Abyssian and sabbath, what went wrong ?

[kasnavada]

I just tried doing a little sabbath in one of MP game and it went rather badly. When casting Sabbath master and Sabbath Slave, the slave was killed as intended but it still costed about 95 fatigue for the mages.

The same happened when casting hellpower during turn one with the intended master. 3 slaves were killed but 90+ fatigue was gained (lvl 4 blood mage). The sabbath master spell however did not give him any more fatigue and did use 1 slave.

Any clue how to avoid this apart from not using sabbath at all but use the communion spell with astral mages instead ?

Another problem I had is that the slaves decided to cast summon imp. That, of course, worked the same way and put them to 190+ fatigue. It also killed the remaining slaves that would have been put to a better use by the sabbath master. Any idea how to prevent them from casting unnecessary spells like this ?

From this behaviour it would seem that casting lvl 1 spells with lvl 1 blood mages needs to require a slave plus about 95 fatigue, which means that it is pointless to have lvl 1 blood mage at all in a fight since they will only be able to cast 2 spells before being fatigued for the entire fight.

Do I need to get lvl 2 blood mages and have them cast the spell with 2 blood slaves to setup a sabbath ? I find it quite stupid since the astral equivalent costs 20 fatigue and works with a lvl 1 astral mage.

[K]

Blood magic only works well when you have a lot of nlood slaves and a lot of Blood magic. The slave cost means that all effects cost a lot more fatigue than is strictly reasonable. Overcasting (using more gems, or slaves in this case) is very common.

The Secret to any Sabbath is after you have it set up, have the Sabbath Master cast Reinvigoration. That removes the fatigue from all S. Slaves. Then cast whatever you were planning to cast.

As for a way to keep Blood mages from casting Summon Imps....just don't give blood slaves to blood mages (or have them near on the battlefield). Give them to a scout that follows your army. Battlefield blood magic is the rarest of all magic, so don't bet the farm by investing heavily in it.

Sabbaths are just a poor man's Communion for Blood mages. Use them to cast big spells from other paths, and keep any blood magic infrequent.

[chrispedersen]

Agreed, although I would also look at slave matrixes - and the master device. Getting your master to pop one turn early can prevent slave actions.

[kasnavada]

Sooo... that doesn't answer most of problems though.

The mages that casted summon imps where halfway across the battlefield. Where is far enough ? Since abyssian mages burn slaves faster when they are near each other it's a bad idea to group them, and you need to put them apart from each other if you want to have any slaves left to cast any spell. Isn't there another way to prevent them from casting spells pointlessly ?

Yes, abyssian mages tend to burn slaves. Litterally. For that reason too waiting another turn to use reinvigoration is kind of a suicide since the slaves start catching fire about turn 2... That probably works with other nations though.

Slave matrix and master device cost a lot of earth magic and weren't available in my case since it's pretty much in the beginning of the game. I will think about it for later though.

I quite agree that blood magic is infrequent, but I think it's rather due to the fact that the slaves get killed by battlefield wide spells rather than anything else. The blood spells by themselves have pretty amazing stats compared to the non-blood equivalent. I therefore planned to use it before that.

Well. The conclusion seem to be that I should have used communion instead, and that sabbath is not cost effective in its current form.

[Humakty]

The hold command should solve your problem : sabbath slave+hold*4 should give plenty of time to your master to cast his spells.

[K]

Slaves have to be just over half a screen(ish) to be safe from being used since they bunch up. tend to keep mine on the top left and mage on the bottom left.

As for slaves catching fire....Slave matrixes is the route unless you are willing to cast fire protection spells(and even then its hard to get 100%). Use them fast or lose them (though casting Regen spells like Mass Regen would also cure your problem since burning slaves is OK as long as they don't die, and considering Fire's synergy with Nature it's a good investment).

Abysia is pre-built to use Soul Contracts since they have astral mages who can cast Returning when horrors show up, so I'd focus on that and use the slaves for times when you need a communion for a big Fire or Earth spell or something.

[Renojustin]

You just have to script your sabbath slaves to cast sabbath slave then hold x 4.

I'm curious what spell you could cast that would have tipped the balance there...

[kasnavada]

Agony + spamming the "fire something" lvl 1 astral spell with the 2 astral mages. Those 2 got killed by your arrows (and of course, died). No problem on that part.

I don't really know how it scales, though, but area and damage have a little + beneath them. So area should have gone from 3 to 7 or 8 given that the caster should have been lvl 8 instead of 3, killing a few dozen units twice (I scripted it twice) and causing a huge morale breakdown of anything it hit, resulting in routing of most of your forces. The fire mages + wyrm should have finished the remnants.

Sadly, as you have seen, I tried to rely on indy archers (forgetting that their morale was 7 and they fled after taking a shot, causing my entire force to rout) and the communion failed. I thought they would hold for a bit more... Both of those of course caused a defeat. Furthermore, a minor horror showed up (murphy's law) on turn 3 and proceded to try to kill my hero (but failed).

What did work, however, was my wyrm holding your melee forces while my fire mages helped her kill them.

I made several mistakes I won't do next time. I should just have gone for the 1S 2B instead of the 1B mages and commune. I shouldn't have relied on those archers but they are the only ones I've got access to. As far as mages go, I wanted to buy the 1S 2B massively after I got boots of youth, but I shouldn't have held back.



That's the battle report !

[Renojustin]

The wyrm limped and wheezed its way to the front of the army. It began the long, laborious process of crawling towards the enemy ranks. Gasp, shuffle, cough, rest.

The Warlock Apprentices, each with a beautiful girl in a gilded iron cage before him, stabbed downwards with their daggers and devoured the life energy of the virgins, joining a great Sabbath for the revered master of the Smouldercone himself, Malphas the Warlock.

Fire flew in waves at the Sauromatians, and men and horses caught fire, rolled, and exploded.

Then suddenly, A Thing Which Should Not Be materialized before Malphas, rending, devouring his essence. He was torn asunder.

Out of the husk of the body rose the Corruptor. It was the true enemy, the monster that would destroy Claire and her people, leading them away from the pure fire and turning them forever towards the tainted path of blood. It hissed and vomited blood at the lesser horror, then flew, laughing as it fled.



Claire, the forgotten dragonling, had almost made it halfway across the field by the time the Warlock Apprentices were exhausted. Riddled with arrows and hurt, she painfully slithered back toward the doomed lands of the fire people.

Bodies of exhausted fire mages lay strewn across the battlefield. The Sauromatians approached eagerly with spears and forks. You didn't even have to cook Abysians.

[kasnavada]

And also, in answer to K. The lvl 1 blood mages didn't give me enough virgin to start mass producing them (edit : soul contracts), but it was in my plans. As you have now seen, sauromantia is going after me, and heavy infantry (100% of abyssian troops) is completely useless against them.

So I planned to go "troopless". I'll put what troopless Abyssia means for me in the EA thread for Abyssia later (probably when this particular game is over). Now that I've actually played them I've got much better insight of how to use the nation effectively.