What is This Used For "Splinter of Darkness"

fastjaw24 · #1 11-08-2012, 05:51 AM

I got a Magic Recipe for Splinter of Darkness and created one only to find out that pretty much all stats are for the undead in your army.

+10 attack of Black Knights
Black Knights always counter attack
No Ghosts/Cursed Ghost on the battlefield can increase their numbers higher than their starting amount

As far as I know I am getting close to being finished with the game I have only 2 islands at the bottom of the map unexplored and I have not seen any undead units for sale. Which they are the main antagonist for this game so I am guessing that is why you can not use them like previous games. So is this just another stupid item that they forgot to take out of their beta game before release or is this actually used in the future on a quest?

Thanks for any insight someone can give on this

camelotcrusade · #2 11-08-2012, 06:38 AM

I would like to know this, too. I am disappointed we can't field an undead army if we want to... I've gone by too many empty ghost ships. A neat mod would be one that populated those ships with undead to buy. I've been drooling over the new undead pirate with that treasure digging ability and want to buy some. I miss my treasure dragon.

Mandea · #3 11-08-2012, 07:05 AM

Yeah, unfortunately you can't buy undead troops I don't understand why (it must be something related to the story but it makes no sense gameplay-wise). I created that artefact only to distroy it and get cristals or runes.

tiberiu · #4 11-08-2012, 07:46 AM

What? You can't buy undead?

So no more Stone Skin and Target on Cursed Ghost for me I guess.

You have to admit it would be a little weird for Olaf to go around trying to extinguish the Undead with an Undead army. It must be story related... but I will miss my ghosts and my vampires

. On the bright side, all undead units except zombies and melee skeletons are overpowered so this will help create a harder challange.

namad · #5 11-08-2012, 08:06 AM

are they really overpowered? the fact they were immune to most healing effects I'd say always made them a bit underpowered? although with a few key exceptions like cursed ghosts.

Nevar · #6 11-08-2012, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by namad

are they really overpowered? the fact they were immune to most healing effects I'd say always made them a bit underpowered? although with a few key exceptions like cursed ghosts.

Black Knights and Evlin are all you'll ever NEED for undead.

Also, speaking of undead, I run the All Races Mod for my Soothsayer and fielded an undead army for a while. For some weird reason, I kept recruiting Decaying Zombies for free after each battle. I think it was the Necromancer, but it has no abilities that could do that.

What's interesting is the existence of this ability. If we weren't meant to have undead, then why does one of them have the ability to recruit zombies? CPU can't use that at all.

Mandea · #7 11-08-2012, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiberiu

You have to admit it would be a little weird for Olaf to go around trying to extinguish the Undead with an Undead army. It must be story related... but I will miss my ghosts and my vampires

. On the bright side, all undead units except zombies and melee skeletons are overpowered so this will help create a harder challange.

it would, but this is a game, not reality, and since it's a fantasy game what is or is not weird is of less importance in my opinion. if it helps gameplay, then it's good and playing the undead is fun and quite different. in this regard CW and AP are clearly better.

Nevar · #8 11-08-2012, 09:07 AM

Wouldn't be that weird at all, imo. Lots of examples of evil powers, good users. Take Hellboy, for example, or even Riku from Kingdom Hearts. How different is Necromancy from returning the dead from Valhalla?

tiberiu · #9 11-08-2012, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nevar

Wouldn't be that weird at all, imo. Lots of examples of evil powers, good users. Take Hellboy, for example, or even Riku from Kingdom Hearts. How different is Necromancy from returning the dead from Valhalla?

Well, they are on the way to Valhalla, not there yet.

Takes a while for the soul to reach there apparently. This idea also featured in the movie Apocalypto by Mel Gibson, when the dudes that knew they were going to die wished each other "swift journey". The cult of Christianity even to this day has similar ideas about the soul first being judged before it reaches either Hell or Heaven. Of course, as fellow Mandea pointed out, this is just a fantasy game so I;m not saying anything is wrong with these things.

tiberiu · #10 11-08-2012, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by namad

are they really overpowered? the fact they were immune to most healing effects I'd say always made them a bit underpowered? although with a few key exceptions like cursed ghosts.

Just what I think about undead..(well, of course not overpowered in the sense that Rune Mages or Droids are overpowered - some units are really totally broken)

Necromancers have splash attack with curse effect, high initiative, high attack and defense. They have plague ability which is very powerful and can summon some cannon fodder from corpses. They also get you free Zombies which you can use as cannon fodder in battles.

Ghosts and Cursed Ghosts with their 50% phisical resistance and ability to raise their numbers are simply "enough said".
Vampires and Ancient Vampires, as in all games in existence, have good stats, ressurect themselves and again, "enough said"

Skeleton Archers is high damage and low leadership, and is simply better then other low lvl archers.

Death Knights are just awesome unit. You can't compare it to his "good" counterpart Knight.
Bone Dragons are good like all dragons nothing to say here, probably easiest to ressurect with eviln; Deals poison damage which is good vs some other good units which are phisical or fire resistant.