Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Actually it's a high price when you can alchemize the gems for 25 of another type and then use those 25 gems to summon units/commanders which can kill the beast.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

What would be great is if, when the Eater of the Dead wanders off, there's a chance he decides *he* is a god, he becomes the Pretender of a nation of his own misbegotten, mutant children-by mating/raping various furry forest critters, the dead, MA Ulm, etc, and the Eaters of the Dead nation showed up on your doorstep.

Maybe-with multiple castings-even more than one.

And to whomever questions the existence of mighty Cthulhu-well, have you ever Wished for him?

well, have you?!?

I THOUGHT NOT!

Muahahahahaha!

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Yes. I have.
Unfortunately, I was running a mod which added him, hence, it worked perfectly.

In other news, bathusma (eg.) has like 90% regen, right. If you power wished, would you have like 250 hp per turn?

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Yeah, but you need to reach conjuration 9 for that. I can get my Marble Oracle at conj 6, with my national mage. OTOH, is a Tartarian gate REALLY only ten gems. Wow... That's a hella lot of tank for your buck. At least I have better protection, for what little that's worth (15 gems, to be precise).

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Yes tartarian is only 10D gems but you do after cure the afflictions and gift of reason in most cases.

However in the case of my 500 hp tartarian prophet, I got lucky in that it came as a commander with no afflictions. Has magic paths of W3 D2 H3, which is good. I can quicken self, breath of winter, divine bless, soul vortex (with 1 death gem of course), Hold a turn (catch his breath after all that spell casting), attack closet (whereupon he slaughters anything foolish enough to get in his way).

Oh he also has a personal bodyguard of 5 mammoths, so any spells like disintergrate, soul slay, petrify, horror marking etc target those instead... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

In a big/long MP game (map of our world, like 350 provinces) I GoRed a tarrasque and empowered to 2 or 3 in air, fire, and earth. Fire for fire shield, earth for the fatigue recovery spell, and air for .... cloud trapeze! Never mind mirror image, it was a great party crasher. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's .... Oh shoot! Runaway! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh - if the big T didn't come with regeneration, I either empowered in nature or put a ring of regen on it. Fun critters, even if not KoB level. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

LOL

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Well, actually...I don't know from the "best" unit in the game, but my *favorite* unit in the game is probably the Ancient Kraken.

There's just something really cool about the Kraken, especially after you've watched 'Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest' at the drive-in.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Arco's Oreiads

best assassin type unit... if u can't seduce 'em, charm 'em... and if that doesn't work, let the (magic item) bodyguard bash 'em...

if they get found in a province w/o real troops, can single handedly take down a medium PD'd province.

can play havoc w/ an enemy's army when u 'charm' the commander and gives u an action report of the ensuing combat. and if u happen to charm his 'thug' in the army... wreaks havoc on his own army..

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Pound for pound:

Gold - I'll second the "quality recruitable anywhere sacreds." In particular, Mictlan with F9/W9 and Lanka with E9/N9 can be absolutely devastating from year 1 through the endgame (sure, counters will come up later on, but they are still among the best basic troops, and numbers are king in Dom 3). Jotunheim's sacreds are horrifically powerful, but they are capital only and so favor smaller game types.

Magic - Dakini. Great access to air personal enchantments, flying, blood vengeance... a hunter, forger, raider, and SC chassis for a song.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Dakini and Mandahas are both nice. Mandahas are tougher but no blood vengance.
In response to bananafish's commend on Oreiads being the best assasins i would have to say that i prefer Succubi/EA Abysian Demonbred Slayers - Succubi are powerful and can also seduce but are expensive. Demonbred Slayers are flying, can lead raiding forces of misbreds and fiends of darkness and have good stats.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Those are fun units. In one MP game my cap was sieged by Mictlan. I had about 6 or 7 oreaids and I set them all to seduce. I think I seduced 2 of his commanders and killed the others with lightning bolt. It was great.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Heh.

Soldier: "Sir, those Jaguar warriors are hitting quite hard"
General "We no choice, but to use our ultimate defense.. release the maidens".

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Not the, "best unit" and SP only, but if you get a few barbarian provinces and have a decent nature gem income. Then build a load of barbarian leaders and give them all berserker pelts.

This effectively makes them 99 morale and gives them the +2 berserk bonus at start of battle. They add alot of bite to your armies and are fun. The ones that survive can get heroic abilites, those you may want to consider giving additional equipment too. I give additional equipment to those who get quickness or more hps.

Even more fun is Lychantropos Amulet on your barbarian leaders, its a bonus if any turn into werewolves.

10 berserk barbarians on the right wing and 10 on the left wing with orders attack rear can be very devestating when it comes off.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Oreiads are better than succubi's-

Oreiads do not bring the seduced unit back to the capital but the nearest adjacent friendly province. this is huge, since on a decent size map you don't have to spend the next couple of turns flying back into enemy territory.

If the seduction is unsuccessful, a well-equipped Oreiad can sufficiently defend herself (bottle of living water) and in the meantime attempt to charm the enemy commander... and you don't charm the mindless units-

when u start taking over enemy commanders and have them fight there own armies- can cause some serious havoc-

one caveat tho', prophet units cannot be charmed...

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Oreiads are worse than succubi's-


Oreiads do not bring the seduced unit back to the capital but the nearest adjacent friendly province. This means you can only use them on the front lines and not for raiding the enemy's research and casting centers.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Shouldn't Succubi have both #seduce and #succubus commands, to give you a choice between the two different forms of seduction? It could most easily be done via #shapechange into a second succubus form with the only difference being in the description and in the type of seduction available.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

most casting centers/research centers i know of usually has high PDs and patrollers...

which causes more disruption? capturing a research mage or capturing an outfitted combat mage?

which unit can be brought back into service quickly?

unless you are playing on a relatively small map; the oreiads are much more flexible and handy...

AND if assassinating the commander is just as good as capturing it, then the oreiad being sent to that research/casting center is just as good; b/c if u don't seduce u enter combat and effectively kill the commander or better the commander you charm takes over the province.

you can easily build and outfit enough oreiads to cause havoc on an enemy's main army than to summon 6-10 succubi's to do the job.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I recently had a handful of Umbrals (20-odd) and some unblessed Blindfighters (15 or so), plus 2 Ktonian Necromancers, take out 1200 or so underwater R'lyeh troops (sea lions, sea serpents, polypal spawn). Essentially the game plan was Army of Lead + Plague. Army of Lead kept the umbrals alive, and Plague killed all the enemies. I lost the battle because Plague eventually infected my own necromancers and killed them both, but only after the whole battlefield had caught the plague. I think only one enemy unit survived, a Mind Lord.

So anyway, Plague is a great army devastator.

-Max

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I still think Tartarians are about the "best" bang for buck, generally speaking...

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I agree, but please never nerf them.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Tartarians already are pre-nerfed, aren't they? I mean, most have afflictions, and most aren't commanders so they cost an extra 25 nature gems to make them really good. And since they are level-9 conjuration, it makes sense that they are extremely good bang for the buck.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

The main balancing factor of tartarians is that they need a mage with 7 death magic to summon them which means that without huge investment/design points+pretender time its hard to get them, let alone in large numbers.

D3 mage with skull staff, skullface, ring of wizardry and ring of sorcery - 30 death gems and 100 astral pearls iirc

D4 mage with skullface, skullstaff and ring of sorcery - 30 death gems and 40 astral pearls iirc

D5 mage(rare, probably either pretender/D3 mage with 110% random that includes death which requires alot of luck) with skullface and skull staff - 30 death gems, hard to get

D6 mage with skullface - 10 death gems, either pretender or one of the previous mages empowered in death

D7 mage - Pretender/one of previous with empowerment

note: boosters could be swapped for levels of empowerment in death.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

It does take some doing to get Tartarians, but it's worth doing and there are death summons which can help many nations climb up to it. To get started you need a D2 mage, or a D1W2 or D1S3. Then you can summon something with D3, boost to D5, which lets you summon a D4, then you can probably find something to boost him to D7.

Then... you get to summon pretender-class guys for 10 death gems each turn. They're certainly worth GOR'ing and healing, but are very strong even without it, and give you more high-level random magic.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

The FAQ states that for removing undead afflictions, you need either the Chalice or Gift of Health. I've got a few Faery Queens sitting around 'Heal'ing in one game, and while they managed to patch up a few devils, I haven't noticed any of my Tartarians healing at all.

Has anyone had any success healing Tartarians without the Chalice or Gift of Health?

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I have a vague recollection that we didn't want them to be healed, making inanimated unhealable, but that might be wishful thinking.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Fairy queens are absolutely useless when it comes to healing tartarians, they in particular seem to stuggle to heal feeblemind.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Gift of health does a rather nice job of curing afflictions on Tartarians. In the one game where I got it up while I had Tartarians I estimate (very rough guess, with a rather small sample size since the game didn't last very long anymore) that afflictions had about 1 chance in 4 of disappearing.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

The chalice is far better it basically heals same turn the tartarian is summoned or the next turn.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I have to like the Frost Father. It has a few weaknesses, namely encumberance of 3, and lack of any reinvig. But I've had one, no equipment, only alt 2 spells, take down fifty undead before falling unconscious. Considering I didn't get any use out of the chill aura, that wasn't bad. If i can get the right gear, he'll be untouchable.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I think Tartarians would be much closer to balanced (and more interesting) if their starting afflictions could not be healed.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

PvK -- balanced relative to what? I think tartarians -are- balanced relative to other level 9 summons that require 7 levels of magic to cast, don't you? I mean, clearly, it wouldn't be appropriate to have them balanced on a per gem basis with, say, a level 1 summons that only requires 1 or 2 levels of magic to cast (e.g. a Black Servant).

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I meant "balanced, all things that come to mind, sort of considered." True balance isn't measurable in Dominions, nor do I particularly seek it. I was answering the original question that Tartarians seem to me like arguably the best unit in the game based on their strength and magic paths given, for such a low cost in gems. There are many things at the top research levels that tend to overpower things at lower research levels, which is clearly intended as a way to have the game change and move towards a conclusion. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a problem the way they are. On the other hand, I think they'd still be one of the most powerful and efficient summons, and have more interesting thematic limitations (like the way the Allfather and Forge Lord pretenders can't heal theirs), if they couldn't heal their initial afflictions.

I don't particularly like research levels having a strong effect on balance. I actually would prefer it if there were some sort of balance remaining between research-1 spells and research-9 spells, because otherwise the things in the early game tend to become almost completely obsolete by the end. But that's an off-topic matter of personal taste which can be addressed by my own mods.

As for "other level 9 summons that require 7 levels of magic", I don't know that there (precisely) are any. I think other Conj-9 summons with similar magic requirements cost more like 25-40 gems and aren't particularly worth so much more cost. But as Shovah32 pointed out, one doesn't generally have _many_ D7 casters available. And I also consider Ghost Riders pretty dang wickedly efficient at D6 for 5 death gems, even though you don't get to keep anyone from it.

PvK

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

He is comparing them to living gods, who havn't been tortured in tartatus for millenia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Well, Tartarians are a lot cheaper than the Demon Lords. They're also cheaper than Abominations, and it's the 1 in 5 Titan/Cyclops/Spirit that can be kitted out and cast Petrify and buffs that really makes a difference.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Best unit is Daughter of Typhon, no question. Pity she is restricted to Sauromatia and serpent cult Pythium http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I utterly disagree. You would just make another lvl 9 spell fairly useless/boring. Leave Tartarians as is. If you did as you suggest, I would just summon bane lords for 12D gems and never use Tartarians. So you would just remove a fun part of the game. It takes considerable planning and skill to get Tartarians/Chalice or Tartarians/Gift of Health and a decent death/nature income to take advantage of it all. It is most certainly not inbalanced and is very much needed in ending long MP games or long SP games for that matter if you actually want to complete them.

Put research upto very hard, then you can battle away with your armies without magic having any real influence.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Meglobob, you don't need to overstate your disagreement with me, since we don't really disagree. As I later wrote, "There are many things at the top research levels that tend to overpower things at lower research levels, which is clearly intended as a way to have the game change and move towards a conclusion. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a problem the way they are."

However, not to make any other point, wouldn't you agree that once the research is done, if you go with 12D Bane Lords when your opponent can go for 10D Tartarians, even without any healing abilities, the Tartarians will handily out-match your Bane Lords for the same investment in death gems?

Yes, Very Hard reasearch is an easy (if temporary) solution to keep the army game going longer. Mods work even better.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Yea, your probably right on this point.

Conjuration 9 would be alot less desirable if tartarians were nerfed and personally every time I viewed my tartarians I would be annoyed that there was no way whatsoever of healing its afflictions. Horror marks/curses are already annoying enough.

Seems to me that there is alot of players of Dominions who would like to get rid of magic all together and just pit armies vs armies. As far as I understand dominions development history, magic has constantly been nerfed over time, making it less powerful and useful. This is very sad and diminishs available strategies and tactics.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I think there's a wide spectrum of tastes in magic power levels, most of which are covered by the available options, and just about all of which can be covered by mods. Personally, though I love playing with mortal armies, my usual preference falls somewhere between "I'd just like the mortal units to remain a somewhat relevant factor into the late game" and "I'd like the magic to remain balanced by cost and level requirements throughout the game". I too love powerful magic effects - I just like them to have fairly balanced requirements (and not merely based on research). However, I don't mean to inflict those tastes upon the unmodded game.

I do think though that there are some things that are overpowered versus their costs, and that the game becomes more interesting if there are requirements to get to the most powerful effects, so that the less powerful effects still have their niches. I see most of the changes from Dom 2 to Dom 3 as those sort of changes, rather than an attempt to remove the powerful effects.

I can also see that many players love seeing lots of high-powered magic, and so don't like to get anything magic nerfed. Of course, mods can serve those players at least as easily as they can the players who prefer less powerful magic.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

The fairy queens and priestesses with healing cannot heal the undead. To heal the undead only Gift of Reason or the Chalice will work.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

This seems a very odd way of looking at it, I can't think of a single spell that has ever been nerfed that is not still a useful part of any magic aresenal. The role of troops has been increased since dominions2, but ignoring magic is hardly a remotly viable strategy in 99% of games.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I had the combo of Gift of Health and having a commander with the chalice in the same army as some of my tartarans in a recent SP game. This really helped cure all those afflictions.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Well, if the magic was toned down very significantly, I feel dominions would approach Master of Magic, which of course isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering how many years I spent playing that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

On the other hand like you said, the ability to increase gold/resource/supplies and to lower magic sites, and increase research, really does change the game pretty dramatically in the direction you mentioned. (Not to mention what could be done on top of that with mods).

I'm just curious, do you feel like anything else should be done in that regard PvK? Perhaps some broader modding tools?

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

There are unbeatable SC's in sp, but even the best SC can be brought low by the right combination of spells.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

That's off-topic for this thread, so I'll post a new topic to reply.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Kind of annoying when your favourite SC gets taken out by a mid-level mage with a single blood slave(banish to inferno/claws of*insert word starting with C here*) with no chance to resist it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Other than Divine Bless, Smite, site searching spells, a little constuction for magic items and mages to do research the majority of nations already effectively ignore magic for the first 20 - 30 turns of the game.

Virtually all magic has very little influence on battles, with the sole exception of divine bless/bless for the first 20 - 30 turns. The average length of a MP game of Dom3 is 60 - 90 turns before a winner is declared, so for a 1/3 of the game magic has little or no influence on the game.

In Dom3 what do most players complain about? What threads attract the most debate? The answer is unfair blesses on certain nations sacreds, how unfair a elephant/mammoth rush is on nations like Ulm. With magic being so weak in the early part of the game, a strong bless nation or elephant/mammoth rush can only be stopped by a strong bless of your own, a awake pretender or stong/lucky diplomacy.

Magic needs boosting, especially battlefield magic and especially low level battlefield magic. Increasing AOE or number of effects or precision on certain spells would help game balance alot, especially early game balance.

From Dom2 to Dom3 quickness got nerfed, so the number of spells you could cast on a battlefield effectively got halfed. A big nerf to magic. At the same time army sizes increased from Dom2 to Dom3, so a spell with 1 effect killed 1 unit out of 50 strong army in Dom2 now kills 1 unit out of a 80 strong army. Another weakening of how effective magic is.

Alot of magic, especially battlefield magic needs a little strenghening, especially early on.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

Interesting. I definitely wouldn't myself think that magic as a whole needs to be stronger. By turn 30 or 40 mages can lay down a ridiculous carpet of fire that can annihilate the most powerful of conventional armies. I wouldn't want it to be any stronger.

You may be right though that early magic could be more powerful. I suppose it would be nice if a powerful F3 mage was able to hold his own even without any research. But I don't find I really have any strong feelings on this. I'm fairly happy with it as it is I think.

One thing I don't like so much is the extremely magic-dominated late-game, although I suspect that's because I haven't got good at it yet. It's sad when real armies don't matter at all against hordes of SCs and Ghost Riders. I think myself I would probably like to nerf a few high-powered spells (Tartarian Gate, Ghost Riders, Fog Warriors, Will of the Fates, Army of Lead, Arcane Nexus perhaps), and also make gem-producing items harder to forge. But again I'm not sure of my own opinion on the subject.

Re: Best Unit in the Game... Any thoughts?
 

I can't say I agree at all, there are plenty of nations with makes lots of use of battlefield magic. Nations like Marignon and Caelum would be crazy not to research some level of evocation if they are fighting an early war. A big part of what made/makes Helhiem so fearsome isn't just it's bleess troops, it's the wide array of powerful battlefield spells they can back it up with (skelly spam, lightning bolts, thunder strike, blade wind, magma eruption). It's true that people are reluctant to commit battle mages in the early game, but that is simply because higher research magic even stronger.

And all that aside, the basic way magic is used hasn't changed much at all since dom2. People didn't drag their mages off of research duty without a very good reason there either.

I won't argue there are a lot of very weak early battlefield spells that could really use improvement, but the proportion of strong ones to weak ones is about the same as anywhere else in the game.