Elemental King/Queen summoning limits?

[Arryn]

I could have sworn this question's been asked and answered before, but I cannot find it: what happens if you try to summon a fourth Queen of Air, or third King of Fire, etc.? Or a closely-related subject, if you summon more than 6 (or however many there are) ice devils (or any of the other named critters in the game)?

{I've got this nice 28 air gem/turn income and I'd like to put the gems to a more efficient use than alchemizing them -- or Arrowing, Wind Riding, etc.}

[archaeolept]

you just lose any gems/slaves spent on the ritual.

[Arryn]

Thanks for the prompt answer, 'lept. Mucho glad I asked before trying it.

The game should gray-out the spells in such cases. I know making such a fix would entail a significant amount of coding by JK, but 50 gems are a lot to just waste (or for players unfamiliar with the rules and who don't hang out on this forum to be penalized by).

[Arryn]

So, to drag my own thread a wee bit OT, what would you folks do with 28+ air gems per turn income, excluding alchemy, Wind Ride, and Seeking Arrow?

[Stossel]

You could possibly constantly hurricane a few key enemy provinces, get the unrest over a 100 and stop mage/unit income.

cheap commanders + thunder bow + eye of aiming. I like this one, especially when facing squads with not a lot of troops.

[archaeolept]

flying boots staffs of storms copper plate

air domes

spring hawks for staff of storm wrathing squads

[The Panther]

It is done on purpose, I think, forcing you to put a ton of gems at risk if you don't know the answer for sure: Is that third queen gone or not? If I ask, can I believe what the other players tell me?

It does make it far more exciting, imho. I would certainly vote to keep it just as is. In a current game, I had my ally tell me to not bother summing an air queen as he just lost 50 gems trying. Good information for sure.

Same for the dispel global thing: Now, how many gems did that turkey put into that Gift of Health? Will an extra 33 be enough or not?

I think the reason that this is not done for mercenaries is because people would be loath to ever bid on a merc if you might lose all your precious gold for some wimpy merc's who will just rout and die anyway at some point.

An air queen, on the other hand, is worth the risk.

[Arryn]

The Panther said:
It is done on purpose, I think, forcing you to put a ton of gems at risk if you don't know the answer for sure: Is that third queen gone or not? If I ask, can I believe what the other players tell me?

{slaps self on head} Doh! I should have thought of that. For some silly reason it didn't even occur to me that someone else might cast one.

I really need to go back to playing MP games. In SP, by the time I can summon these things I have such a commanding lead on all the AIs it's pretty safe to assume none of them will "steal" one out from under me. In the game I'm playing now, I have Gale Gate running, plus 3 other globals, so I'm almost 100% sure that no AI is in a position to challenge me on summoning such things. But playing SP spoils me. The AIs just aren't aggressive enough or creative and sneaky, like humans are.

Thanks for pointing out my brain cramp.

[Arryn]

archaeolept said:
flying boots

I make one of these for each BL I summon. As Caelum, most everything else I have (or summon) flies.

archaeolept said:
air domes

Already done. Good suggestion though.

archaeolept said:
spring hawks for staff of storm wrathing squads

I must be having another brain cramp. Can the hawks (as well as my Caelum units) fly in the staff's storm?

[archaeolept]

oh, I wasn't aware you were caelum. you have less need of spring hawks then.

there's that high level air global that gives some income bonus and deals w/ unrest, forget it's name off hand.