RFC sneaking retreat must die?

[Windreaper]

[Thread hijacked]
I've personally been toying with the idea of getting the Water 9 (quickness) blessing for Pan. Centaur Hierophants come with a rather decent precision and would be a real force with things like bow of war (heck, who needs longbow centaurs anyway :PP, actually I usually try to recruit some indep longbows instead of using centaur longbows even though they're rather good). Dryads and White Centaurs (they already got berserk and the defence boost is really major for them since it's high to begin with - just look at the probabilities) would also benefit vastly from this.
While it's true that Pan was rather weak in Dom1 I still managed to win couple o' games with it (okay, mostly thanks to hordes of Ice Devils). I haven't received my full Version yet so I can't really comment the effectiveness of current Pan stealth troops but overall it seems that the nation has received a slight boost (even though the troops aren't as heavily armoured as before) especially magic wise as the previously nearly useless Earth magic is now a force to be reckoned with. Also, Nature magic got a huge boost in Dom2 (actually I think that sorcery [astral, death, nature] paths are now clearly superior to elemental magic).

[Endoperez]

Why do you think so? I am not against your opinion, since I haven't got the full game either, but I always thought elemental spells as the number one in battle and sorcery spells better outside of it. Not including Master Enslave and other horrors...

[Windreaper]

I'm basing my opinion on the fact that all sorcery picks got nice battlefield (killing) spells in Dom2. In addition to killy battlefield spells they also got nice support spells like Mass Protection/Regeneration, Relief and so on (not taking the time to list all the good stuff).

Astral: Mind Burn, Soul Slay, Astral fires (ouch), Star Fires (even though nerfed), Stellar Cascades, Nether Bolt/Darts (1astral,1death)
Death: Shadow Bolt/Ball (double ouch), Disintegration
Nature: Breath of Dragon, Poison Cloud, Sleep Cloud, Stream of Life, (Tangle Vines/Wild Growth even though they don't technically kill anything)

In other words, all sorcery paths got nice battlefield spells but are quite a bit more powerful than the elemental stuff outside battle. Nature and Death got some nice thingies in Conjuration and Enchantment while Astral guys generally like to research Thaumaturgy. Sure elemental magic got summons and such but for example Fire magic isn't all that hot (pardon the pun) outside battle.

EDIT: Totally forgot Blood . Okay, Blood doesn't have too many but things like Hellfire, Harm or Hellbind Heart can have some battlefield applications (to tell you the truth I've only used Hellbind Heart regularly). Sadly with the reduced blood slave income (no more scout/priest hordes) I can't see people using too many Blood battlefield spells in Dom2.

[ December 21, 2003, 03:44: Message edited by: Windreaper ]