Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

Shade beasts are rather (and unexpectedly) good in fighting early\mid game sc's who are not protected from poison. They do poison damage and are of size 1 and attack 11. They may just surround and kill fast those unprepared but, of course are very vulnerable to fire brands.

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

That seems fairly arbitrary and not really in line with my experience. What a gem is worth varies immensely depending on what type it is, what kind of mages you have, what your research level is, what your opponent is fielding, etc. etc. 5 -10 gems can absolutely swing a battle with thousands of gold worth of troops even with modest research if you're in a situation with the right leverage.

Summon summer lions to surround the enemy prince of death (without fire resistance) that is rampaging through everything else you've got.

Summon a behemoth and buff it with iron warriors, luck, body ethereal and quickness and watch it smushify hundreds of enemy troops.

Plop that crusher in the front row to stop that hoard of elephants like a brick wall.

Let those triple blessed vans run right over a band of spine devils (hint: length 0 hooves get poisoned regardless of their defense/glamour).

Let those mind blasters blast the be-jesus out of your good MR regenerating sea trolls.

Let those big nasty Niefel giants chew through your cold immune and ethereal dispossessed spirits.

Sure, these are all situational uses, which is kinda the point. You're gonna find most summons are not very cost effective to just summon and use as line troops, but they bring a wide variety of abilities to the table that give you tools to handle situations when your line troops aren't cutting it.

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

Nice idea, never knew that

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

I have a new found respect for Sea Kings Court now that gem generators have been banned. In a MP game I am in at the moment I put up a early Maelstrom and started summoning a Sea King every other turn. You quickly build up a lot of Sea King thugs which with built in regeneration and amphibious are rather excellent (better than water queens) with the right (and cheap equipment), also the water gems start rapidly building up. The trolls summoned with them simply put right upfront of your armies to absorb all the damage a enemy dishs out in the first few rounds. They are useful damage absobers and your happy to see them die so you don't after pay there upkeep. Very useful for taking out water nations as well, when supported by shark attack, friendly currents, water ward, wave breaker and quickening.

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

I'm surprised that sea kings are not considered worthy SC material. They have regen, some natural protection, good MR, good HP, and can self-cast personal quickness and breath of winter.

Of course, you need some good equipment to make them into a true SC, but they come earlier than most traditionnal SC chassis, are not unique, and for the cost you get sea trolls to escort them or your armies, and they make water gem.

If you happen to have a E9 or E10 blessing, a simple shroud give them decent (not great, but decent) armor (thanks to the blessing and natural armor) without adding enc, and some reinvigoration to keep with their quickness.

Add a brand for some area damage, the classic vine shield + amulet of luck and amulet of antimagic, maybe some boots of the messenger if you need more reinvigoration, and any helm (horror helm if you can, but with the earth bless, even a low-prot one will do if you don't have the gems or death magic)

And if you don't want to use so much gems because you're saving them for later SCs, just a brand and a shroud already make for a very good thug, no ?

Of course, without the earth blessing, they are harder to equipe, as you will need more reinvigoration because of the inevitable enc + quickness, but they still seams ok as earlier SCs for me.

But I am not very familiar with MP games as I usually play solo (yes, I know the AI sucks, but I play more against the map that the AI and have a blast doing it) so maybe I missed something that make them less desirable as SC ?

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

I try not to base general strategies on things like E9/10 bless since such a thing requires planning in the early stages and many nations don't take a bless strategy since they cannot sustain it very long. This, therefore, has to be part of an initial strategy rather than as a strategy evolving during the campaign. Obvious alternatives to the shroud would be Rainbow Armor, Lightweight/Weightless Scale Mail or other gem-cheap, reinvig or low-enc armor. This means you may need a reinvig item somewhere else to keep enc down.

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

I do like Call of the Winds as the hawk is good both as a patroller and as a "transport" commander to ferry those troops produced in castles to the front lines.

I also like the Call of the Wild as the werewolf is a good tugh when kitted or can be left in a forest summoning allies to get free wolves. I normally leave 1 werewolf in each of my forests just sommoning wolves.

Re: Worthwhile summons (early to mid)
 

In an oblique way, we're in complete agreement. I was answering the question of how useful summons are generically -- as a mass of front line troops. And the answer is, not very, unless you have high gems/low gold.

In unique/special situations they can become extremely useful, but which ones for which situations would be the answer to a different sort of question than what the OP asked.