Offensive Rituals vs Summoning?

[Teraswaerto]

One of the best offensive rituals is Raging Hearts. Lots of unrest, just two castings will put a province over 100 unrest -> no more recruiting.

Especially useful against an enemy with capital only troops or mages.

[SlipperyJim]

I had a fair amount of success with the Beckoning in my last game, but it's a very situational spell. In my case, AI Vanheim had a couple of fortresses in forest provinces that it was using to build an army. So I had a couple of enchantresses with Treelord Staves, Rings of Sorcery, and Spell Foci who just pounded away with Beckoning every turn. POOF: No more army buildup.

For commander-killing spells, my favorites are: Infernal Disease, Earth Attack, Wind Ride, and Winged Monkeys. For some reason, Winged Monkeys doesn't seem to work very often, but it's still fun. I mean, c'mon! Winged Monkeys?! Who doesn't like Winged Monkeys!

[Meglobob]

SlipperyJim said:
For some reason, Winged Monkeys doesn't seem to work very often, but it's still fun. I mean, c'mon! Winged Monkeys?! Who doesn't like Winged Monkeys!

Yea, when I read this spell in the manual it made me chuckle.

An Oz style raid still makes me smile.

I cast it alot in SP for a laugh, its well funny. Its a shame its not more useful...

[QXel]

Well, I often use these kind of spells, and as everybody said : they are really efficient and usefull.

But I ask myself for some preferences here, as ragging hearts, etc.
Yes, they cause lot of unrest, but you can easily counter that with a good patrolling tactic : fast and/ or flying troops, rings of warning, watcher, and so.
Tactic I have developped with my blood slaves-hungry EA Abyssians ;o)

So, I prefer the fire-familly spells (from afar and from the sky), or balefull star (cursed the troops!) or leprosis (disease troops), or direct leader attacks (earth attack, infernal disease, or annoying but not deadly seeking arrow).
Everything which directly kill, curse, hurt the enemy.

Well, I confess, I'm a bit direct. Well, brutal. Ok, I prefer USSR-"2 days heavy artillery barrage before huge human waves offensive"-style than stealthy commandos behind enemy lines ...
;o)

[SlipperyJim]

QXel said:
But I ask myself for some preferences here, as ragging hearts, etc.
Yes, they cause lot of unrest, but you can easily counter that with a good patrolling tactic : fast and/ or flying troops, rings of warning, watcher, and so.
Tactic I have developped with my blood slaves-hungry EA Abyssians ;o)

Yes, but ... there's still a cost to your target. Patrolling kills people while it lowers unrest. That's a permanent hit to the income & resources for that province.

Also, there's the opportunity cost of patrolling. How many people patrol their capital provinces just for the heck of it? That patrolling army cost either gold (if regular troops) or gems & mage-turns (if summoned troops) to create. Either way, that's gold and/or magical resources that your opponent isn't using to smite you.

Screwing with your opponent is always worth doing in Dominions.

[TwoBits]

Very interesting stuff!

Makes getting "dome" spells (or at least one over your capitol) up and running a wise move. That, and buying a bunch of militia-type cannon fodder to hang out in your research center in case someone drops Fires from Afar or the like on it.

On that note, what happens if you cast an "anonymous" attack ritual against a province with a trap-dome spell, like Dome of Flaming Death (I love that name!) or Frost Dome, your caster gets nailed?

Are you still anonymous (they get a message like, "some unknown jerk tried to send a Hurricane our way, but our dome fried him!"? Or does your enemy then find out who was trying to hurt him ("some jerk from CAELUM tried to send a Hurricane our way, but our dome fried him!")?

[Edi]

It essentially tells you that some bonehead tried something he shouldn't have and got his backside burned for his trouble.

Edi

[Dedas]

SlipperyJim said:

Yes, but ... there's still a cost to your target. Patrolling kills people while it lowers unrest. That's a permanent hit to the income & resources for that province.

Also, there's the opportunity cost of patrolling. How many people patrol their capital provinces just for the heck of it? That patrolling army cost either gold (if regular troops) or gems & mage-turns (if summoned troops) to create. Either way, that's gold and/or magical resources that your opponent isn't using to smite you.

Screwing with your opponent is always worth doing in Dominions.

Patrolling your capitol and other important places against spies and spells do not need to cost very much, sometimes nothing at all. The reasons are holy troops (low upkeep and sometime low cost as well), effective patrollers (patrol ability, fliers and high AP + high prec units) and of course the "free" spawns. The best patrollers are of course a combination of all these.

I really believe it is worth to patrol your borders, high income provinces and army building sites. The payoff may not come immediately, but in the long run your are at an advantage as your opponents won't have any details on your plans and thus cannot disrupt them very much. And if the enemy don't have any patrolling units himself you really have the upper hand.

Any nasty surprise attacks with stealth armies that the enemy might try to pull off can also be countered with dedicated or dynamic patrolling units. Because province defense on its own won't stand much chance on finding an all stealth 20 army. The main reason to this is that they don't have any minuses on stealth strength in regards to numbers. An example would be the EA Pangaea's Satyr Sneaks.

If you fear that your patrolling units don't really stand a chance against the enemy they might find, just set them to retreat, and they will live to patrol another day. If you have horse archers (very common) they can fire and flee which can cripple a good stealth army some (as they probably have no armour or shields as they are stealthy instead).

[jutetrea]

is there a list of all the anonymous rituals handy?

Hurricane
Fires from Afar
Rain of toads
Leprosy?
Wolven winter
Locust swarms
Raging Hearts
Seeking Arrow
Baleful Star
Blight
Black Death
Phantasmal attack - no flag
Tidal Wave
Volcanic eruption


Unsure:
Flames from the sky?
Murdering winter
Send Horror? no flag
Send lesser horror? no flag
crumble?
Fate of Oedipus?
Ghost riders? no flag correct?
Horror Seed?
Beckoning?
Vengeance of the dead?
Wind ride?
Melancholia?
Infernal Disease
Earth Attack
Carrion Reanimation
Send Tupilak
Angelic Host
Vengeance of the Dead
Mind Hunt
Wish? - via "provinces"?

Identifiable
Imprint souls
Call of the wild
call of winds
Arouse hunger
Horde from hell
Army of the dead