how many communion slaves per master?

[Morbius]

im wondering how many communion slaves per communion master are effective when playing pythium.

and what orders you'd give em, since those 'slaves' seem to like charging into melee combat o_O

will they also forge a communion with my level 4 priests?

thx alot in advance for any illumination

[ March 26, 2004, 14:03: Message edited by: Morbius ]

[Tuna-Fish]

as many as possible if you give a master 2 slaves, he will get +1 to all magic skills, 4 is +2, 8 +3 etc. Combine that with the fatique-redistributing effect of communion and a few neat items and you will soon have mages that can cast all the neat air, astral and water spells. Against ai, try master enslave once, I promice you wont be disappointed. (also use rune smasher, spell focus and green eye (or ring of sorcery))

And for the secon question, they will be part of communion for anyone who has the spell communion master, sabbath master cast or is carrying a crystal matrix.

If you mean that will the priest benefir from it, yes it will. Once fighting ai AE Ermor I mae bartholomeus the patriarch into my prophet, gave him the sword of justice (so he is lev7 without communion) and teamed him up with 16 communion slaves (so +4, total 11). Ordered to cast quickness, communion master 3xbanish he shot right into hall of fame 1st position in his 1st battle, where he banished the entire opponent slow undead force, including the commanders, before it could reach my troops on the opposite side of the map.

Also, a very neat pythium strategy: get earth-10 blessing, rather cheap with cyclops. Both your communion slaves and masters are sacred so on first combat turn cast divine blessing and your mages are going to be heavily reinvigorated. Also, the cyclops can boost itself as high in earth magic as it can cheaply do with items, and start casting enliven statues. You get 2 more statues per path of earth magic exceeding the demands, meaning you get very cheap statues very fast. They are not the best in causing damage, but they are a wonderful screen in front (and around) your mages as they are rather slow to kill.

[Nephelim]

In my brief use of communion slaves, they seemed to only Last one battle... The Master cast enough spells to kill the slaves with fatigue...

Since the opponent was in rout before the slaves dies off, I assume the AI considers them completely expendable?

[Peter Ebbesen]

One good trick to make communion slaves Last longer is to give them reinvigoration somehow. If they are sacred, an earth 4+ blessing might prove useful. Otherwise, boots of the messenger (+4 reinvoration) never go out of fashion, relief is a great relief (and a master with 4+ slaves only needs 1 nature to cast relief, not that you should ever limit yourself to 4 slaves when 8 will do so much better in sharing the fatigue ), and since spells affecting the master affect the slaves, you might even get away with having a master cast earthpower.

[Morbius]

thx alot everybody

so, will the master (when playing pythium) have to cast the spell 'communion master'? the slaves allegedly do so before combat (automatically).
will the master do so when fighting without me telling him what to cast when? i prefer to have my mages run on auto
can 1 slave only aid one master or will all masters use him simultaneously?

and finally, is there any way to keep the slaves from charging into the nearest hostile forces?

thx alot in advance for your help

[ March 26, 2004, 18:11: Message edited by: Morbius ]

[Taqwus]

Unless you use a communion master matrix crystal, a master-to-be must cast Communion Master himself, and he won't necessarily do this unless you script him to do so.
You might consider giving your Communicants explicit 'hold' orders (hold x 5, stay behind troops) unless you're going for the Reusable Exploding Communicants of Doom tactic (!).
I second the suggestion regarding having at least one master have Nature magic and enough support to get to Nature 3, plus the research necessary for Relief, as Relief will reduce fatigue on ALL your units including communicants. Very useful for keeping them from dying due to fatigue, as is Summon Earth Power; Invulnerability is another nice spell for a master to cast.