Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

So, after campaigning against the Life after Death exploit, I found myself in a position to abuse it in my current game. However, I found that without Foul Vapors, its actually quite difficult to kill off your own mages. Quite difficult!

The poison cloud will work ... it seemed about 50% of the time, assuming you could make the battle last long enough. However, half the time, the mages/priests would just get wounded/afflicted and run away. And the mages who stayed and were converted to soulless often recieved 2-3 afflictions anyway due to the slow damage pattern of poison.

To really make this trick work, you need a single spell which will (more or less) instantly kill friendly mages. Unless someone can think up how to do this, then I would consider this trick more of a curiousity, rather than an exploit.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Communion + Phoenix Pyre + Breath of Winter? :p

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

I doubt BoW would kill your mage (and thus cause the chain-reaction) in time.

I wonder tho... if you could call a horror or something.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

That's Ritual of Rebirth, not Life After Death.

It's probably simplest to use Rain of Stones. You won't kill them all but you'll kill a lot of them--repeat until you have enough. Earthquake x2 would be an (inferior) alternative, if you have them cast a lot of spells to build up fatigue first.

-Max

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Heh, yeah you could script them to knock themselves unconscious with fatigue while sitting in some killing zone. Have them all cluster together and knock themselves out with their own poison/frost clouds ...

"Pass the Kool-Aid, Ipobar. See you after we all come back in our more enlightened forms. Praise be to Wafflestomper!"

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

The trouble with Rain of Stones is if you do it once you won't kill enough to bother with. If you do it too much you'll kill off the newly soulless mages.

You need something they become immune to. Poison and Cold are the obvious choices.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Just put them in a tight group and have another mage cast berserk on them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Finally, a use for bog-beast spam... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Rain of Stones / Earthquake, or any other battlefield wide spell of that nature is very difficult to use because it relies on the AI choosing to spend gems. You cant ensure you will get a combat like that if you assume you are restricting yourself to nuetral province attacks to trigger the battle (horrors, GRs, etc).

Knocking mages out works, BUT as I said before, the damage pattern of poison is such that you are almost guaranteed to get multiple afflictions. The optimal way to carry out this tactic would be to kill them all in one blast, using no gems (except for items).

And btw, Soul Vortex doesnt work, either. Its slow, like poison, but beyond that, mages have good MR so they resist it a lot.

Given how often we have all had mages killed off by AI mistakes, it's really surprising how hard it is to kill them off intentionally. If anyone can find a good way to do it, let me know.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

A slow death gives more chances for afflictions, but sudden traumatic death (100% hp loss) guarantees an affliction. Unless you have N4+ bless, in which case, the gradual death is preferable, as the chance per hit goes down dramatically, leaving only the huge hit a decent chance to actually afflict.

Does Fatigue damage give afflictions? You could have every mage cast Breath of Winter, or you could summon some nice undeads with Chill auras.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Well, it's easy to kill them off intentionally. It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive." Restricting yourself to neutral provinces is probably not the way to go here because you put them in danger and lose a lot of time travelling. It's probably better to set them on patrol outside the castle and go for Phantasmal Army or Ghost Riders.

-Max

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

It doesnt guarantee one, but it makes it very likely, yes. However, having only one affliction is better than having 2-3 which could possibly cripple your mage's value.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Yeah nuetral province attack spells are the only effective way to go. At the time of the game when this tactic becomes available, there may not even be any indies alive.


You know I was thinking... what if you did something like put all your mages together in a clump up front. In addition, you bring like 30-40 archers and put them behind with orders to Fire Closest. Then had a horror marked mage summon a horror (or an ashen angel). So your mages would get all shot to hell by the arrows. Not sure if that would kill thier second form or not - just one volley, I mean.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Hehe, well you could save the indies in one province two away from your capital, for killing your own mages. Just time the Vortex of Returning properly... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Do survivors of this ritual keep their magic items in soulless form? If so, you might be able to figure out how to give them extra vulnerability to whatever you're deciding to kill them with. Some buff spells with vulnerabilities might give that opportunity, too.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

PvK,

Wouldn't that kind of negate the coolness of the "free reanimators" trick? I'd rather pay gold than lose gems on magic items. Nice thought but the buff spells are probably a better option.

-Max

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Have the priests stand next to someone/something with a chill aura or poison aura... second soulless form easily lives being cold/poison immune.

Fighting any group of weak independents will work or maybe a human ally will help

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

As I've said before, poison aura works but is not always effective or preferrable due to afflictions. Can no one think of a sure fire way to instantly kill friendly mages?

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Padding your post count by making snap-quick replies without reading the thread. Tsk tsk. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

So, this strategy came out two months ago and we only have one person, Ironhawk, who reports using it. If it is such a great idea, why are we not seeing it more often? Further, Ironhawk reports it is a lot trickier than expected. And from what I know of Ironhawk, he is one of the top grade players, so this is no simple thing to do.

Looks like the poll is right, this strategy is not the exploit that was feared.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

A way to decrease the number of afflictions is casting Regeneration or Mass Regeneration.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Yeah, but that makes them that much harder to kill off, NT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I agree, Saxon. While I still believe that this technically counts as an exploit, it is simply too hard to put into practice to worry about. I'll let you know if I find a way to do it. Or will I?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

It adds a cost, though everyone has their own definition of cool. I actually like it in a thematic way - imagine a story where the people of Koobland are routinely attacked by strange cultists of a powerful nation who should be able to destroy them, but always in a suicidal way that involves all of the attackers being killed, but it turns out the bodies vanish afterwards and really they need the service of having their initiates killed by someone else as part of an evil necromantic ritual.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

If you have a large body of water and water or air magic, can't you just drown them by removing their breathing apparatus?

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Actually units of low hitpoints such as priests which receive the regeneration only pickup one hitpoint of regeneration. From my experience the one hitpoint of regeneration on units of low hitpoints has almost no value for preventing death. I see regeneration for units of low hitpoints a strategy for preventing afflictions on survivors of a battle.

Regeneration of 3 or more hitpoints on units with many hitpoints is where they become harder to kill.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

[Drowning] won't trigger Life After Death because it happens out of combat.

I tried Rain of Stones but my problem was that my opposition wasn't tough enough and my Cyclops cast Flying Shards instead. I didn't pursue the test after that.

-Max

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

PVK - there's no point drowning them because drowning happens outside of battle, and you can only have Life After Death in effect during battle.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

So is the consensus of those assembled that exploit or not, the "mass producing" part is so near impossible, as to render the point somewhat moot? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Has anyone tried to do this with giant nations? There's one case where reanimating priests would actually be great.

It's easy to kill the targets. The secret is in auras, obviously. 10 Winter Wolves set to guard cold-immune commander will kill his two non-immune friends in few turns. Bog beasts do the same even faster. If you do this with indy priests and get back Longdead Giant/Rephaim reanimators, it's worth the trouble.

The main problem with auras is that you need a fight that last for 5 turns or so.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

In that case it's probably easier with the help of an ally than with Ghost Riders, etc. You can have an ally teleport onto your fort and <Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Hold, Retreat> from near the front of the battlefield. As long as you give him a province to retreat to it costs him nothing but a turn and 2 pearls.

Edit: Hmmm, I guess your other option is a thug or SC with two shields (who therefore attacks with "useless kick"). Then you could do Call of the Winds after all. It will take ages to kill them all. (At least with Call of the Winds. Not so much with Ghost Riders because of all the newly-Soulless priests spamming Banishment.)

-Max

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

As I find myself repeating yet again: poison works only about 50/50 and when it does, you have a good chance of afflictions ruining the mage/priest you are trying to convert.

However I have not tried chill auras. The idea of using a pack of winter wolves to stack thier auras in that way hadnt occured to me. That would be worth a shot... chill causes fatigue damage right? So at least they would not be able to run away, as with poison. However, I think that keeping the battle going long enough to kill from fatigue would be difficult.

Edit:
Another thought occurs - using both Chill AND Poison at the same time. Chill freezes units in place and would theoretically cause more critical hits, speeding thier demise from poison. You know, that might just work...

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Plan S: Get a tainted blood slave unit, cast Gift of Reason on her, give her two amulets of vengeance, have a blood mage stand next to her, surrounded by indy priests, script a spell that sacrifices a blood slave, and boom! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Oh, I see, you guys are talking about using the battlefield enchantment Life After Death so you can use indy priests with no magic abilities. I was somehow thinking you had a way to cast Twiceborn on them in advance, but of course that's a caster-only Death spell.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

When I have done this exploit, I always just use the frost father, and take a cold dominion.

He has chill 17 with cold power that boosts it up to like chill20 (chill23?) in a cold 3. Also there is a cheap fatigue spell that surrounds you with chill.

I don't see this as particularly hard or an issue...

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Does that actually work..?
And does two amulets work better than one.. seems counter intuitive.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

I was mostly joking. I think it might work. It was reported in Dom 2 that tainted unit blood slaves could get sacrificed (and IIRC there was a way to crash Dom 2 doing that). I don't know about commander blood slaves or what happens in Dom 3 though. I also don't know if it would set off the amulet of vengeance or not (it might bypass that), nor do I know if two amulets of vengeance both explode - the second one was sort of an explanation point on the joke.

Phoenix Pyre, however, seems like another possibility. Though I think you're right that simple cold aura would do it, given enough time - you just need to keep the artificial battle going long enough, which is the other half of the "how to make this an efficient factory" question.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Funny timing on this thread, I just had a big battle involving it. Instead of casting Control Undead, my mage casts the �life after death� spell. Not very helpful, as I am MA Ermor and don�t have a lot of live troops at this stage. Then he casts rigor mortis. I also have a big communion going. Soon, my mages start dying from fatigue, not ideal.

Oh well, they come back to life, so not a problem. They can still re-animate, so nothing changes. The next turn, the army gets sieged by the enemy SC pretender, who has high regeneration due to high dominion. No problem, I will just preach it away and then smack him down. Except that my newly undead priests can not preach�

Seems that getting re-animation comes at a cost.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

I was thinking of indy priests for nations without easy access to chill/heat auras. Perhaps MA Ashdod/Hinnom or something. You don't care about ruining these now upkeep-free commanders.

I say that producing undead priests in general is not exploitish for any nation whatsoever (yes, it taints the theme. But it´s also themish in it´s own right if you dabble in necromancy). Mass production is not kosher, imho, through (what kind of mass production are we talking about here?)

No one cares if those 50G indy priests get afflications. They have only one purpose, that is to reanimate skeletons. Why should you care if they get blinded/crippled or whatever. (does feeblemindedness remove priest levels as well for pure priests?)

I think yes it does.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

???

The poll looks like a malfador disk space poll. Am I the only one with poll problems or is this a known issue?

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Yeah something is very wrong with the poll here from the original post...

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

I'd have to disagree about it being unthematic. As Baalz has already mentioned, all nations, with the exception of Marignon, have access to undead pretenders. Death magic itself should be a magic path available to all nations even for those without starting death mages and gem income. It is worth noting that using magic paths that are unthematic with your nation has an opportunity cost. If players are willing to put in the extra effort, then I'm fine with them paying that cost. Besides, it always makes for a nice role plying feel to see a nation using magic that it inherently does not have access to. It truly shows how the pretender has been given so much devotion that his interests override the morals of society. How often have people used blood magic while playing as MA Mictlan.

In regards to the potency of the life after death, the fight where you use the spell needs to be a very controlled circumstance. You first need to guarantee it is a battle you can win or retreat from successfully. The retreating part would be easy except you need to also kill all your priests once, and only once, before they escape and their souless bodies are frail and unprotected. Surely almost any player can set up this situation in single player games, but it becomes exponentially harder when fighting a war in multi-player. It may also not pay off in the end if a SC teleports on top of the stack of priests or if the enemy researched a bunch of undead killing spells, which they can easily do at this point. Also, not to ignore what Baalz has already stated, there are surely opportunity costs involved. The money alone could easily have been 200 well armed national solders.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

i really don't see the problem here, the freespawn undead are utter chaff and can be handled very easily with the usual undead counters. There are many more effective tactics which can be employed much earlier in the game.

Just to chuck in one such strat which could tear right through this 'Exploit'.

10 fire+water blessed hydras (can only be blessed playing middle age pythium) under the influence of 'gift of flight'. Ah watch the undead dissolve under 180 blazing poison bites upon their rearmost troops and commanders, YES there will be blood.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

I didn't think longdead and souless had blood. I also beleive it is late age pythium that gets sacred hydras. As for the "exploit", I agree. You get a lot more effective undead combatents out of a black servent prophet. I've never heard of that being refered to as an exploit or as unthematic.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

late age pythium? i must be missing something cause my game only goes up to middle age: the serpent cult ,

but whatever the strategy remains and this 'exploit' still is too much trouble for the gain and as such can't be treated as an exploit.

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

Serpent Cult is Late Age.

Middle Age Pythium is "Emerald Empire".

And Early Age's Pythium would be Sauromantia, only it´s not like Pythium at all...

Re: Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?
 

oops got mixed up. but yeah late age pythium