Battlefield spell + retreating?

[Tifone]

tnx Endoperenz ^_^

[JimMorrison]

Tifone - by making the spell last only 9 turns, it is just one of the many spells that can be quickly cast to do some damage by a retreating caster. In fact, there are others that would work better. By putting a time limit on it, the 75 turn limit is never reached, and the other force is not automatically dissolved by game mechanics.

Chris - there is really no way around the concept that this is a glaring bug. Casting a BE and then leaving wouldn't be nearly as big a deal, because the battle would end. However, it was never intended that the constant autosummoned units from MoD would keep the fight going indefinitely. ie- you can NEVER make them stop coming, so you cannot win the fight. All Mindless units are forfeit, and if this tactic is used defensively, I'm pretty sure that defender keeps their units even if they're forced to route, but the attacker loses ALL units remaining on the field. Now you don't even have to kill them in the defensive use, you're just trapping them there to die uselessly.

[K]

In case anyone is still interested, a combat using MoD + Retreat can be ended (and won) by killing all the phantasmal units.

Attached games are in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[Jazzepi]

K said:
In case anyone is still interested, a combat using MoD + Retreat can be ended (and won) by killing all the phantasmal units.

Attached games are in this thread:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Way to construct a ridiculously obvious straw man.

Nobody cast a BE that does damage, which is where 99% of the real abuse of MoD comes from, and the army fighting off the MoD cast a bunch of zero encumbrance, life draining flyers with magical attacks, via false horror.

I can't think of anything else that would nearly close to that effective. If you have regular flyers, they're going to get fatigued flying all over the place. *If* they can even fly through storms. If you don't have flyers in the army, then you can't zip around the map fast enough to kill the MoD phantasms.

I mean, really, K. I think you can do better. This is just embarrassing.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Err....

He came up with a tactic to stop MoD. It isn't easy, but it can be done.

How is "I can do the impossible, in certain cases" embarrassing? Even if it isn't perfect, it's better than what most people here thought possible.

[K]

Jazzepi said:

Way to construct a ridiculously obvious straw man.

Nobody cast a BE that does damage, which is where 99% of the real abuse of MoD comes from, and the army fighting off the MoD cast a bunch of zero encumbrance, life draining flyers with magical attacks, via false horror.

I can't think of anything else that would nearly close to that effective. If you have regular flyers, they're going to get fatigued flying all over the place. *If* they can even fly through storms. If you don't have flyers in the army, then you can't zip around the map fast enough to kill the MoD phantasms.

I mean, really, K. I think you can do better. This is just embarrassing.

Jazzepi

I'm actually really surprised that this is what you take from these test games.

It's a proof that MoD is not bugged (spell can end before turn 75), and it's a proof of concept that MoD can be beaten with a small army and a handful of mages who aren't doing anything particularly special (it uses base units and base mages and no special equipment, as well as similar research levels).

It also means that if someone is casting a damaging BE, he would be killing half his own Phantasmal units each turn and actually making it even easier to counter.

In a very real way, it turns MoD from "godmode" to "something the runs the clock on very small armies, much like Quagmire or spamming summons."

This is just my very first attempt, and it shows that:
-A few all-unit spells like Rain of Stones can end it (and you can toss in a round 1 Army of Gold to protect all your units).
-A few battlefield-damaging spells can end it relatively quickly (your army doesn't even need to be immune since the phantasmal units are losing half thier number each time a BE spell's effect goes off, and some undefined number for being magical creatures without magical leadership, so it's a very few turns of exposure for your army).
-Many small squads of archers can end the spell, which is a tactic available on turn 1 of the game.
-A reasonably-sized and organized army can end the spell.
-Small Squads of flyers or fast units can end it, which means everything from summoning dragonflies or air elementals to setting up small squads of black hawks or even calvary.

That's not even counting exotic tactics like fast/flying thugs with void eyes or mundane tactics like having a decent amount of mages with good ranged spells researched.

[Tifone]

So you suggest to make MoD+Battlefield spell+Vortex of Returning legit and accepted in MP games? Just to understand

[K]

Tifone said:
So you suggest to make MoD+Battlefield spell+Vortex of Returning legit and accepted in MP games? Just to understand

People can play any way they like. Some people play with mod nations or modded spells, and some people mod out (or make expensive) the gem-producing items, powerful globals, or certain nations.

That's their play style.

I'm just saying that "balance" arguments to forbid or nerf MoD don't seem very valid from where I'm standing. I ran just one test game and beat MoD, the ran another with less favorable circumstances just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. It's not like I tried a dozen things and this was the only one that worked. It was just the easiest to set up in terms of troops and research levels.

But, considering people's feelings on this issue I could probably show them a hundred saved games where MoD is a mere roadbump to different tactics and they'd still call me a cheater and refuse to play with me.

Peace out.

[JimMorrison]

K said:
In a very real way, it turns MoD from "godmode" to "something the runs the clock on very small armies, much like Quagmire or spamming summons."

Ehhh, Quagmire kills small armies? Good to know..... o.O

I'm not sure anyone intended to actually claim that there was *no* way to counter MoD. However, NOT using a second BE in conjunction with the MoD (usually stated in the exploit rules that people use), kind of invalidates the test IMO. Maybe the second BE would kill some phantasms, but if it takes 25+ turns without significant losses to the other army, then imagine how hard it will be to counter, even if the other BE only kills 10% a turn? I think you'd find that after 5-6 turns, either the army lacks the punch to kill the phantasms, or the spells have caused plenty enough imbalanced damage already.

And not only is your "50% loss to BE" damage for the phantasms laughable, but often clever players would just use Heat From Hell or Grip of Winter anyways, so won't be killing many phantasms. Of course, you would try to tailor that to your opponent, but still, the only thing you've even proven is that -some- types of summons -may- be able to stop the spell -if- they do not get killed by other effects first. Some nations, builds, and playstyles may not include Air or Death, and from there your options for things that will actually have even a remote chance of success, dwindles rapidly.


Apparently, someone has a very different definition of easy than most of the other people present.

[K]

Here is another saved game. It involves a small Abysian army with a few mages(one casting Fire Storm) and a few guys with Rod's of the Phoenix beating a defending MoD + Storm + Wrathful Skys + Grip of Winter + Quagmire. The Abysian army takes a few losses, and I had to make the Seraph Pretender immune to fire because I was afraid he'd get killed on turn one of the combat. It's in a Cold 3 province.