2 small questions about horror mark

[PvK]

Originally posted by Boron:
...
btw is there any very fast and easy way where you need no programming knowledge but simple a small program with which you can find such hardcoded things even as a novice like me in short time ?

Heh, no.

PvK

[Norfleet]

Castles do not protect against horror attacks, which work as assassinations. Also, while it's nice to have castles to protect your guys, scouts are the unit that don't need it, since it is impossible to harm them while they are hiding anyway.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by Boron:

just curious now :
can you tell me a nation for which indep troops are good ? i always play with watchtower as castle and those races with which a watchtower seems like a bad choice ( e.g. standard ulm ) i somehow don't like and almost not play .
but expect perhaps some ultra rare sites like the ones where you can recruit trolls the indep troops seem to me just extremely inferior to almost all national troops . same with non-mage leaders ( expect now the scout too ).

Indie longbows and hoburg crossbows are good for many nations. Amazon sacreds can be nice with a good bless (and a some of them can fly). Plain garnet amazons have fire resistance, so can be occasionally be useful. Raptors can be good mobile fodder. Ichtyids can get you a foothold under water, and tritons can help you keep it(amber tritons have good mages and better troops than normal tritons).Mictlan can make use of almost any indies.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Castles do not protect against horror attacks, which work as assassinations. Also, while it's nice to have castles to protect your guys, scouts are the unit that don't need it, since it is impossible to harm them while they are hiding anyway.

yeah true

Originally posted by quantum_mechani:
Indie longbows and hoburg crossbows are good for many nations. Amazon sacreds can be nice with a good bless (and a some of them can fly). Plain garnet amazons have fire resistance, so can be occasionally be useful. Raptors can be good mobile fodder. Ichtyids can get you a foothold under water, and tritons can help you keep it(amber tritons have good mages and better troops than normal tritons).Mictlan can make use of almost any indies.

yep the ichtyids are nice for that
but only early game and if there is a water nation i think ichtyids + tritons aren't enough to hold your underwater province .

yeah forgot the hoburg x-bows they are really nice and not too uncommon . they are really good for massproduction and almost as good as other x-bows while you have about 1,5x as many of them

[Endoperez]

Don't forget that Ichtyids have morale of 12... Mrl 12 prot 12 go a long way in certain armies, and even as Ulm I found them rather nice improvement in morale. That net could come in handy as well... Imobilizing knight lets your heavy hitters hit him when that def. is reduced to 3 (or whatever).

[SelfishGene]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boron:
i really would like to know the odds for a simple soul contract . in order to evaluate if the odds are poor enough like 1% to not be worth trying to protect the wearer's because if the soul contract is in use for average 50+ turns it really pays of well enough .

The most cost-effective place to put soul contracts is on a scout. The chance of a horror attack is low enough that you only really have to worry about it over a period of dozens of turns.

---

In some test games ive been running i lost 2 spies w/ 2 contracts each to horror attacks in about ten turns. And in fact one of them had somehow surivived a previous attack "somehow", since trying to view the battle caused a lovely crash. Neither drain or magic dominion.

I usually try to stick one of the 5 gem armors on a spy/scout to keep them alive just a round or two more.

[Boron]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boron:
i really would like to know the odds for a simple soul contract . in order to evaluate if the odds are poor enough like 1% to not be worth trying to protect the wearer's because if the soul contract is in use for average 50+ turns it really pays of well enough .

The most cost-effective place to put soul contracts is on a scout. The chance of a horror attack is low enough that you only really have to worry about it over a period of dozens of turns.

---

In some test games ive been running i lost 2 spies w/ 2 contracts each to horror attacks in about ten turns. And in fact one of them had somehow surivived a previous attack "somehow", since trying to view the battle caused a lovely crash. Neither drain or magic dominion.

I usually try to stick one of the 5 gem armors on a spy/scout to keep them alive just a round or two more.

---

thnx that's valuable info .
so they seem to stack and since a spy only costs 1,33 upkeep it seems that the easiest way is just 1 soul contract per scout
then they will stay long enough on them to pay off

[DeathDaemon]

Boron,
Still using scouts with only 1 contract? For Abysia, I use indep. scouts all over the place to ferry slaves at most 2 turns movement to lab. But for the contracts I'm thinking about using indep commanders so that my building armies can guard commander. If my army fights or moves, commander is on his own for a couple turns. 30vs20 gold seems to be a safer protection for your contracts in my opinion. But are normal abysian troops going to do much? What about devils? I havent tried contracts yet in long games on anything but scouts.

[Vicious Love]

I always want to make use of the incombat horror spells but am never quite sure just how compelling a horror mark would actually be ?

To the furthest of my rather meager knowledge, a horror on a battlefield will ONLY attack horror marked units until:
A) All horror marked units are dead, or inaccessible(No empty spot to fly into beside them)
B) A horror has made its move, killed a horror marked unit, and been left with one or more unused attacks and no marked units within range.

I'm even less sure of B than I am of the whole hypothesis. It SEEMS to hold true, but I've only seen horrors attack armies after summoning those horrors myself, usually after sending a few vampires into hand to hand with Shields of the Accursed the month before. Consequently, with such a ganerous marked->unmarked unit ratio, making any sort of conclusive observation was... tricky.

Update: A few questions of my own, by the way.
1) We know that casting spells and forging items is more likely to attract horrors than just kinda lounging around, even in high-magic provinces. The question is, how much more likely? Do multi-path spells or items check for horror attacks twice, as with Astral Corruption? Are more powerful spells more likely to attract horrors, or to attract bigger horrors?
2) More powerful mages seem to attract more powerful horrors. Are horrors keyed to mages' path levels, or does it simply seem this way because powerful mages cast powerful globals(And the gem cost of the spell results in bigger horrors) or end up getting more powerful horror marks?
For instance, if the Forbidden Light, which presumably incurs one of the most powerful marks in the game, were given to a scout, would that scout attract doom horrors, or would he just be very, very likely to attract the usual lesser horrors?
3) I don't suppose anyone knows the relative strengths of various horror marks? Is the Oath Rod of Kurgi's horror mark powerful enough to actually be useful without Send Horror or Call Horror? Do higher-penetration castings of Horror Mark result in stronger marks?

[Boron]

Boron,
Still using scouts with only 1 contract? For Abysia, I use indep. scouts all over the place to ferry slaves at most 2 turns movement to lab. But for the contracts I'm thinking about using indep commanders so that my building armies can guard commander. If my army fights or moves, commander is on his own for a couple turns. 30vs20 gold seems to be a safer protection for your contracts in my opinion. But are normal abysian troops going to do much? What about devils? I havent tried contracts yet in long games on anything but scouts.

to be honest i don't use soul contracts anymore . i prefer now vampires and with blood 9 then the infernal forces summon spell which gives you 7+ devils + 20 imps .
but i try to make my core blood army consisting of vampires because they are immortal.

a devil is tougher than a vampire yeah but both can't fly during a storm and the vampires are at least immortal