undead question

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by brxbrx

unless it only works on both at a time, not one or the other? A cruel twist by the developers? just kidding.

You know it wouldn't surprise me. This game has more exceptions than Java.

[thejeff]

I just played around with this.
Leeching Darkness does work on undead, lifeless or not, as you said.

The Shadow Brand effect does not work on lifeless undead. I'm not sure if it's the lifeless or undead that stops it. Not enough non-lifeless undead in my test.
The effect doesn't seem to be Leeching Darkness. The visual is different, it's not a cloud effect and it doesn't work on undead. I'm not sure what it is, if it's an effect used elsewhere.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

You know it wouldn't surprise me. This game has more exceptions than Java.

Now that is funny Though obviously not more than Windows does...

May I hijack this thread to ask a question? Could someone explain simply what the point of undead is? I like to understand "conceptually".

It seems to me (newb, sorry) that to counter you want priest-types casting Banish, which is cheap and ubiquitous, and most nations have these reasonably available. Then it's a war of attrition on the battlefield, you might need lots of priesties if you're fighting undead, but that's the gist?

[llamabeast]

I don't understand your question JonBrave. Are you suggesting that undead aren't likely to be useful?

[JonBrave]

No, I'm sure they're not.

First, explain to me whether lots of cheap priests will get rid of the majority of undead on the field?

Then, priests are available to everyone from the start, right? They are a "fundamental unit" of the game, and they are able to get rid of undead. So they are mostly against Death magic. So at that level, Death magic is different from all the others (Nature etc.), there's an obvious, cheap and readily available counter?

[Soyweiser]

Well, there are different kinds of undead. the longdead and soulless variation are just a form of chaff. Chaff is a term used by most players here to indicate cheap inexpensive units that sit between your mages/archer/long range killers and the heavy close combat stuff of the enemy. There are also undead such as the banes, wights, or liches, but those are heavy combat troops, and casters resp. I will not mention those.

A constant problem with normal chaff is low morale, hit it a few times, and they turn tail and run. (And if you kill 75% of all troops everybody runs). Undead have morale 50. And will never run. So that is great. And in large enough groups they will eventually hit normal other troops (who get fat, another bonus of undead, they don't get fat from combat) kill them and force the other side to take morale checks. And while this is happening your death 2+ mage is just quietly casting away. Never in harms way. (This trick also works vs some SC's, if they can only kill 2 troops each turn, a high death caster with some reinvig can keep them busy until the turn limit).

So a high death mage can skelly spam vs a lot of different types of pd. (you need some sort of arrow guard, but you can bring those along). Which is fairly cheap. You only need a mage and some troops to guard him (or few shields on the mage). Lets say you take LA ctis, a 240g sauromancer (d3+) and 10 heavy infantery to guard him will provide a nice way to start a attack force.

Now lets see what you need to counter it. One priest to banish the undead will not be enough. You will probably need at least 5 priests. To counter one d3+ caster. 250 gold. Sure that is cheaper than the 340 gold for the sauromancer and guards. But you also need to build the temples for the priests, and you need either 5 tempels, or 5 turns. While the ctis player can recruit one sauromander each turn. And which is more useful? One high level magepriest? Or 5 normal indy priests? So, the dead spam mages have more uses than the counter. (so when you invest in a gazillion indy priests, the dead spammer has already switched to his next strategy. Or use troops who can withstand a few banish attempts, lets say, normal slingers ). And your countertactic doesn't scale. He can beat your indy spam by getting more mages, as the creation of one fort forces you to get another 5 sources of indy priests each turn.

And if you pick your native priests it gets even worse, these are either more expensive in gold. Or are very cheap, and tie up a fort for a turn. Sure those 200 gold h3 priests can kill raise dead spam real quick. But a h3 priest cannot research, nor provide other forms of support. So you might win a few battles but in the end you might lose the war.

Or at least, that is how I assume it works, never really used dead spam competitively.

[Soyweiser]

Also, priests are more defensive, not really useful as an offensive weapon.

It also totally depends on the type of undead, some can spam reanimate in combat. Others (ma ermor, la ermor) summon large hordes of undead outside of combat, and throw hordes and hordes of these into combat. (Usually your small groups of priest are easily overwhelmed, flanked, crushed, evocated into oblivion).

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Also, priests are more defensive, not really useful as an offensive weapon.

Since they're casting Bless or Sermon of Courage most of the time, I think of them as both?

[Soyweiser]

But then you have a bless nation, that is different. Sermon of courage is not that offensive, it helps your troops, but not really a lot.

Also, undead have a few basic resistances. Cold and poison. Which helps them outlast the enemy when certain battlefield only spells are active. Lets say grip of winter, or foul vapours (the last of which is way to weak btw, it hits only 10% of the battlefield each turn. It might get an upgrade in CBM).

[thejeff]

I think what you're missing is that you need a lot of priests, because you can get a lot of undead chaff very quickly. Either with Raise Dead spam or with reanimators.
Sure, if you're not fighting undead it's useful to have a couple priests in the army to bless and Sermonize, but it isn't useful to have 20. And you're not likely to have 20 H2 priests unless they're mage-priests, in which case they're more expensive.

Also, while undead are vulnerable to banishment and some other spells that normal troops aren't, they also are immune to some things regular troops are vulnerable to. Most of the chaff undead are cold resistant, fear and awe don't work against them, mind attacks fail, life drains don't work. Plenty of thugs that could slaughter regular troops will die to unexpected undead.