Looking for help from all the Pros!

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
The carrion lord is most efficient in reanimating carrion critters. 25 nature gems for 3 vine critters pro turn.

You don't need a dominion of 10 as carrion woods, as the chance to reanimate a carrion thing is 10*(dominion+1+growth+magic). As you are forced to take growth 1 and magic 1 anyway, a dominion of 7 would do.
Both growth and magic scale increase the chance to recieve a strong carrion creature by 1. Growth isn't really needed, magic scale is nice for research.

First, carrion lords would be the most efficient if they did 3 creatures a turn. However, that is just the max they will do, most turns they will produce 2 or even only 1 beasts. And since you are guaranteed to get at least 1 beast per tun with any animator, carrion centaurs seem like the surest bet. Carrion ladies still have a niche though due to the fact you can switch them back and forth to research, and can both carrion ladies and lord have useful battle magic.

And there is, in fact, a reason to have higher dominion. The chance for carrion growth is province by province, you will have more provinces in more dominion faster with dom 10 than with 7.

[Molog]

Carrion lords reanimate 3 vine creatures a turn. No more, no less. Test it out if you don't believe me.

The free carrions spawns aren't all that. And with dominion 7 instead of 10 you could afford a nicer combat pretender.

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
Carrion lords reanimate 3 vine creatures a turn. No more, no less. Test it out if you don't believe me.

I did just test it. About half of time carrion ladies only produced 1 and carrion lords 1 or 2.

It is debatable whether more paths or more dominion is better, I suppose it is a matter of playstyle.

[Molog]

quantum_mechani said:

I did just test it. About half of time carrion ladies only produced 1 and carrion lords 1 or 2.

It is debatable whether more paths or more dominion is better, I suppose it is a matter of playstyle.

What version of dominions 2 are you using? Carrion wood reanimating was changed with one of the patches.

[Alneyan]

If you are planning on using national troops (especially capital units), you might wish to consider getting a Stone Idol as soon as possible, and drop *your* Dominion from your capital. 1,000 population is the absolute minimum you can go to and keep a working capital (with 100% resources), though finding gold will be another matter altogether.

Growth past 1 will virtually do nothing to stop population loss: Growth 3 gives +0.6% population per turn, while you lose 1% population per level of Dominion in all provinces. So unless you have a very low Dominion (not your best notion), you will lose population too quickly for Growth to matter. On another note, high Dominion will have an unfortunate downside: it will make it easier for your Dominion to spread around, especially in enemy territories. And not everybody will like your Turmoil/Sloth/Misfortune/Heat + population loss Dominion.

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
What version of dominions 2 are you using? Carrion wood reanimating was changed with one of the patches.

I am using version 2.16, and I can tell you that some turns, you get less than 3 a turn with carrion lords (and less than 2 with ladies). Also, the carrion centaurs have the advantage that you can afford to set one reanimating every province, thus providing undead leadership for your spawns if they get attacked.

EDIT: After some more testing, it seems the effect of growth
either way on pop loss is negligible.

[Endoperez]

Doesn't Carrion Woods have pd-commander with undead leadership?

[quantum_mechani]

Endoperez said:
Doesn't Carrion Woods have pd-commander with undead leadership?

Hmm, you're right, I think they must have changed it in a patch, they now have mandragora as their basic PD commander.