Shadows of Forbidden Gods - Tutorial - Death Magic

[@catsareevil101]

Fun bit of trivia., Vinerva"s manifestation ability leaves death behind seemingly based on the population of the settlement destroyed. A quick famine and nectar gambit can essentially create a perfect spawning site for the ravenous dead with a few areas nearby for them to bulk up, and you have total control over where and when it happens. Drop some choking spores on nearby army base cities and even the Alliance can take a beating especially if their armies were distracted when you kicked of the festivities.

[@villainreacts936]

recently i made a geomantic warlock with bountiful harvest during a mammon play to help with prosperity , after that i spammed call of wealth and call to the mountain. it was so much fun having 7 max power with mammon

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Oooh sounds good! I need to try it!

[@villainreacts936]

@@SimplyFunGaming since it was my first attempt, i focused too much on prosperity and the power of give, and had to use the dark empire to end the almost dead countries but it was really fun using the harvest to upgrade the map.

[@popsicleman8816]

You know, that might be a good way to help the dark empire not get wrecked by all the human nations. Just making all the other nations around them poor while bountiful harvesting your future dark empire should let them actually hit their stride.

[@villainreacts936]

@@popsicleman8816 it was fun to play, since i kinda improvised, i didn't count turns or true stategies, i started an endless run with mammon and experimented a bit; but yes that was indeed the idea if i didn't manage to win by mammon's win condition. i kinda went too far with testing decadence and ended up with a map full of decadence and no greed anywhere... i then decided to use dark empire and end game there because i feasted pretty much in 2/3 capitals after using call of wealth a bunch of times .

[@villainreacts936]

@@popsicleman8816 my starting point was near a locus in the north, so i had to improve the nation.

[@susaac9755]

So far my best use for magic was through death, specifically summoning wraiths. It might not seem much with 1-2, but if you go to a plauge/war-torn land and you start spamming them, the ammount of shadow they generate gets pretty insane.

[@NikMcPherson]

I wasn't really feeling magic overall, but this really makes me want to try a plague and death playthrough! Maybe get the baroness making some vampires too....

[@bazooka544]

thank you!! death is a hard one to grasp, but i love having the option to use it.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Hope this helps robo!

[@popsicleman8816]

Death magic feels so much like an all or nothing school. Either you stay as a level 1 death warlock, spamming wraiths wherever there is death or you go all in and gather 8 arcane secrets to win the game with ravenous dead. There simply isn't anything great that level 2 offers for the price of 3 arcane secrets. While the servitor is good for protection, if you're going for level 3 death, you also have access to it anyways. If you're going for level 1 warlock, who cares if he dies, just replace him, not worth the time to build him up to level 2 just to prolong his life a little longer.

[@aristotelian3183]

Thanks for this mate, super useful.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

No problem, glad it helped!

[@jacksons9546]

Great vid! I taught myself some stuff about magic but it was nice to get a second opinion and clear up some stuff. I 100% agree, the second tier of raising undead is underwhelming. Better to just keep spamming ghosts for the shadow imo. Until you get the final level zombie horde spell ofc

[@Lysalla]

Really enjoying your content! Keep up the great work!

[@Acrysalis]

17:20 I do agree with your point that it's very underwhelming, but I think the problem here is your army started in the same spot as the big army, which engaged them, which basically sealed their fate because the army chased after them. If you had made it somewhere else you could have maybe gotten a cheeky kill on the smaller armies but like you said it's a bit of a wasteful ability at the moment, would rather just made 3 faceless.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Yea I think the next clip is me trying to do just that when I make the army somewhere else. It's OK. Not great I don't think. TY for watching and commenting!

[@popsicleman8816]

The one nice thing about it is that if the enemy is at war and distracted, you can direct the horde to soft targets like villages, instead of castles, rapidly causing famine and devastation. In a way, it's a more subtle version of orc raiding party, since your mage doesn't accrue the menace/profile from the destruction caused by the zombies.

[@aaronimp4966]

If you've got an expendable Heirophant on hand, I.e. one you plan to use for infamy, you can use him to assassinate rulers, then use secrets of death. Rinse and repeat, he can get a stupid amount of profile and menace, attracting a stupid amount of heroes into wasting time chasing him. Meanwhile, you've got easy access to a handful of arcane secrets that the heroes will just ignore because they didn't come from a library. Win-win.

[@followingtheroe1952]

Thats really good to know that heroes only learn secrets from libraries! Also you can combine this strategy with the "political" style of like/dislike manipulation. Killing off rulers who dislike shadow, or bringing in heirs that are ambitious in nations you want to have civil war, or rulers that like gold/ dislike combat rulers in areas you want to keep unrest. The national/local actions menu is pretty slept on to plan decisions like this. Assassination is a pretty good tactic, I find assassination can also work if you want to infiltrate a capital. If a place is something crazy like a 10 security holy capital or in a juicy central location, you can look at the kings heir, enshadow the easier heirs settlement, then brutally assassinate the king to install your newly crafted puppet. Of course this tactic is more rewarding if the heir also has good like/dislikes to exploit, or if the king you are killing has awareness.

[@ZeroPlayerGame]

Hey, thanks for the tutorial! Sorry in advance if I'm too negative, but you would really benefit from editing out momentary pauses. Your quality of info and presentation style is very nice, but this is what makes me watch it at 2x speed despite you talking at a normal pace.

[@erosanji1694]

Was wondering if you could explain how madness works next time, truth be told i've bought the game but still haven't played it, i am watching tutorial to understand how it works.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Ooh that would be a fun topic! Leave it with me I'll see what I can do! Thanks for watching!

[@erosanji1694]

@@SimplyFunGaming Thanks, i am gonna be honest, i watched a few let's play when they used madness as i understood it..it seems what's important is the ruler likes and dislikes? As i understood, cruelty and ambitious are two good traits..but the thing is the game doesn't explain what gives those traits (dilikes/likes)..i am really lost, i'd like to understand what trigger madness and how to play it. Thanks, your video are very informative!

[@SimplyFunGaming]

@@erosanji1694 I'll do a tutorial on madness. What you're talking about I think is the ability Iastur has to influence Ruler personalities - that's a different thing but vaguely related. Might do a tutorial on that too haha!

[@SimplyFunGaming]

@@erosanji1694 Madness tutorial video dropping tomorrow buddy! It's a long one, but there's LOTS to go through! Hope you enjoy!

[@alexdedich6377]

Thank you, this was frustrating

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Happy to help!

[@jaysonmain8973]

dont get me wrong the tutorial vids are cool, but when are you planing on doing another full play through?

[@SimplyFunGaming]

Soon. I really want to start my Ophanim playthrough but I'm waiting for Holy Orders to be finalised. During my Iastur playthrough the beta had updated insanity AND Iastur's final powers so my videos were out of date on release. I'd also like to get to 1k subs if possible first, but we'll see.

[@villainreacts936]

to me, death magic and geomancy are the easiest because they are just press button actions, blood magic seems harder dor me the amount of planning needed seems much higher but it probably is just me.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

I quite like blood magic but you're probably right - it is likely the hardest school to use.

[@lisamaitland157]

17:17 what is happening to you there, is the unbalanced part of the game. Don't worry even on easy -3, they make more of them 155hp army's lol .You spawn on a map where 60% of the towns have a 115 to 233hp army's x1 to x4. I got my god up to 590hp from having it sit.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

I thought army strength was related to the prosperity and population of the parent location? So a smaller, less prosperous city/town makes a much weaker army than one that is larger and richer. I tend to ruin the locations before I try to conquer them, and I've not seen a massive glut of 155hp armies from all town or city locations. That said getting your 560hp god killed sounds rough and unintended. Did you 'raze' locations with her after killing the army once?

[@lisamaitland157]

@@SimplyFunGaming They randomly send 2 to 3 groups of 133-180hp armies after the god. When i do raze a city they just keep magically replacing killed army's faster then i can end the battle or heal. I have to run away almost all the time. If your right about the certain conditions for them to have high hp army's. That would mean the game starts off at the beginning with 50% of there towns near max.

[@SimplyFunGaming]

@@lisamaitland157 ok so armies only attack the snake if she enters their territory. If you want to use her to destroy humanity personally like that you must destabilise the areas you plan to attack first - using either plague or magic or other armies. She Who Will Feast isn't enough by herself in my experience. A good combo with her is to enshadow the strongest nation and turn it into a dark empire so it can supplement your feeding with snakey. My first LP, whilst low quality lol, covers the snake and how to use her well.