To kill the sphinx

[Eduardo_X]

Yes, this is my first post on the Shrapnel forums, which is odd as I feel I've been here for much longer.
I played the Dom3 demo and loved it. I bought the game 2 days later.

I'm on my first SP game going right now. I'm played as Ulm, and I'm up against C'tis. They have a Sphinx pretender, and for the life of me, I can't kill the darn thing. I really don't know how to approach killing this thing.
The odd thing is, I beat this thing by seiging the fort it was in and conquering it. However, it somehow appeared (teleported? I found a few mentions of this by searching for Sphinx) in the some province. I THINK it got brought back to the world by some C'tis priests, but I'm too new to have experienced a thing like this before.
Any advice for a n00b like me?

Also, it is amazing how much this game has sucked my last 2 days away. When I'm not playing Dom3, I'm thinking about it.

[Theonlystd]

Pretenders can be braught back to life by priests as you said.

Tho no idea if the Ai uses the teleport spell or not..

[Graeme Dice]

Eduardo_X said:
I'm on my first SP game going right now. I'm played as Ulm, and I'm up against C'tis. They have a Sphinx pretender, and for the life of me, I can't kill the darn thing. I really don't know how to approach killing this thing.

The way to kill a sphinx is to either use armour negating or piercing spells and weapons, and lots of them, or to preach out the pretender's dominion. With no dominion, you don't need to kill the sphinx.

The odd thing is, I beat this thing by seiging the fort it was in and conquering it. However, it somehow appeared (teleported? I found a few mentions of this by searching for Sphinx) in the some province.

Sphinxes are the only truly immobile pretender that can never move, even via teleport. Every other immobile pretender can use the teleport spell to move around if there is a lab, they have astral 3, they have enough gems, and they have the spell researched.

I THINK it got brought back to the world by some C'tis priests, but I'm too new to have experienced a thing like this before.

When a pretender dies, priests can resurrect it in the capital province by using the call god command. It takes 40 priest level turns to bring the god back. It would therefore take 40 turns for a single level 1 priest, or one turn for 40 level 1 priests, or one turn for ten level 4 priests.

[Taqwus]

If you're too impatient for the dominion kill --

Black Bow of Botulf helps (guaranteed feeblemind if it hits, and a feebleminded Sphinx is of little threat unless its items attack). Staff of Kurgi works too, but that's Cons 8.

AN/AP afterwards (Gate Cleaver is a nasty case; and recall that fire is generally AP, while lightning is AN), or very heavy-damage attacks (Gifts from Heaven being one example). Feeblemind also hurts MR, if memory serves, which gives you a better chance via Soul Slay and similar spells.

Spam horror-marking and let the horrors do it.

[Nerfix]

Your Ulm, build some manly commanders with armor piercing weapons and some strenght boosters. Then send them again the Sphinx. Not a foolproof plan but I'd do that.

[Arralen]

I'm still not sure what happened to you.. you conquered C'tis home provinced, sieged the fort and finally stormed it. As the Sphinx can't move, you must have killed it if you have won the fight.

But where and when did it reappear exactly?

[JPSeraph]

Nerfix said:
Your Ulm, build some manly commanders with armor piercing weapons and some strenght boosters. Then send them again the Sphinx. Not a foolproof plan but I'd do that.

Ulm is such a beautiful nation!

And maybe the Sphinx was killed previously and just got called back into it's now-conquered capitol?

[Eduardo_X]

Arralen said:
I'm still not sure what happened to you.. you conquered C'tis home provinced, sieged the fort and finally stormed it. As the Sphinx can't move, you must have killed it if you have won the fight.

But where and when did it reappear exactly?

It was only a turn or 2 before it reappeared. C'tis still has a lot of other provinces, so I guess it'd be possible for them to have 20-40 priests all calling back their pretender, but wouldn't the pretender return to a friendly province?
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll be trying out a few of these strategies tonight.

[Graeme Dice]

Eduardo_X said:
It was only a turn or 2 before it reappeared. C'tis still has a lot of other provinces, so I guess it'd be possible for them to have 20-40 priests all calling back their pretender, but wouldn't the pretender return to a friendly province?

The pretender always returns to the capital, whether or not it's currently occupied by an enemt.

[CogDissident]

Crossbowmen are cheap, common, and armor piercing. But I'd say just preach out his dominion and he'll go away.