Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

When I started out playing Dom2, one of the mechanics that shocked me the most was that summonables had no upkeep while national troops do. As a MoM fan, I was used to the idea that summonables were cool, powerful but rare due to the need to pay magical upkeep for them.

Whether or not you like armies Dom2 style or MoM style is I suppose a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I tend towards the MoM thing.

I think that the description of an army of bowmen, spearmen etc. and two or three golems towering above them and some gargoyles whirling overhead is cool. When it becomes all golems and gargoyles, it becomes not so cool.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Let's see - I've had them used against me, so yes.

And when I play Abysia, I've recruited them, so yes.

Perhaps you have another totally "useless" troop in mind?

Well, actually, I can think of one, maybe. Man's Slinger unit, useless because of the Longbowmen, albeit I'd have to check and see if the slinger is substantially cheaper, in which case I can think of a use for it also.

And then I believe C'tis has a commander that's worse than the stock independent commander, which begs the question of why anyone would recruit one of those instead of the readily obtained independent.

But these are basically anomalies, imo.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Well, I think Tauren has a point.

When I was in IRC, everyone I talked to about playing Vanheim said sloth-3 was good to take. Now, Vanheim troops are not that cheap resource-wise. I was blown away at the thought of sloth 3, but everyone in the chat seemed to think it was no big deal. Now, I think any negative-3 should hurt, badly, but with mostly commander-armies, it's no big deal.

I don't think national troops are useless, but at this point, they seem highly cost inefficient.

I'm determined to find a decent strategy that fields me armies as well as mages and fighting commmanders, but it doesn't look promising.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I'd call that an understatement.

Just because you consider something to be lacking in usefulness does not mean that others share your opinion. I do not intend for the following to be an insult, but have you stopped to consider that others might be more creative than you are in thinking up of uses for what you deem "useless"? Gandalf was making such a point in his Last post. I'm sure that the guys at IW do not agree that the game has useless units, just as I'm sure that they had something in mind when they created said units.

Please do not confuse the concepts of efficient and/or cost-effective with "useful". All too frequently folks dismiss what they perceive to be non-optimal. For example, when playing Jotuns, I build spearmen, almost exclusively. But I would not assert that axemen or slingers are useless. It is simply my preference to not build them. I could, if I chose to, make effective use of them.

Rather than dismiss certain units as "useless", likely because they are less than optimal for your chosen play style, consider Gandalf's words and see if you can devise a clever way to put them to good use. You might just do two things: surprise yourself, and stumble upon what was going through the developer's mind when they created the unit.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Van and Valkyries do not cost lots of resources. If you plan on paying for a decent bless effect, then they can be quite effective. Einheres on the other hand, do require a large number of resources, and they are very useful in most situations.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

This is just what Tauren was talking about. Going sloth-3, which most of the people I've talked to seem to think is no big deal, makes everything besides vans and valkries cost inefficient before the game even begins.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

On SCs: SC's add an element to the game. To make them less powerful, as a whole, is to reduce the impact of what I consider an essential, and intentional, element of the game. I wouldn't even play a limited magic game as a change of pace, I would play another game that was balanced specifically for low magic.

On useless national troops:
Technically there are few that are utterly, in all situations, useless...but let's be honest, there are *many* that serve the same function and, if they had never been introduced to the game, noone would care. Yes, there are situations where I might recruit a halberdier instead of a pikeneer but if I didn't have one or the other, it would not make any significant difference in the long run. So yes, a lot of units are kind of 'filler' units (which are still nice for flavor and all).

However, that said, there is only so much you can do with them and still maintain the nation's strengths and weaknesses. If you take a nation that has 3 kinds of medium infantry and make one a little lighter and one a little heavier, to make them 'useful', you just expanded that nations' power by giving it flexible infantry. Now you have to balance that...and somehow maintain the nation next door who was known for his heavy infantry and is now competing with your HI, MI and LI. So what now, give him some MI maybe to keep up ? Now everyone starts to look the same...

Summary: Yes, there are some units that are redundant in the roles they play...but expanding their roles would bite into the balance or individuality of nations. So, to me, you either have some extra units that are somewhat redundant or you don't have them at all. Having the choice doesn't hurt.

- Kel

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

The sloth 3 thing is normal for many pretenders. That is because you can overcome it with high admin castle or use low resource troops like mages and some of the sacreds.

Turmoil 3, on the other hand, is a killer. Even with luck 3, you still get those horrible bad luck events far too often. Finding 5 air gems in a mirror 3 times, erecting an extra 10 PD in a random province, and getting a bunch of free militia somewhere does not even come close to making up for losing 1/4 population in your home province early on. Plus turmoil 3 kills your income and you can barely afford mages at the crucial begining of the game.

The scales are not all that well balanced, but this has been discussed in the forum before. Order and magic are, in general, worth more than the other scales.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Even prod 0 and a castle allows you to recruit enough einheres to significantly increase your offensive punch over what you would have with only Vans and Valkyries. They are, after all, extremely expensive and vulnerable to elemental magic.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Unfortunately real life is not as balanced as Dominions. I suspect I was a useless unit, at least early in life. Hopefully I will be a late life winner, spending my days on Bahamas or whatever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif