Most powerful spells?

[Huzurdaddi]

haunted forest + swarm is an exploit

Totally.

IMNSHO

Love it! I'm using that from now on.

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Furthermore spelldescription states that it works only in own dominion .
So i wonder how useful this spell is all in all ?

It's a game-winner.

Swarm costs 1 nature gem but is 100 fatigue so the spell scripting ai should use more then 1 nature gem / swarm .

It doesn't tend to.

So you have the effect only in own dominion + either invest a lot of nature gems for swarm or have something like militia getting killed that you benefit from the spell ?

It's not just your troops that turn into manikins.

Is this really worth it when you can with zero gemcosts either spam false horrors or skeleton hordes ?

A dead dragonfly leads to a single manikin. When that manikin kills something, that also turns into a manikin. This snowballs very effectively. Two castings of swarm for example, can easily kill more than 50 devils, and probably much more than that.

[Yossar]

Boron said:Swarm costs 1 nature gem but is 100 fatigue so the spell scripting ai should use more then 1 nature gem / swarm .

Mages can only use 1 gem per skill level, and I'm not sure how many gems a high level nature mage would put into it, but it shouldn't be so bad.

Is this really worth it when you can with zero gemcosts either spam false horrors or skeleton hordes ?

A couple nature gems for 20+ flying manikins? Yes, it's really worth it.

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:

A dead dragonfly leads to a single manikin. When that manikin kills something, that also turns into a manikin. This snowballs very effectively. Two castings of swarm for example, can easily kill more than 50 devils, and probably much more than that.

True . Can dragon flies fly during a storm ?

Graeme Dice said:

It's a game-winner.

Hmmmm should be nice for nations which get lots of fodder pd like mictlan/machaka then too .

The only thing which lets me still doubt is if it is worth the massive amount of gems required to keep it up at least some turns .


How many gems would you invest ? 100 ? 200 ? 500 ? 999 ?

Would you try to cast it asap or rather later but with lots of gems ?

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
How many gems would you invest ? 100 ? 200 ? 500 ? 999 ?

I'd invest the minimum, with mabye a small random amount extra at first. Make people waste their gems on dispels.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
Does "undead or lifeless are not affected" in spelldescription mean that i can't spam raise skeletons and they get reanimated as manikins too ?

Correct.

If the manikins created through haunted forest effect survive the battle do you keep them then or do they dissolve after battle ?

The later.

Furthermore spelldescription states that it works only in own dominion .
So i wonder how useful this spell is all in all ?

Obviously it's best used when you're on the defensive.

Swarm costs 1 nature gem but is 100 fatigue so the spell scripting ai should use more then 1 nature gem / swarm .

Not a real concern with nature-1 mages.

So you have the effect only in own dominion + either invest a lot of nature gems for swarm or have something like militia getting killed that you benefit from the spell ?

Exactly. Haunted Forest is pretty nasty with vanilla Pangaea if you have max turmoil, a fairly high dominion and enough Panii to supply an endless stream of maenads.

Is this really worth it when you can with zero gemcosts either spam false horrors or skeleton hordes ?

I didn't know that Pangaea could spam False Horrors so easily.

Anyway you didn't pay much attention to what I wrote: read that again, funniest devastating combo - devastating it surely is, and I can't easily imagine anything more funny in Dominions than watching at the chain reactions Haunted Forest may trigger - an unit dies, a manikin rises and kills an enemy nearby, a new manikin rises and kills another enemy unit nearby, a new manikin rises, etc. - all that in the same round! Spamming False Horrors gets rapidly boring in comparison.

And there is always the dispel problem.

Fact is, in that game my Haunted Forest Lasted only 1 turn . But spending 60 gems on it, plus 27 more on Swarms, to destroy 400 enemy units that were worth much more was quite a bargain. And I had no real choice anyway: in that game the Pangaean player I subbed for decided to quit because he found himself in a desperate situation, with his god killed, 7 depleted provinces left, the troops I listed plus an Apostate, a High Priest and a few scouts - nothing more! - and that big Arco army marching towards the capital, and only 2 provinces away from it.

I don't know what you would have done without troops in that situation, but I noticed that the Apostate had the items he needed to cast Haunted Forest - so I decided to alchemize every gem I had to nature and ended with 87 - enough for an unbuffed Haunted Forest and 3 Swarms/Dryad. So the Apostate performed the ritual , while the LQ and Dryads marched againts the invaders. And you know what happened . It sure didn't make me win that war, but at least it delayed Pangaea's extinction by several years!

[Boron]

You are right Nagot i overread the word funniest cause i never tried haunted forest so far and was curious about the spell then .

I think i should open a new thread for this cause it is not really OT here but i am now curious about other ppls tactics with globals + dispelling .

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
i never tried haunted forest so far

Your loss then. It's really the cooooooooooooolest Global Enchantment out there! My all-time favorite since the earliest days of Dom PPP.

[alexti]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
funniest devastating combo - devastating it surely is, and I can't easily imagine anything more funny in Dominions than watching at the chain reactions Haunted Forest may trigger - an unit dies, a manikin rises and kills an enemy nearby, a new manikin rises and kills another enemy unit nearby, a new manikin rises, etc. - all that in the same round!

It reminds me very funny battle I've seen: Optimistic army led by Tartarian Cyclops decides to conquer a province defended by puny Pangaeans maenads. On arrival it becomes clear that Panageans has prepared swarm attack which quickly converts most of the invading army in Pangaeans manikins. But the battle is not lost yet. Cyclops casts rain of stones which kills some manikins and converts most of maenads, plus some other troops in many more manikins. Now the battlefield is full of crawling manikins. Cylclops continues rain of stones in rapid succession until it falls unconcsious. By that time he's the sole remaining invader, however Pangaea has lost all their commander and the few survived manikins start to dissolve. In the dramatic final Cyclops regain consciousnes and tries to flee. The Last manikin survivor gets in the way of fleeing Cyclops and falls a victim to Cyclop's fist.

[Argitoth]

I'll put this Haunted Forest + Swarm debate to rest. I have much experience with this combo. You'd be surprised what it's NOT capable of. If the dragonflies cannot fly (because of a storm) then you're going to have lots of trouble. If not enough dragonflies turn into manikins at the same time, that's aditional trouble. This combo cannot always kill a horde of devils. This combo sometimes can't even kill SCs. It's a good combo, but it has its limits. If someone is totally destroying your dominion (Mictlan, Marignon), you are screwed. This has happened to me more than once even with 10 dominion from the start.

But everyone should know this combo works best with C'tis because of the fact that C'tis assassins and mages have death and nature magic. The only problem is they lack nature gems, so Pangaea is a good choice too.

ANYWAY, you see... It has its limits. It is not a cheap combo compared to all the other strategies out there. I've lost a good amount of games using this strategy.