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[Il Palazzo]

Ah, now I get it. Like, finally, after how many years of playing.

[Il Palazzo]

Edit: The only things I'm not clear on is why he didn't power himself up a level for Curse of Stones (conservative casting?), and why he didn't kill himself casting it. It's an earth-3 3-gem 300 fatigue spell, and he burned 3 gems and had 200 fatigue after, and the same amount of HP as he had before he cast it.

As far as I understand it, a caster can never kill himself by casting a spell, no matter how fatiguing - it's only if he incurs additional fatigue over 200 afterwards, that he takes damage.

[Kagus]

Fun fact: While it's true that the colossal fetish, being mindless, will indeed shrug off horror marks... That does not exempt it from being ganged up on when the battle is over and all that's left are a bunch of hell power horrors. He will, however, be completely ignored up until that point. Cheeky bugger was actually casting Leeching Touch on the autospawn horrors just as they were blinking over to the enemy forces...


Very entertaining test, I must say. Was also interesting to see that while he did get marked by the horrors attacking him, when combat was over he was no longer marked.  Next I'll have to try doing a suicide communion using hellpower.

[Shadowlord]

Edit: The only things I'm not clear on is why he didn't power himself up a level for Curse of Stones (conservative casting?), and why he didn't kill himself casting it. It's an earth-3 3-gem 300 fatigue spell, and he burned 3 gems and had 200 fatigue after, and the same amount of HP as he had before he cast it.

As far as I understand it, a caster can never kill himself by casting a spell, no matter how fatiguing - it's only if he incurs additional fatigue over 200 afterwards, that he takes damage.

Aha. And I guess the AI must not cast earth power on its own, and couldn't have used an extra gem on curse of stones anyways.

[E. Albright]

Very entertaining test, I must say. Was also interesting to see that while he did get marked by the horrors attacking him, when combat was over he was no longer marked.  Next I'll have to try doing a suicide communion using hellpower.

Bonus points if you use Golems as your communicants.

[Grek]

I've found the newest, dumbest, cheapest tactic:

Play an awake Hooded Spirit with A2W2E9D9N2, Dominion 10, all scales set to -3. Spend 7 turns researching Alteration, then have the Spirit forge itself some Black Plate. Script it to cast Mistform and attack rear. It can move 10 provinces a turn and kill most independents, even throne guardians. Unless you get unlucky or the other players catch on, you win in 7+2n turns, where n is the number of thrones in play.

[E. Albright]

That's very much an all-or-nothing strategy. It would become fairly obvious fairly quickly what you're doing, and it would also be a strategy that seems suicidal if there are level two or three thrones in play.

[Kagus]

Hell, even level 1 thrones. It sounded seriously messed up, so I tested it out myself.

First throne had a squad of phantasmal warriors (no morale, magical weapons that disrupt mistform) and a skellyspammer. Somehow managed to survive and win, but not without getting a chest wound for even more fatigue than he was already picking up (which was a lot)

Second throne was just a bunch of bone tribe, which meant berserkers and the head hunter chiefs with magical skull clubs. Spirit got muted, then retreated into enemy territory.


It's, ah... Not that great.


EDIT: Just tried out something similar with the great siddha, similar concept but the siddha has built-in awe +3 and blinking (so he can actually attack the rear directly instead of shuffling along the sides) but no etherealness.  First throne was a bunch of skeletal horseman, siddha died on the first turn of contact.

There's some potential there, but, ah... Yeah. Definitely not foolproof.

[Frumple]

I'unno, something like that I'd probably be eyeballing a gorgon or somethin' instead. Bit more likely to be able to actually deal with throne guardians, still fast enough that unless the map is genuinely gigantic you're still going to nab the thrones faster than anyone can really react. Probably able to manage it without tanking your everything quite so badly, too.

... why are the scales being tanked so hard, anyway? There didn't seem to be anything in that setup that actually required E9 or D9, and at the very least if someone's bumping it for research points the death pickup makes zero sense. I'm actually getting more confused the more I try to figure it out

Don't take death at all and there's a full two scales back in the bank. Don't take death nine and that's... more scales. Even if you still take N or W up to compensate for the RP loss. Similarly if black plate's all you're forging E9 is way excessive... same for the dominion. If you're planning on ending the game in 7+2n turns or flaming out, there's no real point in taking more than maybe dom six or seven, at most.

E: Though looking at it a bit, the real trick here would be to use that as a disciple, with a multibless god. Everything you had before plus bless, and if you do it as fast as you should be the HP concerns don't happen.

E2: Could even make sure it's a god nation (or another disciple, or both) that has easy access to the forging you need to do, plus probably some research boosters. Then they can do the item forging and funnel RP/gold into you to speed up the research.

E3: Oooh, the dom 10 is for the awe. Forgot about that. No wonder it's such a crapshoot :V Awe's nice but a fair number of things just outright ignore it, and some of said things very much like to sit on top of thrones. Dom 9 should still work for that anyway, iirc... more points you can put in something more useful for the goal at hand.

E4: Though @Kag, if you're going that route, the spenta mainyu would probably be better... also a teleporter, also ethereal, but built in awe 5, and some pretty decent combat stats to boot (double the siddha's health, among other things). No stealth, though, but that really shouldn't be a problem... if you're intending to step on throne provinces and can't do it to indies you might as well not try

Bit expensive, though. You can still nab the E and A required for mistform and black plate without much issue even as a disciple, though. Could also consider something like a solar disc... not a teleporter, but mapmove 5 and a pretty nasty combatant. Can't wear the plate, but eh.

[Kagus]

Yeah, Dom10 is awe+2, Dom9 is awe+0. The death pickup is because anything over D5 gives you a fear aura, which of course meshes very well with awe. Not sure why D9 though, since you can move things around a bit and get D10 which grants you an even greater AoE on the aura, plus the added point of intensity.

The high earth is because E skill gives you one point of protection for every level you have in that path, and I think that even stacks on top of armor.


Also while the solar disc does have gorgeous fire shield, it's really really squishy... Low HP, no protection, no awe/ethereal/invuln/anything. The fireshield is pretty much the only thing it's got going for it, and projectiles can be a big problem.

Does the gorgon petrification work on undead/illusions? If so, that'd be pretty great, although the gorgon's pretty squishy too.

EDIT: Heh, on a related subject, I've actually used a freak lord as an expansion rainbow pretender a couple times. It's pretty funny.

[Frumple]

Petrify has an MR check (though saving just paralyzes you instead of killing you) and doesn't work against stuff that's already stone (so thrones with watchers would probably be a no-go, ferex. Said thones would also tear that spirit into pieces without much effort, but that's neither here nor there.). Everything else is fair game, so far as I can recall. It's the spell, more or less.

It definitely works on undead, heh. One of the reasons it takes a number of VotD casts before you can dogpile a gorgon (or something with the aegis) with spirits long enough the turn limit kills it. Also one of the reasons VotD's so effective against 'er -- the petrify kills whole hosts of the spirits every time the spell gets through, usually about doubling the amount that attacks with each successive cast.

And yeah, I don't think I was even aware about the fear thing. Still not something I'd rely on for throne stomping, though. Awe and fear both generally have the same problems, and those problems as mentioned like to show up on thrones. Though the earth prot does stack, yes. Still... I'unno. Protection's there but if you're not fatigue neutral you might as well not bother if you're going to try to solo armies with it. You'll last a bit longer but you'll still die, most likely sooner than later.

If you get lucky with thrones it could be possible, but if there's enough ones with mindless or 'zerking enemies to keep you from getting a throne win you're probably SOL.

E: ... honestly, thinking on it a little, the more reliable thing with this strategy would probably be to just attack the enemy capitals. Drop the pretender on top of one and then dig your way to their capital with troops, rinse and repeat. Thrones would be able to kill that thing a lot sooner than most nations would be.

E2: Though now I'm wondering if there's some kind of KKV strategy possible. Instead of a hooded spirit, take a monolith and literally teleport them (or wind trapeze or something) on top of the thrones. Make sure you have fire shield or something and then call it a day :V

[Kagus]

Another thing is that if you're picking up Alt3 anyways for mistform, you'll also get Ironskin and its 20 protection along for the deal. No real need to pump up earth magic just for the armor.

Also don't really like mistform for this strategy, since you can lose it to all sorts of things. Sure, it's damn handy for as long as it works, but when it stops working... Eh.

[Frumple]

There is that. From a fatigue perspective it might even be better to just use ironskin and not bother with the black plate... thing's always kinda' iffy on non-undead/lifeless anyway, at least if you intend for them to actually fight much. Forge up something with reinvig instead or along those lines.

[ThtblovesDF]

I tried that (with a glyph, sadly the "taking the eyes of anyone who attacks it" is only flavor text) - it worked ok until I hit a throne with wizards that cast 3x Paralyze, which stunned it for 26 turns. Ouch.

[Kagus]

Just learned that the Hun Came and Bolon-Ti-Ku are undead, but not lifeless. So they have 0 encumbrance but can be affected by regeneration.

Enchant 3 gets you fire shield and personal regen, which is neat. Still not enough to reliably stomp thrones though (I keep running into these wizard clans with their massive elemental spam), but definitely good fun.