Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[NTJedi]

lch said:
I like the idea of a powerhungry evil god who is killing his minions to raise them as soulless death mages.

Yes, but that goes against the themes for some nations which are not intended to be EVIL. And there's a significant gem cost difference between using 5 death gems to change 20 priests(or more) into undead reanimating priests verses using 120 death gems to summon a few liches and several sceptres.

In regards to the gold for buying these priests, this purchase provides multiple uses... it's not a one bucket investment. The priests will not only be preaching dominion, but they provide decoys, item catching and banishment defense. The fort and temple already exist for most strategies, so it's not like an extra pair will need to be built. Not every fort should have a lab in early game.

As mentioned earlier the overall gem and gold cost is extremely cheap for nations becoming undead generators.

[lch]

I don't see the problem. As pointed out earlier, it is a late game spell which requires a lot of research. And Undead are nothing but chaff. Especially at a late game like that.

[Meglobob]

Life after death is just doing what it says on the box, giving a unit wether it be militia or mage or priest a extended unnatural life.

By the time players can pull it off, the battlefield is ruled by SC's, thugs, battlefield wide damage spells and large area effect evocation and master enslave etc, etc anyway. So 50-100 per turn longdead is no big deal. If you could pull it off in the early to midgame it would be a exploit but not as a lvl 7 spell.

Doesn't it also reduce MR to 5 or something low as well? Which destroys the mages/priests usefulness on a battlefield.

I don't think its an exploit and not even unthematic as you can play a evil god with any nation.

[Chris_Byler]

Any nation can be evil with the right God. (Speaking of which, how were your non-death-using nations planning to get a LaD caster in the first place?)

Anyway, even once you do this, it's vulnerable to assassins with anti-undead items, or dominion push with Purgatory since their priests are busy (which will also zap the undead they've already gotten), or just spamming anti-undead spells/items in general to wipe out the freespawn (or the undead commanders; send over a flying thug with Flambeau and watch the soulless dissolve after their leader goes down) after they reach the battlefield. It's not like soulless are some kind of unstoppable killing machines - without something like Storm or Darkness practically any nation can butcher them easily.

As an exploit, it seems to have a long way to go to catch up to clams, and they've been around forever.

[Ironhawk]

Well, the prevailing attitude definitely seems to be that this is not an exploit. Or perhaps better said that it may be an exploit but occurs to late in the game to unbalance things. I can't say that I agree with these positions but if its not an exploit you can be sure I will be using this in my next game.

You may wish you had changed your vote when I overrun your nation with my unstoppable undead hordes in the next game!!

[Aezeal]

for the costs, does the spell cost any thing?

[PvK]

If you have a large body of water and water or air magic, can't you just drown them by removing their breathing apparatus?

[MaxWilson]

[Drowning] won't trigger Life After Death because it happens out of combat.

I tried Rain of Stones but my problem was that my opposition wasn't tough enough and my Cyclops cast Flying Shards instead. I didn't pursue the test after that.

-Max

[lch]

Ironhawk said:
You may wish you had changed your vote when I overrun your nation with my unstoppable undead hordes in the next game!!

Personally I'd much rather see your undead death mage machinery than the usual Tartarian SC / Abomination stuff.

[NTJedi]

lch said:

Personally I'd much rather see your undead death mage machinery than the usual Tartarian SC / Abomination stuff.

Well Tartarians and Abominations are research level_9 and definitely late game where the massive undead chaff are level_7, so there will be a time window difference.
It won't stop the usual strategies we see... it means we'll only see this added into existing strategies. Minimal effort, small cost, for massive amounts of free undead chaff... oh yeah it's coming.