Catching someone with boots of the planes

[iRFNA]

Will spells teleportation spells allow you to engage in a battle with them if they try to teleport away the same turn? I used cloud trapeze with a few people at one point but it didn't appear to work.

Is there any way to catch them besides being attacked?

[Edi]

If your teleporting / trapezing unit manages to cast before the boots wearer, magical attack should be initiated. Or you would have to guess the next target correctly and go there to intercept.

[Calahan]

Edi, I think you might need to start playing the game again as I've noticed your Dom-theory seems to be more out of synch with Dom-playing-reality than it used to Maybe your Dom-foo needs a few workouts to return it to its former sharpness


Magic movement (such as teleport/cloud trapeze) obeys similar rules to regular movement. As in all units magic move to friendly provinces, then all units magic move to enemy provinces, then all battles are resolved. Which means you can never catch a unit that is magic moving out that same turn with other magic moving units that are arriving. (which I think covers the OP's question, as the Teleport spell you get from Boots of the Planes obeys the same rules as the regular Teleport spell. All be it without the wearer needing a lab to cast the spell).

Battles from magic movement being resolved this way also means that if you magic move units to a province to reinforce a friendly army, then they will always* arrive before any enemy magic movers arrive there that have been sent to destroy the army. (such as a bunch of army killing SC's). Which is an essential gameplay mechanic, especially in the area of "setting a trap".

(*providing no factors interfere with their magic movement, such as domes, or the units being killed themselves before they could magic move. See below)


On a similar topic. You can easily tell when battles are resolved by looking at the message screen, as what you see there is the order things happened that turn. So when you are magic moving units around, you will see a bunch of messages saying "XYZ casts Teleport", and then after these messages you will see all the battle reports that occurred as a result of the magic phase. Then you will likely see another load of messages about events that happened that turn, followed by all the battle reports relating to battles that happened in the regular movement phase. (Edit - The message board can actually give you a lot more infomation than it first appears. As there is no random element to a lot of the messages, in regards the order in which they appear. As a lot of messages appear in the order they do for a reason)

And what you can learn from the message board, in relation to the magic phase, is which battles are resolved instantly upon casting, and which are resolved in the next step of the turn resolution sequence. Since there are some spells that do create *instant* battles, and can trigger before the enemy unit has magic moved, and so are caster id dependent. And no prizes for guessing that these spells are the assassination spells. Since if you cast an assassination spell like Earth Attack, you will notice that the "View Battle" option appears on the same line as the message telling you the spell has been cast. This means the result of the spell was resolved *instantly* (ie. the turn resolution stopped to resolve the consequences of the spell). So assassination spells can be used to kill magic movers before they magic move, but caster id plays a big part in it (especially if only one assassination spell is being used)


So to answer the original question in short, if you want to catch the Boots of the Planes guy, you either need to use assassination spells, and hope the RNG is kind to you in regards caster id (yet alone with the success of the spell itself). Or you need to predict where the wearer is going to appear next, and set a trap for him.



Also, I have deliberately not mentioned anything about how stealth units interact with magic movers, because I don't want to see this thread hijacked with nonsense talk about stealth armies and Pan assassins. Which is sadly always a likely prospect whenever the words stealth or assassins are mentioned on these forums

[Jarkko]

Calahan, you are partly wrong The effect remains as you explain, but the reason you give is not correct

Rituals are cast in "random" order (not really random, but you know what I mean). There is no magic movement phase, there is just Rituals phase (during which rituals are resolved, be they moving, seeking arrows, assassination rituals or what ever), and then there is the Combat Phase after Rituals (when combat caused by magical movement take place). However, things moving with rituals *always* get to move unless they get killed or become feebleminded before it would be their turn to cast. Thus one can not prevent by Cloud Trapeze/telepeort/etc somebody using Boots of the Planes from always getting to move (Seeking Arrow, Mindhunt and assassiantion spells (like Earth Attack) might work though, if they get cast before the target gets to move).

Likewise, the fact that you can reinforce an army with magically moving commanders have nothing to do with "friendly movement". All rituals (inclduing magical movement) is conducted first, and combat caused by magical movement is solved after all rituals are cast.


EDIT: This is btw very easy to test and verify. Select two nations who can teleport/trapeze. Build a lab in the open for each, then on same turn there is a mage teleporting/trapezing from the lab to the opposing lab. Hey presto, both get to move, and then both fight whatever PD or other garrison there was left at the lab after the opposing mage had teleported out

[Dimaz]

Thanks for the (as usual) extensive analysis Calahan, I just wanted to add that Mind Hunt (which can be viewed as assasination spell of course, but the word assasination can be confusing since there are no assasin units associated with it and no battles) can be used to hunt the guy with the boots. Also, running host with -ddd option and examining the resulting log.txt can give 10x information in the message board

[Edi]

Well, I defer to Calahan and Jarkko. I must admit that I have never paid that much attention to the detail of the ritual phase and how it affects movement, since I have not played MP much at all. If I was active on that front, I would have to be better informed about that.

Most often when one needs to catch things, it's either dropping on them in the magic phase or setting a trap and apparently then a trap it is in this case.

There is one other way: Wish the boots away and then hammer the poor sap the next turn by dropping on him.

[Dimaz]

There is one other way: Wish the boots away and then hammer the poor sap the next turn by dropping on him.

If it's an important commander (and usually boots are given to important commanders) vortex of returning is the logical answer.

[NooBliss]

What about regular assassination? With a succubus, for example?

[Ironhawk]

On the topic of "getting lucky" with ritual assassination spells: You can actually influence your chances of beating the unit in the turn order by casting two copies of the same spell with both your highest and lowest id mages (assuming they are reasonably close to the top/bottom of the order).

Expensive, of course. Only to be used when you really, really, REALLY, need to catch a particular unit.