Newbie Question about Desert Tombs

[tinkthank]

I just wanted to check out the units of Desert Tombs (never played them, really), and see that the game starts with 1 lvl-3 Unholy Priest, but I see no way to recruit further examples of these or other unholy fellows. What exactly does Desert Tombs offer then? How do I get these unholy chaps? (And what am I supposed to do with them? Dont unholy priests basically just cast spells which increase the robustness of undead?)

Thanks much

[PrinzMegaherz]

Unholy priests may reanimate undead beings, depending on their unholy level. You get more unholy priests by summoning them (using death gems). Its the same with ermor Ashen Empire and Soul Gate.

[tinkthank]

Ah right, my mistake was no death on my pretender.

Two follow-up questions:
1. What does the spell "blessing of the grave" (etc) do? It says "activates the power of an undead troop", but what does that mean? Does it give them a bless effect as if they were holy, or what?
2. It seems you need a whole lot of death gems to summon those more powerful unholy priests. Are they worth it?
Other question: What scales do you take? You need death and heat, and that death hurts -- so do you take order, or luck, or what?
thanks a lot

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Ah right, my mistake was no death on my pretender.

Actually, the living sauromancers are sufficient for the nation-specific summons.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Ah right, my mistake was no death on my pretender.

Actually, for C'tis, that isn't really a problem. Your Sauromancers are able to Summon all of the national summons.

Two follow-up questions:
1. What does the spell "blessing of the grave" (etc) do? It says "activates the power of an undead troop", but what does that mean? Does it give them a bless effect as if they were holy, or what?

I believe it's like Blessing, but only works for Unholy troops. AFAIK, you don't have any as Desert Tombs C'tis. The Tomb Wyrms (that an Unholy-4 Priest can reanimate) are listed as Sacred, not Unholy. This would lead me to believe that you need a living Priest to bless them.

2. It seems you need a whole lot of death gems to summon those more powerful unholy priests. Are they worth it?

In a word, yes. The undead generation snowballs, basically. And a portion of the Longdead you reanimate (my norm) are C'tissian Longdead, which are generally better than normal Longdead. I don't find the Tomb Wyrms worth the investment, so the only reason to get the Undead High Priests is for their Unholy spells, really. I generally stick with the Tomb Priests.

Other question: What scales do you take? You need death and heat, and that death hurts -- so do you take order, or luck, or what?
thanks a lot

I generally take Order-3, some Productivity, and Magic. Those Tomb Guards are really quite good.

As for research, I'd blitz Enchantment to level 6 to get Banefire Archers. One of the main strengths of DT C'tis is that you're guaranteed to be able to cast virtually all of the Banefire spells, so you might as well get used to it. On the way, you get to gather up the Raise Dead spells and some generally useful spells.

Just some ideas.

Scott

[tinkthank]

Thanks.

But BT, if these Unholy spells dont actually affect non-unholy troops (and apparently the Ctis undead summons is not unholy), then those Unholy priests have no use for their spells -- right? So they are there for summoning fodder?