Global spell tactics ?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Vynd said:
Burden of Time is a fun one to cast as Ermor.
[...]
Some day I aspire to cast Utterdark with a ton of extra gems on top of it to keep it from being dispelled.

Burden of Time is merely a mild nuisance for living nations. Utterdark is hundreds of times nastier, this one surely won't Last long whatever you put in it. Ermor can hardly afford either anyway.

[Yvelina]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
Burden of Time is merely a mild nuisance for living nations.

I disagree. When you have very expensive, well equipped, and very fragile mages, like for example Pythium, Burden of Time can cost you thousands of gold in one turn. In a MP game I am still in, Arcocephales cast Burden of Time after he lost a major battle, I guess as a way to get back at his enemy.

The Burden of time got dispelled the next turn, but no less than two artifacts appeared for forging in that turn. Some of my expensive Drotts were diseased as well, although they survived long enough for my Fairy queens to heal them. I had a pact with the player who had Gift of Health up, so I could not take it for myself.

Burden of Time is so devastating for some nations, and such a pain for every living nation, that anyone casting it in a game I am in can not only expect to have it dispelled in one turn but also to be destroyed as a matter of principle in the next few turns.

I do not expect to see it cast by anyone who is still in the running... unless he is firmly on top of the heap.

As for how many gems I put into globals, I usually invest only the minimum if I have no enemies, and the global is not too powerful (i.e. not Forge of the Ancients, Arcane Vortex, etc...)

If it is a gem generator (Gale Gate, Well of Misery, etc...) I throw it with as much gems as I can afford when I research it.

If it is one of the game winners, then I wait until I have at least 500 extra gems before I throw it. After all would you throw a Arcane Vortex with 150 gems, so that someone else has an even chance of dispelling it with 30 pearls?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Yvelina said:
I disagree. When you have very expensive, well equipped, and very fragile mages, like for example Pythium, Burden of Time can cost you thousands of gold in one turn. In a MP game I am still in, Arcocephales cast Burden of Time after he lost a major battle, I guess as a way to get back at his enemy.

The Burden of time got dispelled the next turn, but no less than two artifacts appeared for forging in that turn. [...]

That's a very extreme case, and as such it doesn't invalidate my point. I've been at the receiving of dozens of BOTs myself (mainly because the AI used to have a great liking for it), and I've never been close to losing *thousands* of gold in a single turn because of it, not even a single thousand. A small hundred would be a more accurate figure.

[Daynarr]

You would be losing thousands only from unrest and population deaths it produces (well, unless you have a small empire). Getting your mages and troops killed is just an insult to the wound. The worst thing about this spell is that your dominion provides no protection from it (unlike WotG).

[deccan]

Speaking of globals, "Wild Hunt" doesn't seem very useful for such a cool sounding spell. It targets enemy priests, but it isn't an assassination type battle, and the Lord of the Hunt isn't that tough. Can it kill priests inside castles?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Daynarr said:
You would be losing thousands only from unrest and population deaths it produces (well, unless you have a small empire).

If I had an empire and armies big enough to lose 1000s of gold EACH turn to BOT, I wouldn't care - because it would mean I have won the game already.

On the other hand, losing 1000s each turn to Utterdark is easy.

[Daynarr]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

If I had an empire and armies big enough to lose 1000s of gold EACH turn to BOT, I wouldn't care - because it would mean I have won the game already.

On the other hand, losing 1000s each turn to Utterdark is easy.

Not if you play on large maps.
Even smaller maps then Faerun (like Cradle) will produce significant loss. The trouble on larger maps is that it's harder to actually get in and kill offensive mage so you usually have to take the losses or try some long-range attack. Long-range attacks usually don’t do much good against BoT casters since they are usually either pretenders or powerful mages that you can't kill with seeking arrows or flames from afar.

Then there are losses you get if you collect fetishes, clams, etc and your carriers keep getting killed from old age.

Not arguing Utterdark, though.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Daynarr said:
Even smaller maps then Faerun (like Cradle)

Cradle looks like a rather large map to me.

will produce significant loss.

Significant loss, yes, but over time. In a single turn the loss amounts to a small fraction of your income - and that's not even including gem income, bar the odd clam. Ditto with old age and afflictions: they will affect only a small percentage of your troops each turn, and most of these afflictions won't have a significant impact on leaders. A limp, one-eyed, battle-fraught sage can still research just as well as an healthy one.

Keep in mind I was replying to something who wrote:

Of course your opponents will pool their resources and get rid of [Burden of Time] within a few turns.

So BOT is a nuisance, sure, but since it brings no direct benefit to its caster, since it affects other nations as well (I'll always have more enemies than allies), and since its effect on my econ and manpower is only marginal, it comes in the Last tier of my own 'to dispel' list. There are several other GEs I'd want to dispel first.

Then there are losses you get if you collect fetishes, clams, etc and your carriers keep getting killed from old age.

Clams maybe, although I'd bet a clamhoarder will still churn them out faster than he loses them. Fetishes carriers on the other hand, are usually undead leaders who don't really care about BOT.

[Cainehill]

Personally, I believe in overkill with many of the globals. It's hard to tell how much of a benefit is derived, since I don't believe you get a notification when someone tries and fails to either dispel or overwrite your global (unlike domes stopping spells).

I know that in one game that recently ended, Vanheim and I (Last of the Tuatha) both cast a spell the same turn - I think it was Forge of the Ancients, but it might have been Gale Gate.

His spell went up. My spell overwrote it that very turn; it then stayed up until the immortal pretender who cast it died twice in the same turn.

Sometimes it's a little extra into a spell - say, 15 extra gems, just enough to frustrate someone who theorizes that I might have put 10 extra in.

Othertimes, it's an extra 50-80%, even on gem producing spells. With enough extra added in, other people will almost certainly be wasting a good quantity of their gems if they attempt to take mine down, and I also believe it means that my global is less likely to be burned if someone casts a 6th hoping to open one of the slots.