Gem use question.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Sure they didn't cast one of the two spells that would effectively raise their casting level first? (Power of the Spheres or Light of the Northern Star)

I'm sure of it. One case was with an astrologer who cast solar brilliance, then some other buff spells. In other words, he used a huge number of gems to bring his fatigue down to lower levels. The other case was two separate occasions with astral 4 and 5 starspawn. In all three occasions, the mages had ritual of returning cast on them, and they were all wearing starshine skullcaps. All of these were performed under Version 2.08, if that could be part of the reason for the differences.

Or possibly there's a bug with level 1 mages, if they should be able to use 1 gem in addition to what was required by the spell, since they can't.

I can confirm the Lamashta example. A keeper of the tombs ran towards the enemies (level 9 independents) and cast fire flies in two separate tests. A sauromancer sent on the next turn cast the spell as expected.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
Sure they didn't cast one of the two spells that would effectively raise their casting level first? (Power of the Spheres or Light of the Northern Star)

I thought about that, but then how would you explain reducing a 500 fatigue cost down to something workable? The L4 mage needs to be L7-equivalent. The fatigue cost is a problem even for a L5 mage. There's an inconsistency between how some spells appear to be cast by certain mages, and how other spells are or aren't.

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Heh. Ain't that the truth!

I'm thinking I need to set up a mini map (like 19 or so provinces), and run all nations through to where they have about everything researched and lots of gems.

That way it'd be easy to save that game, and easily create a variety of mages for any nation via empowerment, in order to test bed various spells. I agree that what Graeme describes (S4 mage being able to cast it via burning 4 gems plus the 5 required) is how _I_ interpretted the manual, and makes more sense to me besides.

But I definately found that D1 mages can't cast Lammashtas, no matter how many gems they carry, while D2 with a single gem cast it in the same circumstance. In fact - Graeme might remember it. An Onyx Amazon Priestess wandering into a huge army of his, and ... not doing much.

It was scripted to cast Summon Lammashtas, had the gems, had a nice big army it was casting against and ... blip! Out comes a skeleton instead.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
In fact - Graeme might remember it. An Onyx Amazon Priestess wandering into a huge army of his, and ... not doing much.

It was scripted to cast Summon Lammashtas, had the gems, had a nice big army it was casting against and ... blip! Out comes a skeleton instead.

Which game was this in? I don't remember this, as it must have been considerably more frustrating (and thus more memorable) on your side.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
In fact - Graeme might remember it. An Onyx Amazon Priestess wandering into a huge army of his, and ... not doing much.

It was scripted to cast Summon Lammashtas, had the gems, had a nice big army it was casting against and ... blip! Out comes a skeleton instead.

Which game was this in? I don't remember this, as it must have been considerably more frustrating (and thus more memorable) on your side.

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Heh. Quantum Mechanic's Twilight game - you probably got used to tiny, futile mosquito attacks there for a while and didn't notice my abortive Lammashta mission. ( The almost 0 magic, no added magic path on the pretender game. )

[Borg]

Thanks for some excellent replies guys.

I have to bug you with a few more newbie questions though, please bear with me

1) How does one perform "communion" ?
So far I've only played Ulm and Machaka and I haven't seen any indication of communion anywhere. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong places, who knows, ... I haven't noticed this command anywhere anyway.
Something's dawning on me as I write this ..... maybe I need a Priest with a Magical skill first ? Yes ? No ?
I haven't had that yet.
50 Gems for a lvl of Magic , Jeez, how can you afford that ?

2) A Global Enchantment has been cast in my current game. Something about an oak tree.
What effect does this have on my dominion and what can you do about it ?
How do you "dispel" a global enchantment ?

3) How does Flying work on the battle map?
I noticed a Flyer had 7 action points but it still crossed the entire field in one turn.So I reckon flying costs only 1 action point, or what ?

Thanks for helping out

[ July 21, 2004, 17:35: Message edited by: Borg ]

[Taqwus]

Originally posted by Borg:
Thanks for some excellent replies guys.

1) How does one perform "communion" ?

You need Communion Masters and Communion Slaves.

Communion Master can be cast by an astral mage after the necessary research is done (Thaumaturgy, IIRC), or it can be auto-cast by an astral/earth crystal matrix.

Communion Slave can be cast by an atral mage after said research, or it can be auto-cast by a slave matrix, or it can be auto-cast by Pythium's Theurg Communicants.

I haven't had that yet.
50 Gems for a lvl of Magic , Jeez, how can you afford that ?

Depends on magic gem availability. Don't do it often, unless you've got a hefty surplus and nobody to use it with (possible, as magic sites can give gems from outside the site's path, and blood slave harvesting can be done even by non-blood mages albeit it's inefficient).

It's saner for some than others. Blood slaves, for instance, can be gained in quantity once the machine's up and running. Death, if you have a nice surplus, can be exploited fairly readily because death allows a cheap booster (at level 2), a moderate one (at level 3), and lots of chain-summoning possible (revenants, spectres, mound fiends, demilichs).

2) A Global Enchantment has been cast in my current game. Something about an oak tree.
What effect does this have on my dominion and what can you do about it ?
How do you "dispel" a global enchantment ?

Mother Oak. +20 nature gems a turn for the caster, IIRC.
Research Enchantment 5, get a good astral mage to disepl it. Or dispel it by killing the caster. Or force a dispel by casting global after global.

3) How does Flying work on the battle map?
I noticed a Flyer had 7 action points but it still crossed the entire field in one turn.So I reckon flying costs only 1 action point, or what ?

Flight lets you reach any point on the battlefield , unless there's a storm going on (some fliers can fly in storms, 'tho). Nice, but it's easy to die this way. They can also leave the battlefield instantaneously if forced to flee.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Borg:
1) How does one perform "communion" ?
So far I've only played Ulm and Machaka and I haven't seen any indication of communion anywhere.

Communion master and slave require astral magic, which is why you won't see them with Ulm and Machaka.

2) A Global Enchantment has been cast in my current game. Something about an oak tree.
What effect does this have on my dominion and what can you do about it ?

Somebody has cast mother oak. This gives them +10 nature gems per turn.

[Borg]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Or dispel it by killing the caster. Or force a dispel by casting global after global.

Thanks for helping out so fast,
however your answer raises another question

From your answer I conclude that there can only be cast a limited amount of global enchantments.
Maybe something like 5 or 6 (until the Global Enchantment box is full I guess)
And the oldest GE is automatically removed/dispelled from the list.

Is that how it goes ?

Man, this game is good

[Arryn]

There can only be 5 active globals, and if another is cast (by anyone), it may replace an existing one at random.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
There can only be 5 active globals, and if another is cast (by anyone), it may replace an existing one at random.

It's not entirely random, as far as I've seen. It seems to be more sadorandom than truly random.