Understanding Reanimation

Aleph · #1 February 10th, 2007, 02:11 AM

I've been getting some great answers in my "Understanding _____" series, so here's another one.

Renanimation is one of my favorite national abilities. I think I have a decent handle on the bare bones aspects of it, but I'm not sure. Here's what I understand to be true.

1. There are only 3 nations I know of who can recruit reanimators for gold; Lanka, MA Ermor, and Yomi. Who am I missing from that list?

2. LA Ctis, Ermor, and Lanka all have variable longdead based on their multiple infantry types. Does anything influence which type of longdead infantry arises? (Note: I am not asking about LA Ermor's domain summons.)

3. MA and LA Ermor are the only two nations capable of summoning Longdead Horsemen.

4. Pangea's (any age) national summons can reanimate Manikins. I have noticed (I believe) a higher distribution of interesting Manikin summons corresponding to higher Holy rank among the reanimators - that is, I mostly notice carrion beasts and basic manikins for Carrion Centaurs, while I've gotten Carrion Elephants and Carrion (regular) Centaurs armed with Vine Bows from the Carrion Lord. Does anything else influence this - forest terrain, temples, types of dead in the area? The manual implies it's random, but I'm thinking that means "not under explicit player control" and not "totally random."

5. Anyone with access to death can summon a Mound Fiend to gain basic reanimation abilities. Nations with national renanimation abilities (Ermor, Lanka, Ctis, Pangea) all use those abilities for Mound Fiends - that is, a Mound Fiend working for Pangea will return Manikins instead of offering a choice between Soulless and Ghouls.

6. Special Bonus Question: Carrion Woods - worth it or not? Discuss. I've only ever used it with EA Pangea, where it screwed with my blood economy, but that was in an SP game where I'd effectively already won.

7. No real answer opinion question - so who has the best undead troop types? It would seem to me that Pangean troops are certainly better individually due to their additional vine attacks, and there is no parallel troop as powerful as a carrion elephant or the like, but massed Longdead Horse are very potent (although that is likely more of a consequence of MA Ermor's easy access to H4 and gold recruitable reanimators).

RamsHead · #2 February 10th, 2007, 02:22 AM

I am only going to touch on number 7, and lightly at that. Most undead are capable of entering the sea, if my memory serves me correctly, manikin cannot. Almost all undead are cold resistant, manikin are not.

Nick_K · #3 February 10th, 2007, 09:37 AM

Wights cannot enter the sea. I'm also not so sure about ghouls.
LA ermor, at least, can reanimate lictors with level 3 priests.
I believe that any undead priest can reanimate, so presumably an undead prophet could.

I haven't played C'tis or lanka, or tried reanimation with other non-human nations so I don't know about different types of undead... I believe that there are undead versions of giants, caelumites (whatever their species is called...) and atlanteans, but I don't know if they show up from holy reanimation or just from the spell reanimate. The reanimate spell is much better for Jotunheim, by the way, as the longdead giants are much tougher than regular longdead.

Aleph · #4 February 10th, 2007, 09:58 AM

Ghouls cannot enter the sea.

I should have said for number 5, or possibly as a complement to it, that MA Ermor, LA Ermor, and Lanka can also reanimate with gold purchased generic priests. Not sure about yomi, and I'm pretty positive LA Ctis and Pangea cannot (since both have national priests who lack the ability to reanimate).

Ermor, I believe, needs the black laurel to renanimate Lictors with level 3 holies - L3 just opens the option, which is to say you can't buy a bunch of cheap priests at 50 gold a pop and slap black laurels on them to spawn endless lictor hordes. So while I love LA Ermor as a concept, I find I'm chronically short of death gems and need to primarily use my abundant freespawns.

Giant zombies... yeah, that's what Niefelheim needs, another edge.

mivayan · #5 February 10th, 2007, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Aleph said:
Ermor, I believe, needs the black laurel to renanimate Lictors with level 3 holies - L3 just opens the option, which is to say you can't buy a bunch of cheap priests at 50 gold a pop and slap black laurels on them to spawn endless lictor hordes. So while I love LA Ermor as a concept, I find I'm chronically short of death gems and need to primarily use my abundant freespawns.

I think only H4 priests are supposed to reanimate Lictors... might be a bug. You sure about the laurel helping for reanimation and not just the national summon spell?

Nick_K · #6 February 10th, 2007, 04:03 PM

Hmm.. what holy level do Archbishops have again? I've just been finishing off game with LE ermor and they reanimate lictors just fine.

You get 1 lictor/turn plus the usual extra one based on dominion (with dominion 10 you get it (almost?) all the time).

I think that the black laurel affects the death magic spell 'summon lictor' and not reanimation, although I haven't tried equipping priests with them. You definitely don't need it to reanimate them though.

Aleph · #7 February 10th, 2007, 05:33 PM

I thought I had only ever pulled it off with my prophet. Archbishops are level 3, and they shouldn't be able to animate Lictors.

Taqwus · #8 February 10th, 2007, 07:06 PM

They have, for a while.

Does Soul Gate still give a chance for Wailing Ladies? It seemed to as a D2 theme (a -slight- chance, but positive); if they're still possible freespawn, they'd be among the strongest possible with free Greater Othernesses (maybe possible, but low probability) being another contender.

Aleph · #9 February 11th, 2007, 11:14 AM

I don't know about Soul Gate and Wailing Ladies - my only savegame with Soul Gate up it isn't clear what I summoned and what popped out of the gate.

Another point for carrion troops - they heal. Not a huge issue, I'll grant you, when dealing with rank and file infantry type carrion, but for carrion beasts (with anywhere between 20-100 hps) it is a notable advantage.

Anyone have any thoughts or corrections on points 1-5?

Also, anyone with LA Pangea experience have any thoughts on whether it's worth taking a sleeping instead of imprisoned pretender with astral/earth paths so that you can have semi-early H4 carrion lords through crystal shield? It seems like a long way to go, and in a nation with no other ability to find astral sites, but their H4 "every undead unit gets regenerate" spell sounds really nice. It's pretty much that against maxxed order/production/growth scales with an imprisoned N4D5 master liche, though, and I would bet that the mass money and resources will be much more useful for using huge forces of minotaurs/cataphracts.