Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

One thing I thought about with early game forging is, as a strategy, it can help your thugs get above 6 in their defense vs generic types they might face. I believe that the difference between attack and defense must be rolled on a die 6, and each time a 6 is rolled then another roll is done and added. Thus for attack and defense differences between <0 to 7 it only relies on a single die roll but above 7 you need two rolls in your favor to score a hit (the first to get a 6 and the second to be greater than 1). Thus the odds of getting hit start to go down greatly. And then if you get over a difference of 13... Given that some thug chassis have high base Def (the Vanheim commanders start with around 22-24?) then an Ice Sword and quality shield can push their def into a realm where your average melee type wont hit them this side of the next ice age.

Perhaps thats a reason to forge early, or perhaps an over analysis? :p

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

It depends on your SC duty against other SC, or flanked by bodyguard troops, defense is very good. Against masses of troops, it's value diminishes compared to protection, awe or luck. Every time you are attacked, your defense goes down. When you are surrounded by 12 jaguars with 3 attacks and W9 bless, your defense drops from 30 to 0 before half the jaguars have attacked.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Sharpness weapons are nice to attack high prottection enemies. Some of the swords that give you att or def are good agaisnt units with high defense too. But at the lower research, often your combatants need a good shield and a good armor much more than a sword. It depends on the SC, though

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

That assumes all of them get to attack. Awe and Fear are your friends in this case. Well, that and the eye shield.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Which is exactly what I said: defense has diminishing returns against masses.of troops, while other forms of protection, such as Awe, Luck, or Protection, dont.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Protection is good against normal troops, but once squads of enemies start using armour piercing or negating attacks, its effectiveness is greatly reduced. You're unlikely to encounter massive squads with these sort of attacks, early game, unless you're up against an opponent using certain bless strategies.

I'm fond of regeneration and reinvogoration on thugs. Iterative probability proofing vs. critical hits in order to better protect a gem investment. Reduces affliction chance too.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

It has diminishing returns, yes. Coupled with Awe or Fear though, it remains highly valuable - particularly if the incoming attacks aren't very good. Which can sometimes be arranged, what with Darkness and all.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Yep. Against heavy hitter SC, high defense is better. Against masses of trops, high protection is better. Against low Morale troops, Awe is better. Against non-magic weapons, Mistfom is better. And Luck is solid (but not the best), against anything.

It really depends what is your SC for. The best is a mix of everything. But i'll rather have a SC with Prot 30 and defense 10, than a SC with Defense 30 and prot 10. That's why awake E9 Cyclop with Prot 29 is a wonderful SC god to start expanding from the get go, and a W10 Fathers of serpents with Defense 29 and prot 5 can't. There are way much more mundane (and common) ways to ignore high Defense, than to ignore prot.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Etherealness is also great for avoiding mundane (non-magical) damage. I tend to think of it working best when combined with high defense. Mistform on the other hand, as well as any hit from a magic weapon, gets popped by high damage hits from mundane weapons. For that reason I tend to think of it working best when combined with high protection.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

I agree, Mistform needs some prot to back-up. Etherealness is great when combined with other form of evasion (be it high defense, Awe, Luck, Glamour, or a combination of all of them). Even Twist Fate works great with Etherealness.