Amusing trick.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Executor

That's just the 'refuses to use gems because the enemy is too weak' problem, isn't it?

And a mighty problem it is when you lose a Seraph with 150 gems of equipment to 180 gold shadow seer.
But I'm not sure if it's a "too week enemy problem", I know infernal disease is a good way to use up gems on some commanders since they do cast scripted orders, like rain of stones or whatever.
That can come in handy very much.

Well, then it's your fault for not wishing for a Chayot instead.

Also, I think I had a single shadow seer trigger gem usage by an entire army when he was caught by patrollers, so you're probably right about which problem caused your Seraph not to return (was it your Seraph?). The easy way to find out why he didn't cast Returning is to look at the debug log.

[Executor]

Yeah, -2 research point for no upkeep, I'm not sure it's worth it.

[Dragar]

Yeah, I don't think I'd have a researching skratti in werewolf form. And if not researching or site searching or using them as spellcasting combatants I would normally keep them in werewolf form anyway

[VedalkenBear]

Executor: My point is that there _is_ a cost involved. 250g/0g upkeep for a 6-point researcher is still worse than 150gp/10gp upkeep 6-point researcher for 10 turns. 20 turns if the 150gp mage is sacred.

Also, IIRC, it's -2 rp 50% of the time, -3 rp the other 50%.

And that's not looking at the capital cost.

Is it balanced? Probably not. But you can at least argue the point.

[cleveland]

Lifelong protection + (Mossbody)(Mossbody)etc...