Need advice on EA C'Tis and charms/seduce/master enslave

[endomorphious]

Hi all playing a MP game in team with some other fellows against toughened AI opponents. The independents are really tough but there are LOTS of valuable mages/troops in those tough provinces. I would like some help on formulating a plan that is crafted towards EA C'Tis and is doable to mayhap capture some of these indepent leaders and possibly some of the troops. Right now I think the easiest but least effective plan I have is 10-12 of my shamans casting Charm bodygaurded by Vine men and possibly 5 indie commanders with vine bows.

Possibly have the above group spam enslave mind in the hopes of tagging the indie leaders, then plan on GoR'ing them after enslaving them. Any notion on how effective this could be in practical terms? I'm thinking this might be my fastest possible route of action.

My other alternative seems to be Blood, which I neither have, nor will it be easy to get. I have 12 provinces and none can recruit scouts to do the whole blood hunt and empower ritual two-step. But a succubus empowered to cast hellbind heart seems to be the ideal option.

Suggestions on which is the most viable path and which would be the most effective path very welcome. And tips on equipping to make the options most effective would help.

As it might make a difference in strategy my pretender is a PoD with 4E4F5D

[13lackGu4rd]

which indy mages do you so desperately need yourself that you're willing to go through so much trouble to get? I can understand going after Bogus and company, maybe the vampire count(especially with no blood access) but other than that everything is achievable much more easily by other means... enslaving regular troops especially, I don't see which indies are giving you so much trouble or are so great that they're worth enslaving in the first place.

but, regardless of your answer above, I'll still answer your question. without any native assassins/seducers your best bet will be communions. if you've got enough research you can make a large enough communion to allow a lowly Lizard Shaman to pull off a master enslave on his own. if not than use that Lizard Shaman to summon a Couatl first and let him be the communion master. with a Couatl your communion will require less slaves to pull off the master enslave.

you can also spam enslave mind via the same communion, just with more masters and less slaves, Lizard Shamans will be perfect here all the way. enslave mind has a higher penetration chance than master enslave, so against targets with higher MR this will be the preferred method.

Charm is a bit trickier. first of all, it requires N3 to cast and your Sauromancers have N2 max(getting the 25% N1 and 2.5% N1 together happens very very rarely, so don't count on natural N3 Sauromancers). second of all it has a relatively short range, so you need to close the distance to your opponents' mages before starting to charm. therefore I don't recommend Sauromancers, even though you can bring a booster on them for N3. instead I recommend the Ivy King, he starts with N3 and he's much tougher than a Sauromancer with solid hp and protection as well as built in regeneration. though this requires conj7(which is a good idea anyway as C'tis comes alive at conj8 for Well of Misery and conj9 for Tartarian Gate). you can use a Couatl instead of the Ivy King but the Couatl is lacking in slots, see the next section for more detail about that.

no matter what your method is(enslave mind, master enslave, charm) you will want some penetration boosters on your casters to increase the chances of your success. an exception can be made for enslave mind spam if your communion is large enough, otherwise I'd still recommend the boosters. penetration boosters come in 3 main forms: rune smasher(1 handed weapon, requires F2W2 to forge), Spell Focus(misc, requires S1 to forge) and eye of the void(misc, requires S1 to forge, causes eye loss). increasing your casters' magic level in the appropriate path(N for charm, S for enslave mind/master enslave) also boosts your penetration power(relevant to communions, not as much for single casters like the Ivy Kings). this is the reason I don't recommend the Couatl for charming, the rune smasher makes quite a large difference. however, if you don't have enough F gems to empower a Sauromancer, or diversified your magic in other ways, than Rune Smashers will be hard for you to forge. in which case you can still make do with a Couatl with just Spell Focus and Eye of the Void.

now, as to how to actually pull it off. if using a communion than you need some blockers to keep the indies at bay while you try to convert them over to your side. set your communion at the back(enslave mind has a large enough range, master enslave is battlefield wide) and your blockers just in front of the communion with the orders "hold and attack closest".

charming is a different beast. you need to be closer to your target, which already puts you in harm's way. an Ivy King can be equipped well to be able to withstand a lot of punishment, example equipment: Rune Smasher, shield of choice, armor of choice, helmet of choice(if at all), Boots of the Messenger(so you can spam charm for longer), Spell Focus, Eye of the Void. with Couatls it's harder as they're lacking the hands, feed and body slots, so you need to put blockers in front of them that are also big enough to act as lightning rods for your Couatls. also, because the Couatls are flying, you can't close the gap to your targets without being right on top of them and negating your blockers, another reason to use the Ivy Kings instead, if you want to charm mages that is, if you want troops than enslave mind is the better choice). you're generally looking at big tough size 4-6 monsters for this roll. put your blockers in front, the Couatl just a few spaces behind them and to the sides(up and down). order the blockers to "hold and attack closest" with the Ivy Kings a couple of spaces behind the blockers and a bit to the sides(a few spaces up and down from the center) with orders to "attack, charm, charm, charm, charm, cast spells". the first order to attack should put them in range of the enemy's mages so you can charm them, than charm as much as you can pretty much. if you find that you're coming short add another attack order before starting to charm spam.

in any case, remember that if you want to convert the mages as opposed to just the troops, you need to make sure that the mages are either larger than the troops or you get rid of most of the troops before hands so your spells will have a higher chance of targeting the mages instead of the troops. still, as I started this long post, I really don't recommend these methods for general use, especially against the AI. sure, enslave mind communion is great for many things, master enslave is a very useful spell on its own right, but for your needs they're really not the best of tools(though the only ones you have without assassins/seducers nor blood magic).

[endomorphious]

very thorough response. I apologize for not making my needs a bit more clear. This game is with toughened indies and there are multiple very nice exceptional commanders of said armies near me that I would love to capture. (ie red dragon with magic items, Celestial General/emperor *don't remember exactly which one* with 8astral and a 9N I think it was, and I fully expect there to be many others out there. Time is critical as the AI's are toughened as well and their probably wiping out the lovely indie commanders that I wan't to collect :} I suspect I should just go with the enslave option earlier in the game. Research is set to harder so I won't be able to blaze down any research paths all that fast even with skull mentors. I am primarily focused on the commanders, although there are a few nice troops that would be plums to capture, some scorpion men, devils, and foo dog looking things that would be much happier if I gave them a home.

[Fantomen]

how about a reverse lizard schaman communion spamming charm? (PotS + thistle maces for N3)

Master goes PotS/personal luck/barkskin/charm/charm/spells and slaves go Hold/charm/charm/charm/charm/spells

You'll need a bunch of maces of course, but it might be worth a try. Especially to get those commanders with boosted magic paths since they'll lose them if enslaved.

If you throw in a master with different paths somehow, that could be used to toughen up the slaves with more buffing.

[13lackGu4rd]

problem with charm is its very low range, as I mentioned above. so to pull off a reverse communioned charm spamming you'd need to put the communion at the front instead of the back, set them to attack once or twice, of course communion slave too, so that leaves you with just 2 scripts of charm, and it's a very risky method. not to mention a Thistle Mace for each Shaman. if he can afford a Thistle Mace for every Shaman than he can afford to use enslave mind and GoR, a much better method Imho and can be done without boosters(in a regular multi-master communion) or a reversed communion(with a single astral booster on each Shaman).

[Doo]

An example of an indie commander from the game..

[thejeff]

I'm not completely sure about this, but I think magic on a commander who is enslaved and the GoR'd is reset to the base level for the unit type.
So Charm or Hellbind may be the only way to go.

[endomorphious]

Bad news regarding the paths reseting after Enslave :{ as 13lackgaurd points out it will only be 2 charm attempts per caster. Doesn't seem reasonable. I could equip thistle maces and starshine skullcaps and possibly even dual vine shields on a reusable squad of my shamans. And, attempt to script attack, charm x4 with a gaurd of vinemen to assist in immobilizing troops. I really think being able to capture these commanders would be a huge boost

[llamabeast]

Where did you get the map from for this game? Sounds fun!

[endomorphious]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46912 this is the link to the forum discussion regarding the set-up of the game. It's a custom tweak from what I understand.