Wishlist: Assassinations

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Great post, but... wow, really? Never heard about that.

Base Reinvigoration is 5 points, whether you act or not. "Resting" allows you to bank those 5 points (or more if you have Reinvig items on). Still, unless your unit is intended for melee (thug/SC with self buffs) there is literally no reason to have them wait. Fatigue is Fatigue, if you don't burn it with scripted spells, the AI will burn it with who knows what. It's worthwhile to note, your mage will resume his script when he wakes up. So an A2 mage scripted to (Summon Storm Power), (Thunder Strikex4) will get 2 Thunder Strikes off, then pass out, then pop up and blow off another Strike, and once more for good measure. Dangerous if you are worried about your army routing, but then best script for that mage is still (Summon Storm Power), (Thunder Strikex2), (Spells), assuming you wanted evo spam, rather than other things. Anyway, after the second strike, he should pass out for 2-3 rounds, and then generally will cast lower fatigue spells as applicable, so he's never out for more than a round at a time, and can flee if/when needed. However if you leave him totally unscripted, he may do something totally inappropriate like spam Ghost Wolves when you have TONS of chaff already, and need your mages doing damage.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Dorjan

Another thing to add to this (just happened).

A hero SC with a bow, fires then RUNS AT THE ELEMENTAL and gets trampled.

How can you say thats not broken? In a normal fight they stay at range and keeps firing!

That is no SC.

I agree, the big remote spells, Earth Attack, Manifestation, and Infernal Disease, can be a real pain for some nations. Often, the cost/benefit doesn't seem to be there when someone is doing 1-2 casts a turn, and you have 60 valuable commanders that you need to protect. Doing so with summons is going to likely require at 3 gems in most cases, and possibly more like 5+. Expending 300 gems (that you probably don't have) to guard against 1-2 remotes a turn, just isn't very effective.

Domes are likewise usually not the answer, as an experienced player will assume their use, and avoid casting on your capital, or any other massive research center - the vulnerable target is the mobile target. When an army is on the move, the only thing you can protect from is Mind Hunt, the real assassination spells require serious bodyguards, and a single large army with 20 support mages is going to require a whole lot of bodyguards - quality guards - and they will all end up Diseased (unless immune) if it's a Blood nation casting at you. Nasty evil stuff.

As Caelum though, I'd agree that Bottles of Water, or Bags of Wind are your go-to solutions for assassins. You can use some summons, but it will be very gem intensive - the items are superior as they provide excellent battlefield usefulness, in line with their costs.

[llamabeast]

Fatigue does drop by resting. 5 pts back any turn you don't act.

This is just not true, unless you are over 100 fatigue. I just tested it to make sure.

[vfb]

Maybe defending commanders in assassinations should refuse to cast any spell that would bring them over 100 fatigue. That should be a lot easier to code, rather than a second battle script for assassination defense. And it would handle the case of Fire Storm, Darkness, Mass Protection, etc, being cast for no good reason. It could be complicated for Leech/Life Drain though, since you might actually want to cast them, and the casting might bring the mage over 100 fatigue prior to getting reinvigoration back from the spell effect.

There are gem-using battle spells that you can script to protect yourself against assassins and remote assassinations, so I don't think that using gems should be totally disabled for commanders who are in assassination battles.

[Dorjan]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

That is no SC.

OK, maybe not a SC but she is great supporting the army, trust me One thing though, when SCRIPTED to FIRE, did she run at the enemy?

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

As Caelum though, I'd agree that Bottles of Water, or Bags of Wind are your go-to solutions for assassins. You can use some summons, but it will be very gem intensive - the items are superior as they provide excellent battlefield usefulness, in line with their costs.

AS a heavy item user not a single commander leaves home with a slot free.

they already have bags of winds, sprit helms, lucky shields, birch boots. That sort of thing.

But becasue they are scripted to be useful in an army not on their own, they all die to assasins.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Dorjan

AS a heavy item user not a single commander leaves home with a slot free.

they already have bags of winds, sprit helms, lucky shields, birch boots. That sort of thing.

But becasue they are scripted to be useful in an army not on their own, they all die to assasins.

There is no way to stay competitive like that, you need as many mages as you can possibly get. And you need to make most of them effective without or with very little equipment, almost regardless of nation.

There are countless examples of this. I think your problem with assassinations is that you invest too much in single mages and make those few indisposable. Filling every slot of every mage is just not gonna cut it ANY mp game.

In mid/late game you sometimes have 30-40 mages with a single army, a few of which may be "key" and fully equipped. And you want to field several armies.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

This is just not true, unless you are over 100 fatigue. I just tested it to make sure.

You're right. I just tested it again too.

I could have sworn I'd seen it.

[Dorjan]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

In mid/late game you sometimes have 30-40 mages with a single army, a few of which may be "key" and fully equipped. And you want to field several armies.

My armies have 20+ mages. I didn't mean all equipped but all key ones (about 15) per army.

And I have 3 armies.

Edit: Look we've moved away from the point.

>> This is not a rant because I am loosing, I am actually in a strong position in my current MP game and I am doing 2/3 earth attacks a turn myself.

I feel this is a feature that is broken because you can lose a top hero for a silly reason; because they ran away or cast a stupid spell / followed a script that is only good for a army support.

Now I know about balance and if you read the OP I was not saying to remove this or that I was offering sensible alternatives so you don't feel like screaming because a hero "runs" away when a single guard is killed even if they have morale 19.

[llamabeast]

So, it is very annoying that your mages use the same script for battles and assassinations, I have to agree with you there.

2) A top hero of the nation, Morale 19, Leading the troops over and over again, sees one die and decides to run leaving 4 men to take on the assasin... he leaves the battlefield and is DEAD. Totally spoiling the game.

I don't understand that, there's no reason to take a morale check when one bodyguard of five dies so far as I know. When a few die you'd expect it.

Anyway, if you like you could consider it some supernatural effect that the mage casting Earth Attack also enchants the victim so he isn't quick witted enough to adapt his plans. Or something like that. I can see it could be very annoying, but it's a sufficiently small part of the game that many of us have never seen it happen. Also there are a number of counters, as have been suggested. If your very best mages had Crushers as bodyguards they'd be fine, and I'm sure there are much neater counters.

[llamabeast]

The reason I haven't commented much on your suggestions, by the way, is that I think they are unlikely to be implemented. Despite the game being more than two years old the devs still regularly make very significant patches, but the changes tend to fall into either bug fixes or additional content. They don't seem to like tweaking the rules.