Best sacred units?
 

Sorry if this has been done before, but I can't find it anywhere. Following on from the thread about bless effects, I'm curious to see what people consider the best sacred units. This is overall best, not necessarily best bang-per-buck, because money/resources might not be a concern for some. Though a unit which is too expensive to produce is also not great.

I won't do a poll, because there are 36 sacred units, not to mention all the different R'lyeh spawns. Here's my obvious shortlist though:

Neifel Giant (Neifelheim)
Jotun Woodsman (all Jotun themes)
Lava Warrior (Abysia base)
Daoine Sidhe (Man LoT)
Knight of the Chalice (Marignon)
Dryad Hoplite (Pan NE)
Celestial Soldier (Tien Chi)
Van or Valkyrie (Vanheim)

Also, are all sacred units capital-only? I don't think the Jotun Woodsman is, nor Mictlan's Eagle & Jaguar Warriors. Not sure about others. Being able to recruit them outside the capital would be a huge boost (though the Mictlan units are pretty crap).

Finally, I've not listed sacred commanders - how many of you use blessings on your sacred commanders, and which ones? I can see that an astral blessing would be good for mages - anything else?

CC

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Many commanders benefit from a bless, primarily Jotun (any bless but particularly nature), Van and Sidhe (any bless, but particularly water). Woodsmen are capital only, but not vans, flagellants or jaguar warriors. White centaurs should certainly make the list, as should flagellants and hunter spiders. Really, though, there are no sacred units with the possible exception of red guard that are not well worth it with a bless.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

No Hydras?

Re: Best sacred units?
 

IMLE hydras are way too expensive and have crappy defence, meaning lots of afflictions (and no recuperation).

Interesting to see a vote for Black Hunters and Flagellants.

CC

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Afflictions are not a problem (regen), but expense is. They are not unusable, but as far as sacreds go they are on the low end of the scale.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I'd think that Black Templars (ulm IF) are at least as good as Knights of the Chalice, although I havn't used either very much.

Jotun Woodsman arn't as bad as hydras, but they have low prot and high cost too... they often don't live long enough for my taste http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I tend to like the Black Hunters as well. They're similar to the Jotun Woodsmen (once the rider dies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) with poison and webs. If you can keep the rider alive, they get an extra attack. The are a bit expensive and resource intensive, tho.

I like Flagellants, C'tis Serpent Dancers, and Mictlan troops as well, but I use them differently: they can be produced in bulk, so even tho they die like flies, they can be used in mass attacks. With say, a death-4 fire-4 blessing, they can often rout larger forces by inflicting enough little wounds and fear to cause morale collapse.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "best" sacred troops.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

As for sacred commanders I *really* like Jotun Herses with a N9 bless they rock! 60 gold and they can be recruited anywhere. Put 8-10 in the front rank of a small-medium army and they p0wn!

My vote for most cost effective would be Daoine Sidhe. But it's capitol only. My vote for best non-capitol would be the van.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

The black hunters are awesome : give them something to cut down on afflictions (E9 or N9, or both and they're amazing. One of my favorites. Actually I think my favorites are black hunters, jotun woodsmen, niefel giants, and vans; others have too many flaws / weaknesses, while each of the ones I mention can have a number of very potent bless strategies attached. And IIRC : A black hunter with an E9 / N9 bless is protection 27. After it goes berserk : protection 30, _and_ regenerating and berserk. Sweet.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I like Mictlan with a dual/triple bless best.
Their sacreds are so cheap that you can still afford them.
Because of their cheapness you can afford 1 bless more than others like Pan or Vanheim.
And Mictlans Sacreds with something like s9f9w9 are very potent. As a plus the formidable Jaguar warriors are one of the few non-capitol only sacreds.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I did alot of tests on maximized bless. Such as getting three lvl 9's, or all lvl 4's with one or two lvl 9's. Even though you have to take maximum negative on every other scale it actually turned out to be a playable tactic. Not a win-every-game one but an interesting one. It should be an old thread around here somewhere on it.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I love bless strategies. In our family vs. family game right now there are two teams, each with two nations. Three of the four nations have strategies involving two level-9 blessings. :-) Marignon -- 9 Fire/9 Astral, Mictlan -- 9 Fire/9 Water, and T'ien Ch'i Spring and Autumn -- 9 Water/9 Earth.

That last one is me. You're probably wondering what the heck I do with *that*... ;-)

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Yes, i really wonder: Black Spiders are also my Favs with N9 and F9!

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Yeah, those Black Hunters and Black Hunter Lords are sure something. It's hard to afford their gold+resources in addition to getting good blessings though...

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I'ved used Pan's White Centaurs effectively. The only real problems (other than losing in the middle/end game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) I have had are with Machaka's Black Hunters and Mictlan's Jaguars Warriors.

I overcame the Hunters because I could outproduce them. If the Hunters could have been fielded in something approaching similar numbers, I probably would have lost.

I couldn't beat the Jaguars one on one and had to resort to a combined arms approach of softening up the Jaguaur hordes with ranged fire. Preferrable lots of ranged fire. The Jauguars are very tough, I think.

These latest battles were in a Zen modded game using Sabre Cherry's unit mod (which gives the White Centaur the light lance). But the White Centaurs were never defeated by any normal troop (sacred or otherwise) in any unmodded game I've played in the past that I can remember. Summoned troops (Mass Ghost Riders, Mass Devils, etc.) and Super Combatants are another matter entirely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I think perhaps Flagellants with Fire-9/Astral-9 dual blessing are the best. The reason is that they cost only 10 gold and minimal resources each, and they can be recruited in any fortress. And when you throw them into hand-to-hand combat, they deal out great damage before falling.

You can find evidence of this in Saber Cherry's battle simulator. It appears to me that if you spend X gold and Y resources on Fire-9/Astral-9 flagellants, then the resulting team of flagellants will decisively win in hand-to-hand combat against other national troops that you could have bought for X gold and Y resources, even if you get a dual-blessing of your choice on sacred troops.

Am I wrong?

Note: flagellants are susceptible to missile fire. An Air-4 blessing might be valuable, or else battlefield tactics to protect your flagellants from being decimated by missiles before they get into the fray.

Also note that your supply of Flagellants has to be continually replenished. They aren't like Vans or Daoine Sidhe or Niefel Giants who are intended to slay enemies and keep going. Rather they are intended to slay enemies, then die themselves, and then be replenished by a new wave of even more Flagellants.

Re: Best sacred units? Flagellants!
 

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Marignon can use The Baphomet, which starts with 2 Fire, 2 Astral, and is cheap (since he is immobile), which means you can get 9 Fire/9 Astral blessing for your Flagellants for fewer design points than almost any other popular dual blessing. And you can also recruit White Knights if you prefer expensive, durable, capitol-only sacred units.

I rarely recruit White Knights. They cost -- what -- 90 gold? and they don't dish out as much damage as nine Flagellants would. However, they do have their uses, such as being heavily armored (and thus safer against missile fire), being able to flank attack, and lasting for more battles.

I once had a White Knight or a Paladin or two successfully flank attack and chop up the enemy's entire leadership of half a dozen mages and bodyguards. That was fun! (The enemy was C'tis, played by Argitoth.)


Okay, just to recap:

Marignon, Baphomet, 9 Fire/9 Astral, Flagellants:

1. Cheapest sacred units period.
2. Among the best hand-to-hand fighters available at any price.
3. Plenty of design points left over for dominion (you need it to recruit more Flagellants per round), scales, etc.

Re: Best sacred units? Flagellants!
 

P.S. And don't forget the +4 Magic Resistance of the Astral-9 blessing. I'm currently playing a team game where my team-mate is doing this dual-bless-Flagellants strategy and my enemy is R'lyeh. It turns out that blessed Flagellants are resistant enough to mind blasts that they can go ahead and destroy the R'lyehn troops despite being under a barrage of mind blasts.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Wardens are not listed either, though they are relatively good .
Lava Warriors are not that great, they fatigue at an incredible rate even in non cold-climate !

Celestial soldiers should be out of the list, as they are not recruitable (and neither summonable easily by TC mages :roll: )

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Lava Warriors also have terrible defence.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Not very wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I didn't try too many opponents for flaming flagellants, just ones that I thought might work. Two kinds can beat them. F9W9 Serpent Dancers demolish them on an equal resource basis (100% win), and are as good on an equal cost basis (47% win). E9W9 Heart Companions beat them soundly on an equal cost basis (83% win), but always lose on an equal resource basis. But both of these are capital-only units.

OTOH, it's not possible to perfectly test all opponents. Jaguar Warriors look like they might work, but the simulator can't handle their second form. Since it only handles melee, it can't cope with sacred spell-casters either. I wonder how W9S9 Shamen would do. They're half as many resources, and with a few buffs (Astral Shield and Luck) I think they might be able to hold off 11 guys each. Even with the S9 blessing, Flagellants have relatively low magic resistance, and they only have to fail once vs. the Astral Shield to turn into Walls of Meat for the Shamen to hide behind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Tho in a real battle, the Shamen would probably collapse from exhaustion...

Re: Best sacred units?
 

meh, who says equal resource needs to be hand to hand? massed longbows swat those little buggers like the flies they are.

Where those guys shine is against early SCs (well, and most indies). I used to do the flaming head strat for Mary against Norfleet; put a bit of the fear of god in him for a change (its esp. successful because the twist of fate negates much of the lifedrain, as target does not seem to be maintained and the Vampire Queen will attack other flags who still have their twist of fate intact as readily as those who don't, it seemed)

I like all mictlan sacreds, the vans, the herse, the tuatha; maybe the dancers, pythium w/ a water bless, white centaurs.

I find spiders too... fragile ;p

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I think one of the reasons I like to have good blessing for Marignon is the cheap and good Flagellants WITH Knights of the Chalice. If your enemy has Longbows, you can have small army of Knights to kill them off, and not too many early tactics work well against low-prot masses which deal lots of damage and small groups of high-prot high-stat elite units.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Ok, so, new guy here has to confess to something: I'm still not entirely sure what holy/unholy effects are...

I know, this is probably a really lame question, but, really, what is different about a holy/unholy unit, and what do the levels in them really mean? As far as I can tell, unholy commanders can reanimate better/more undead, but other than that, I'm sort of clueless.

Alarik

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Holy/unholy units (or commanders) are your sacred units, particularly devoted to your cause... you get the picture. In game terms, they cost half upkeep (1/30th of their gold cost), and can be blessed. Blessing them gives a +3 morale bonus, and other effects depending on the magic you picked when *creating* your Pretender. Level 4 in any magic path gives a minor bonus, level 6/8 increases that bonus, level 9 gives a big bonus, and level 10 increases the level 4/6/8 bonus. For example, Fire 10 results in a +5 bonus to attack, plus flaming weapons; Fire 4 would only give +2 to attack. Stacking blessings can work out quite well, and this thread is dedicated to coming up with ways of boosting the power of sacred units via blessings. There is no difference between Holy and Unholy units here, except the colour of their candelabra icon.

Holy/unholy mages have access to Holy or Unholy magic; they are your priests, in other words. All priests can call back your Pretender (you need 40 priest levels to call the Pretender back), can build Temples, and require a Temple to be recruited. Holy priests can preach to boost Dominion in a province; Unholy priests can reanimate creatures. Holy and Unholy priests can also cast some spells, depending on their priest level: Banishment, Blessing spells and Morale spells are the most common for Holy priests, and Unholy priests have different spells depending on their nation. All priests are also sacred, including the Unholy priests of Broken Empire, who lack the Sacred icon, but still cost half the upkeep.

So higher levels in priest magic are only needed to get access to the better spells, and for preaching/reanimation purposes. On a related note, Prophets are effectively priests, but do not cost any upkeep, and will be either Holy or Unholy depending on your nation and on the Prophet (Unholy priests stay Unholy when they are priests, and vice versa).

Re: Best sacred units?
 

And yet for some reason, "Holy" undead can't preach, even when they have Holy-3. (Evidenced by having a nation like Man make an undead commander such as a black servant the prophet. Gets Holy magic to use on the battlefield, can build temples, but can't preach.)

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Would you believe an undead's promise of happy afterlife?

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I have a hard time doing anything with the c'tis sacred serpents (not counting DT). They are pretty expensive and die fairly easily. I don't often play c'tis with a bless effect so maybe they are more effective than I realize.

I havn't bothered with ermor Wailing Ladies or Knight of the Unholy Sepulchre. The ladies don't seem worth 15 death gems and I never seem to get enough knights.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

If a Ghost King is running arounf as Pretender, quite possibly. And said undead can hide, I think: under heavy robes, it should be hard to figure out your good ole pastor is actually a Revenant. Of course, mindless undeads need not apply.

That, and being an undead can be good, so long as you get to choose *what* kind of undead you want to be; Immortality is certainly good enough for my tastes, and not aging isn't too bad either. That way, if your Pretender was kidding about that "afterlife where you shall get every kind of wonder you can mention", you will do just fine regardless.

Priests for Ashen Ermor will, of course, have a much tougher time doing anything looking remotely like preaching to the human populace.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Besides the underworld of Dominions doesn't strike me as a nice place. It almost feels like all those sentient undead creatures are strugling to get out of there.

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I'd be more likely to figure he's telling the truth, since he's been there after all.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
And as to another (closer to topic) point raised recently:
--Lava Warriors fatiguing out too quickly? Note to self: Next time I design Abysia go with an E9. It's a start and also reduces the defense problem with that +4 prot... I also have gone E9 with Pythium (not sure how much help it'll be: I'm always too busy with other stuff to get the Communicants that were the whole point...)

Re: Best sacred units?
 

Without naming any specific religions, many religious leaders seem pretty mindless to me: "Do what I say, go to heaven... Do what I say, go to heaven..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Best sacred units?
 

I'm fond of Greater Othernesses, as they nicely compensate for R'lyeh's weakness in melee crunching, and being void summons don't cost upkeep.

(Yeah, they have Meteorite Guard, and Lobos; but the former are hideously expensive, and the latter unarmored, if memory serves.)