2nd Forum Only Diplomacy

[unclemike]

4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-4 Zor Mindshifter with dark
                           magic!

    4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-4 Mennemik with dark magic!

    4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-6 Havix Moondust with dark
                           magic!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

Please explain this to me. Both Kill Wizard and Summon Death say that you have to have at least one brigade in the casting group. But in my recon from last turn only one group (3 wizards) had brigades. What happened?

Instant Summon Phantoms spell. It's a group spell but it occurs early in the turn before battle. You can do a bunch of things with a patrol with wizards that can cast phantoms. Actually, Jumpingfist mentioned it on the forum back when 3rd Cycle started and I've learned from him to use wizard-patrols to destroy pc's. A wizard-patrol on water with an eliteship can avoid enemy sea patrols without a problem and can destroy pc's at ease.

Also, the phantom brigades are not fixed to your group. To pursue the WA's groups, I had to transfer a phantom brigade from one of my patrols into another since my 1LI group only had a single wizard (who defended himself with a protect leaders/wizard spell). That's another area that I thought the WA would defend himself better by casting a bunch of Protect Leaders and Wizard spells but I guess he cast something else instead.

[Netstrider]

SA- I definitely saw that coming, lol so how did your big battle go??

LI
To tell you the truth, I really was going to take it easy on the WA after he requested advice on what to do. I usually just play for fun and take it easy on those who request it but then I noticed his other posts which pretty much said that my tactic of keeping my groups together for safety against the two of them was something for newbies so I had to change some things around.

Instead of a mild attack with spells like guarded attack, I decided to punish him a bit with death and kill wizard spells and boy did they! The 2WA is down to just 2 brigades from 23 after the death spells and battle. His 4WA wizards were all killed so he lost 6,4,4 in that group. It was brutal for him. He has one WA group left that I pursued so he should be done in the next turn.

Still wondering why he moved his group further into my region rather than teleporting out with his lich. If you teleport your group away, enemy forces can't pursue yours for another round of attacks. BTW, I didn't lose any leaders or wizards and lost only 1 brigade from the battle with the 2WA. His death spell took out more but after being involved in three battles (2WA, 4WA, city), my group now has 3 warlords which more than made up for the difference.

Call it karma or justice but the WA may be out soon...

Your assumptions are disturbing. I didn't say I was going to quit and I didn't ask for advice and I didn't ask you to take it easy on me. I was explaining my thoughts on the upcoming battle and responding to your comments for whatever value they may have to newer players that may not have experienced this type of situation.

There are counters I could have done given hindsight of what you actually did that would have made the results better - I think - but those options would have been a disaster if you had tried other things. As I said, I fully expected to lose my groups & wizards in the battle. Well played. Next time I hope to do better.

[RELLGAR]

SA>RA/GN well my friends our best agent fanatics that we could train have failed and perished, as we had feared. Definitely not a strength of our Order. All else has gone fairly well as expected. The 1NO is camped at his heavily defenced capital as expected.  What news from your kingdom's?  More soon to come

Rellgar

(NO) Wow. Your agents got annihilated this turn. And seems you walked right into my trap better than I could have hoped for. Thanks for bringing your main army into territory where my other army has supremacy. Guess you bought that line from the NE that I had nothing in the south?  Looks like you took a village though so that's pretty good. The NE lost half his troops and I lost nothing, just got my first warlord. 

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Warlord Shakar: The target
                           was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular security.
                           Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and prevented their
                           activity in the area. While the enemy agents were retreating, our guards
                           were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           The target was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular
                           security. Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and
                           prevented their activity in the area. While the enemy agents were
                           retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

Yes it seems the best agents our kingdom can train are also no match against other Kingdom's. Our wizards= no match, our agents= no match against others. Let's see how our troops will do. Oh no we are trapped!

[RELLGAR]

SA>RA/GN well my friends our best agent fanatics that we could train have failed and perished, as we had feared. Definitely not a strength of our Order. All else has gone fairly well as expected. The 1NO is camped at his heavily defenced capital as expected.  What news from your kingdom's?  More soon to come

Rellgar

(NO) Wow. Your agents got annihilated this turn. And seems you walked right into my trap better than I could have hoped for. Thanks for bringing your main army into territory where my other army has supremacy. Guess you bought that line from the NE that I had nothing in the south?  Looks like you took a village though so that's pretty good. The NE lost half his troops and I lost nothing, just got my first warlord. 

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Warlord Shakar: The target
                           was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular security.
                           Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and prevented their
                           activity in the area. While the enemy agents were retreating, our guards
                           were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           The target was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular
                           security. Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and
                           prevented their activity in the area. While the enemy agents were
                           retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

Yes it seems the best agents our kingdom can train are also no match against other Kingdom's. Our wizards= no match, our agents= no match against others. Let's see how our troops will do. Oh no we are trapped!

SA-I did have other success with my agents, but they were easier targets. I have learned a great deal and do not often make the mistakes again.

[Netstrider]

4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-4 Zor Mindshifter with dark
                           magic!

    4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-4 Mennemik with dark magic!

    4th Warlock            A foreign wizard slew the 4th Warlock Power-6 Havix Moondust with dark
                           magic!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

    2nd Warlock            A foreign wizard summoned an awesome magic, sending green waves of death
                           into the ranks of the 2nd Warlock, wiping out 4 brigades!

Please explain this to me. Both Kill Wizard and Summon Death say that you have to have at least one brigade in the casting group. But in my recon from last turn only one group (3 wizards) had brigades. What happened?

Instant Summon Phantoms spell. It's a group spell but it occurs early in the turn before battle. You can do a bunch of things with a patrol with wizards that can cast phantoms. Actually, Jumpingfist mentioned it on the forum back when 3rd Cycle started and I've learned from him to use wizard-patrols to destroy pc's. A wizard-patrol on water with an eliteship can avoid enemy sea patrols without a problem and can destroy pc's at ease.

Also, the phantom brigades are not fixed to your group. To pursue the WA's groups, I had to transfer a phantom brigade from one of my patrols into another since my 1LI group only had a single wizard (who defended himself with a protect leaders/wizard spell). That's another area that I thought the WA would defend himself better by casting a bunch of Protect Leaders and Wizard spells but I guess he cast something else instead.

Does the product team really have the assumption that players will have read every post in the forum in order to understand how to play the game?

To me this is just a bug and I can't understand how you, a developer, don't consider it one as well. It was clear to me that when the rules for Kill Leader and Meteor Strike were changed in 3rd cycle it was to "nerf" the ability of wizard patrols to wander around the map invisible and untouchable blowing up shit and killing opposing wizards. But what's the point of those changes if all you have to do is have a wizard cast summon phantoms? Now a patrol is a patrol whenever it feels like being a patrol - but only for the part of the turn processing where it's not important to be a patrol? The code should check to see if the group had brigades (real brigades) at the beginning of the turn. Or the phantoms should only exist from order 100 to the end of the battle. Just ridiculous.

[unclemike]

Well, there are other combinations with spells, artifacts, and now, brigade special abilities that can cause trouble for your opponent. Ever try to combine a Mist Talisman (hides from locate character spells, divine artifact locations, and immune to less than L10 agent actions) with an Onyx Amulet on an agent? That's one invisible and undetectable secret agent having free reign throughout the realm. There are all kinds of combinations that you can do with spells, artifacts, and brigade special abilities. They're not bugs...

[Acererak]

SA>RA/GN well my friends our best agent fanatics that we could train have failed and perished, as we had feared. Definitely not a strength of our Order. All else has gone fairly well as expected. The 1NO is camped at his heavily defenced capital as expected.  What news from your kingdom's?  More soon to come

Rellgar

(NO) Wow. Your agents got annihilated this turn. And seems you walked right into my trap better than I could have hoped for. Thanks for bringing your main army into territory where my other army has supremacy. Guess you bought that line from the NE that I had nothing in the south?  Looks like you took a village though so that's pretty good. The NE lost half his troops and I lost nothing, just got my first warlord. 

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Warlord Shakar: The target
                           was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular security.
                           Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and prevented their
                           activity in the area. While the enemy agents were retreating, our guards
                           were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           The target was protected by an agent team on guard in addition to regular
                           security. Guards were alerted to the presence of foreign agents and
                           prevented their activity in the area. While the enemy agents were
                           retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and dispose of them.

    Assassin               An attempt was made to assassinate the 5th Nomad Power-6 Kaznar the Comet:
                           Extra security was present on the scene. Guards were alerted to the
                           presence of foreign agents and prevented their activity in the area. While
                           the enemy agents were retreating, our guards were able to apprehend and
                           dispose of them.

Yes it seems the best agents our kingdom can train are also no match against other Kingdom's. Our wizards= no match, our agents= no match against others. Let's see how our troops will do. Oh no we are trapped!

SA-I did have other success with my agents, but they were easier targets. I have learned a great deal and do not often make the mistakes again.

(NO) Definitely your strength, probably nullified by meeting me in the desert. I have no quarrel with the RA/GN so it's up to them if they want to attack me.

[Atuan]

when you cast phantoms you can be attacked. There is a risk your group with phantoms is wiped out due to casting it. There isn't a loophole here. Had you attacked all 4 groups you likely would have been able to hurt a good portion of his wizards. Had you used 88 you would have kept all of your wizards and lost some/all of your troops while at the same time likely killing a good portion of his wizards. As a wizard kingdom, do you honestly care that you lost troops?

[Wookie Panz]

(RA) all players  The scribes have certainly been busy this day.  As a new arrival it seems like peeling an onion, every layer just uncovers another.  It seems like magic rules but of course a new traveler would not know how to find wizards beyond his mage build limit.  Most interesting discussion.  I certainly am glad I stayed out of the swamps!

[Acererak]

(RA) all players  The scribes have certainly been busy this day.  As a new arrival it seems like peeling an onion, every layer just uncovers another.  It seems like magic rules but of course a new traveler would not know how to find wizards beyond his mage build limit.  Most interesting discussion.  I certainly am glad I stayed out of the swamps!

(NO) It's true- especially if you have 10 wizards of P5+. Impressive for sure.