Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

BTW limiting Lanka is not necessarily the bad thing as it's powerful enough; however there should be some counters to it available. My 40g/40hp idea is to make them actually killable by trapezing LfL Dakinis or with less Leech casts as melee against them is suicide.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Only against nations with air researching conjuration. There will be many natons that will not have shishis. Surely no strategy should be of universal use? Swarms of recruitable thugs will always be useful midgame, shishis or not. And 30 air gems isn't peanuts, air focused nations always have to few air gems. I see your point but I don't think it will stand true to testing.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Shishi can't fly so some PD can make it busy when you are casting spells like hand of death, life for life etc. Considering your opponent need 30A to get a single demon killer and air gems are much more valuable than blood slaves, perhaps it's not so bad...

Edit: And if you expected to meet shishis, just sneak some sandhyabalas into the province with Raksharajas/Dakinis. They will eat shishis for breakfast with their moon blade.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I'm gutted. Tried a grendelkin to see him die because he moved like a snail, never managed to reach the opponent. Ok, this was underwater, but still. Total waste of gems. Although he was listed at AP2/6, he never moved more than 2 paces on the grid at any time. So... died of turn-limit. I don't know if it's jsut me being unable to fight underwater. Still, a 3/8 bane lord in the same situation moved 4 squares per turn on the grid, so I'd expect at least 3 moves. I have no idea how water movement is computed, though, but as it is, Grendelkin is worthless underwater, which I think is unthematic..

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

>> Considering your opponent need 30A to get a single demon killer and air gems are much more valuable than blood slaves, perhaps it's not so bad..

30A fetch you TWO demon killers, who are also cloud-trapezing raiders in their own right, who dont really need much equipment to be effective, and are a counter to other raiders.
As for assassins with moonblades against the Shishi... did you try it? :) I think this assassin will die in one round.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I think you confused sandhyabala and samanishada. You can summon 3 sandhyabalas with 20 blood slaves. They have 30 hp, 16 att and 56 damage per hit against magic beings.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

About Shishi: maybe the problem is Prot 20? ;)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I did a little bit of testing of the Shishi, and think they do seem a little bit OP for just 30A gems a pair. Not massively OP by any means, but maybe just enough so that it can be noticed :) Since a magic phase raiding thug that's good to go out of the box for 15A seems a little bit cheap to me. Especially as other good magic phase raiders in the game need a bit more investment (even Sidhe Lords tend to need at least a 10gem shield and 5gem weapon. And a good bless as well to raid effectively). Not even Golems (the other general go-to magic phase raider) can raid without equipment. And they cost 30 Astral.

I think either the cost should be upped to 40A for the pair (as others have suggested), or de-buff them a bit. Perhaps remove the quickness (goes against the description though), or just knock a few points off protection (3-5). Again as some have suggested.

Or, maybe think about removing the magic paths altogether and reducing the cost to 20A for the pair. Think they'd still have a use at that price without the magic, as they can still border raid with Lychan amulet and Girdle. Plus still be a great help taking out Thugs or low end SC's (and bonus v evil) due to the six attacks.

For me, the main issue with them right now is that they are good to go out of the box, and you don't have the logistical hassle of needing to change equipment depending on whether you are raiding or taking down Thugs/SC's. As the Shishi's are good to go against either at any time. Which is not the case for most other thugs in the game, as they usually need to be specially equipped depending on what they are going up against.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

For 30a I would hope it would outperform an EK in combat. As it is, an ungeared EK is probably only slightly worse. Give the EK a 3a+3e gem armor (silver hauberk) and the EK is better. And he scales up better because he has full gear slots.

I, for one, think 30a is worth more than 400g + 6 gems. ymmv. Now, you do get 2 shishi, but you're going to need AMAs for both and probably other gear, they can't be blessed, etc... The EK is going to need half the miscellaneous gear, and doesn't really need any other gear improvements for basic raiding purposes (needs a weapon upgrade for anti-thug duties).

(Note that the shishi pairs aren't each worth 15 gems. The one with the anti-UD attacks is clearly better).

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

The Eagle King is not a very good example IMO, as Eagle Kings are one of the best recruitable commanders in the game. It's the same as saying you expect a 30/40 gem mid-game summon to be better than a Nief Jarl or Ashdod Adon etc. And Eagle Kings are almost certain to need a shield for raiding.

So I for one would be mortified if a mid-game summon that cost just 15 gems (2 for 30 in the Shishi case) could give you a unit that is as good, or nearly as good, as the best nation specific capital only commanders. Regardless of whether the summoned creature needed more equipment or not.


Maybe a universal solution then is to make Eagle Kings (and the cap only commanders of all nations) into a general summon so that every nation can share in the wealth :D