Attack Order

[thejeff]

Isn't that a little tricky since the standard Earth Air Tart cyclops doesn't have Astral?

And unnecessary. If you've got more magical back up with your army, which you should at this stage, just have someone acting before the tart cast Fog Warriors or Army of Gold/Lead. Your buffed army will shrug off RoS.
Or if your tart Cloud Trapezes in and kills the defenders with RoS, then there won't be another fight when the army moves in, unless the other side is also moving a new army in. If there is a second fight, you're not likely to have the gems left for more RoS, so your army will be safe.

[aaminoff]

I believe I have done something similar with simply retreating the Rain of Stones caster. This works fairly well in general: RoS happens in magic phase, then caster retreats to adjacent province, then in normal combat phase the army attacks.

It would be theoretically possible to mess this up, in a way that would surely give style points. Suppose entire defending army is set up at the back edge of the battlefield scripted to retreat. They do, and leave the field before the RoS caster's script is finished. RoS caster is now in the province. Then, in the movement phase, the attacking army moves in. The defending side sends in one high-hp/high-prot guy. Now the RoS caster decimates his own army!

Anyway, my main point is that Ritual of Returning is not necessary, though it could be useful, and sometimes safer.

[GrudgeBringer]

Well, the ONE thing I DO fear on retreating the Tart is....

If you have only one way to retreat and it is only protected by PD, someone could anticpate your move and use Ghost riders behind you...Dead Tart.

[thejeff]

If you're moving in troops to attack in the movement phase, you have at least one province with a good force in it. Unless you're flying or sailing in, I suppose. But the original context was Chariots.

[chrispedersen]

well returning (via armor of virtue has the advantage that
it returns you to a lab ...

[GrudgeBringer]

But it does that when you are first hit hard...what if I wanted to cast 3 or 4 Rain of Stones...guess you have to give in order to get sometimes.

[rdonj]

Actually it does it the first time you take any damage at all. So if you want to cast multiple rains of stone with it on, you have to be functionally immune to RoS.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

The rituals are cast in that order yes, but the actual combats seemed to happen in a random order. I *thought* the combats would be in the ID order too, but that didn't seem to be the case. Damn I wish I had the save of that left

This is interesting. And probably useful.

maybe try playing a game with the -dd switch and check the log it makes. Its lots of info altho connecting it to whats happening in the game can take more patience than I have.

[Jarkko]

In an on-going game I did cast Ghost Riders x4, Call of the Wild and Cloud Trapeze, with the GR casters casting their rituals first (1st mage cast GR to province A, 2nd and 3rd to province B, 4th mage casting GR to province A, Call of the Wild to province B, Cloud Trapezed to province C). The combats took place in the following order: 1st the GRx2 attacking province A, 2nd the GRx2 attacking province B, CotW taking over the now empty province B, Cloud Trapezer fighting in province C.

[thejeff]

I'd assume that the castings take place in either mage unit ID order or reversed mage unit ID order. That's how they'll be listed in the messages.

Battles are resolved in either forward or reversed province id order. Which leaves unresolved the question of what happens when there are two battles in the same province. With regular movement phase it seems to be by nation id order, possibly reversed. It might be by order of the first casting mage, but I doubt it.

If so, then in a given turn, all Special Monster (GR, etc) attacks should come either before or after a nation's magic phase attacks. You won't have a mix of some before and some after.

It also suggests that Special Monster attacks sent by different nations would join in one battle. Does that happen? I can't remember seeing a case either way.