Fun with ... TRANSFORMATION

[Arralen]

As there are more and more players here who don't have any experience with DOM1 and little with DOM2, as they just got the game, I though I could shed some light on some of the more obscure aspects of DOM, which aren't found in other games in a similar fashion -

TRANSFORMATION this time ..

This spell (alteration-7, nature-3, 8 gems) transform the caster into a random monster.

Tried with Turmoil-3/Luck-3 Pangaea and Gift of Health up. Results wheren't particularly impressive. Looks like you either get a "medium" monster with only misc. and at best a head slot, or a foul spawn and feeblemindedness (most foul spawn have full slots available, though. Maybe some of them have even more, but I haven't seen such). I'm not even shure if spawn has zero upkeep.

First volunteer was the Jade Amazone Gy, which I ordered to transform to get rid of the upkeep costs - she tried several times, but ... A Chimera is nice fighting commander, but nearly useless as a mage, so on to the 2nd try .. Boar
.. being a boar was way to dangerous, so Black Hawk was the next .. Ice Drake wasn't sufficient too, so foul spawn and feeblemindedness ended her career for the time being. Mind the fact, though, that there was no special message, she just transformed into a foul spawn and "went out" ...


Umbra, another Jade Amazone, obviously did something wrong, and ended up as feebleminded spawn on the very first try.

Other victims of their gods curiosity where the Dryad Cybele, now a Black Hawk and the Jade Amazone who turned into a Griffon. A freshly hired Druid turned into an Ice Drake - nobody bothered to ask for his name before, and afterwards it didn't matter

So all in all there doesn't seem to be much variety, and most of the funs seems to come from the nerve-wrecking tension, if your mage blew himself totally or if he's still at least somewhat useful. A heavy investment of gems to get some commander to nature-3 and have him transform into a fearsome fighting machine wouldn't pay off most times, though.

Sorry all pics gone - had remove them from the server

[Kristoffer O]

Whats wrong with a Chimeara?

Flying, can take more punishment than any of your recruitable mages and can defend itself if attacked.

I have always wanted to be a chimeara, or a moose of course

[E. Albright]

One is almost surprised that the Chimeara boasts a ram's head, when one could have just as easily replaced it with that of a moose...

( )

[Gandalf Parker]

I loved that spell. I fed alot of Jade Amazons to it. Nothing fantastic came of it that I can remember but alot of them were useful. Especially if they became armored enough to be up in the front-line. It gave it a whole new use casting spells that had short range.

Flying was useful also. Prophet it and you have a fast moving searcher.

[Wauthan]

Yeah that's usually the fate of all nature mages in the end game. Atleast its a good way to get rid of that gem stockpile.

Seems you can transform into all animals (though never a giant spider for some reason), crossbreeds as well as drakes, griffon and wyvern. Anyone manage to transform a unit into something else? Always felt it was a bit underpowered for its level. Best use I had of it so far was to turn caster heroes with battle theme abilities into something more melee oriented.

[ February 23, 2004, 22:16: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[Vger]

Arralen,

Thanks so much for this (and presumably follow on) thread(s). I've stared at this spell many times, as recently as the vanilla C'tis game I'm playing. (I wanted to try out the Tartarian Gate spell after reading up on it here.)

Having gotten to the point where I am relatively secure in my borders (after driving a stake in Ermor ... yesh) I was thinking of trying this on to see what you get.

(For those who care, current game is vanilla C'tis on the World map [not the scenario] against all 16 nations on normal AI.)

I had thought that it might be a way around having an immobile pretender. Cast transformation and ... voila! Seeing your results has made me somewhat less enthusiastic about the possiblity.

Looking at the results, I'm unsure about something. Where your volunteers still have magic, is that what they started with (or some fraction thereof)? Or new magic native to the creature? (I expect it's remainder magic, but wanted to be sure.)


Ciao,
V'ger gone