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remote-attacks

Remote Attacks

Remote attacks are rituals that directly and negatively affect remote provinces. These can be divided into a few categories: army killers, assassinations, province attacks and province killers. Although remote attacks are usually expensive for the effect, they provide a safe way to harass opponents that does not involve direct military action. Since rituals occur in the magic phase, remote attacks have the potential to snipe commanders and prevent any units under their command from moving that turn. Remote attacks are countered by domes.

Army Killers

  • Casts by a nation involved in the siege appear to consistently target the enemy, regardless of position.
  • Note: Baleful Star in particular can strike the caster, even if they are inside the fort. This may be a unique case because of its "affects province with event" behavior.
  • Third-party casts of Murdering Winter at one army sieging the other are likely to target whichever army has more commanders. To be precise: Totals up the numbers of nonsneaking commanders of all non-allied nations in the targeted province. Each nation rolls (closed d100 + 49) * number of commanders, the nation with the highest value is the target of this spell. In the event of a tie, the lower nation ID is targeted.
  • Third-party Melancholia struck the army *outside* the fort in 1/1 test.
  • Unknown: how do disciples interact, either as casters or as a third army present in a sieged province?

Army killers target enemy units and commanders in a province. Despite the name, not all army killers deal direct damage; some merely apply status effects that may kill enemy units indirectly.

Alteration
Baleful Star Alteration 5 astral 337astralpearl
Curses some of the enemy army. Curse is debilitating for thugs but mediocre against casters (who are unlikely to survive direct combat anyway) and troops (on which individual injuries are generally less significant). Since Curse adds a flat 15% risk of affliction on damage, combos well with Bloodletting and Earthquake. Doom is a combat spell which curses 100% of the enemy army, making it a more efficient spell for this kind of effect.
Evocation
Fires from Afar Evocation 3 fire 3310firegem
Deals 15 AP fire damage to a small proportion of the enemy army. Relatively weak and entirely useless against units with decent armor or giant hp. Shots are only guaranteed to hit against very large armies, but can also be used against a single unit to almost guarantee 1 hit as part of a snipe.
Murdering Winter Evocation 7 water 5540watergem
Deals 8 AN cold damage to 75% of the units in a province. Deals +2 damage per cold scale and -2 per heat scale. Fails if cast into a province with 3. Commanders take 3 less damage. Wolven Winter can be used to force cold scales. Devastating to human-hp nations in cold scales.
Flames from the Sky Evocation 9 fire 5530firegem
Deals 15 AP fire damage to 75% of the units in a province. Damage is independent of heat scales. The bane of human-hp nations in the late game.
Thaumaturgy
Melancholia Thaumaturgy 6 earth 5520earthgem
All units make an MR check vs. 10 and a morale check vs. 10. If they fail both, they desert. Does include commanders. Rarely effective against elite units, but ~20% of average human infantry will desert. Potentially devastating against monkeys, slaves (including slave mages), or starving armies.
FIXME: do MPen boosters apply?
Leprosy Thaumaturgy 6 death 5510deathgem
50% of the units in the targeted province make an MR check or get diseased. All but guarantees killing half the army, but is very slow-acting. Since disease disables healing, this pairs well with other remote attacks or low-damage battlefield threats like Earthquake.
Magic penetration boosters do increase the chance of disease
Beckoning Thaumaturgy 6 nature 5520naturegem
50 + (5 × additional caster level) units make a difficult MR check and a difficult morale check. If they fail both, they desert. Units with forest survival ignore the spell.

Assassinations

Remote assassinations target a random commander in the enemy province with an assassination or direct attack. The global Vengeful Water causes massed assassinations, though these occur in the event phase after ordinary movement and battles rather than in the preceding magic phase. Spells that cause assassinations can pull in bodyguards.

When cast by third parties, Mind Hunt and Seeking Arrow are confirmed to target randomly among both sieging/sieged commanders.

Conjuration
Winged Monkeys Conjuration 5 nature 33astral 2210naturegem
Expensive and situational ritual that target non-mage commanders. The predictable targeting can be used to eliminate generals and Mound Kings so that mages move without their armies.
Earth Attack Conjuration 8 earth 555earthgem
Sends a size 6 Earth Elemental to assassinate. Does not affect floating commanders.
Manifestation Conjuration 8 death 554deathgem
Assassinates an enemy commander with an Ashen Angel. If no commander is found, the caster suffers the assassination. The Angels are tough to kill and deadly, helpfully bypassing Water Bottles via flight. Relatively common since Well of Misery draws high-death nations to Conj 8 and funds the attacks.
Warning: this can hit friendly commanders, making it a bad option in sieges.
Evocation
Mind Hunt Evocation 6 astral 442astralpearl
Attacks a random commander with Mind Hunt or Soul Slay, depending on which has been researched. Every enemy astral mage in the target province has a (40 × astral level)% chance of feebleminding the Mind Hunt caster, even if stealthed. Can catch stealthed commanders, is relatively cheap and instantly kills its target, provided they fail the MR check and Soul Slay has been researched. The ability to bypass stealth is valuable against stealthy raiders, but also means scouts of any nation can intercept hunts.
Enchantment
Seeking Arrow Enchantment 3 air 334airgem
Deals 8 AN negating damage to the chest of a random commander. Can be negated by air shield, twist fate, and some other conditions. Dangerous against human hp or lower, much less deadly against giants.
Thaumaturgy
Vengeance of the Dead Thaumaturgy 4 astral 33death 113astralpearl
The commander in the target province with the most kills is drawn into an assassination battle in which they fight one Soulless for each kill. Can be negated by Magic Resistance. Mostly kills via the turn timer due to sheer number of Soulless.
Blood
Infernal Disease Blood 6 blood 555bloodslave
Assassinates with a Disease Demon. Relatively tough to cast, but highly valued for being cheap and low-level. Unreliable against thugs and ineffective against SCs, though any damage inflicted will cause disease. Otherwise tough to stop with bodyguards or items due to flight.
National Only
Send Tupilak Enchantment 5 death 33water 115deathgem LA Atlantis only.
Sends a flying, scary Tupilak to assassinate.
Dreams of R'lyeh Thaumaturgy 6 astral 444astralpearl LA R'lyeh only.
Pulls the caster and target into an assassination duel with no bodyguards. Units without Void Sanity take massive attribute penalties, including halved MR, usually permitting a kill.

Province Attacks

Some ritual summons can be targeted at a remote province; if the target province belongs to an enemy (or the remote summon is neutral rather than friendly), the summons will attack the province. With a few exceptions, most remote summons are too weak and/or expensive to be practical for province attacks; using magic phase-capable thugs is often a more efficient option.

Conjuration
Call of the Winds Conjuration 3 air 2210airgem Great Hawk • 40×Black Hawk
More often used to summon expensive patrol chaff, the hawks are fairly weak and unreliable, though they may pick off PD Commanders.
Call of the Wild Conjuration 3 nature 4412naturegem Werewolf • 30×Wolf
Gives less wolves outside forests. Less efficient as a summoning spell than Pack of Wolves, but the Werewolf can summon 3 wolves per turn. It takes ten months for the werewolf to produce an equal amount of wolves per nature gem, assuming the spell was used in a forest and that the werewolf survived.
Ghost Riders Conjuration 9 death 665deathgem Wraith Lord • 33×Longdead Horseman
The riders are neutral, not friendly, and will not stick around after the attack. On the bright side, they're quite cheap (gem-wise).
Alteration
Arouse Hunger Alteration 4 death 338deathgem [30+3/lv]×Ghoul
The ghouls are permanent units. This also works underwater!
Phantasmal Attack Alteration 7 air 448airgem [25+5/lv]×Phantasmal Warrior • 20×Phantasmal Archer
The phantasmal army is neutral, not friendly, and will not stick around after the attack.
Enchantment
Carrion Reanimation Enchantment 7 death 3310deathgem 1×Soulless Leader • Up to 100×Soulless
Reanimates up to 100 corpses in the province as Soulless. Soulless tend to be pretty terrible troops, so Carrion reanimation is more often used to generate patrol/siege chaff or for the mindless commander.
Army of the Dead Enchantment 9 death 5510deathgem (40+[5/lvl])×Longdead • 1×Longdead Leader • Up to 20×Soulless Warriors • 1×Soulless Warrior Leader
The Soulless Warriors are a little better than normal Soulless because they have weapons and armors, but they are still rather mediocre, especially at such a high research level. Unlike the Longdead, they only appear if there are enough corpses in the province.
Blood
Horde from Hell Blood 5 blood 4444bloodslave Devil(commander) • 25×Imp
These are permanent units, though they're expensive at that.
Send Lesser Horror Blood 5 blood 22astral 339bloodslave
See the dedicated page for more details.
Plague of Locusts Blood 7 blood 5588bloodslave Demonic Locust
Demonic Locusts are fairly beefy units which rapidly decrease dominion. (They're permanent, too!)
Send Horror Blood 9 blood 44astral 5530bloodslave
A more dangerous, but much more expensive version of Send Lesser Horror. See the dedicated page for more details
National Only
Send Bukavac Conjuration 5 water 445watergem EA Rus, MA Vanarus and LA Bogarus.
Bukavac
Sends a temporary size 6 trampler to attack the province. The Bukavac is neutral, not friendly.
Angelic Host Conjuration 7 astral 5550astralpearl MA Pythium, MA Marignon, and LA Marignon.
Arch Angel • 6×Angel of the Host
Sends an Arch Angel and six similarly-equipped-but-smaller troops. These are permanent units, and are often better-off kept at home.

Province Killers

Province killers change the properties of the target province to damage its economy, often by causing unrest or sometimes by killing its population directly. For unrest-increasing province killers, the critical threshold at which recruitment is blocked is 100 unrest. Rather than occurring in the magic phase like the previous kinds of remote attacks, most province killers generate events and thus occur in the event phase after ordinary movement, battles (and most rituals!) are resolved. They are usually reported as random events, but the aggressor can often be guessed based on the path requirements.

Alteration
Blight Alteration 4 earth 22death 115earthgem
Unrest +15, Population -5%, Gold -80.
Comes early for a population killer, and the -5% can stack up with multiple castings. Fairly gem- and mage turn-intensive to chain cast, however.
Wolven Winter Alteration 4 water 335watergem
Decreases heat scales by 3. Often used to set up a province for Murdering Winter. Can also counter cold-blooded units, improve Grip of Winter, or strengthen Ice Armor. Note that temperature scales change in the event phase, which occurs after the magic phase. This means that, if cast on the same turn, Murdering Winter will trigger before Wolven Winter has the chance to make the province colder.
Evocation
Breath of the Desert Evocation 4 fire 33air 115firegem
Increases heat scales by 3. Sometimes used to make provinces more amenable to cold-blooded units.
Hurricane Evocation 4 air 335airgem
Unrest +25, Population -3%. Air gems tend to be a valuable gem type for nations which can cast this, and the unrest effect is low for the cost. Can still contribute to locking down the recruitment of important provinces.
Volcanic Eruption Evocation 9 fire 44earth 3315firegem
Unrest +30, Population -30%. Deletes a substantial proportion of the population in a province, but the research requirement is prohibitive for a fairly narrow effect.
Tidal Wave Evocation 9 water 5515watergem
Unrest +50, Population -30%. Has a similar effect to the other Evocation 9 remote attack, Volcanic Eruption, but produces more unrest.
Thaumaturgy
Raging Hearts Thaumaturgy 5 fire 4410firegem
Unrest +60, Population -5%. Generates a huge amount of unrest, can completely lock down the recruitment of any province when combined with Rain of Toads.
Melancholia Thaumaturgy 6 earth 5520earthgem
Sets production scales to Sloth3, decreases Dominion by 1-2. Can help reduce recruitment of key resource-intensive units such as Ahiman Anakim, but is very expensive when not benefitting from the desertion aspect.
Black Death Thaumaturgy 8 death 5515deathgem
Unrest +10, Population -50%. Far more popkill-focused than the fire/water/air counterparts. As a result it has low tactical value and tends to destroy the value of captured land, but is the spell most often used in the lategame specifically for economic damage. 1-2 casts can slash recruitment of recruitment-point intensive cap-onlys. Sometimes used to deter attackers or destroy capitols someone else will take in a 2v1. The cost can be slightly defrayed by consuming the corpses with Raven Feast, Carrion Reanimation, or a Corpse Eater.
Blood
Rain of Toads Blood 5 blood 33nature 1120bloodslave
Unrest +40, Misfortune +3, disease chance 4%. Blood slaves are cheap and the unrest effect is substantial.
Wrath of Pazuzu Blood 5 blood 11air 3315bloodslave
Unrest +35, Population -4%. Another cheap way to raise unrest in blood.
National Only
Hellscape Alteration 6 fire 4410firegem Abysia only.
Substantially more popkill and unrest than Breath of the Desert, but equal heat change for twice the price at a higher research level. Generally only useful because Abysia lacks the FA cross for Breath. Technically anonymous since it is reported as a random event, but in practice clearly Abysia's fault.

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remote-attacks.txt · Last modified: 2023/10/20 15:11 by wintermute92