Vengeance of the Dead makes me angry!

[Burnsaber]

I don't really see much issue in the "kill count doubling" with VotD. Sure, it's unthematic, but the amount of mage-time and pearls that your opponent has to put to get through competetive mr twice or thrice is simply staggering. In that case, I'd say that the SC did his job by taking so much of opponent's resources, especially in this post-clam era.

[Sombre]

I don't think many people are complaining about it being unbalanced, but it's counter intuitive and feels completely unfair when you're on the end of it. The effect doesn't match the flavour and the way it kills you feels buggy/stupid.

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

Sorry for the inconvenience. The only issue I see with VotD is that the undead number increases as you cast more of them, which is why I won't spam that spell against a single province or commander. Still, it's magic resistable, unlike teleport+magic duel+returning, which is often very efficient at taking outt super golems or even pretenders.
The routing rules are clearly spelt in the manual I believe. However, I agree that they are annoying.

The manual says the attacking side routs after fifty rounds and dies after 75. It also says a routing unit flees or dissolves, unless it can't, due to berserking or paralysis or some such.

Dead Ones rout at 50, but they don't flee or dissolve, even though they're undead and mindless. And according to the people in the other thread I linked, they don't die at 75--instead, the defending unit dies then. This contradicts the manual, I think... I didn't reread the whole thing just now, but I don't think that's in there. Also, I'm taking the other thread at its word, since my unit didn't die at 75, but instead routed at about that time (which seems awfully suspicious nonetheless, but whatever).

Normal routing rules are very annoying sometimes, but they give you 25 turns in which to get away. During assassination, a different and much more unpleasant set of rules is in place (according to that other thread).

[rdonj]

I think what it is is that both sides rout at turn 75. I don't know whether that is what happened in the case of your game, but unless my memory is failing me that is what usually happens after 75 turns.

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Oh wait are you saying you cast the spell? Haha well good job then. It's not your fault it's so annoying!

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by rdonj

I think what it is is that both sides rout at turn 75. I don't know whether that is what happened in the case of your game, but unless my memory is failing me that is what usually happens after 75 turns.

Well, the Dead Ones I saw "routed" at turn 50--you could see in their defense-rating details that they were routing--but they didn't flee or dissolve.

If both sides rout during an assassination due to some hard limit, then this problem is still there. The defender will probably reach the edge of the field before all the remaining Dead Ones do, and will therefore receive a boring, surprising, almost inescapable death as its reward for lasting 75 turns against an army.

[thejeff]

IIRC, attacker routs at 50 turns, defender at 75, autokill at 100. I'm less sure about the autokill.

The difference during assassinations is that there's no place to route to , so you can't survive routing.

[Bananadine]

Huh, that does fit my experience better. Maybe that's what the people in the other thread meant about losing the defender at round 75. I'd thought they meant autokill, but routing kills the defender almost as reliably as autokill, when the attacker can "rout" without fleeing or dissolving.

I'd been thinking this could become significant in ordinary assassinations too--if the defender was killed at 75, then the attacker would only need to keep them still until then in order to succeed at assassinating. But the attacker routs at 50, so that wouldn't really work unless the attacker were berserk or unconscious. So, you could send in an Abysian Slayer with a barkskin amulet and... oh boy it'd be hard to keep the target still, when the assassin must also be unconscious in order to succeed! But maybe a berserk assassin could succeed by this rout. It'd be pretty sketchy though. I guess this is why I never heard anybody complain about defenders automatically dying at round 75 during assassinations... except in the context of Vengeance of the Dead, where the attackers never ever give up.

[thejeff]

It's also pretty uncommon in a normal assassination to not have one side or the other dead or fleeing long before turn 50.

It would be a pretty odd situation. You'd need to be completely invulnerable to your enemy to last long enough. And he have to be invulnerable to anything you could equip yourself with or why bother.

Knocking yourself out with your own aura probably won't work, since you'll hit 200 and start taking damage.
A berserk, blinking assassin with 2 Life Long Protections and very low movement (crippled?) might stay out of the way long enough to trigger the defender's route even if the imps couldn't scratch him. Probably wouldn't work, but it would be fun to watch.

[Ironhawk]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

...which is why I won't spam that spell against a single province or commander...

That seems like a good house rule, actually. Like you can cast the spell as many times as you want but not more than once per province per turn. Still doesnt get around compounding kills, but it would at least give the enemy a chance to react before the compounding kicks in. Instead of slamming them with like 4 at once which would be like an assured kill unless the SC just happened to be geared for it.