More communion troubleshooting: messing in LA Mictlan

[Poopsi]

This is a continuation of my post concerning Sauromantia, really. I just switched to Mictlan due to the easier access to both blood mages and astral casters.

So, I built myself a cache of five-six Nauhatlis (the wereturkey wizards from Mictlan), which were set to cast Communion slave, and then fire at the closest enemy, as I lack decent astral spells for the moment, and I dont want to lose their fatigue due to repeated castings of useless stuff, or, even worse, blinking into enemy lines. The communion is led by a King of Rain, and two Priest Kings, one of which is my prophet, empowered onto blood four (soon five), and sort of imagine like this

And another communion, led by the Coautl hero and a priest of the moon, which has four slaves. I know it´s a low number, but in this communion I was trying out something different: the moon priest was starfireing the enemy, and casting reinvirgoration from time to time, while the Couautl (blood 2) casted agony and blood burst around. The idea is that the slaves would be kept fatigue-free for the first five turns, after which, hopefully, my casters wouldnt try any dramatic stuff, and hopefully stick to mind burns and the occassional imp summons (which, due to their level two blood magic, costs justs a hundred, right? which would have meant that each slave got only twenty fatigue. Right?)

Boy, was I wrong about that

Then, as fate had it, in that battle turn, my researchers discovered blood five, I think. And communicating, the casters had increased blood level. Which meant that the Couatl decided it was a good moment to cast that level five battlefield-wide lifesteal., leaving all my slaves at 200 fatigue, and the healthbar all red. Four mindburns later, they were all dead.

So, how should I have managed this? Is there any way to keep some spells from being cast?

[archaeolept]

don't leave extra bloodslaves for the AI to use...

that way, the coatl just casts astral spam, like paralyze and soulslay, and the slaves are fine.

also, cast power of the spheres. this will transfer to the turkeys, and will help w/ their fatigue.

[Poopsi]

Ok, I´m playing with Marignon now, and I have sort of sorted the teleporting communicants problem by telling them to fire closest. The ones with ranged weapons have at least some ten or twelve rounds of combat in which they wont spellcast (I hope, at least), and apparently the rest dont cast spells either, through this could be a coincidence...

[K]

If you just script the Slaves to cast Communion Slave and then don't script anything, they won't cast and compound their fatigue problems with their own spellcasting which makes them tend to live longer (though they will be less effective in battle).

Also, Reinvigoration is a spell that can be cast by a Master and it removes the fatigue from the slaves as well, so for Communion nations is it ideal.

[Poopsi]

yeah, but you can only cast reinvirgoration five times. Which are the five turns in which you control the spellcasting in general best. And my mages have a tendence to wait to cast the big spells after those initial five. Which tends to turn the slave communicants into radiactive dust.

Now, scripting only C. slave... I want to try that. It will save lots of human suffering (or conversely, cause lots of more human suffering by having my communicants last more and removing the need to replenish them after every combat)

[thejeff]

More communicants. 8 is really the minimum safe number and even that can be risky, especially with blood. And don't bring more blood slaves than you're scripted to use.

I'd be surprised if only scripting "Communion Slave" and nothing else worked. I'd assumed they'd default to Cast Spells after the script ran out. You could try Hold or Stay behind troops. Easier to just use a Master who comes first in the turn order. Once he's cast, no slaves will.

[Baalz]

Scripting nothing does indeed default to cast spells, easily witnessed if the slave comes before any masters in the turn sequence, he'll happily spam whatever he can, driving his fatigue up until he's over 100.

[Humakty]

It seemed to me the safer way to handle small communions (when you don't have bows yet) is to script com slave + hold*4. Normally their masters will put them at 100 fatigue, so they won't cast at all. I use communions only for pythium/marignon mages, so rather offensive ones.

[Poopsi]

Update: slave + fire is working fine for me. Particularily with crossbows, as they can give you safety for around 24 rounds or so, and if by that time your masters are still casting spells, the slaves will indeed be KO. I try to make the cheapest Cbow avaiable. At my marignon game, this means banefire crossbows (as I´ve found several death gem sources). No blood crossbow afaik, more´s the pity. Five blood slaves would have been painless to pay to keep a communicant safe.