I’m a moderate-to-beginner level player who has been away from MEPBM for some time. I played only two previous games (a long time ago, it seems now)and was eliminated rather quickly. I’m now awaiting the start of a 1650 and a 2950 game I signed onto.
While waiting for thjose games to get started, I’m reviewing strategy and rules and orders and such. One aspect of the game I never became familiar with are curse squads. I’m looking for advice and background. What is the typical size of a curse squad; what are the prerequisites to a successful curse squad; how do they track, locate and eliminate their prey; what are the best defenses against them?
Baruk,
You need at least three mages with curses that have NATURAL mage ranks of at least 66, 66,and 68. The three mages MUST have 200 mage rank combined with each mage having an EVEN rank. (three 67 ranked mages will not kill an enemy, it will leave the target with ONE health) Their success on casting the spell depends on the casting ranks they have on curses which normally starts in the upper 40’s or lower 50’s. Therefore it takes a number of mage artifacts to get the casting ranks into the upper 80’s to get a decent chance of a kill.
There is currently only ONE defense before the fact and it isn’t assured. IF , you happen to have ANOTHER curse squad in range of said target squad, then hopefully your squad gets to curse one of the enemy mages first killing one of the enemy cursers before he can curse you. Note that this approach is not very successful and depends on lots of luck.
One other defense that happens after the enemy curse squad is to figure out where they move to and have an agent company there waiting. One of your agents will be cursed, but as long as you have more than one killer agent you should be able to assassinate one of the enemy mages. You could kidnap the enemy mage but hostages can be rescued.
Targets for the curse squad can be had via recons/scochar/LAT or even foreign characters at a pc report.
Say you have a M66 with a M+30 artifact. Curses is cast at (52).
Does the arty bump up the 52? It bumps the 66 to a 96 on the Mage order, but it doesn’t bump the damage from a M66 based damage to M96 damage, right? In other words natural/base rank determines the dmaage, right?
I’m not a big mage guy myself, but I’m having a discussion with someone else and we disagree. It as much a general mage artifact’s impact on a mage as specific to curses.
The most important thing about curse squads to remember is that they take TIME to make. Getting three mages with the appropriate mage ranks, 200+ combined, along with the necessary spells can often take 10+ turns. Usually this involves researching the spells, assuming you have the right artifacts, upgrading nations to friendly relations so you can all be in the same company, and 710 orders to get your mage rank up.
Remember, in 2950 each side starts with one spirit mastery artifact, Nallagurth (WK) and Elenruth (Sinda). There are also four lost artifacts that give access to spirit mastery, Tinculin (N), E Mere Vardo (G), Blue Ring (E), and Gurthang (E). The advantage is decidely towards the DS, so it’s important for the FP to jump on the evil spirit mastery arties as well as go for their own.
Both the curse and sickness spell reduce your victims health by half the casters magerank. Both in a curse and sickness team the combined mageskill should be 200; 3 mages with each 65-70 mageskill. This is the optimal curseteam as it is quite hard to learn curses. Castingrank is improved with mage arties. Sicknessteams may consist of 4x ~50 mages. All mages are in a company.
Info is optained by spells, Palantiris, commanders Recon, agent scout orders, some info is provided by own armies and PC´s.
Defence against curse teams is almost impossible, one can hunt them down with agents and own curseteams, but success is unlikely. My favorite action againts curse teams is eliminating one of nations who has a mage in it:D.
The mage artifact does NOT increase the damage a mage is able to do. Only the natural, unenhanced, mage rank is used for damage purposes. Therefore, in your example, a 66 mage will only do 33 points of damage. His casting rank of 52 would be increased to 82 so his odds of sucessfully casting the spell would be increased. The damage however would not.
But to take it another direction, say I have a A50 with A+30 trying an assassination. The natural rank is used to determine outcome, correct, while the bonus only the sucess of the order?
The agent will kill as if a 80 skill agent. If you steal gold with the same agent it is my belief that the base rank determines the amount of gold stolen.
Wow! Thanks to all you guys – Scavenger, Briggs, Ben, Loke, Marinersk! Great responses – and fast, too. I’m still assessing the information you provided.
The games I will be in are both Gunboat games – so I guess that restricts much cooperation between nations. I would supppose curse squads are less dangerous and less common in Gunboat games but I may be wrong. I read Greg Shaffer’s article in News from Bree about Gunboat game 18. He stated that he put together a powerful curse squad in that game.
Actually, curse squads can be big weapons in a gunboat game, if you have a nation that has mages capable of building them. Because, the best way to combat them is with massive agents or another curse squad, which are hard to coordinate in a gunboat game. If you can get your hands on curse artifacts early, the squad can become quite a weapon.
Ben, your response leads into another question I have, namely, do folks have strategy suggestions specific to Gunboat and also specific to 1650 Gunboat and 2950 Gunboat. But I will start a new thread for that discussion.
Baruk
By the way, why don’t you give a f*** about the whole state of Michigan?
Ben’s Ohio State logo avatar says it all. If you’re not an American, it is best explained to you as a regional/state rivalry centered on collegiate athletics. Think England v. Scotland in soccer (football) at Wembley.
You should not really be joining gunboat games… if you are really a semi-beginner, then as you will be playing solo you are expected to have a fairly good understanding of the type of strategy that each of your fellow players might be using… and your enemy.
Your allies may well be peeved (I would be) to find a beginner playing alongside them when they’ve paid good money to be in a game that has been advertised as being for experienced players looking for a game with no communication.
You’d also have more fun joining a normal 1650 game… or 2950 if that’s your flavour… so you can get yourself back up the learning curve.
Since you were knocked out early in both your previous games playing in a normal game… I’d be very surprised to find you allowed in a gunboat.
I don’t mean to be harsh, honest…
Good luck getting back into ME… 1650 will give you the most game starts and the biggest player base and the most chance to learn the good tips from lots of good players.
I read my post twice and made amendments before posting… but it still looks really harsh…
What I’m trying to say really badly is:
Learn the game properly using 1650 normal games
2 Join a gunboat once you are very comfortable playing and don’t want o bother communicating with others
Michael, I appreciate the candor. I assure you, no offense is taken. Problem is, I’m already in Gunboat game 86. Set-ups were sent out earlier today.
I did not see a Michael in the players’ list; so it appears you are not in it.
As for those who are in game 86 with me, I say, fear not! The quality of my play may surprise you – pleasantly, if you are on my side, dismayingly, if you are not. I feel confident that I wil be able to hold my own quite well against and with more experienced players. I will not waste anyone’s time or money.
Best way to get experience, in my opinion, is to find your way onto a team somehow. I learned more in my first team game than I ever learned playing a “pick up” game where most people join individually. Not that those are necessarily bad, but some people play them specifically because they don’t want to feel constrained by any requirement to work as a team. Gunboats are incredibly fun games…my first gunboat was a 2950, and I’d never played 2950 before. I feel like I did relatively well, although I guess I’ll never really know for sure…our side won, so I guess that is all that matters. I actually picked up the last spot in game 86, so you can blame me for your recent start-ups. Good luck to you, no matter what side you’re on!*
Unless you’re not on my side, then I just said that to be nice, but I actually hope you have bad luck.
Good luck to you, no matter what side you’re on!*