Cross Breeding

[Fleshbits]

Pleas explain.

As far as I can tell it is just a summon spell. It is somehow associated with a skill, but I dunno how that skill comes into play.

[Krec]

Better chance to breed better creatures.

[Fleshbits]

I've only seen one unit type result from the spell despite letting it go for many turns. How many creature types can it yield and what factors are there aside from the skill?

[Krec]

ive used it a fair bit with the freaklord and have gotten some good results.

[Gunnar]

in another thread, people said that they just can't find a really GOOD use of crossbreeding

it seems niche and just not very useful

[1337Dude]

Would be interesting if cross breeding got some love. Maybe a more intricate system behind it that would yield more varied results depending on what you need, and perhaps the skill should be more effective overall. I like the idea behind it but it seems like a relatively empty mechanic tied to one or two Pretenders.

[Althaea]

Originally posted by Fleshbits:

I've only seen one unit type result from the spell despite letting it go for many turns.

To clarify, are you talking about the generic Blood/Nature Crossbreeding spell or the Abysian-only Blood/Astral Crossbreeding ritual?

The generic ritual is supposed to give you a whole grab-bag of different unit types at once ranging from hunchbacked humans with tentacles to regenerating flying pseudo-dragons, while the Abysian variant gives you one type of unit at a time but still varies significantly in terms of what that result is.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Gunnar:

it seems niche and just not very useful

It's niche, and you shouldn't base your entire strategy around an army of Foul Spawn, but they DO have their uses and can supplement your army in unique ways. A lot all of them have multiple attacks, some of them can disease enemies, a few of them cause fear, and you have a couple combat-monsters (Foul Beast, Grotesque) available via Crossbreeding.

In MP especially, the Crossbreeding/Improved Crossbreeding spells can be useful to instantly create armies you can use to attack multiple enemy provinces at once.

[Diergato]

I'm using them for patrolling my blood hunted provinces, they require no upkeep or 1 gold a year at most, also picking the good monster and the ones i think are useful to suplement my armies. Think some could be useful for light or even medium raiding. Grotesque or others with gift of reason can make great thugs.

[Fleshbits]

Originally posted by Diergato:

I'm using them for patrolling my blood hunted provinces, they require no income or 1 gold a year at most, also picking the good monster and the ones i think are useful to suplement my armies. Think some could be useful for light or even medium raiding. Grotesque or others with gift of reason can make great thugs.

Where can you see a particular unit's upkeep?
It sure would make alot of decisions easier.
I hear that sacred units are also half the upkeep price compared to regular, but have no way to verify it.

[Telos]

If you click for more information on their Morale stat, it tells you information about yearly upkeep. Don't ask me why they put this with morale, rather than some other stat.

Yes, sacreds and slaves have half-upkeep.

[Althaea]

An alternative way to keep track is to simply be aware that upkeep is 1/15th of a unit's up-front cost, or half that if sacred or a slave. (Sacred and slave can actually stack for 1/4 upkeep, or 1/60th of the purchasing cost, but this combination does not appear in any vanilla nation.)

So a unit that costs 15 gold to recruit will cost 1 gold per turn, a commander that costs 150 gold will cost 10 gold per turn, and so on. The game keeps track of and adds fractions so that 3 units that cost 5 gold each will cost a total of 1 gold in upkeep per turn.

That doesn't help for summons such as trolls, of course, whose upkeep can only really be manually checked.