Banish to inferno-questions

[Xietor]

1. If my pretender was banished to inferno, would her globals remain up since she is not dead?

2. I am assuming immortals banished to the inferno do not appear back at the capital the next turn since they are not technically dead.

3. What province do those returning from the inferno appear in?

Suggestions for blood

1. i would like to see the cost of some of the combat blood spells be upped significantly. Blood slaves are quite easy
to accumulate and 1 blood slave for a 40 plus AN spell that cannot be resisted seems way too powerful. Same with banish to inferno.

2. horrors should be immune to banish to inferno. if horrors are intended to be near certain death for most mages, why should blood mages get a free pass?

[Jazzepi]

About blood costs...

Slaves are easy to come by, but I think this is balanced out by three things, and blood shouldn't have its combat spell's cost, in slaves, upgraded because of this.

1. Slaves have a physical presence on the field. They die en masse to things like earthquake, firestorm, and other battlefield wide enchantments.
2. Almost all blood spells already have a component cost. Most normal mid level nukes, and even some high level ones, do not have any component cost. Almost all of Blood's good combat spells already require slaves which involves the micromanagement of keeping them alive from one combat to the next and shuttling them around when need be. I don't think there's any reason to punish blood nations over regular nations.
3. Blood slaves cost income. All other gem types do not. Sure you can get as many slaves as you want, but gem sites only have to be searched for once and they produce forever, where as blood sites eventually dry up, and require constant supervision to produce.

About banish to inferno...

2. They shouldn't be immune. A level 1 astral mage gets an even easier pass in the form of "returning" which is cast on the first turn and automatically saves them from battle no matter which horror they are fighting.

Jazzepi

[Xietor]

Yeah but astral mages get everything.

including the ability to cast the mark in the 1st instance. what about the numerous races with no astral mages?

[K]

While I am currently engaged in a bloody war with you, I will answer your questions because I'm a pretty awesome guy in general...

1. Yes.

2. Right.

3. Random province. So, in Perpetuality, we are looking at a thousand provinces, so I think you can write that Banelord off. Bwa ha ha!!! He might be able to fight off the province defense of the place he lands in, but good luck ever getting home.

Also, I've seen some guys stay in Hell for over 30 turns, and I've heard that some guys can die in there, so don't get too attached.

As to your suggestions:
1. Life for a Life is Research level Blood 8 and has a fatigue cost of 199(one blood slave). When compared to other spells for other colors that do similar things (Frozen Heart at Alteration, Drain Life, etc), the cost to get into blood is very high already.

I mean, blood is the very weakest color and Research Path when it comes to fighting large battles. Just because my skill at blood magic is great does not change that.

2. Nah. Why would someone who has learned how to summon Horrors not learn to dismiss them?

[Xietor]

Thank you K, you are a gentleman. But the question pertains to Alpaca as well. BTW, that banelord will enjoy a wind ride home when he reappears. That is your tip for the day!

That would be cool if he dropped in on one of my enemies' provinces and could just resume his raiding!

[Kristoffer O]

Please let us know if the wind ride works on friendly commanders. It seems to be broken vs enemies. We would like to get some info on this.

[Xietor]

K said:
1. Life for a Life is Research level Blood 8 and has a fatigue cost of 199(one blood slave). When compared to other spells for other colors that do similar things (Frozen Heart at Alteration, Drain Life, etc), the cost to get into blood is very high already.

Yeah K, but the range of frozen heart is like 20 and drain life 25, life for a life is 100. Reduce its range to the same as frozen heart and I am fine with it.

[Tuidjy]

Frozen heart is negated by cold immunity. Drain life is not supposed to be
affected by anything, but I don't know... I've had unique ice devils live
for a few turns against a crowd of sauromacers spamming drain life, and then
at least two of them retreated successfully.

[K]

Lets break it down.

All of the spells don't check MR, and are armor negating.

Frozen Heart is fatigue 20, can be cast by a Water 1 mage, and comes in at Alteration 6. It has a range of 20+, and can be negated by cold immunity, and has a damage of 10+.

Drain Life is fatigue 10 (but not really since the lifedrain life actually removes fatigue, so lets just say 0 since 32 out of 36 times the total fatigue from the spell is 0 or removes existing fatigue from previous spellcasting and/or armor fatigue), can be cast by a Death 4 mage, and comes in at Alteration 5. It has a range of 25, and cannot be negated for its 14+ damage.

Life for a Life is fatigue 199 (1 slave), can be cast by a Blood 3 mage(but not really since no mage will cast a spell whose total fatigue takes them past 200 and with armor fatigue is will be for all but a minority of mages, so lets say Blood 4 is the minimum), and it it comes in at Blood 8. It has a range of 100, cannot be negated, and does 40+ damage.

So, looking at these stats we see that in one casting of each spell you get an unconscious Blood 4 mage who has burned a gem type that he had to bring to the battle, a Water 1 mage with 20 +armor fatigue and a Death 4 mage with 0 fatigue, and the damages are 40+, 10+, and 14+.

Turn two and the Blood 4 mage is still most likely unconscious, the Water 1 mage gains another 20+armor fatigue for another 10+ damage, and the Death 4 mage is still at 0 fatigue for his 14+.

Basically, the Blood mage needs a very expensive mage to cast the spell, spends gems to do it, can basically do it once a battle, had to go to a research level of 8 to get it thus making it an endgame tactic, and we are not even considering the commitment the player had to make to focus on the Blood research path instead of Alteration that has great things for all colors of magic at almost every level.

Frozen Heart can be cast by independant mages you find like Jade Amazons and noncapital mages of the Water magic races, and the total damage is still higher per battle. Drain Life requires capital-only mages or summonable mages (or one of those making those banners), and be cast basically every turn of battle so in a modest 20 round battle an individual is doing 280+ points of damage to enemies and has 0 fatigue.


The one advantage Life for a Life has (100 range, and best damage in a single casting) is really offset by the fact that if anyone can ax your blood slaves you can't cast it at all. Basically, at the very best its a "lose one mage for the battle to hopefully kill a monster."

The only reason I'm even defending it is so that Blood mages get any battle magic at all. If you replaced it at Blood 8 with Drain Life but castable by even a Blood 4 mage, I don't think we'd see any complaints.

I just think you hate it when people kill your SC Banelords. To that I say "too bad". To be a good Dominions player you have to learn to not get attached to all of your units. War in dominions is not just about leaders, but about armies, magic, economy, diplomacy and guile, and this game's great strength is that there is no single killer tactic that ensures that you'll win, but that there are a variety of ways to grow your empire and defeat your enemies.

[Endoperez]

Mages can cast a spell that'd cause them to get more than 200 fatigue. Mages can't kill themselves with one casting. You can cast even Army of Lead (several hundred points of fatigue) with caster without any extra levels or gems, and he won't get more than 200 points of fatigue (and thus no damage).