Re: Duel
 

Not that surprising really, you outnumber them more than two to one. Given sufficient troop numbers you can take out anything thanks to the multiple attacks reduce defence rules.
Cannon fodder has always been useful :lol:
I'd think flail troops buffed and used intelligently would do a good job against just about anyone.

You've already lost a battle thanks to the monkey PD, which somewhat disproves your theory of it being useless. The problem with your original premise is that it's based around the value of the troops as toe to toe combatants against another unit, which isn't always the purpose of a troop, nor a good use of the troop. Bandar's PD is pretty much infinitely renewable chaff. They're fairly useless if your relying on them to see off a determined assault, however if their only purpose is to distract your mages and archers long enough for some decent combat troops to engage, or for a mage to get off a particular spell, then they're pretty much perfect. Of course, it means you can't treat defence for Bandar the same as you would for Abyssia, but then I think you could say the same thing about any aspect for any nation. The trick to winning isn't picking the best troops, but using them in the best manner. Sometimes it's crushing your enemy, sometimes it's dying in droves.

I guess to be honest that's the only real flaw with Bandar's little monkeys - thematically, they don't seem like one of the nations which would be happy to sacrifice a few thousand of their own for the 'greater good', but there you go.

Re: Duel
 

That was a very good post, Archonsod, which I hope Lord_Bob doesn't ignore, and a good finish to this thread I think.

Re: Duel
 

They had an W9E9 bless.

F9 gets the Fire Attack, which would make them worse, but the +4 to attack is meaningless. Flail troops have a defence of 5.

Re: Duel
 

White Tigers cost 100 gold, and White Monkeys cost 23 gold. Flail troops cost 10 gold and 26 resources. Why don't you do the math.
22 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys. 68 Flail Troops and 4 Smiths

The Bless troops had a W9E9 bless. They were fighting in their dominion, with their prophet and only won because my troops didn't have their prophet and routed.(also the -1 from dominion really hurt).

Losses:
7 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys. 68 Flail Troops and 3 Smiths


So PD is important now?

And no, it was only usefull ONCE. Now that I know it's there, I can pretty much route any army stationed in that province by having my smiths spam blade wind. There is 2 melee Markate per point, and from the number of Bandar Warriors I think he had at least 40-50 PD. That's 800 gold right there. More importantly, that means I can add 80-100 routed to the army route total with two blade winds. Next, I have to hope the smiths/flails kill enough guys to push the army below 50%. Which, since the total already has 80-100 routed, isn't that hard. Then the Archer Markata(Morale 7 +1 for dominion) must begin making morale rolls every turn. Once they route I will have 120-160+ soldiers routed just from dead markata. I am now closing in on 75% mandatory route.

Since the first line of his post is "logic" which would result in any player using it losing in MP, that's pretty smart.

"My enemy is losing more, and my units only cost 10 times as much!"

Re: Duel
 

In the Bandar Log caste system, the markatas are considered nobodies.

Goodbye
 

I give up.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...78-goodbye.png

Re: Duel
 

Well... not entirely. "intellect barely above that of simple beasts [...] despised by larger monkeys and apes."

Given that they evolved intelligence under the blessing of divine beings and their belief in transmigration, they'd likely form an opinion that either Markatas were spurned by the divine beings or that they are a white one or other ape that did something horrible enough that they were reborn into a lesser form.

Re: Goodbye
 

Hey, T'ien Ch'i this turn attempted what should have been a highly successfull strike back against my empire.

You see, I pretty muched totally destroyed his army and sieged his capital last turn. But. 4 Archers, with Protection 9, and a single commander escaped into another province. T'ien Ch'i launched a devasting, massed attack on one of my province. I know what you guys are thinking. What could stop 4 unarmoured archers and a commander. Well, it turns out 11 Monkey PD can do it if your lucky. Now, the Melee Markata routed, and one of the Atavi groups failed it's mandatory roll and routed, but, within one round of my whole army routing the bowmen finally failed their morale roll. I won. Woo-hoo.

Another attack only failed because the Morale 14 Cave Drake inexplicably failed it's morale roll on round 2. Also, he targetted my archers, not my melee units. Oh, the Cave Drake was backed up by 6 archers, a commander, 2-3 crossbowmen, and a single pale one. That force should have won. PD 10. But if the Cave Drake hadn't wussed out it wouldn't have matterred how much PD I had. My own archers would have killed enough PD to rout my own army.
[Not inexplicable. I remember now that a Pale One was in the battle group with the cave drake. When the Pale One died the "group" was brought to 50% strength and suffered a severe morale penalty. Alone the Cave Drake would have won.]

But I could take these provinces back?

That's funny! You silly people make me laugh! For 55 gold he can put 10 Footman, 10 Archers, and 10 Light Calvary in the province!

As a result, my entire siege army is now diverted, lest the 4 Archers of Death strike again.

They are terrible to behold in their 4 archer glory, are they not?

You are wrong. I am right. That is why there is no discussion, only whining on your part.

Re: Goodbye
 

Is Tien Chis PD considered strong? Yes.
Is the PD of the monkey nations considered among the worst in the game? Yes.
Do either of these facts make/break these nations? I think not.

Are you trolling now? I have a suspicion that you are.

The monkey nations CAN win as I have proven to you. Sure, their PD is a weakness but it can be compensated for. Every nation has pros and cons - One of Tien Chis pros is it's strong PD, one of the cons of the monkey nations is their weak PD.

It may change their multiplayer effectiveness but they CAN still win.

Re: Goodbye
 

Oh I know exactly what I'm dealing with.

Re: Goodbye
 

I have had to divert nearly all my reinforcements from the siege in order to prevent him from raiding me with the 10% of his army that is left. My only viable method of cleaning up his current provinces is to leave a skeleton force in the capital and send massive armies versus his provinces. Rather than do that, I'm going to try to break his capital(without the additional siegers, but he is a new player, so hopefully there isn't an army of militia in his capital, HOPEFULLY). I am also attempting a Dominion kill. Since I killed his prophet(by luck) this is possible. There is that luck again. I'm doing well. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. He didn't pre-make 5 Tower Shield Footman Death Squads before I broke his capital, so he only has archers and such to raid me. But because the Cave Drake is an effective unit for raiding, I am stuck with massive armies everywhere.

And that's after a Win-Or-Die attack on his capital. In which he didn't use his research mages to back him up.

I am only doing semi-well by Luck. Luck. Luck.

Re: Duel
 

You do realise that units are balanced among their nation, not necessarily with those of other nations?
Only if you choose to include it in your strategy. As I've said in another thread, there are times I won't buy a single point of PD. There are others where I will spend 20 points or so on PD.
Assuming of course your opponent doesn't bother moving in a force to defend, or otherwise change the playing field, which if they had any sense would be their next move...
As I said, assuming he simply leaves it alone, and doesn't move up troops who'll laugh at blade wind, or even a mage to counter it. Of course, it would be incredibly nasty if he actually decided to attack that province on the off chance you'd set up the army there to take on the chaff of his PD rather than the heavy infantry of his main army.

Only if we forget why you're playing these games in the first place. At the moment, you're only proving you can't use the monkeys effectively http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Goodbye
 

He has small armies raiding you? Use slightly larger forces to push him back. If he is raiding you then he is most probably close to atleast a few of your castles - recruit a couple of units to take out his raiding forces.

Re: Archonsod
 

I think these arguments about cost of units are flawed anyway. The limiting factor for Ulm recruitment is resources, not gold. That's their schtick.

Looking at the resource cost, Ulm took more than 3 times as many resources into the battle as Bandar.

Looking at cost of dead units, Ulm lost out on both gold and resources.

(I suspect that both armies in the Ulm vs. Bandar fight mentioned were equivalent to 4-5 turns of maxed-out unit production - perhaps they could be considered equivalent in that respect?)

Re: Goodbye
 

So I could send in, maybe 15 Longbow Bandar archers(18 hitpoints and 14 protection) costing 300 gold and a indie commander.

And he could spend 120 gold on 15 PD and have 15 Footmen, 15 Archers(Composite Bow), and 15 Light Calvary(Composite Bow) waiting for me. Then, I could lose the 15 Archers and gain nothing.

Counter-raiding doesn't seem like a very good idea. No. I need 200 gold plus commander armies in every province he can attack to prevent raids. That's only 920 gold! + 60 gold in maintenance a turn. Of course, I can only get away with that because he has no real army left.

Re: Archonsod
 

You are quite right that resource cost is the limiting factor for Ulm. That's what makes elephants an effective weapon. They are gold eaters, and even when you win they tend to get Limps and Cripples and Battle Frights that ruin 100 gold elepants. But they are VERY VERY LOW RESOURCE COST. So they can be spammed out aggressively. However, it is also true that W9E9 bless isn't cheap. However, I suspect that Shovah32 was messing around, and had he been serious W9F9 would have inflicted alot more casualities.

But the cost of a good bless should also be included. You can be certain he didn't have Production-3.

Re: Goodbye
 

Those 15 Bandar archers can be moved around the map, join other armies or defend provinces. The PD on the other hand can't ever attack, can't ever move and is a total waste of money if you never attack the province.

It won't even stop the province rebelling ...

Re: Archonsod
 

On similar grounds, surely the cost of Prod-3 for Ulm should be taken into consideration. Some nations need good scales to get the best out of them, and some need a good bless. As I see it, it's all part of the intricate web of race balance.

Re: Archonsod
 

I wouldn't call 20 resources low resource cost.

Unfortunately only the ulm guys have even higher resource costs but they also get +25% resources as nation bonus.
So 1 ulm guy takes ulm about as long to produce as another nation an elephant if they have equal production scales.

The elephants are problematic though since they are so devastating. If the elephant user can amass a critical mass of elephants he usually wipes out your whole army and takes nearly zero own casualities.

I don't do tests anymore, but i guess with decent LI that can be produced as fast as the elephants at equal gold costs the LI has a fair chance of winning. Anything that costs only 1-3 resources in huge masses.

Re: Archonsod
 

Elephants are rather low on resources, if you compare the gold/resource ratio (which is really what you want to do).

Re: Archonsod
 

Keep this up and this thread will have more posts then the bug thread in a week.

Re: Archonsod
 

Bug thread has 13 replies, so it is not that hard to beat.

Re: Archonsod
 

Umm... so, best I can tell, Monkey nations can win, and have done so. This thread might as well die.

Re: Archonsod
 

Evilhomer...

1300 replies to the bug thread. You should get some new glasses. Or did you not learn that zeroes at the end of number do have a meaning in school?

Re: Archonsod
 

You're both right, the Bug Thread has both 13 and 1300+ replies.

Re: Goodbye
 

Re: Goodbye
 

Ah there is two bug threads, be more specific http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Goodbye
 

<for various reasons this post has been deleted by Lord_Bob>

Re: Goodbye
 

Lord_Bob, what game are you talking about? I'm almost sure you never said. It can be kind of hard to follow you. Also it is quite random you talking about some game you're playing on this thread - I can't tell if it has any bearing on the topic or not, but it doesn't seem to.

Re: Goodbye
 

I seriously wouldn't try to make sense of this guy, he's clearly living in his own little world. Take his sudden unprovoked rant against "Western European arrogance", for example.

Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT
 

I propose to change the thread title to

"Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT"

Re: Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT
 

Maybe we can see in this thread the bad effect of this forum counting the posts and giving ranks for it.

Re: Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT
 

I'm not going to ignore Lord_Bob, but I am going to ignore this thread. It was alive, but now its a walking corpse.

When the thread itself is more a topic for discussion than the topic of discussion, its time to hold a funeral service. It's a civilized enough zombie - not a flame war - so I don't want to lock it - just let it cross over to the other side.

/Starts funeral music

"Go into the light. Don't be afraid. You died a long time ago. Niefelheim is waiting for you on the other side."

/walks out, never to look back

Re: Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT
 

On LP's closing note, thread locked.