[quote who="Marty Ward" reply="7" id="3425224"]Is Fear considered a spell?[/quote] Yes. It's even a resistible spell, though I don't know that I'd go out of my way to design custom units with high spell resistance just for a dragon fight.
[quote who="annipanni" reply="2" id="3424818"]One question... how does one actually start up an alliance? I have the alliance tech and good relations with a couple kingdoms. I already have a non aggression pacts and treaties with those kingdoms. The option to strike up an alliance is nowhere to be seen in the treaty window. Do they have to also have the tech or something? Is it a bug? Or am I just dense?[/quote] I do not think that the faction with which you are attempting to ally nee
First off, I really cannot say that I'm particularly concerned about the balance of custom factions (or any lack thereof). It is very easy to create a faction which is significantly stronger than the default ones, just as it's easy to create a custom sovereign who is much better than the default sovereigns. Also, Shadowbolt costs 18 mana before reductions, not 8 (although you might be able to get it down to 8, since just by being a Mage you get a 25% reduction in tactical spel
I don't know that there are any resources specifically for the Diplomatic Victory. However, what you'll need to do is research the Alliances technology in the Civilization tree, and you'll need to be at least as strong as the nations that you want to ally with, because the AI Factions will only rarely ally with anyone weaker than they are. It will also help if you have positive diplomatic modifiers, such as the Diplomat sovereign profession, and give the factions you wish to ally
[quote]What's the best way? I usually end up as toast.[/quote] Spellcaster with access to the Kill (Death V) or Manablast (requires completion of a specific quest, and you need to have a lot of mana for Manablast to be as effective as Kill; if you don't have much mana, don't bother with Manablast) spells and high spell mastery. Maybe some fodder units or a good tank unit or two to occupy the dragon for the duration of the casting time, and possibly an extra round of castin
[quote who="merlinme" reply="15" id="3421451"]Comprehensive answer as ever by joeball, but note that the level 3 threshold (as of 1.4? I think) is now 120 population, not 150. I haven't checked the other levels.[/quote] Oops, yes, it is. Current (1.4) population barriers are 50/120/250/600. Sorry about that, I'd forgotten that they changed it. That makes the current food per grain requirements into: 50/120/250/600 25/60/125/300 17/40/
Also remember that you can pick up Hydromancy as early as level 4 on your sovereign or a champion, if you go up the Mage path and don't mind taking 1 rank in Prodigy. On a 4-essence tile, that's a 100% bonus to food, or a 125% bonus to food on a 5-essence tile. This means that the 2/3/4 tile is more like a 4/3/3 tile if you're concerned about the food, which is clearly superior to the other options (which are more like 6/3/1 or 5.25/3/2 tiles, if you use the same enchantment on th
As phazonfreak said, check your targets for resistance or immunity to poison damage. Also, how many Death Shards do you have? Dirge of Ceresa isn't that good of a spell if you don't have a fair number of Death Shards boosting it. [quote who="mospel" reply="1" id="3421171"]Alternatively the resist chance is that high that the spell is a total waste of mana. Does not even hurt very lowly creatures at all.[/quote] Resistance chances do not vary with the spell being cast,
[quote who="Fallenchar" reply="4" id="3420910"]Edit: Azunai blitz-posted before me . Well, ok, maybe +5 init and damage on troops is enough to win most games. I never tried...[/quote] Well, to be fair, it's only +4 initiative/fire attack/defense/health unless you have some way of boosting essence. I personally would take the 2/3/4 tile and make it either a Fortress or a Conclave, depending on how aggressive of a game I want to play and the strength of the nearby monsters.
[quote who="merlinme" reply="9" id="3416960"]I can't remember the exact critical calculation, you can find it on the forums somewhere, but it's worth pointing out that you can get a critical and still be in the normal range of damage if you didn't cause a critical.[/quote] Critical hits deal double damage if there are no other critical damage bonuses involved, so the only way that a single-figure unit can have a critical hit which still falls into the standard damage range
I think that if the AI armies started just on the other side of Stoneham (or within ~3 road tiles of Stoneham), armies with 4 movement could pass through Stoneham as 1 move and take three more to hit your city (I allowed the 3 road tiles because as long as you have a fraction of a movement point you can still enter a tile, which is enough for triggering an attack). I am a bit surprised, regardless, because at minimum this indicates either a Mancer blood enemy with an army mounted enti
[quote]Cast spell "set in stone" on the city. Now you have 100% (basic) - 100% (temple) - 100% (spell) = -100% research. And that is actually subtracted from your faction research.[/quote] Well, now we know - idiocy is an infectious disease. Everyone keep clear, we need to quarantine the source of the plague. On a more serious note, that's rather amusing and probably shouldn't happen.
[quote who="Raiddinn" reply="33" id="3416028"]If you want to make the game harder, play a custom and I will pick the traits.[/quote] If you really want to make the game harder, you'd design a custom faction with either no traits or only weaknesses, and you'd design a sovereign the same way (if you take a weakness, make sure it's one of the ones that doesn't have a redeeming feature). If you want the game even harder than that, you'd select the worst availa
[quote who="Derek Paxton" reply="1" id="3415532"]radiuses (radi?)[/quote] radii - drop the us, append an i.
[quote who="Apheirox" reply="4" id="3415398"]- Governor's Office: It's like getting a Workshop for free in all your cities. Definitely powerful.[/quote] And by the time I can get it, I most likely have at least the first upgrade of the workshop in all but very new cities. It's useful, yes, and I think it's better than the Embassy and Almshouse options, but it isn't great. [quote who="Apheirox" reply="4" id="3415398"]- Embassy: It isn't true that reducin
Conclave 3: - Archivist: +50% city research production when producing research here. Only really useful if you're willing to have one city which is basically undeveloped that only builds research infrastructure (which isn't very practical, given how long it would take to build the stuff if you don't have good production levels). - <span style="text-decoratio
[quote who="Raiddinn" reply="16" id="3414927"]I would argue that Fire isn't really a minimum investment damage school. Slow is maximally effective when you have it and maybe one or two levels of the traits that reduce resists (Prodigy?). That is a 2 - 3 trait investment. Fireball is 3 traits itself, it wants all the resist reducers and the -1 cast time AND it wants +20% damage traits as well if you want to use it at maximal effectiveness. Air is
Also, are you sure that the Arcane Monolith is connected to the city? In other words, the city you captured is the city that built the Consulate, and when you select the Arcane Monolith you see a dotted line go over to this city?
[quote who="Borg999" reply="14" id="3414791"]And personally I never saw the advantage of sacrafice over other options[/quote] Sacrifice doesn't do anything at all to units. You might be thinking of Cull the Weak (kills a regular unit to heal 20 health on the caster and generate 20 mana) or Infernal Covenant (permanently kills a champion to summon a [champion's level + 7]th level Death Demon who sticks around for the duration of the battle). Sacrifice converts half of the popul
[quote]Are there any spells I seem to be overlooking that would greatly affect the rankings? If I should be casting something that I am not, I would be interested to know what.[/quote] Slow, from Water I, is a curse which provides a benefit similar in strength to the benefit granted by the Haste blessing from Air I, and it costs about the same amount. The only problem it has is that it has to overcome spell resistance whereas Haste will always stick, though it isn't really a probl
[quote who="Illauna" reply="5" id="3414424"]Opps haha I was thinking of something else. I thnk it's the experience buffs. [/quote] No, the experience bonuses add together, so if you have Knowledge and Potential it's +40% to experience gain. Formerly, when we had Potential I/II/III, each of those added with one another for 15/35/60 percent boosts to experience gain. All the Trainer traits also add together. Likewise, the Lethal traits all add together, as do the Enduran
Also, the specific upgrade is the Consulate, not the Constabulary (which is not a name given to any non-mod improvement I know of).
[quote who="DsRaider" reply="8" id="3413282"]The life versions of the Call spell is actually better I believe.[/quote] The Life version of Morrigan's Call is Sovereign's Call, which gives a flat +2 growth in the enchanted city. This is way better in the early game when you don't have many, or any, shards, and can remain better in the late game if you have poor luck finding Death Shards. I personally feel that the Empire of the Dead needs Death Worship, and possibly Adepts,
[quote]Fire Line: This might be better, as the summons can deal more damage. If someone can share some light on this, that'd great.[/quote] The Earth Line is far better than the Fire line. Maybe the summons can do more damage, but the second Fire summon, Delin, costs five hundred mana, can only be cast during tactical battles, and only summons Delin for three turns. If you're having trouble finding the mana to cast things other than early summons and curses, there'
[quote who="merlinme" reply="25" id="3412828"]However the point about Trogs not having extra unit design traits is incorrect, or at least incomplete. They do have extra unit design traits available, but only for Juggernauts.[/quote] When I refer to "units", I'm referring to non-Champion non-special trainable units. Juggernauts are non-Champion, but they are special, so as far as I'm concerned the abilities available to Juggernauts don't count for unit design traits, becaus