Three questions regarding sacreds.

[Lord_Bob]

1.You Dominion limits the number of sacreds you can recruit per turn?

4 Dominion=4 Sacreds 6 Dominion=6 Sacreds

2.The Sacreds used in the "Bless Rush" for MA Vanheim and Ermor are Vanhere and some Valkyrie for Vanheim and Shadow Vestals for Ermor?

3.Shadow Vestals only cost 20 gold/3 resources while Vanhere and Valkyrie cost 50 gold/16 resources and 60 gold and 12/15 resources?

[Endoperez]

1) Yes, although it's actually a BIT more complicated. It always starts as that, but it can be increased further by building temples. Every 5 temples you have will increase the limit by one, so 4 dominion and 5 temples = 5 sacreds, 4 dominion and 10 temples = 6 sacreds, etc.

2) MA Vanheim sacred unit is called Van. Vanheres are the EA Vanheim sacred units, which are berserking infantry; MA's Vanir are sacred cavalry with a spear and a shield.

Other than that, yes, MA Vanheim uses Vanir and some Valkyries, MA Ermor uses Shadow Vestals, MA Mictlan uses Jaguar Warriors, etc etc. Sacred units with low resource cost and good survivability (due to glamour, etherealness, second shape or some other similar ability) are easy to rush with.

3) I don't remember the costs ATM, but what you see in the game is what they cost.

[Kristoffer O]

> Shadow Vestals only cost 20 gold/3 resource

Yes. I'm not sure why that is. Seems like an omission of some kind. They cost 35 with the patch. Might need more.

[Edi]

The resources for a shadow vestal are so little because the weapon does not cost any resources. So 1 for base unit, 2 for the shield, 0 for weapon.

[Jazzepi]

They also are butt naked.

Jazzepi

[Meglobob]

Shadow Vestals are strong to begin with, awesome for early expansion.

But having played MA Ermor twice now are very, very weak in the mid/end game.

They are capital only, you share a age with MA Margnon + MA Abysia who laugh at shadow vestals.

They are hard to use in a stealth capacity, as you lack numbers and fires from afar wipes them out quickly once they reveal themselves.

Shadow Vestals are very vulnerable to evocation spells lightning, fire etc and because they are undead are also vulnerable to all the many anti-undead spells.

Raising the cost of Shadow Vestals is a serious blow to MA Ermor.

Personally, I always struggle like mad with MA Ermor once I reach the mid game, it seems to become a dead end nation.

[Jazzepi]

I believe that MA C'Tis also has really good game against Shadow Vestals. They get emposiners at 110 gold, or the marsh wizards at 220. The emposiners have much better precision, but both of them are basically built to cast eagle eyes, and then spam dust to dust right out of the box, assuming that you have some time to reach these low level research targets.

Jazzepi

[HoneyBadger]

I think the term you're looking for is "buck nekkid" Jazzepi

[Kuritza]

Once again, I am almost positive that stealth is resolved before global spells. At least my SCs were teleporting into empty province - shadow vestals lead by a druid were gone. All you need is to scrpit them 'hide' instead of attacking another adjacent province.
As for the 'useless in late game' - thank GOD they dont dominate all battelfields in the lategame as well. Its not like Ermor doesnt have free undead from neutral priests, decent national troops and nice mages after all.
But does it make shadow vestals obsolete?... find a province with druids and you have got stealthy raiders. Or in my current game shadow vestals scripted for 'wait and attack large enemies' are making my flying mammoth obsolete. F9W9 shadow vestals make a very short work of mammoths.

[Saint_Dude]

It is true that map spells (including teleportation) are resolved after stealth.

However, Mind Hunt, is effective vs. hidden adversaries. And I am pretty sure if you lose your stealthy leader while in an enemy prov, the whole squad is effectively vaporized. I have used this tactic to clear out stealthy raiders, using multiple mind hunters to blanket the provinces around / including where the raiders last appeared. Even if the Mind Hunt is not successful (which it often is vs. normal stealthy leaders), you can locate the raiders by keeping track of which mind hunters target which provinces.