Re: The best PD ?
 

LA TC for vanilla. CBM the new machaka is quite good.

Re: The best PD ?
 

What's interesting is that some of them can situationally good.
Caelum may have lousy PD in most situations, but against self-buffing raiders fliers are devastating. Pan is the same way, though they're better overall.

Monkey PD isn't usually good, but the sheer volume of ranged attacks do pretty well against barbarian attacks, and that's really what PD is for, right?
(That and I had 1PD lame an Ember Lord recently. That Atevi Chieftain was awarded the Iron Banana. Posthumously, of course.)

Re: The best PD ?
 

This is the key really. While I broadly agree with most candidates mentioned in the thread, both good and bad, it really depends on what they're asked to do. In my last game as Marverni for example I had been using (pairs of) teleporting druids as well as some lesser horrors to quickly take large numbers of provinces, (against Kailasa/Lanka, Abysia, Fomoria and Ulm, so quite a bit of variety there) but that tactic imploded spectacularly against 1 PD from Vanheim. Now, I wouldn't call Van's PD exceptional in most situations, but the 1A mage was just enough to lightning bolt the horrors to death, while against the druids he kept summoning phantasmal warriors, which were then targetted by the druids (Gifts of Heaven or Bladewind) until the druids passed out and were skewered. (Intrestingly enough, if Vanheim had upped his PD to 10 or so, the same pairs of druids would probably have routed them without too much effort.)

Re: The best PD ?
 

Id say the best PD belong to either EA Hinnom or LA T'ien Ch'i. Hinnom get a surprising number of their mid-range avim giants. Not milita. And TC gets one blocker, two composite bows and one lance strike per point before 20. They get an additional lance strike and bow after 20.

Pyth/ermor used to have awesome PD. But their PD was nerfed in a patch and they got a slinger instead of a tower shield. So now it is merely good.

Re: The best PD ?
 

My impression on the Hinnom PD was not that great - they are just too few,the spearmen don't deal decent damage, and the Kohen they get at PD20 is only useful as high-HP target.

Re: The best PD ?
 

OTOH I got a quick education on just how crap monkey PD can be some while ago when a raiding group made up of ~30 Yomi archer goblins took out the 25 points of PD at my capital without breaking a sweat, however. No mage or priest support, no fancy thug or shifty placement tricks required. Didn't see that one coming.

Then again, earlier in that game EA Agartha's capital had been taken out and besieged right out of the game by a militia attack random event of all things, so I guess it could have been worse :).

Re: The best PD ?
 

Fata Morgana seems to make for some nice PD to me, though my experience is very limited. 30 Phantasmal Warriors may be very short-lived chaff, but since they're Phantasmal Warriors they contribute virtually nothing to the "75% HP lost = auto-route" mechanic.

Re: The best PD ?
 

Machaka easily has the worst. The low morale, naked and a single spear would have them lose against the other province defenses. I've been praying the Early Age Machaka would have been finished by Illwinter and glorious, yet it remains a myth in the map edit PDF... never to arrive.

Re: The best PD ?
 

LA Atlantis has really nice PD actually. Harpooners and ice lancers, even better now with the freeze effect in cbm 1.84. Incoming thugs get netted and then fatigued by the freeze, plus they're magic weapons in case he's ethereal.

The uw PD is not as good though, but has poison barbs and coral spears for certain situations.

Re: The best PD ?
 

EA Arcocephale is surprisingly good. The Slingers are useless, but everything they need to do is handled by javelins, and the Cardace is a solid defensive unit, mostly because of repel. It gets better over 20, as the Icarid is effective at preventing flying self buffing raiders, as well as hurting enemy archers.