More questions about communion and relief...

[Chazar]

Communion has been discussed before, e.g. in Post#312848, but I have more and partly new questions:

• What are sensible ratios of masters, slaves and relief casters? i.e. is it plain stupid to have 4 masters, 10 slaves and 2 relief casters (of which one is also a communion master). Do the ratios change if a master summons earth power and thus grants reinvigoration to the slaves? (I can probably answer this particular ratio after the next hosting , so I am asking about general ratios that prevent slaves (with expensive slave matrices) from dying.)
• Will a relief caster occasionally cast more than the 5 scripted relief-spells? How can I encourage this? (Currently I merely place any nature3 caster at the back and pray that they keep casting relief. Maybe blinding the relief caster (by two eyes of aiming ) might convince him to cast battlefield-area spells?
• What happens if the relief caster is also a communion master? (i.e. those Ctis Nature-1, Astal-1 lizard mages, set to CommunionMaster,Relief,Relief,Relief,Relief) If this works, then two such relief caster could theoretically keep their communion slaves alive indefinitely, right?
• Contrary to the aforementioned thread, I encounter my slaves to continue spell casting vividly as scripted. Why? Does it make a difference that one of the masters usually casts Quickness? (Dont think so, since the slaves cast twice per round) Is it a difference between using Slave Matrices Items instead of casting Communion Slave?
• Do communion masters judge the strength of the enemy in a different way? The communion makes them more powerful, thus enemy armys would seem to be a lesser threat, thus convincing the communion master to refrain from gem using?
• Where do you place the slaves? My masters usually cast some buffs (Mistform, Invulnerability, Body Ethereal, Personal Luck,...) and since these are all transferred to the slaves, wouldnt it be sensible to place the slaves in the front as decoys?
• Are there still buggy items around whose powers transfers from masters to slaves in the presence of master/slave matrices? Or has this bug been fixed entirely by now?

[tinkthank]

Hello, I cant answer all, but here is my tiny bit of quasi-ignorance:

- The matrixes are still bugged AFAIK with Virtue armor, it's the only one I tested.
- A relief caster will most definately cast more relief than 5. I dont know how to encourage this other than placing nature-3 caster in the back and pray that they cast relief.
- Relief caster being a master: works if you have enough slaves to boost him up to N3.
- 4 masters 10 slaves 2 relief casters sounds like not enough slaves to me, but that depends on what you want them to cast (any big 100+ fatigue spells in there) or what they end up casting. For a long battle it could be pretty rough.

[Wendigo]

Chazar said:[*]Will a relief caster occasionally cast more than the 5 scripted relief-spells? How can I encourage this? (Currently I merely place any nature3 caster at the back and pray that they keep casting relief. Maybe blinding the relief caster (by two eyes of aiming ) might convince him to cast battlefield-area spells?[*]What happens if the relief caster is also a communion master? (i.e. those Ctis Nature-1, Astal-1 lizard mages, set to CommunionMaster,Relief,Relief,Relief,Relief) If this works, then two such relief caster could theoretically keep their communion slaves alive indefinitely, right?[/list]

It helps if you limit the amount of spells your chosen relief-caster can pick from: once you end your script a druid with a thistle mace is a better relief caster than a rainbow mage leading a communion.

[Tuidjy]

> What are sensible ratios of masters, slaves and relief casters?

In my opinion it very much depends on whether you have other casters and troops.
I do not use more than a relief caster except if I have scripted extremely
powerful spells of the 'Master Enslave' kind. As a matter of fact, that is the
only time I use communion, even with Pythium.

> is it plain stupid to have 4 masters, 10 slaves and 2 relief casters (of
> which one is also a communion master)

Not if you have no troops or if you are expecting a short fight. If you have
a lot of troops, especially archers, and the fight Lasts a long time, your
slaves will be wiped out.

> Will a relief caster occasionally cast more than the 5 scripted relief-spells?

Yes, if the AI judges it necessary.

> How can I encourage this?

What I do relies on my assumption that the AI takes into account how tired your
whole army is, as opposed to just your casters. So, I make sure that if I have
an army, it gets tired. So, avoid missile units, use clockwork horrors, and
high encumberance units. If sounds crazy, but when I play C'tis I love to do
so in cold provinces. Everyone gets tired quickly, and the relief casters
go wild. I think that someone else suggested to use casters that have few if
any paths beyond nature. This is very good advice.

> What happens if the relief caster is also a communion master?

I avoid this... not because of testing, but because of my intuition, which has
been wrong before. Please let us know how it goes.

> Do communion masters judge the strength of the enemy in a different way?

I have not noticed that.

> Where do you place the slaves?[/b]

Usually I keep them right in front of the masters, but I usually play Pythium
or C'tis, whose mages are on the fragile side. On the other hand, in a battle
against my girlfriend's Vanheim, I realized that a wall of matrix'd vanherses
with assorted buffs is simply impregnable. I think that upwards of 300 troops
including 50 or so devils that started on her side broke on her vans with no
visible effect.

> Are there still buggy items around whose powers transfers from masters to
> slaves in the presence of master/slave matrices?

I think it is still here. I was in 2.14 for sure.

[Chazar]

The battle has happened, and I learned the following:

• Communions Slaves seem to be able to cast spell as usual, at least if they cast "Communion Slave" before any master does: The slaves benefitted from their master's spells (Mistform, Astral Shield, etc.), yet all seraphs with slave matrices continued to cast two spells per round (false horrors as scripted, then ghost wolves) and one out of three lizard shamen (the independent ones, but seem identical to the Ctis shamen) was also casting twice per round (quickness gained from communion master). The two other lizard shamen were standing by idle on the flanks and did nothing (scripting was identical for all: communion slave, curse, healing lights, healing lights, healing lights). The only difference I could see was that they casted the communion slave at the end of the first round, while their active brother was standing in the middle and casted at the beginning. He forfeited his script because there were no wounded units and casted buffs like body ethereal (which was later casted by a master). All three lizard shamen were placed inside of a dozen of Caelian Blizzard Warriors (Archers).
• CopperPlate & MasterMatrix yields charged body icon to all SlaveMatrix holders. Likewise, the animation of Storm from Staff of Storms is displayed at all SlaveMatrix holders as well. So this bug is not yet fixed in V2.14 (the game runs V2.14)
• EDIT: Thanks to ckfnpku for pointing out! I got this one wrong: Body ethereal does not provide the ethereal icon. It is displayed, but body ethereal is an area spell and thus is not transferred. In addition, my stupid mages rather etherealized a vine ogre and a caelian scout instead, which I didnt notice. These mages are so clever!
• Fatigue of the slaves was around 12 at the end of a 4 round battle, but no high-fatigue spells were cast, since the enemy was too weak (25 flagellants and 9 manikins only against strong casters, plenty of archers & strong summons (iron dragon, etc.)). Nothing learned here yet.

Hmm, with the exception of the Last, I'd say that the others smell buggy to me!

[ckfnpku]

Body ethereal is an area spell, not a personal buff, therefore it is not transferred with communion.

[Taqwus]

Don't forget Phoenix Pyre. You might want to try it... once. In a single-player game. Then look for situations in which it might be a useful tactic.