I knew it!! Shadowwalk doesn't work.

[Neomega]

It never has worked. It never felt like it worked. So I tested it out in world builder:

20 warriors with shadowwalk vs 20 warriors on a forested hill

results:

3 wounded attacking warriors left.

Bah! I knew it didn't work! I knew it felt highly unlucky that I seemed to lose even the not so close ones.

 

[Skitters]

I think this has come up before - I think the pedia text was wrong at one point, or at least it was wrong in the manual - not sure if it has been corrected but after investigation Shadowwalk actually ignores building defences in a city - so in that scenario above it wouldn't apply anyhow.

To test it, you'd have to put 20 warriors vs 20 warriors in a city with a palisade and/or city wall (and perhaps a further test on the wall of stone spell to see if it also bypasses the Earth 1)

 

[xalien]

Yeah, it only bypasses city building defenses. It doesn't do anything for cultural, fort or terrain bonuses. Wall of stone counts as a building too so I'm prtty sure it would be bypassed as well.

 

[Neomega]

lord, this whole time Ive been casting it for forest and hill and jungle battles. bleh

at least now I know I wasn't imagining bad luck.

 

[Thrar]

So, is this the intended behavior? While bypassing everything would be too strong, this does seem to be fairly useless in most cases.
Maybe a better implementation can be found? Bypassing terrain bonuses only might be an option that could make this spell a bit more frequently used.

 

[xalien]

I'd say it's good enough already, I always use it for taking well developed cities and stripping off up to 45% defence makes quite a difference.

 

[kumquatelvis]

As someone who hates building catapults and thinks that fire mana is boring I find Shadowalk to be pretty helpful.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Wait, so Shadowwalk takes away the % boost units get from defending a city? (e.g. if you're charging a capital with a 90% boost to all of its defenders, as opposed to bombarding it, Shadowwalk can cancel it out?)

If so Shadow Mana is my new best friend. I back what kum said, Catapults suck and Fire Mana is boring.

 

[kumquatelvis]

Shadowalk will not help against the cultural bonus, which catapults can (somehow) overcome. So taking their capital and other high culture cities is still hard. But it helps, and doesn't slow you down the way catapults do.

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Shadowalk will not help against the cultural bonus, which catapults can (somehow) overcome. So taking their capital and other high culture cities is still hard. But it helps, and doesn't slow you down the way catapults do.

Ah kay, so it isn't as powerful as I'd hoped Guess that means I'll still be dragging along Fire Balls, Maelstroms, Ring of Fires and the like then.

 

[UNIT 666]

Culture level boosts defense? o.o

...Why does it do that, exactly?

 

[Micky Onimusha]

Culture level boosts defense? o.o

...Why does it do that, exactly?

I suppose so that cities that logically would be stronger (e.g. your capital or a wonder factory) get a boost that represents their influence. I can't remember what the % vs Culture level boost is but the more cultured cities get a higher defensive bonus.

 

[Tasunke]

I believe its 10% culture defense per culture pop. So on quickspeed, nearing the early to mid game, after 3 culture pops, you should have 30% defensive culture.

Towards the end of the midgame, usually there seems to be a couple of powerhouse cities of 80 or 100% cultural defense. well, maybe I will just test to make sure.

 

[JFSebastian]

In my opinion, Shadowwalk should function against more than just city buildings. This is how I would have it function.

Yes vs. City Buildings. (walls, palisade, wall of stone, khazad palace, etc.)
Yes vs. Features. (forests, etc.)
Yes vs. Fortification.
Yes vs. Improvements (forts)
Maybe vs. Cultural bonus
No vs. Terrain (hills, desert, coast)
No vs. Promotions (woodsman, guerilla, city garrison, racial traits, etc.)

 

[Neomega]

or maybe it could be a terrain modifier with a chance to be resisted, based on unit type, with animals and scouts least likely to be "detected" and melee and beasts most likely.

Just have it be like catapult retreat, for recon units: 60% chance to ignore defense bonuses, for melee units 35% chance.

Even better, (but so complex) would be to have it check against each of them. So say when attacking a city, a recon unit would check (80% sounds better in this case) against hill bonus, then check again against wall bonus, and then check again vs culture bonus.

This would mean your assassin could sneak up the hill, past the gates, but still be alerted to the guards by the inhabitants of the city (success vs. hill, success vs. improvement, fail vs. culture)

 

[Fafnir13]

Shadowalk will not help against the cultural bonus, which catapults can (somehow) overcome.

A leader's inspiring oratory (one way of viewing cultural defense) is somewhat less impressive when he's crushed by a large rock.

 

[loffenx]

And here I thought I had FINALLY learned how it worked a week ago... but I was under the impression it negated cultural bonuses aswell. Just make it negate all the bonuses indicated by the number under the city name IMO - quicker than fireball but less versatile.

 

[Tasunke]

Well, I think there should be another spell, available at Shadow III maybe? or as an ability for Shadow UUs of certain sneakifying nations, like the Sidar ... which allows bypass of all city defense, and all terrain defense.

call it ShadowStep, maybe, or if it turns into a Sidar only thing call it Mystwalk