environment. This should be combined with a strong dominion.

3.Ever been in one of those really important sieges? where it's your god, your prophet and your biggest army, vs there god in there capital, and no matter what you do you can't get their dominion down? Heretics are the answer!! combined with your own priests you can drop an enemy dominion in no time!

Thats just some uses, theres probably more out there, personally I don't use them that often, except for the research one, thats a handy little trick.

Agema · #4 October 31st, 2007, 08:30 AM

The simplest advantage would be to give you options in an area of magic you wouldn't otherwise have, as pointed out - the advantages could easily outweigh the Dom problems. These mages would also be good to take with your army campaigning, as you'll likely be in someone else's dominion and the heretics will be bothering them instead.

Sombre · #5 October 31st, 2007, 09:00 AM

I don't think the ability makes them useless at all. As long as you don't take big squads of them trekking around in your own dominion all they will do is nix your dom in one or two provinces where you keep them. They go well with raiding armies, sieging armies etc and also work very well with negative scales, since they reduce the amount you'll suffer from them. As long as you keep a squad of priests preaching in your cap you don't really have to worry about domkill either - plus your heretics will nix enemy dom coming towards you.

Humakty · #6 October 31st, 2007, 09:08 AM

I usually play with positive scales, which I intend to use to the maximum(it costs darn lot of good points to be a nice god!), so it is true heretics seemed to me like shooting my own feet to run faster...

Edratman · #7 October 31st, 2007, 10:24 AM

Everyone seems to confirm what I thought.

In this particular game, I started in a corner as usual, and the site is even deeper into the corner than my capital. So short of teleport, which I'm not even sure he is pathed to do, he would be even worse. I don't recall much about him but he has maybe 2 magic paths.