Free liches for Calabim

[elohimsaga]

Want heavily promoted free liches? I found this by chance while playing with my vampire lords. But I do not know if this is a bug.
The key of this is to have your vampire lord promoted with enchantment I. To acquire this promotion, I used a mimic (captured by a confessor) to steal from an enemy adept, and upgraded it to a vampire lord, but I am sure there are several other ways to achieve this.
The next thing is a little bit easier, just rob the black mirror from the dark elves. Then promote your vampire lord with enchantment III and death III. Give him a spellstaff and the mirror. Duplicate him with the mirror.
The created illusion should be able to use his spellstaff to cast lichdom and become a vampiric lich with all the promotions. The best part is it won't disappear and cost nothing. You may do this the next turn until you get four liches.
This works well in 2.040, but I am not sure about 2.041.

 

[DarkxL0rd]

in 2.041 illusions, such as black mirror illusions, can't cast anything.

 

[Onionsoilder]

You can also get free fire elementals for Mercurians...

1) Get a mage with Life III(Fastest way is Gibbon Goetia, however un-lore like it may be)
2) Sacrifice Basium on the Pyre(Also very un-lore like, but meh.)
3) Resurrection.

Also, invincible Elohim. Have Corindale use Peace whenever you want, then resurrect him.

 

[elohimsaga]

in 2.041 illusions, such as black mirror illusions, can't cast anything.

Illusions can't cast anything. But if the original unit have the spellstaff promotion, the illusions would duplicate it, and could break the spellstaff to restore its spell casting ability.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It isn't that illusions cannot cast anything, only that units created using the Black Mirror are set as having already casted that turn. That could allow Illusions of Eaters of Dreams to cast Consume Soul to be able to cast again, and allow Illusions with Spellstaffs to break them to cast again.



In my version spellstaffs are equipment, so that exploit cannot be used. I'm thinking of making Consume Soul and Lichdom require the caster be alive and or not limited duration.

 

[Emptiness]

I just tested this, and the Illusion can't break the Spellstaff. I also set up this situation with a Summoner leader and the extra duration for summoned units does not appear to apply to the Illusion summoned from the Black Mirror. If there's a way to allow the Illusion to cast Lichdom (in version 0.41m) I don't see it.

As for version 0.40, this situation requires that:

1) You are playing the Calabim,
2) The Balseraphs are in the game,
3) The Svartalfar are in the game,
4) You have researched Divine Essence,
5) The Balseraphs have researched Iron Working (or acquired a Mimic by some other means),
6) The Svartalfar have researched Poisons and built Alazkan the Assassin,
7) You have gained control of the Black Mirror,
8) You gain control of a Mimic from the Balseraphs,
9) That Mimic steals Enchantment I from a caster, and
10) The Mimic earns enough experience to advance to level 6 (so that you can Gift it Vampirism, so that it can Feast its way to level 12).

Not only is this a very complicated situation, it is actually more involved than the normal way to get Liches. It also requires more research and is dependant upon the research progress of specific civs, as well as the outcome of a random die roll (steal promotion). I don't think it represents a threat to 0.40 game balance.

 

[Sanityfaerie]

I would note at this point that your combination (even if it did work) would require...
- a built confessor (with appropriate techs researched)
- having balseraphs in the game, and having them research and field mimics
- successful stealing of a mimic with a confessor, followed by successfully giving that mimic enchantment 1.
- appropriate techs researched for Vampire Lords
- Svartelfar in the game, who build their hero, followed by you beating that hero up and taking his stuff

At that point, if you haven't won the game already, it's your own fault anyway

That having been said, would it work if you somehow had a summoner leader? Presumably there's something in place already to prevent puppets from going liche.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't think Summoner effects the illusions from the Black Mirror. It only applies to summons gained in XML, or in one or two places where the python specifically checks for the trait. (One of those is how the Hall or Mirrors duplicates nearby enemy units.)

 

[DarkxL0rd]

I just tested this, and the Illusion can't break the Spellstaff. I also set up this situation with a Summoner leader and the extra duration for summoned units does not appear to apply to the Illusion summoned from the Black Mirror. If there's a way to allow the Illusion to cast Lichdom (in version 0.41m) I don't see it.

As for version 0.40, this situation requires that:

1) You are playing the Calabim,
2) The Balseraphs are in the game,
3) The Svartalfar are in the game,
4) You have researched Divine Essence,
5) The Balseraphs have researched Iron Working (or acquired a Mimic by some other means),
6) The Svartalfar have researched Poisons and built Alazkan the Assassin,
7) You have gained control of the Black Mirror,
8) You gain control of a Mimic from the Balseraphs,
9) That Mimic steals Enchantment I from a caster, and
10) The Mimic earns enough experience to advance to level 6 (so that you can Gift it Vampirism, so that it can Feast its way to level 12).

Not only is this a very complicated situation, it is actually more involved than the normal way to get Liches. It also requires more research and is dependant upon the research progress of specific civs, as well as the outcome of a random die roll (steal promotion). I don't think it represents a threat to 0.40 game balance.

Wow that kinda puts things in perspective. After years on forums, there's always that one guy who comes up with a crazy one-in-a-million circumstantial situation and wants to exploit it. or worse (which is not the case in this scenario) wants someone to fix/balance it. it's funny really.

 

[Angel-Julia]

My approach:
1) Build lots of adepts upgrade combal line+mobility
2) Build 3 fire nodes
kill sometihng easy to get the exp of a couple of adepts to get them to mages. keep a confessor, regenerate spell, and 2 bodyguards for the stack.
3) bombard cities, fireball everything down to 0.5 health(stop with the fireballs when fireball chance of victory goes over 50%), and finish it off with one of your adepts/mages, you soon get lots of exp. in this version mages can fireball and finish a kill.
4) now you have 20+ fireball mages, all opponents units are instantly 0.5 health after the fireball barrage, you have another 20 or so adepts feeding on the 0.5 health units, only attack if your unit has over 95% chance of success. next thing you know you have mages with 80+ exp.
5)metamagic, and convert your nodes to death. then upgrade to archmage. with 4+ death nodes you get instant liechdom promotions. allong with mobility, C5, SE2. i often even have extra promotions that i have nothing to do with, so maybe also give them spellstaffs for fun.

Seriously it is SOOOO easy to get lieches now that magic units can attack the same turn as casting. they just fireball everything down, and farm the exp. before you know it you have 4 level 10 lieches, 4 arcmages, and so many extra level 8+ mages waiting for slots that you might as well turn them into flesh golems or something.

this goes even better if you get 3 earth manna, and promote your mages with stoneskin, naturally also using all other spells (bless etc) they can become quite strong units. they also get loads of exp if a mage kills meshiber etc.

the fastest way to get magic power is to farm exp with them in combat. I've even dominated games with nothing but adepts/mages/arcmage/liech.... and maybe a couple of workers, and warriors in cities to keep people happy.

I agree, the idea presented in the OP seems much more complicated than farming exp with fireball mages.

 

[slowcar]

farming exp with fireball mages.

when you play higher difficulties you will see that fireball is not a very good spell - and you are not longer able to field so many units.

 

[Angel-Julia]

when you play higher difficulties you will see that fireball is not a very good spell - and you are not longer able to field so many units.

hello, and nice to meet you. i do not appreaciate your condecenting tone.

There are no higher dificulties than diety(sometimes i wish there was). i usually also do raging barbs parganda of course, and sometimes no AI building requirements.

I'd have to disagree with you;
-fireball is a great spell IMO due to the flexibility of being able to bombard down defences, and also great for collateral damage.
-you dont need to field so many units with magic, as they are so powerful. you only need a few fireball mages to do massive damage, more than what you can do with that many melee.
-now you can also use them for attacking after the fireballs, thus farming exp faster, in the earlier versions of FFH if you cast a spell then you cant attack. thus you previously needed more mages, half doing the collateral while the other half cleaning up the exp.
-if you are having trouble fielding your army, maybe you should try cottaging a bit more.