Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[NTJedi]

By the time someone has researched level_7 they have plenty of time to buy priests from one location which is only fort/temple. 20 or 30 Indy priests have very little upkeep and would definitely be worth changing into undead reanimating priests by middle or late game. While waiting these priests will be preaching dominion and decoys so it won't be a waste. In any case the strategy benefit is strong enough where it will be seen in both SP games and MP games.

It comes down to whether or not KO and JK feels this strategy taints the themes of some nations enough where a change is desired.

[Jazzepi]

I can't imagine that this really matters. It seems terribly difficult to exploit. I guess the idea is to cast a Battlefield wide spell that deals damage to your own mages so that they'll come back as soulless, and then those soulless have to be immune to the spell or else they'll die.

Even if you did this with indie priests, they're only level 1 holy which means they could only reanimate corpses. Even playing Ermor, finding a buttload of corpses for a ton of priests is difficult and requires lots of pillaging, or micro moving those priests around.

I don't think this is worth the effort.

A good use might be killing off your own mages to make them upkeep free. If you could do that for 300-400 a turn worth of mages that could make a big difference in the long term.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.

[Jazzepi]

Baalz said:
Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.

I was under the impression level 1 priests couldn't reanimate long dead? Or am I smoking crack?

Jazzepi

[Kristoffer O]

Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.

[Jazzepi]

Kristoffer O said:
Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.

Whoa.

LOL. I've been playing dominions for over 2 years now. I love all the random crap I find out from out of nowhere

Jazzepi

[Agrajag]

I don't see any exploit here, it's just the spell working as intended, and reanimation working as intended.
And if your problem is thematic, then what are you doing with those death mages in the first place?

[Jazzepi]

Agrajag said:
I don't see any exploit here, it's just the spell working as intended, and reanimation working as intended.
And if your problem is thematic, then what are you doing with those death mages in the first place?

Man, I get the same question all the time about my stockpile of virgins.

Jazzepi

[kasnavada]

The fact that they don't cost upkeep anymore sounds like the exploit to me...

[PyroStock]

You don't need a W/N mage to do this. A mage could cast Immolation (Alt3) or Soul Vortex (Alt6) or you could even trade for the Rime Hauberk(s) to use it's chill, although a 1W mage casting Breath of Winter (Enc1) would be easier/cheaper.