I hate horrors

[Nick_K]

Horror marking is designed to be a balance for the otherwise horribly powerful supercombatant strategy. It won't instakill an enemy, but it allows a chance that the horror will get them before the SC can overrun an empire. Horror marks are not that common; they'll sometimes show up from bad luck (ai scripting, or magic sites) but this is very rare. Mainly they're because of items (controllable by the player, items that horror mark are clearly labelled as such in the manual) or because of an anti-SC strategy from a human player.
Because horror marks are designed to counter big, expensive, powerful SCs they cannot be removed easily (plus, it's thematic that they can't) and the horrors have to be tough enough to challenge SCs.

I don't think it can be considered 'unbalanced'. Horror marks are not very dangerous unless you rely on one or two powerful units, and as I said, they are supposed to be a counter for this.

As for fighting horrors... it partly depends on what your god is. If it's a puny human mage then you can't expect to beat much in melee. As for magic, remember that you can only cast 1 spell per turn. Having lots of magic in lots of areas won't help unless you have spells scripted that will kill the horror.


Anyway, I've not had to challenge a major SC yet... The doom horrors are extraordinarily powerful and I doubt you can reliably beat them. As for normal horrors, here's my thoughts on the subject:

1: I'm not sure, but it's possible that horror attacks may be tied to scales. Does anyone know if magic/drain or luck/unluck affect this?



2: Horrors bypass most defences. Many of their attacks are AN or AP, they have many attacks with good Att so high def won't help. They have magic attacks so ethereality is useless. Equip your pretender with this in mind. If he's just an archmage though, then melee equipment won't help.

3: Horrors always attack horror-marked individuals first. Bodyguards will only stop this if they are horror marked (unlikely) or if they completely surround the pretender. I believe that horror attacks count as assasination attempts so you are limited to 5 bodyguards.

4: Sorry, wish-for-blood-slaves, but I believe that horrors have at least some attacks that are not negated by magic resistance. Life drain comes to mind. However, MR is very important against some of their tougher attacks

5: Your mage does get to cast a spell. The defender acts first. If he is not casting it means that he cannot cast whatever spell you have scripted first for him

6: Armours, weapons and so on will only work against a horror, which is designed to be able to challenge large monsters with a complete selection of items, if they are very well chosen and if your base pretender is tough enough to stand a chance. If he's a big demigod with full slots then you can probably equip him to kill horrors if you are careful, although I can't give specific advice.

[Foodstamp]

I understand why Ranger is frustrated. Even if you stick a horror marked unit in the mist of a ton of soldiers, a lot of times the horror will still "fly" into the middle of your tight stack and attack the horror marked individual.

The only times I have seen a horror not bust even the tightest stack is when your using send horror and he is just bouncing around randomly attacking people on the battlefield because no one was horror marked.

[Ranger]

Nick_K said:
5: Your mage does get to cast a spell. The defender acts first. If he is not casting it means that he cannot cast whatever spell you have scripted first for him

This is not what I'm seeing, The horror appears kills my god, end of combat! I've tried settings cast spells and cast specific spells, I didn't see a difference.

I've only seen guards work and my god cast spells at minor horrors!

My god was killed six times, after each kill the god loses one level in each area of magic, my god has de-evolved to a non magic user.

Once your god starts to lose magic levels it can never regain them because of the constant attacks. There is little point in trying to build him/her backup because they will just lose them again in the next attack.

What's the point to keep re-killing a god once they de-evolved to a non-magic user?

I see little point to this and why I think it's unbalanced.
Maybe the horror needs to be rebalanced to some level of the god/magic user that's being attacked.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Ranger

Can you READ E-N-G-L-I-S-H? Your advice doesn't work.

The horror bypass the 144 guards, attacks and kills my god, on turn one!

1. Guards don't work (only work on minor Horrors).
2. My God doesn't even get to cast any spells.
3. Magic Items (armor, weapons, etc.) so far havn't done any thing.

If something can kill a magic user with 144 guards, level 4 magic in four areas, with 4 gems each, good armor, and get's taken out on turn one of a fight I THINK THIS IS A LITTLE UNBALANCED, DUH!

Gee,
And perhaps if no one else has a problem, perhaps *you* are a little 'duh'.

There are many things in here that do work:
1. High MR. think.. 28ish.
2. Kill the horror first.
3. Script returning. Have another mage cast an AoE spell that will damage you.
4. Put yourself in the middle of size 4 guards. Don't just give yourself guards.
you have to tactically place yourself in the middle of a square of them. It really does matter the size and placement of the guards.
5. Cast Phoenix pyre (or blink); be earth blessed; have amulet of resilience, boots of messenger. If your reinv (or regen) is high enough.. you'll outlast the combat.
6. Take an immortal god.
7. Stop using items that horrormark you.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

3. Script returning. Have another mage cast an AoE spell that will damage you.

Returning is an instant teleport to capital, no damage needed. Ritual of Returning should work great when combined with Mistform.


Good advice otherwise, although a year or so late.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by Ranger

Can you READ E-N-G-L-I-S-H? Your advice doesn't work.

The horror bypass the 144 guards, attacks and kills my god, on turn one!

1. Guards don't work (only work on minor Horrors).
2. My God doesn't even get to cast any spells.
3. Magic Items (armor, weapons, etc.) so far havn't done any thing.

If something can kill a magic user with 144 guards, level 4 magic in four areas, with 4 gems each, good armor, and get's taken out on turn one of a fight I THINK THIS IS A LITTLE UNBALANCED, DUH!

You are a classic troll.

[Epaminondas]

Perhaps I am just getting lucky, but I've seen the Hunter of Heroes at least three times, and I killed him easily all three times with different types of Commanders. (I have yet to see the other scary Horrors that people talk about.) In fact, my Niefel Jarl with an Unequaled Obesity with the Summit one-shotted him. The other two times Pathos with the medusa shield got him, and an Oreiad with the Astral spell spamming artifact also got him. No humongous or flying body guards necessary. The unifying factor for all three commanders was that they all had very high, close to 30-ish MR.

[Ranger]

I don't have a problem with horrors taking out a powerfull magic user, but gods (pretenters) should have some defence against them, other wise it's just game. Who would follow a god that get's killed every two years and comes back weaker each time!

[Nick_K]

If you're going to have pretenders appearing as physical units in the world, and you're going to have physically-average pretenders such as archmages in the game then you have to accept the possibility of regular death. You can get the same result if you capture the enemies home province and simply kill them as soon as they're called back, for example. I'm sure you can also regularly kill a pretender with spells or assassination.
There are a number of ways which a pretender can protect itself which have been mentioned here. Primarily by casting returning or by not getting horror marked in the first place. I've played around a half-dozen SP games and the only horror marks I've ever received have bee nfrom items. It is something that the player has a lot of control over.

[Vicious Love]

Ranger said:
Who would follow a god that get's killed every two years and comes back weaker each time!

People have followed gods that get killed every year. And the whole path loss thing isn't something you advertise, unless you feel like guilt-tripping your followers. "Your SINS are why I can't cast Master Enslave anymore! Go, find me an S1 booster, and I might forgive you your wicked trespasses."