Send Horror and Scouts

vfb · #1 March 12th, 2009, 09:22 PM

When you are using Send Lesser Horror in combination with sneaking scouts to capture provinces, is it random whether your scouts will attack the provinces prior to arrival of the lesser horror?

It doesn't seem to make any difference to sneaking scouts: if I Move to attack, or if I just Attack the current province I'm hiding in, the majority of the time, my scouts lose against the PD, and then the lesser horror arrives and turns the province indy.

It's weird that when previously hidden scouts attack, they fight in the Magic Battles phase.

Apsophos · #2 March 12th, 2009, 09:59 PM

I haven't really looked at the turn, so this is why you don't own all my provinces.

vfb · #3 March 12th, 2009, 10:34 PM

Ha ha ha!

Well, I've got to try something, with you having 3 globals up, a bunch of elemental royalty, artifacts, iron order adepts and everything! Meanwhile all I have is a couple blood slaves and a few old priests.

Lingchih · #4 March 12th, 2009, 11:29 PM

Yeah, I've seen that happen numerous times. Seems to be a random as to whether your scouts attack first or after the magic phase. Does not seem to be working as intended though.

Endoperez · #5 March 13th, 2009, 01:37 AM

I thought sneaking troops attack DURING magic phase, at least in some cases such as remote summons.

Did you try moving to a neighbouring province instead of attacking the province your scouts started in?

Lingchih · #6 March 13th, 2009, 01:49 AM

No, it was always scouts attacking a prov that had a magic attack going against it. Seems about 50 percent chance that your magic attack hits first.

That is, scouts already in prov.

vfb · #7 March 13th, 2009, 02:09 AM

Some of my scouts stayed in their province and changed orders to 'Attack'. Some of the scouts moved into a neighboring province. There didn't seem to be any difference between trying these two approaches.

Of the few scouts that survived, the weird thing is that the "We have now taken control" messages appear alongside "normal movement" battle messages. But the scouts that died all had "there was a battle" messages in the magic phase, immediately prior to a "there was a battle" for the lesser horror.

Hmmm...

failure: Scouts that did "Attack" current province

failure:
Had a scout in hiding province #55, with orders to move into #40.
Had a scout in hiding province #62, with orders to move into #55.
Cast Send Lesser Horror on 40, 55. Result:
1st battle, magic battle phase: Scout moving from #55 to #40 attacks #55! Weird.
2st battle, magic battle phase: Horror attacks and takes #55.
3st battle, magic battle phase: Horror attacks and takes #40.
4th non-battle, mvmt battle phase: Scout from #62 takes empty province #55.

failure: cast send lessor horror on province I took with call of winds. :P

It looks like:

- If you cast Send Lesser Horror on a province where there is a scout hiding, and the scout has new orders to "Attack", the scout can fight the PD first.

- If you cast Send Lesser Horror on a province where there is a scout hiding, and the scout has new orders to "Move" to a different province, the scout does not move but instead fights the local PD, before the horror.

It looks safe to:

- Move a hidden scout from province A to attack province B, so long as you don't also cast Send Lesser Horror at province A.

Maybe.

JimMorrison · #8 March 13th, 2009, 03:30 AM

I would recommend asking Executor how it works.

He took at least 8, maybe 10 provinces from me with Horror+Scout in Timewarp game, and I don't recall seeing any erroneous attacks by his scouts. As far as I could tell, he had 100% success rate.

Agema · #9 March 13th, 2009, 06:00 AM

I'm suffering this in a game currently. 3 times I've had a province lost to the horror and occupied by a scout. Only once has a scout attacked a province, but there was no horror attack, so I assume my opponent simply forgot to cast the horror. So that's 100% success against me by some mechanism, although there's no adequate statistical significance from only 3 results.

Meglobob · #10 March 13th, 2009, 06:11 AM

I have used horrors + scouts successfully in MP.

It works about 80% of the time.

I try to always move into a adjacent province (from hiding), after attacking that adjacent province with a horror. It works most of the time but occassionally the scout attacks the province he was hiding in and obviously dies. I think when you change from hiding to move there must be a chance that the PD detects your scout and fights a battle in the magic phase with your scout.

Giving a attack order to a scout hiding in a province and sending a horror in works alot less often. Probably 50%, depends wether your horror or scout attack 1st.

Got to say I am okay with how it works at the moment as its a resource cheap, effective tactic, worse case scenario you lost a scout and some blood slaves, no big deal.