How to use Golems?

[Boron]

Zen said:
No Feet slot make that pretty hard. Unless your Starspawns happen to have feet instead of tentacles and/or whatever it is that Starspawn walk with.

Are you going to change that in your nations mod?

After all illithids are extremely intelligent beings so why shouldn't they be able to forge magic shoes for their feet tentacles?

[Boron]

Just looking more closely at the Golem but the basic attack is very low which seems to make the golem a bit weak imho.
You have 8/8 Base Attack/Defense while the devil has 18/16 Base Attack/Defense and a Bane Lord 14/14.

Herald lance gives +1 to attack, burning pearl +4 and ring of warrior +5.
So you can get a maximum attack value of +10 and get a 18 attack with the herald lance then.

A standard blood thorn,lucky coin,quickness,-1 def armor bane lord has then 19 defence, such a devil 21 defence.

The attack calculator says 18 attack vs. 19 defence there is
a 35,9% chance for hitting and this chance is halfed because of the luck effect.

The Banelord/Devil otoh almost always hits the golem and fatigues him through lifedraining.
Furthermore if you teleport the golem in you are the attacker, hence the first 2 strikes normally go to the defending Bane lord/Devil and they normally fatigue the Golem quite a bit , as a side effect lowering his attack value.
2nd side effect is that the golem can't buff probably.

So in theory the golem should suck vs. even a lousy banelord.
I am curious now and will test this tomorrow

[FrankTrollman]

Rlyeh usually has little difficulty making a staff of elemental power and even less making a ring of wizardry.

It is a major pain in the *** that Earth bonuses are so hard to get. The fact that there isn't an easy equivalent to the Bag of Winds/Water Bracelet in Earth is quite vexing on many levels.

Heck, I'd be happy with some Earth bonus Armor. Or a Shield. Or anything. At all. Right now, short of Unique Artifacts, Earth needs at least 3 picks of another magic type to get its second bonus point (from a Blood Stone bbbe, Ring of wizardry sssss, Staff of Elemental Mastery fffwwww or eeeaaa, or Robe of the Archmagi bbbbaaaa). Every single other magic type gets an easier second bonus. Even Fire (which needs a Death of all things to get the Flaming Skull) can get by on a single random pick coming up the right way to get the second bonus point.

And the uniques aren't a lot better. There are three unique artifacts that grant an Earth bonus, of which one is the same slot as the regular Earth Boots (Anteus' Boots are, however, totally sweet. They just don't aid in the department of Earth Boosting at all). And the other two are themselves basically no good. The Sword of Many Colors is extremely expensive, and requires a 4/1 split. The Book requires a 2/2 split.

If you count Uniques, Earth is the only magic type that can't self-buff itself twice.

Air can boost itself with the Winged Helm and Bag of Winds.
Water can boost itself with the Water Bracelet and the Robe of the Sea.
Death can boost itself with the Skull Face and Staff.
Nature can boost itself twice with the Treelord's Staff all by itself.
Astral can boost itself with the Starshine Skullcap and the Ring of Sorcery.
Blood can boost itself with the Blood Thorn and the Brazen Head.

Even Fire can double self-boost with the help of the Flaming Helmet and the Ruby Eye.

Only Earth has no ability to get its second bonus. And that really hurts groups like Ulm who are supposed to rely upon Earth as their primary sustenence.

---

But that's all irrelevent for the purposes of Rlyeh getting Golems. You only need the second Earth to make one, and the Ring of Wizardry is completely available with Construction 6, and the Golem comes in with Construction 7. So since 23.44% of your Starspawn Mages is going to have at least one earth, the problem is solved before it even happens.

-Frank

[FrankTrollman]

Boron Says: The Banelord/Devil otoh almost always hits the golem and fatigues him through lifedraining.

The Golem is Lifeless. How does the Banelord/Devil fatigue him with Lifedraining?

-Frank

[Zen]

80 Pearls or 20Fire/Water 20Air/Earth (of which R'lyeh only has access initially to water, which is used by VoT more than likely if you want to support your Elemental summoning) to be able to Summon Golems isn't exactly "little difficulty".

And as I said originally, Arco is the only nation _without boosters_ that can summon Golems (by luck even). You can summon Golems with R'lyeh, but it's a rarity I have found since I (Purely a me thing) will rarely make a Ring of Wizardry without a forge bonus. Unless you are playing in some sort of hordeathon it's not really a good use of your resources (especially pearls) when Bane Lords, Devils (etc) come into play (As soon as T20, but to be safe between 25-30). I don't really see you having 80 Pearls + the 30 a shot per golem (usually it's not profitable to use less than 3 as a reactionary force) from turn 25-35.

The only times I can see making a Ring of Wizardry, at full price, for golem work is in the late game (where better options exist) or if you have a global like a Arcane Nexus or you buy into the horde mentality (some do and I guess I can see it, I don't like playing those sort of boring games).

So yes, it can be done, but not what I would consider feasibly in a MP scenario. Which colors my perspective.

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
The Banelord/Devil otoh almost always hits the golem and fatigues him through lifedraining.

Troops with a base encumbrance of 0 do not get fatigued when hit with a lifedrain weapon. Nor will the lifedrain weapon drain anything from the lifeless golem.

[Graeme Dice]

FrankTrollman said:
It is a major pain in the *** that Earth bonuses are so hard to get.

Earth is the second easiest after water. Until construction 6, earth is the easiest to boost.

The fact that there isn't an easy equivalent to the Bag of Winds/Water Bracelet in Earth is quite vexing on many levels.

Both air boosters require A3. The fire helmet booster (which isn't particularly useful on the battlefield) is F3. Skulls of fire are D1F1. Earth also has the B3E1 blood stone, which isn't too hard to make in small quantities.

Right now, short of Unique Artifacts, Earth needs at least 3 picks of another magic type to get its second bonus point (from a Blood Stone bbbe,

Empowering from B1 to B3 takes only 70 blood slaves. From B0 it's onlt 120. That's not that hard to come up with.

Every single other magic type gets an easier second bonus.

Incorrect. Air has only A3.

If you count Uniques, Earth is the only magic type that can't self-buff itself twice.

It's also one of the more powerful schools, so this isn't too much of a problem.

Astral can boost itself with the Starshine Skullcap and the Ring of Sorcery.

The ring isn't particularly afforadble.

Blood can boost itself with the Blood Thorn and the Brazen Head.

As well as the armour of souls.

So since 23.44% of your Starspawn Mages is going to have at least one earth, the problem is solved before it even happens.

A ring of wizardry costs 80 astral pearls. That's still a rather large problem to overcome.

[Jurri]

Zen said:
80 Pearls or 20Fire/Water 20Air/Earth (of which R'lyeh only has access initially to water, which is used by VoT more than likely if you want to support your Elemental summoning) to be able to Summon Golems isn't exactly "little difficulty".

Well, Voice of Tiamat usually solves the elemental gem problem, making it quite possible to forge an Elemental Staff for the purpose. Of course settings an mileage vary, so I'm not sure if getting one can be said to be reliable. Same for the blood stone, which is even easier usually.

Doesn't Arco need at least one astral booster to make Golems? Or how's it done "_without boosters_"?

[Oversway]

Boron - I was thinking someone would put jade armor or boots of quickness on a golem. So +3 attack right? But I agree, the 8 base attack & defense is rather problematic.

[Alneyan]

Poor Arcoscephale indeed needs one booster to get a Golem. I think only R'lyeh can get Astral 3/Earth 2 without any boosts, as their Starspawns appear to have full randoms. Of course, only one Starspawn in 64 will qualify, but still.