Guide: Guide to communions

[sector24]

Depends on the spell mostly. If you're spamming low level evocations your magic path (boosted through the communion) is high enough, you may only be giving your slaves like 4 fatigue. In that case it should be fine for the slaves to cast themselves to 100 fatigue, and then it will still be a long time before they get to 200 and start taking damage.

On the other hand if you're casting battlefield wide spells that have several hundred fatigue attached to them, you probably don't want your slaves casting additional spells.

[Baalz]

Having the slaves in the classic communion cast spells is a dangerous move best reserved for battles you're not sure you can win otherwise. The reason is because going 15 turns before slaves die will take you through most battles, but if you can only last 10 turns you'll often find your slaves dying as your masters try to hit the fleeing remnants of your enemy. Not much more annoying than that...

[Jazzepi]

Baalz said:
Having the slaves in the classic communion cast spells is a dangerous move best reserved for battles you're not sure you can win otherwise. The reason is because going 15 turns before slaves die will take you through most battles, but if you can only last 10 turns you'll often find your slaves dying as your masters try to hit the fleeing remnants of your enemy. Not much more annoying than that...

I think this really just depends. When I was playing Arco I was able to always have my slaves spamming soul slay. Since my communions were built around a Banner of the Northern Light + Power of the Spheres, a guy who already has 3 astral isn't going to be paying much fatigue to cast Soul Slay.

Jazzepi

[Meglobob]

I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it?

Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest.

[Zeldor]

Jazzepi:

But problem is that you can just script for 5 turns, in late game when you have expensive spells researched masters will cast them, even if they are totally useless [for example enemy slowly routing]. And casting 100+ fatigue spells every turn is exhausting. Especially when you add Phenix Pyre to that you have nice effect

Baalz:

Many nations can access higher level battle spells only through communions, so hard to avoid them or use just low level spells.

[Gregstrom]

The simple answer is not to leave the casters with surplus gems. Then they flat-out can't cast anything with 100+ fatigue.

[Baalz]

Meglobob said:
I have been using communion slave, banishmentx4, stay behind troops on a big communion. It works very well vs undead armies and is no real danger to your slaves because banishment is 0 fatigue. So why not cast it?

Works with any 1S 1H mage/priest.

Oops, yeah I forgot to mention this, adding it to the guide.

[IndyPendant]

I have another question:

In one of my MP games, I tried to take Indy provinces (it's a big map) by having five Thaumaturgs (1S1D2H) lead a horde of Shadow Vestals and Longdead Horsemen. I had them each scripted thus:

Com Slave/Divine Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Unholy Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Prot of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Slave/Pwr of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Master/Spells

When I reviewed the battle results, these orders were ignored. They cast the Communion Master and Communion Slaves spells, but then ignored *ALL* of the holy/unholy buffing spells, and just cast essentially random spells instead. Did I do something wrong?

Edit: Meanwhile, in another battle with another player, by Grand Thaum cast the holy/unholy buffing spells when fighting just some PD of 10-20 or so...

--IndyPendant.

[vfb]

IndyPendant said:
I have another question:

In one of my MP games, I tried to take Indy provinces (it's a big map) by having five Thaumaturgs (1S1D2H) lead a horde of Shadow Vestals and Longdead Horsemen. I had them each scripted thus:

Com Slave/Divine Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Unholy Blessing/Spells
Com Slave/Prot of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Slave/Pwr of the Sepulchre/Spells
Com Master/Spells

When I reviewed the battle results, these orders were ignored. They cast the Communion Master and Communion Slaves spells, but then ignored *ALL* of the holy/unholy buffing spells, and just cast essentially random spells instead. Did I do something wrong?

Edit: Meanwhile, in another battle with another player, by Grand Thaum cast the holy/unholy buffing spells when fighting just some PD of 10-20 or so...

--IndyPendant.

Only the communion master gets a boost to his paths.

You could have added more casters and done:

Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Master/Divine Blessing/?
Com Master/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Master/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Master/Pwr of the Sepulchre/?

In this case if all scripted spells are H? and the battle doesn't go too long, your 4 slaves won't die of fatigue.

Edit

Oops, got confused, you are talking about H2s. So a single cast of Power of the Spheres would be sufficient boost:


Com Slave/?/Divine Blessing/?
Com Slave/?/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Slave/?/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Slave/?/Pwr of the Sepulchre/? <-- edit: H4, won't work
Com Master/Pwr of the Spheres/?

OR

Com Slave/?
Com Slave/?
Com Master/Divine Blessing/?
Com Master/Unholy Blessing/?
Com Master/Prot of the Sepulchre/?
Com Master/Pwr of the Sepulchre/? <-- edit: H4, won't work

[IndyPendant]

Aha, very simple error. Slaves only have their magic levels increased for fatigue calculation, not for determining what spells they can cast. Thanks, vfb.