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[USEC_OFFICER]

If I have a crystal matrix on a mage X, will he be able to establish a communion even if he isn't astral?

The crystal/slave matrix automatically casts Communion Master/Slave at the start of battle (before turn 1 in fact), so the holder's paths are irrelevant. They could be some super wizard, lowly pencil pusher or indy priest. They'll still be part of the communion.

Does it matter if slaves are casting their slave spell before or after X? I take it, the battle turn order follows the army list order?

Since Reverse Communions are no longer a thing, it only matters on the first turn. Obviously they need to cast Communion Slave to actually join it, so if you want to pump out a high-level spell on turn 1 they need to be before the Master in the list order or holding slave matrices. After that their army list order doesn't matter anymore. They'll just stand around and contribute no matter what.

I want to cast a level 5, three gem, spell on turn 1, X is currently level 3. If I have four slaves, I should be able to get to level 5 immediately, and cast it at a cost of three gems, right? If I have two slaves, X will be level 4, and needs 3+1 gems to cast the same spell?

I'm 60% certain that the master still counts as having level 3 magic and so can only use 3 gems total. Only 60% certain. It's definitely something you should test in a separate game, just to be sure.

Additionally, the slaves don't have the path of what is cast. Will X still get a level up in that path? How will it affect fatigue? In the battle spell queue, the spell I want to cast is greyed out, it doesn't seem to consider slave spells? What are the benefits of using a slave matrix instead? Less fatigue? Spell will get ungreyed in the battle spell queue?

The paths of the slaves only matter for reducing the amount of fatigue which they get, which can also be reduced with buffs or simply more communion slaves. The bonus from a communion affects all the paths which the master has, regardless of what the slaves have.

The spell is greyed out because the game doesn't know how big your communion will be when you actually cast it. As long as your paths are high enough during the battle your master should cast the spell. But there's also the possibility that they'll get ganked before then. Hence why it's grey.

The benefits of a slave matrix is the ability to cast the spell before battle starts and enabling non astral mages to be slaves. Neither of which are particularly worth the cost of a slave matrix. Getting a massive spell off on the first turn could be worthwhile, but you can achieve the same thing by using a crystal matrix and picking a master below all of the slaves in the turn order.

I'd like to know what the deal with communions is anyway. I'm not a very frequent player.

It makes a bunch of slaves stand around doing nothing, in return for a magic path boost for the masters and fatigue being spread around all participants. So it's good for getting high-level spells out or spamming mid-level ones all day. The path boost is log base 2 (ie: 2 slaves for 1 level boost, 4 for 2, 8 for 3, etc) but the fatigue spreading is not.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The one thing I find most annoying with the communions mechanic, is that it's impossible to use it for ritual spells, despite the "bunch of mages pooling their magic together to work a ritual for X amount of time" thing being a staple of basically any kind of fantasy-fiction.

[Radsoc]

Exactly what I wanted to know, thank you!

I like how intricate the rules of the game are, and how you need to go back to them to see if ideas are workable. The amount of spells, units and tactics combinations create a complexity that allows for quite creative play.

[George_Chickens]

Exactly what I wanted to know, thank you!

I like how intricate the rules of the game are, and how you need to go back to them to see if ideas are workable. The amount of spells, units and tactics combinations create a complexity that allows for quite creative play.

LESS PLANNING, MORE SHIELD WALLS!

[Cruxador]

The one thing I find most annoying with the communions mechanic, is that it's impossible to use it for ritual spells, despite the "bunch of mages pooling their magic together to work a ritual for X amount of time" thing being a staple of basically any kind of fantasy-fiction.

Because getting unlimited paths in combat is a useful strategy to win fights, but getting it for rituals would mean that you'd need a way to build communions as every nation you play, pretty much, to unlock those big game-changing globals.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The one thing I find most annoying with the communions mechanic, is that it's impossible to use it for ritual spells, despite the "bunch of mages pooling their magic together to work a ritual for X amount of time" thing being a staple of basically any kind of fantasy-fiction.

Because getting unlimited paths in combat is a useful strategy to win fights, but getting it for rituals would mean that you'd need a way to build communions as every nation you play, pretty much, to unlock those big game-changing globals.

Ritual mages could collaborate without the communion spell. Just, say, three level 1 mages to cast a level 2 spell, three level 2s (or nine level 1s) to cast a level 3 spell, etc. Maybe make every additional caster cost an extra gem to prevent abuse with low-level summoning spells. Rapid aging could be a thing as well since mages are channeling power above their individual level, or it could be an intrinsic ability of some nation's mages to circumvent the extra gem cost. It could work.

[Frumple]

Other thought would be to just instakill everyone involved in the casting. Globals cast that way would be inherently temporary, but possibly undispellable or able to exist outside the normal global pool. Basically a very expensive panic button, most of the time. Probably have something or another blood magic related that increases effectiveness or gives a chance for the casters to survive (maybe at the cost of random other commanders, preferring non-casters in the same province?). You could do a lot with that without worrying too much about abuse, since it would be rather impressively costly and time consuming.

[E. Albright]

I'd like to know what the deal with communions is anyway. I'm not a very frequent player.

It makes a bunch of slaves stand around doing nothing, in return for a magic path boost for the masters and fatigue being spread around all participants. So it's good for getting high-level spells out or spamming mid-level ones all day. The path boost is log base 2 (ie: 2 slaves for 1 level boost, 4 for 2, 8 for 3, etc) but the fatigue spreading is not.

It also lets you sling around personal buff spells to people who didn't/can't cast them; if any communion master casts a caster-only buff, all slaves receive it. This is less useful since reverse communions were gotten rid of with the release of Dom4, but it's still worth remembering, and in certain circumstances is still useful for tricksy tricks.

[Gigalith]

In actual in-battle communions, the slaves basically do nothing. Perhaps the cost of a ritual communion would be that all the communion slaves are now useless (until the global goes down or something).

(Headcannon: that's why communions don't work for rituals. It's just too difficult to coordinate a bunch of wizards for the time necessary/it's impossible to detach them post-ritual.)

[ThtblovesDF]

I see it like this;

1 specifically trained human can build a pc
500 untrained monkeys can't

Same applies to magic.

[Frumple]

Hey, given enough time 500 untrained monkeys could build a PC, assuming an indefinite amount of parts and immortal or replacement monkeys.

... also it's a really bad analogy to use regarding Dom 4. The demon apes may become unamused.

[Kagus]

Also, note that battles take place in the space of a few hours at most, a couple minutes if we're taking the actual time spent fighting to heart... It takes roughly a month to perform a ritual.

If the communion slaves are paralyzed and incapable of doing anything, as they are on the battle map, then that would mean a month without eating, drinking, sleeping, or in any way taking care of themselves. They would almost certainly die in short order, likely before the ritual was complete.


...mind, that argument is completely invalidated by lifeless communion slaves, and also the mage performing the ritual clearly takes pee breaks themselves during the casting or else they'd die too.  Really it's just a matter of balance, because if you could use communions to boost rituals the way you can boost combat magic, we'd see 80gp yogis banding together with their friends and casting Wish, and it would also pretty much remove any need for expensive old-age mages who generally have the paths necessary to get boosted up to usable levels via items.



On another topic entirely, does casting Twiceborn on a zamzummite let them return after performing a banquet for the dead?  I remember someone talking about having prophetized a demilich and then just having the ancient heroes eat its leathery, dusty corpse repeatedly as it kept reincarnating; but that's a rather massive investment for an already-expensive spell.

[George_Chickens]

If the communion slaves are paralyzed and incapable of doing anything, as they are on the battle map, then that would mean a month without eating, drinking, sleeping, or in any way taking care of themselves. They would almost certainly die in short order, likely before the ritual was complete.

Couldn't you just get your soldiers to feed them like a bird does to its babies?

[Sean Mirrsen]

The balancing concerns are the biggest thing in making this sort of thing work, because the physical needs of casters in rituals are already a fairly sketchy affair.

In my mind, a good first step to balancing would be not making it work like communions, maybe exactly because of the lethality thing, since a communion-slaved caster would die before the ritual completes. You'd instead have a simple formula where three casters of a certain path level are equivalent to one caster of a path level one higher. Nine casters of that path level equivalent to one caster two path levels higher, twenty-seven for three levels higher, and so on. It's a simple system to let you jump up a casting level or two when you're really magic-locked, like when you're LA Man and only have the occasional D1 Judge, without a good supply of death gems to waste on empowering and the Bean Sidhe lottery.

[Gigalith]

The "month to cast" thing, in my mind, includes all the preparation, planning, etc. (You have to find a good oak first as a candidate for Mother Oak! Or check the map to find exactly where to teleport, etc.) The actual ritual might take only a few hours. You wouldn't necessarily get better success with more raw casting power, as some of it might rely on simple, ordinary skill at the matter.

But then we have magic boosters. Actually, same thing. Why can't an UW mage cast Summon Waterpower before casting a ritual? Again, it wouldn't necessarily give you the skill at the logistical end. But in combat, raw power is a perfectly fine substitute for finesse.

EDIT: But rather than communions, it does seem weird to me that every ritual requires _exactly one_ mage. I'd think it be interesting (except balance, complexity, time coding) if rituals automatically required different mages of different skills. I.e. ten S1 mages, five W5 mages, and one W5 mage to cast some S/W mega-ritual. But it does sorta work currently, in that the ultra-high-power rituals require the power of a literal god and lower magic could really be handled by a lone mage.