Carrion Woods ideas please

[archaeolept]

carrion lords are very a mainstay, but require tons of nature gems; hence the rush to Mother Oak.

[Saxon]

All,

Thank you for all the good information. I fired up something pretty similar to Cainehill’s plan and have got off to a decent start. Mass Protection makes an incredible difference to a carrion critter army! Also, my SC Carrion Dragon makes a real mess of armies once Invulnerability, Soul Vortex and Fire Shield are cast…

Any good suggestions on a helmet for him? He only has three slots available and all the helmets seem a bit weak. Horror Helm when he already has fear? Black Iron helmet when he is going to case Invulnerability? Flaming helmet when he is going to fight, not cast spells?

Thanks again!

[Cainehill]

I'd choose the horror helm - sure, the CD has fear, but adding +5 fear makes the fear affect a much larger area (something like 1 hex for every + to fear above 0) and makes the fear more difficult to resist. One of the other possibilities is the starshine skullcap, mostly for the bonus to magic resistance.

[Gandalf Parker]

Isnt there one that gets a free cast? Basically an added action every round of combat.

[Oversway]

Yeah, the one that casts lighting. But its 20 air gems, right? I'm not sure its worth it, since your carrion dragon is probably doing enough damage by itself.

[Agrajag]

Oversway said:
Yeah, the one that casts lighting. But its 20 air gems, right? I'm not sure its worth it, since your carrion dragon is probably doing enough damage by itself.

Think of it like this, if a normal battle is going to last 5 turns, the hat is probably going to kill 4 people (thanks to uber precision) after 20 battles that's 80 people. Since most will probably be weakling indies I'll say an average cost of 10 gold apiece, that comes to 800 gold worth of kills. 20 gems => 800 gold is better than alchemy IIRC (but not by much)
I'd say this makes the hat a decent investment if you haven't got anything better (and were going for the required research anyway).
However, if you find that your battles last longer than that changes things.
I think you should just make a test game and see how effective the hat works with your pretender and chosen spells and work out if its worth it.

[Saxon]

Cainehill has hit the situation on the mark, I did not have anyone attached to the CD.

At least I have lots of units who can call the god. That way I get it back in two turns. Then, I have it attack a province at the same time C'tis has Orion's Knights attack the same province. Those Flambeau make very short work of an undead dragon, buff spells or not...

Three deaths now, his magic is going to be nearly wiped out and his absence has allwed Vanheim to start eating into my heartland. Once you start losing temples and dominion, it can be tough to recover. Wish me luck!

[Saxon]

Fear increases in power and radius? Good to know. I will have to look at how I use it then. Against indies, I want them to run away. But often against real nations, I want to kill them all and fear does not help in that endevour.

Hmm, against that Mitlan castle I was thinking about storming, fear on a SC would be great. Scare them out of the gate, then eat the commanders at the back. The rest of the troops just break down the walls, but do not storm, saving them from the arrow fire.

Thanks again, I see why you beat Norfleet!

[Saxon]

An extra action would be nice, but I suspect I need either water or air magic. Right now I am F,N,D, and E.

[curtadams]

Long term luck is very good for a pop-killer because you get income sources popping up. Those mines are nice and with a decent empire at high luck you will see several. They become your only source of income if you take a setback and get driven back a bit from the frontier.