Mod Nation - Tomb Kings - v1.03 released (March 2009)! - Page 20

Trumanator · #**191** July 6th, 2009, 03:27 PM

A couple questions-
1- What makes the Asp bow secondary effect different from simple poison?
2- Do all TKs have the same paths after dieing, or is it some other mechanic?

llamabeast · #**192** July 6th, 2009, 03:55 PM

1. The asp bow poison is MR-negates (the victim can disbelieve in the phantasmal asp). This wasn't originally the case, but due to the way poison arrows work (victims may still be poisoned through armour and shields I believe) they were excessively deadly with a D9 bless.

2. After dying they have all magic paths reduced by one. They also become physically weaker. However, further deaths do not affect them.

Trumanator · #**193** July 6th, 2009, 07:48 PM

Another, more open ended question. How necessary is the E9 W9 bless? I am almost definitely taking the W9, but am agonizing over the necessary scales sacrifices to get the E9. Is the extra prot key, or would E8 be almost as good?

Also, I am trying to use the princes to solo indies, and even with E9W9 they are still pretty hit and miss.

rdonj · #**194** July 6th, 2009, 08:58 PM

The e9 is more useful for kings and princes. With the e9 it's much easier to use them early, and you can expand with e9/w9 tomb kings reasonably well. E9 does help the buried, but you really need to combine that with the resilience buff for their protection to be in any way meaningful. E9/W9 is a pretty expensive bless for the tomb kings though.

llamabeast · #**195** July 6th, 2009, 09:50 PM

E9 is much better than E8. The +4 protection is very handy on the Buried. With W9E9 + Resilience they are pretty hard to kill.

However, other blesses are also good. F9 obviously makes the Buried much more vicious. S9 makes them harder to kill (twist fate makes a big difference for fragile units like Buried, and obviously the MR is valuable too). D9 is very nasty on Asp Archers. I've had good results with all of those. I have to say that W9 has very good synergy with all of them though (more attacks for flaming weapons/asp archers, more defense makes twist fate better).

Certainly it would be worth considering say E9S9, W9S9 or F9W9 as well as other permutations.

Trumanator · #**196** July 6th, 2009, 11:44 PM

I am thinking about some other blesses, but the thing about the E9W9 bless is that it helps both the sacred troops and the priests/kings. W9S9 would be my second choice probably, but the extra MR doesn't help the TKs at all since they already have 18 MR, and the priests could care less, though the protection from a stray arrow is useful. The main problem with the W9 bless as I see it is that it is a real PITA with the way quickness interacts with archers. By rights they should just shoot twice, but instead they decide to shoot, then run forward a bit, all the way to the front line.

Otherwise I would really look into a W9D? bless...

I hope I don't sound like I'm just shooting down everyone's ideas, I'm just trying to figure out the optimal playstyle for me.

SlipperyJim · #**197** August 6th, 2009, 03:49 PM

Got an ironic message in my current game:

Of course, the irony is that I am playing the Tomb Kings. Stupid Ermorians don't release that we're already dead....

On the other hand, perhaps the AI is smarter than I'm giving him credit for being. MA Ermor knows that we're all dead, and they want to add our noble Nehekharans to their foul legions!

...

Anyway, I'd also like to add my thanks to llama for this mod. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and I finally got around to trying it. Wow, what a cool mod!

I might have even found a new favorite. The artwork is very consistent and adds to the "feel" of the mod. The units are excellent, and I've found uses for almost all of them. (A better player would use all of them, I'm sure.) I haven't gotten much magical research done, but I'm looking forward to trying out the national summons.

Note to other TK players: Marignon is just as nasty as you'd expect them to be. Sieging their home province with your undead armies is painful. Then the actual storming of the fortress is quite painful! I soon learned to hate those Holy Pyre spells.

But Marignon is gone now, and I'm looking for my next target....

Jazzepi · #**198** August 9th, 2009, 01:29 PM

Just a few comments.

I found the TKs a touch too expensive for 500 GPs. My main gripe is that with a nation like EA Neiflhem, you're recruiting a very powerful thug, quite possibly even an SC level creature, for the same cost who also has very good paths.

While the TKs have great paths, they tend to be lots of low level ones which makes them good for site searching, but difficult to employ in combat as caster mages (outside of death magic) without gear. So to me, the 400 or so price tag was much more reasonable. I often just had TKs sitting at home, researching, or playing forge ***** because they had good paths.

This is mainly due to the fact that the only other good combat mage you have is the undead sorcerer, with the high priest being almost useless unless you're looking to skelly spam.

I dunno, I still like the nation a lot, but I felt like the TKs shouldn't have been increased in price.

Jazzepi

Sombre · #**199** August 10th, 2009, 06:31 AM

The fact that they're immortal is clearly a pretty big part of their price tag. But it's relatively hard to abuse I guess, since they get weaker after the first death. Even so, you can worry about them a lot less than say, a Slann or oreiad.

Jazzepi · #**200** August 11th, 2009, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre

The fact that they're immortal is clearly a pretty big part of their price tag. But it's relatively hard to abuse I guess, since they get weaker after the first death. Even so, you can worry about them a lot less than say, a Slann or oreiad.

Honestly, the immortality is basically worthless. If they were immortal, and kept their paths then I would completely agree with you that they're worth 500 gp.

I'd much, much rather see them lose the immortality and come down in price.

Jazzepi