A Thought on Croakamancy

[ReccaSquirrel]

It seems that croakamancy is far better as a defensive magic than an offense. In modern culture, I have felt that necromancy is seen as an aggressive/offensive ability. You use it to raise the long dead from the ground to serve your bidding. But with the physics of Erfworld the way they are, croakamancy happens to be much more focused to the defensive.

This is based on the three primary rules involving croaked/uncroaked units.
1. You need a croaked unit to make an uncroaked unit.
2. Croaked units disappear at the end of the current turn.
3. Croaked units last for a period of time depending on the power of the Croakamancer and the number of units.

There are two turns that a unit can produce uncroaked units. They can produce it on their turn and on a turn that someone attacks them. It is possible to attack an enemy, create uncroaked units, and continue to attack but the effectiveness is much weaker that way. Each step of the process, each iteration if you prefer, loses a bit of its muster. You must advance forward and expend move to get to the units, you must kill the units, and you must expend magic of the croakamancer. Then you can move again but you have wounded units and a croakamancer at reduced power.

On the other hand, in a defensive capacity, this is much more effective. The units that are croaked are units that came to you. You can't do anything immediately with those freshly uncroaked units. On your turn, all of your wounded units are healed and your uncroaked units are available to move. Plus you have your croakamancer with full power at his disposal.

When it comes to life expectancy of your uncroaked units, you are better off defensively too. If your uncroaked last 5 turns, you are uncroaking on your enemy's turn and you first turn does begin until after the enemy has attacked and ended his turn. Where as if you uncroak on your turn, the degradation begins as soon as you do so as it is your current turn and the units can currently act.

Mathematically look at two identical armies. Lets say you have two identical armies with 100 Units and 1 Croakamancer. In a situation like this, whoever attacks first will lose unless they can take out the entire army in such a strike. Assume in this hypothetical situation that the armies face each other and this results in both armies lose 25 units, and wounding 25 units at the same time before the attacking army retreats.

Because the battle took place in Army 2's Hex, the battlefield looks like this:
Army 1: 25 Wounded Units, 50 Unwounded Units, 1 Unwounded Croakamancer
Army 2: 50 Croaked Bodies, 25 Wounded Units, 50 Unwounded Units, 1 Unwounded Croakamancer

Assuming the Croakamancer is powerful enough, the start of Army 2's turn looks like this:
Army 1: 25 Wounded Units, 50 Unwounded Units, 1 Unwounded Croakamancer
Army 2: 50 Uncroaked Weak Units, 75 Unwounded Units, 1 Unwounded Croakamancer

As you can see, the power of a Croakamancer comes from the ability to make Uncroaked Units during the enemy's turn and counter-attacking.

[Renx]

...But with the physics of Erfworld the way they are, croakamancy happens to be much more focused to the defensive.

This is based on the three primary rules involving croaked/uncroaked units.
1. You need a croaked unit to make an uncroaked unit.
2. Croaked units disappear at the end of the current turn.
3. Croaked units last for a period of time depending on the power of the Croakamancer and the number of units.

I thought Croaked units disappear at the end of the current day, not turn.


There are two turns that a unit can produce uncroaked units. They can produce it on their turn and on a turn that someone attacks them. It is possible to attack an enemy, create uncroaked units, and continue to attack but the effectiveness is much weaker that way. Each step of the process, each iteration if you prefer, loses a bit of its muster. You must advance forward and expend move to get to the units, you must kill the units, and you must expend magic of the croakamancer. Then you can move again but you have wounded units and a croakamancer at reduced power.
Well, that's not given... the units have already attacked that turn and if we're talking mass-raise, you're losing out on a lot of potential. If you would just pick the best ones (say, those with leadership) and raise them a bit more permanently, that'd probably be a lot more effective in the long run than just blindly uncroaking everything.


On the other hand, in a defensive capacity, this is much more effective. The units that are croaked are units that came to you. You can't do anything immediately with those freshly uncroaked units. On your turn, all of your wounded units are healed and your uncroaked units are available to move. Plus you have your croakamancer with full power at his disposal.
Units heal at dawn, not at start of turn.

Necro/Croakamancy has always been one of the more effective magicks. If you have an ability to mass-raise, doing so in the middle of a battle is highly effective, demoralizing and usually wins the day. You wait until your side and their side have bashed each others' brains out for a while then just raise both sides' dead and maybe end up with triple the men your opponent has (say, you start at 1:1, then beat each other until you're both around 50%, then mass-raise. Voilá, we're talking 3:1 advantage here). Also makes for gruesome stories.

It might not have the benefit of blasting your opponent into bits, but the sheer amount fluff is amazing.

[Godskook]

I thought Croaked units disappear at the end of the current day, not turn.

Actually, beginning of next turn, presumably one's own next turn as someone else pointed out in another thread(SteveMB?)


Units heal at dawn, not at start of turn.

Um, pretty sure they heal at start of turn(Jillian was captured, and thus was part of GK's turn the one time she healed at dawn).