Gem use question.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Borg:
1) do you have to keep "some presence" in a fortress to defend it

Yes, you do.

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You don't actually. The attacker must still break down the walls even if there are no defenders inside. This is most notieable with the dark citadel.

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I've had unoccupied castles captured instantly by small numbers of enemy troops that would otherwise have taken several turns to break down the walls (I know this because that same raiding enemy group later laid siege to a neighboring castle). Which is why I no longer leave my castles undefended. Ever. Regardless of what the rules say.

Those Castles could have not been repaired from their Last siege, had bonuses to siegeing in some way or otherwise been able to batter down whatever fortress you had on their own. This is remarkably true if you've been fighting long drawn out wars on multiple fronts and your castles are in a constant state of disrepair.

[Borg]

Problem :

My mage has Fires from Afar in his ritual spell list, but its shaded grey.

The Mage has Fire 2 lvl and has 13 fire gems available.

From what I understood so far all I would need is 1 Fire gem to give him Fire3 skill for that spell and 10 gems for the Ritual, correct ?
Then why do I get the message "The ritual is too complex for your mage" ?

[PvK]

Because you can't increase your skill with gems for purposes of casting Ritual spells. You can only do that for casting battlefield spells.

You'll need to get him a fire-boosting item, empower him, or use another mage, before he'll be able to cast Fires From Afar.

PvK

P.S. Fires From Afar is worth it when you hit a province full of valuable and vulnerable flammable units (e.g. a convention of mages and high priests). It's probably not the best use of fire gems when most of the targets don't fit that description.

[ July 24, 2004, 00:20: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
Those Castles could have not been repaired from their Last siege, had bonuses to siegeing in some way or otherwise been able to batter down whatever fortress you had on their own. This is remarkably true if you've been fighting long drawn out wars on multiple fronts and your castles are in a constant state of disrepair.

Nice try, but no. It was the first castle on my frontier that the raiders got to, a castle that had been built only a few turns before (so it was at 100% strength), and if the raiders had some bonus, it should have shown up when they got to my second castle, which held out with a single Seithkona in residence for the 2 turns it took my reserves to arrive and lift the siege. It was this experience, which defied what I'd been led to believe about castle defense, that encouraged me to always keep defenders in residence at keeps along hostile borders.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Arryn:
I've had unoccupied castles captured instantly by small numbers of enemy troops that would otherwise have taken several turns to break down the walls (I know this because that same raiding enemy group later laid siege to a neighboring castle). Which is why I no longer leave my castles undefended. Ever. Regardless of what the rules say.

I'm with Arryn here - I've seen castles taken without a fight when there was no one inside. Frankly, it makes sense - if there aren't any soldiers inside, it doesn't take a month to climb over the walls.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
I'm with Arryn here - I've seen castles taken without a fight when there was no one inside. Frankly, it makes sense - if there aren't any soldiers inside, it doesn't take a month to climb over the walls.

Except that it doesn't occur that way in my tests, and hasn't ever occurred that way in any game I've played. Build a castle, leave the province when its finished, and have the other nation invade a turn later. You'll be breaking down the walls, but still have to exceed the defense.

What may have happened in the cases where you saw the castle fall immediately is that your opponent brought along scouts or other stealthy unit with a gate cleaver or horn of bLasting. If you were playing against Vanheim or Tuatha, then you wouldn't have seen all of their troops anyways. You don't receive precise intelligence on the forces outside of your castle, so it's fairly easy to have siegers that only come out from hiding till the walls fall, then leave to go somewhere else.