Guide: Guide to communions

[Gregstrom]

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

[triqui]

Baalz said:So, a 1S 1F slave gets +1 F from the master casting phoenix power, and +1 from another one casting power of the spheres - this bonus (after it is in effect that is) is not tied to the communion. The slave acting on his own is now a level 3 fire mage and can cast falling fires. The master can leave the battlefield, or if he acts after the slaves can still cast spells without mucking things up.

Does the last sentence means that if the master cast a spell before the slave does, slave cant cast spells on his own?

[Shovah32]

Yes. If any master has cast a spell, no slaves may cast for that round of battle.

[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.

[DonCorazon]

Does the order of casting matter? I noticed in these examples, the CS always casts Communion Slave first, the the CM casts Communion Master? And if order does matter, is there a way to rearrange the order of how you set up Commander's actions?

Thanks

[Gregstrom]

Mages cast in the order you see them on the army setup screen.

Baalz - perhaps this information should be in your guide. It's very important for setting up communions to do what you want, and doesn't appear to be widely known.

[vfb]

DonCorazon said:
Does the order of casting matter? I noticed in these examples, the CS always casts Communion Slave first, the the CM casts Communion Master? And if order does matter, is there a way to rearrange the order of how you set up Commander's actions?

Thanks

As explained in Baalz's excellent communion guide, slaves can only cast spells in a round if no master has cast a spell in that round yet. As Gregstrom said, commanders act in order from top to bottom. Some of the examples had slaves casting, that's why I put them first.

There is no way of moving commanders up or down to change the order. But, of course, you may have some choice in which mage will be a slave, and which will be a master.