Guide: Guide to communions

[capnq]

thejeff said: The only thing casting order matters for is whether slaves can cast independently or not.

I just noticed that according to the stickied Bug Thread: The Shortlist, slaves being able to do this is a bug?

[theenemy]

Nice guide Baalz. To much reading for me but it was still great. I always had it tough using communion since I didn't understand how to use it.

[Twan]

Do someone know how to know the order of mages coming from different provinces ? Is it sure the one displayed with "y" is the good one, and if I send mages to a province where there are already some, will those already in the province cast first ?

I try to do a (partially reverse) communion with mages coming from 4 provinces to one where there are already some communiants, using 'y' to see the order (but as all can't move to a same province I can't be totally sure, as all mages can't move to the same province I'm forced to do false moves to group destination mages with one other group then another etc..., and I'm not even sure 'y' works for that purpose).

ps :

I just noticed that according to the stickied Bug Thread: The Shortlist, slaves being able to do this is a bug?

The strange thing is : nowhere in the spell description or manual it is said that slaves aren't supposed to be able to cast (nor "to be able only if they cast before master"). I think communion slave spell description should be changed to be more clear (as it is, only old dom2 players remembering dom2 manual may know that casting slaves isn't a normal behavior).

[Kuritza]

I must say, its a really cool feature. Dunno, perhaps it makes communions overpowered, but its cool for sure. Finally, some use to Power of the spheres that costs too much fatique otherwise.

[LDiCesare]

It's clearly a bug imo.
Either all slaves can cast spells or none of them, but those who have a lower id can cast is indeed buggy.

Now, if you use 32 communicants and 1 master just to empower them, you don't really need the master to cast spells afterward anyway.

[Kuritza]

Let us swap commanders ID's for good!

[SsSam]

Has this been changed in a recent patch? I cant get my communion slaves to do scripted action under any circumstances where a communion master is on the field of battle.

Pythium MA.
4 Theurg Communicants armed with bows of war scripted to fire at closest.

2 regular Theurgs scripted to buff. master/ether/quickness/luck/mistform
master/divine bless/aim/windguide/fanaticism

I've tried with Theurg Communicants as the slaves and with regular Theurg's scripted to cast communion slave/fire at closest.

The slaves appear above the masters in the army setup screen.
The bows never fire while the communion masters are on the field of battle. What have I missed?

[Twan]

Strange. I don't think anything has been fixed recently, last time I used one, reverse communions seemed to work as described in this guide, at least if you script slaves to cast spells (perhaps only the order "fire" is discarded ? or there was a fix in 3.15 I didn't noticed)

[thejeff]

Theurg Communicants are Pythiums auto commune slaves, right?
They may be handled differently?

Did they fire even the first turn?

Also, with that few slaves, they'll go unconscious quickly.

[SsSam]

No they never fired.

Fatigue stayed well below 100 for the first 8 turns or so. All of the non-casters in the communion just ...stay put.

I tried with regular Theurgs as well as Theurg Communicants. Either it's changed or I've missed something basic.