Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[Dedas]

I like it the way it is.

[Baalz]

Meh, requires level 7 spell and it's not that powerful. You've got to have lots of priests, which means either you're not recruiting mages, you're using mages to generate freespawn, or you're putting temples up where there are no castles and getting weak indie priests. By the time level 7 spells are researched a couple hundred free undead is hardly earth shattering. I see this is being only very situationally useful and thematic. You could maybe use it for something interesting like cranking out a bunch of giant undead, but it's just one of the many, many interesting quirks you can exploit into a useful strategy.

[NTJedi]

By the time someone has researched level_7 they have plenty of time to buy priests from one location which is only fort/temple. 20 or 30 Indy priests have very little upkeep and would definitely be worth changing into undead reanimating priests by middle or late game. While waiting these priests will be preaching dominion and decoys so it won't be a waste. In any case the strategy benefit is strong enough where it will be seen in both SP games and MP games.

It comes down to whether or not KO and JK feels this strategy taints the themes of some nations enough where a change is desired.

[Jazzepi]

I can't imagine that this really matters. It seems terribly difficult to exploit. I guess the idea is to cast a Battlefield wide spell that deals damage to your own mages so that they'll come back as soulless, and then those soulless have to be immune to the spell or else they'll die.

Even if you did this with indie priests, they're only level 1 holy which means they could only reanimate corpses. Even playing Ermor, finding a buttload of corpses for a ton of priests is difficult and requires lots of pillaging, or micro moving those priests around.

I don't think this is worth the effort.

A good use might be killing off your own mages to make them upkeep free. If you could do that for 300-400 a turn worth of mages that could make a big difference in the long term.

Jazzepi

[Baalz]

Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.

[Jazzepi]

Baalz said:
Taint the theme? Thematically a powerful death mage has raised many priests as undead. As I think a lich pretender is available to every nation I don't see any nation as being unthematically swayed to the dark side.

Besides, just to run the numbers, if you've got 20 indie priests thats about 2000 gold (counting the temple and upkeep). A whole lot more than that if you get a castle and more powerful priests. Now you've got to ench-7 which is probably either something you went straight for to support this strategy (big opportunity cost) or something you're not hitting terribly early in the game. Now you also need a D-4 mage and a N/W one (or something like that), and spend some gems to set this up/cast.

After all these opportunity costs you're now generating 100 longdead per turn. This is at the point in the game (after you've spent several turns actually raising the dead) where there is widespread use of SCs and battlefield wide spells.

Again, you could probably make a useful strategy with it, but I can't imagine this is balance threatening or even common.

I was under the impression level 1 priests couldn't reanimate long dead? Or am I smoking crack?

Jazzepi

[Kristoffer O]

Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.

[Jazzepi]

Kristoffer O said:
Undead priests are treated as one additional lvl.

Whoa.

LOL. I've been playing dominions for over 2 years now. I love all the random crap I find out from out of nowhere

Jazzepi

[AreaOfEffect]

I'd have to disagree about it being unthematic. As Baalz has already mentioned, all nations, with the exception of Marignon, have access to undead pretenders. Death magic itself should be a magic path available to all nations even for those without starting death mages and gem income. It is worth noting that using magic paths that are unthematic with your nation has an opportunity cost. If players are willing to put in the extra effort, then I'm fine with them paying that cost. Besides, it always makes for a nice role plying feel to see a nation using magic that it inherently does not have access to. It truly shows how the pretender has been given so much devotion that his interests override the morals of society. How often have people used blood magic while playing as MA Mictlan.

In regards to the potency of the life after death, the fight where you use the spell needs to be a very controlled circumstance. You first need to guarantee it is a battle you can win or retreat from successfully. The retreating part would be easy except you need to also kill all your priests once, and only once, before they escape and their souless bodies are frail and unprotected. Surely almost any player can set up this situation in single player games, but it becomes exponentially harder when fighting a war in multi-player. It may also not pay off in the end if a SC teleports on top of the stack of priests or if the enemy researched a bunch of undead killing spells, which they can easily do at this point. Also, not to ignore what Baalz has already stated, there are surely opportunity costs involved. The money alone could easily have been 200 well armed national solders.

[thejeff]

On the gripping hand, as battlefield wide spells become more important, the actual quality of troops seems to matter less than the number of warm (or cold) bodies. With Army of Lead, Fog Warriors, Will of the Fates, etc 100 longdead a turn seems much nicer than the 20-30 chaff troops I'm able to afford in one game. And they're immune to cold, which helps, particularly against Frostbrand wielding thugs.

Still a lot of work and risk and opportunity cost for a fairly minimal advantage.

As as theme goes, there are very few nations that should be outright opposed death magic and everybody winds up summoning at least Banelords anyway...