The Ark...

[JimMorrison]

...of the Covenant!


Okay, so recently I tried out the Ark for the first time, and I had a few questions, as it seems that the difficulty and expense of creating this seemingly powerful artifact, don't justify what it actually does.

Now to clarify, I used it in a large underwater (I'm hoping this isn't the problem) battle with a force full of my own sacred troops, against 300+ elite foes.

The enemies all had decent to good MR, so the first thing I was wondering, is if it has an MR check (I'm assuming it does), and if so, if it's an "easy" MR check (which seems to kind of deflate this amazing item). Most of the enemies in question had between 13-15 MR, and I'd think I'd see some kind of visible benefit, even if MR reduced the efficiency "somewhat".

So to clarify, I did a pretty deep scan of the enemies for Afflictions (lots of clicking, oh so much clicking.....), and something between 40%-50% of them were Diseased. Well you might say "great! they're supposed to be!", but this was after several turns of sieging in a province that only gets about 150 supplies, and many of these 300 units are size 3, and so reasonably this seems like an appropriate amount of Disease for this force before applying the effect of The Ark.

So what about the Blindness? I found exactly 1 enemy who was Blinded (but, he WAS Diseased too.....). I found 1 enemy who "Lost One Eye". So considering the starvation factor, I had thought that a rate of Blindness would be the best indicator of the effect of The Ark. That is to say, it had none, as far as I can tell.


Now, after having watched Raiders of the Lost Ark about 1 million times in my life, I was expecting something a little more exciting. From the description in the manual (I don't have handy access to the in-game descrip atm): "Non-holy troops on the battlefield get afflicted with disease, blindness, and damage". In-game I know that it specifies that ONLY holy troops of "the appropriate faith" (of the one holding it? ) are safe from the effects. Now, the enemy force was entirely non-sacred troops, of an enemy faith - so I am struggling to come up with reasons why it did jack and poop for all the investment to get it.

[MaxWilson]

See vfb's post.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Well bugger. I can't believe I failed the "forum search" test. >.>

Also I'm a bit upset that it doesn't work underwater, as the description doesn't give even the slightest implication that it doesn't..... And I marched into combat emboldened by a placebo effect.

But that other thread makes absolutely no mention about MR effects. Is it resistible at all? The description also implied there is no resistance check - but somehow I now don't find that conclusive!