Useless or redundant units?
 

Hi, first time poster--so please be kind! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Anyways, I have been playing the demo for a while now, and I am wondering why there are so many seemingly useless and redundant units. By "useless," I mean those units are so awful that you would hardly use them unless they are free; by "redundant," I mean those units that are not awful but whose roles are better served by other units.

Here are some examples of such units, and I am wondering if people agree with me or whether I am not using them properly. Further, I would welcome if people can suggest other units that may fall into this category--as I have only thus far played those nations that are unlocked for the Demo.

Let me begin with the two nations that I play most: Arcos and Kaliasa.

Arcos:

*Icaryds: What is the purpose of this unit? Given that Arcos lacks reliable missile troops, I can see why a flyer could help in the missile troops/mage suppression department in the early game. But we have two problems. First, Arcos does have a wonderful--if over-priced--flyer in the Wind Rider. Second, even considering that the Wind Rider is over-priced and cannot always be massed, the Icaryds are inadequate for the job. They have poor attack skills so they won't be able to kill much, and they have low protection (for Arcos), so they can't tie down enemy missile troops/mages either. Against a decent-sized army, they last basically one or two rounds, do very little damage, and then are obliterated. I suppose you can say they work as cannon fooder, but they are too expensive at 18g for that role as well. So what's up with these guys?

*Chariot/Chariot Archer: It isn't that these guys are horrible; they are subpar but serviceable. It's just that I don't see these guys doing anything that the Wind Riders cannot do and do it better. The basic problem is this: If you have a very powerful flying cavalry, why do you need a lesser cavalry? I do concede, however, that in later turns where cash is overflowing and you've maxed out your Wind Rider production, you could use these guys. But when you reach that point, wouldn't an HP 10 cavalry that is not a flier be obsolete anyways?

Kaliasa

*Markata Archer: These guys are absolutely the worst units I've tried to use. As with most super-cheap troops, they die fast. These guys are cannon fodder par excellence. The problem is, missile troops are not supposed to be cannon fodder. Or at least they should be able to fire at least one volley. But they often cannot even do that, because their small bow (the epitome of sucky weaponage) won't let them get off a volley, even when you stick them at the front of the tactical battle map.

I also feel the same about the Markatas. 5 HP melee-are you kidding me? I appreciate the need for cannon fodder, but 5 HPs with no protection is too little even for cannon fodder.

*Guhyaka/Yavana: I feel the sacred melees of Kaliasa utterly useless. The problem is their near-nakedness, their protection 1 armor or non-armor. Should 35g-40g sacred infantries be this vulnerable? Other than the fact that they are blessable, their basic melee stats are only marginally better than the considerably cheaper Bandar Swordsmen, other than the plus 5 HP and plus 1/4 Def (which is balanced out somewhat by the plus 9 protection the Bandar Swordsman enjoy).

Now possible solutions?

I don't see how the Icaryds can be improved without buffing them to the point where they become indistinguishable from the Wind Riders, minus the pegasi. Perhaps less is better in this case, and the unit should never have been conceived.

The Chariots need to be slightly buffed. How about adding about 3 HPs to account for the horses? As a related matter, I think all cavalry should receive such HP boost--which is consistent with the trend in other games where cavalry usually has more HPs than infantry.

As for the Markatas and Markata Archers, again, they are just too pathetic. Why not remove them altogether? The Atavis are comparable to the cannon fodder units of other nations.

Finally, the Yavana melees can easily be balanced by giving them *some* armor. I know it's hot on Kaliasa but even Indians (whom the nation is based, it seems) armor! Why not give them at least a leather equivalent?

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts, and please be gentle to a newb





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Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

well, for arcosphale:
I do buy icaryds, because I use a mass pegasus strategy

pegasus knights are size 4, so only 1 fits in a square... however, a size 2 icaryd can fit in along side them, so after I have a surplus of money, or a screenfull of pegasus knights, I add icaryds, slightly more than 1:1 ratio of icaryd to pegasus, increases their damage output significantly, and dramatically reduces the amount they are outnumbered by, since you have 2 targets per combat square instead of one.

chariots trample, and presumably have a place when facing a mass of little infantry... sure the pegasus knights fight better one on one, but the chariots will clear people out a lot faster trampling all over them. I do think the chariot archers kinda are rather pointless =p

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I don't have answers for many of your points, but I think you're wrong about the Yavanas of Kailasa. With the right blessing these guys mop up in melee. The trick is just getting them into melee, which can be accomplished a few different ways, such as by having a screen of markatas in small groups out in front, and/or armoured Bandar warriors (which deal with arrows much better).

Try a water 9 blessing and screens of weaker troops to draw fire, and you'll be impressed with what the Yavanas can accomplish.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

There are actually a lot of very redundant or useless units in dominions, however most of the ones you mention are not.

Icarids are indeed rather difficult to find a niche for, even with modding. Chariots are not really redundant with wind riders, but they are little overpriced.

Markatas are servicable for taking lance hits/decoying, and the archers are usable with flaming arrows.

The Kailasa sacreds are actually very good, so long as you protect them from archers with some air on your bless, or just lots of decoying.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I will go through and try to find it but I remember one faction in the Early Age having two units that were exactly alike, down to their looks, costs, stats, and equipment pieces. It must have been a mistake to include them both.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Probabaly Helhiem's two Helhirdlings, the noncapital only one is indeed a mistake.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Aye, I just checked. You're right.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Kailasas sacreds get Awe which is better than armor, and they have high Def from what I remember. And they can get blessed for even higher def or Air shield.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Chariots trample and cost 3 times less gold than wind riders, so I don't see them as useless. Chariots will be used with "attack rear" to kill indep infantry since the first turns, 125g wind riders will be made later in the game and used with "attack archers" it's not exactly the same thing. Icarids may complete a wind rider group (as you need more than 4 units to avoid too frequent morale checks it's good to have some cheaper flying units to add when you start to use the very expensive wind riders). Chariot archers are the only archers of Arcocephale, but too expensive I agree.

Markatas are size 1 when the good melee troops (bandars) are size 3. As each attack gives -2 to defense even if they miss, using markatas in addition to bandars isn't a bad idea. And if you can BE or luck them markatas may become really annoying as your ennemies will waste 2 or 3 attacks to kill totally expandable units.
The only thing not to make with markatas IMO is to use them as arrow catchers. A single arrow will kill one in most cases, they make the ennemies waste far more damage if they reach melee.

Markatas archers... hum... ok nothing to do with them, except to hope they will be targeted by "attack archers" instead of your longbow squad.

PS : the cruel thing for bandar nations is to start with markata archers instead of real ones. They make the starting army not usable before turn 3 (or even 4 if you have a big sloth scale) when most other nations may take a province in turn 2. I'd like to see a pack of atavi or vanaras archers instead.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Something they share with pretty much all cavalry with bows. The lack of a "skirmish" command pretty much means that infantry archers are always going to be better value than their cavalry counterparts.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Most of the points I would have made have been made above, but I'll add a few minor ones:

Flying units are not necessarily only used in combat. They patrol much more efficiently than their earth-bound counterparts, they siege more efficiently, and they can be used in raiding parties to strike behind the enemy lines, taking out the comparatively easy provincial defense instead of the main-line armies.

Sacred troops are priced according to their potential effectiveness, not their unblessed stats. As someone above noted, an air blessing on the Guhyaka/Yavana can get them through the rain of arrows to combat where their reasonable defense skill (often much better than protection, especially if you are outnumbered), Awe (!), and high strength can make them effective. There is also the Yavana archer, the only long bow recruitable in the early era as far as I know, with an incredible precision of 12 -- give them a fire-9 bless and you have an astounding artillery capability. Finally, the Guhyaka is recruitable anywhere, not just in the capital, which makes fielding massive, blessed armies possible... and this should also be factored into their cost.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

*ahem* Fire bless doesn't affect missiles....

...but Quickness does allow them to shoot about twice in a round, and the +affliction chance of death bless affects missiles also.

Flying units, those with superhuman stats excluded, need microing to be effective.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Fire 9 doesn't affect missiles. Water 9 and Quickness does, though, and as even Yavana Archers have Awe and decent defense, they have some survivability in melee, and their high strength offsets their low-damage attacks.

Death 9 is also interesting in that the 350% affliction chance also works for missiles.

Kailasa can also summon better sacred units later. Gandharvas are armored. The unarmored ones are still a nice addition to those forces.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Well, you learn something new every week or two.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

The description of "flaming weapons" spesifically mentions "melee attack". Death Weapons don't work on missiles either, but the increased affliction rate does. Flame Arrows work, of course, but Kailasa will have a hard time getting that... It might be worth it, though. They have lots of archers.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Yup. Also, Dominions assigns the other traditional light cavalry roles -- scouting and raiding -- to other units, but leaves the traditional high cost of horses.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Let's just make a mod to remove all light cavalry, perhaps excluding ones with light lances. Would anyone cry ?
Some of them are even available only via magic sites ! Horse brother - wow !

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Impossible without deleting poptypes. Or replacing LC units with other units. Which would be hard, because the same LC types are found from different poptypes. About the only thing you could do would be to #copystats and #copyspr an archer or something to their place. In which case, there wouldn't be anyone crying. However, I'd rather buy Light Cavalry than have no archers.

Two suggestions, which probably wouldn't work:
Give all LC Stealth 0. Evil Dave mentioned that Light Cavalry aren't raiders. They could be.

Give LC better capabilities in moving across the strategic map. Mapmove 4 and/or all terrain survivals, or something similar.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

The idea of redundant or worthless units keeps popping up but there isnt much agreement on what they are. What you think of as worthless might better be phrased as "worthless for the way I play". Check the differences and see if you cant come up with a strategy or tactic which might rely on that difference. Slightly cheaper, or better morale, or different weapon or armor.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Gandalf: for a start, try finding good sides of Light Cavalry. It's a hybrid of light infantry and awful archers, with mapmove 3. You don't pay 25 gold for an awful archer. You don't pay 25 gold for light infantry. There's no synergy between these two. If we exclude mapmove3 (Lion tribe infantry is just as fast!), well... You can probably Have one unit squad of light infantry and one squad of archers for the price, food, and upkeep cost of LC. And before you say LC is more flexible, you can send squad of LI and Archers in two different directions.
What I'd love to see is tactical purpose for Light Cavalry. Giving them stealth or pillage bonus would be nice, but does nothing to adress their battlefield uselessness. With the unrealistic +2 precision I proposed they could at least try fire&retreat, without risk of being engaged in melee. I don't think few volleys of overpriced( = low in numbers) archers would accomplish much, but it would be a good start.
I understand you have much more experience at this game than me. You should be more capable of finding a real use for Light Cavalry than me. I know many spells, nations or units eventually turned out to be quite useful in their niche, but LC is not one of them. If I'm not mistaken, Light Cavalry has consistently very little actual value since Dominions:PPP (which I didn't play).

I was toying with a mod idea. I wanted to implement early Dragoons (soldiers who'd go somewhere mounted, dismount at destination point, and fight as infantry). But I see very little point in that. As far as I know, foot soldiers have no advantages over mounted units in Dominions3. I could give dragoons Tower Shields and heavy infantry armaments, but I'm afraid the battle engine wouldn't benefit from extra mobility, if simple light cavalry can't.
As for dismounting mechanic, I could use shapeshifting.... if only I could attach arbitrary effects like shapeshifting to weapons, and make them shapeshift into footmen upon attacking something...

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

While that's generally true in Dominions, I don't think it holds for mounted archers. Here we don't have a unit or two with some slightly odd stats, but rather we have a class of units that nobody, to my knowledge, has found any real role for.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

The Tien Chi medium horse archers with

14 prot
11 morale
12 defense
10 str
10 Attack
3/23 move

Light Lance/Hoof/Composite Bow/Buckler
for 35 gp 21 resources

seem like they might be useful, in small numbers anyway. For example, you can place them in front of your normal archers or commanders to protect them from melee a bit, since they will just stay in place and shoot rather than charging forward.

I haven't tried these particular units but the Bakemono Samurai Archers with longbow and no-dashi are nice for that multi purpose role.

I think medium cavalry could be made pretty useful in small numbers if they eliminated the -2 precision penalty.

True light cavalry will probably always be pointless due to the nature of the battle engine. Giving them surival for every terrain and less supply need (small steppe ponies can just graze unlike warhorses) would be a good start though, along with the +2 precision.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Action: you conveniently left out Precision, which is rather important for archers. I can't check it myself with just demo. I'm still at mercy of Tuxgames.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I like the Tien cavalry since they get comp bows, Falchions and lances. All good weapons.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Its 8

Sorry, I mentioned they got "-2 precision" a couple times but I didn't mention the exact number, I should have thrown it in.

This precision penalty does not make too much sense since they don't really shoot on the move anyway in this game. I think if they didn't have this penalty medium horse archer cavalry at least would be viable, although that probably wouldn't be enough to make people buy light horse archers.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

honestly, given their stationary nature, they should have a precision bonus if anything, as they have a better view/evation relative to their targets than regular ground archers

concievably they exist for fire and flee, but they are just too expensive... the chariot archers are more rediculous than the standard ones =/

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

When a chariot archer is killed, then it becomes anormal chariot and tries to trample the opponents, doesn't it? At least that is what the description makes it sound like. If that is the case they could be used defensively. Give them a command to just fire, then should infanrtry approach and kill an archer,t he chariot will then trample the attackers. It could be worth experimenting with.

But to make it worth the cost the chariot should have two archers in it.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I think chariot archers on "hold and attack" will first stay put firing a bit and then charge the enemy for some trample action. If so, they are not useless at all.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

The cheap monkey archers,the Markata, mass very nicely. Line them up against lightly protected troops and the volume of fire adds up. This can be useful for a quick start if you have milita in the provices next to your capital. Sure, anything can kill milita, but can they do it as cheaply?

Against heavily protected troops, the spell Destruction is very avalible for this nation and very effective. Rust Mist is not as quick, but lasts longer, so spamming the two in unison turn Helheim into light infantry, no matter what the blessing. The short bows also reduce your friendly fire, if you are using Bandar infantry with their protection.

And, as Nerfix said, Flaming Arrows is a lovely spell for this nation, though you probably have to get it via your Pretender. Wind Guide is also nice, but Flaming Arrows is better in my opinon.

Placement of this units is important, as they can run ahead if you are not careful. They are not powerful and need to be used as part of a larger strategy, but they are not totally useless.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Light/medium cavalry *with lances* does indeed have its uses, at least in SP. Hold and attack works well if you micromanage them so that they charge into the enemy rather than the other way around. You can do this against the computer but not reliably against another player. The souped-up Barbarian Kings medium and heavy cavalry (they have very high stats for their price) can compose a pretty nice army. However, the bows are almost irrelevant. Basically they just let you nick the opposing army a bit while you wait for the infantry to separate from the archers so you can charge them affordably. I've never tried the chariot archers but I assume they'd be similar. Without lances, though, cavalry archers are useless. You pay twice the price for a unit that's easier to hit with arrows.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I really like the LA Tien barb cavalry. It's like a composite bowman, a Knight and an imperial swordsman rolled into one.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

One thing about light cav which has always irked me is the (occasional) lack of a hoof attack. Yes, they're not always warhorses, but light cav needs every break it can get.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Thanks for both points, Quietly. I had not factored in the Icaryds' smaller size and thus their role as a complement to the Wind Riders. Nonetheless, properly blessed, my Wind Riders hardly ever die in SP v. AI in the Demo. As for the Chariots, you are also right; they can get rid of infantry faster than the Wind Riders with trample. But then I tend to use an SC Pretender with the trample boots, so I guess that's why I didn't see infantry as a major issue.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Nerfix,

I don't think saying that the Kailasa sacred are blessable is really of help, because so can the sacred of other nations. Units should be evaluated first on the basis of their raw stats.

Several folks have mentioned "awe," and how, pardon the pun, "awesome" it really is. Could someone be kind enough to explain the arithmetic of it? I only have the Demo, so I don't know how "awe" or "fear" work. It would be helpful if numbers are thrown out. For instance, if a particular has a plus 10 awe (or plus 10 fear), what does it exactly do to troops fighting against it?

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Dear Gandalf Parker,

We have some serious philosophical differences. Taken to extremes, what you seem to be suggesting is that the game is perfectly balanced, and there are no units that are extremely powerful or extremely weak or redundant per cost. Do you really believe this? It would assume that the game designers have infinite resources and infinite powers of judgment. Even game makers with far greater resources tinkering games with far fewer variables and aspects like Blizzard take years to get the balance right.

Of course, but then you may subscribe to Dr. Pangloss's belief that this is the best of all worlds--against which I cannot say much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

By the way, regarding your implication/accusation that I am singling out units that do not fit my playing style, well, I tend to be an extreme experimenter. I am not the type of person that finds the "right" tactic and play it to death. So while I can appreciate a specific analysis of where I have gone, to make a quasi-ad hominem argument along the lines of "You are too stupid to have figured out how to use the unit" isn't really helpful for anyone.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

As far as Awe is concerned. Awe makes a unit do a morale check in order to even attack the unit with Awe. I'm not sure if the Awe modifier just adds to your side of the OE roll, but I'm pretty sure it does.

This means that most units under 17-18 Morale have a very difficult time attacking units with base Awe. This makes awe very powerful against mundane units (standard units with 8-14 morale, before blessing) but nearly useless against high morale units (Undead, Mindless, Constructs)

Fear works by making a unit force a morale check with a modifier equivilant to the fear formula in the AOE the fear covers. I don't know if lesser fear is in Dom3, I haven't noticed it yet, but lesser fear is invdividual units, while /Cause Fear/ gives a AOE equal to the modifier, with a -1 to the morale check for every 5 levels of the fear.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I must respectfully disagree. If you have two units that are absolutely identical other than one being sacred, you simply cannot price the sacred one the same as the mundane one. If for no other reason then the mundane one would never be purchased... even with no bless strategy, a generic bless causes sacred troops to have better morale.

You have to look at the sacred attribute as a "raw" stat to be priced as well, and it is not one that can be assigned a set value because so very many factors come into play. Sacred archers will benefit from a water bless more than a sacred cavalry unit, which will benefit from a fire bless more than a an armored unit, which would benefit from an Earth bless more than....

The proper choice of a bless strategy and the greater availability of sacred units in one nation over others is one of the major themes of Dominions, and probably more so in Dom3 then in Dom2.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I would just have to say that Water bless is good on most cavalry, it is by far the best universal bless because not only does it give +4 Def/Quickness but your pretender recieves +1 Def for each point of Watermagic it recieves.

But you are right you do have to choose the right bless for the right units.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Not really.

Considering that most plaayers who take level 9 bless and double lvl 9 bless will choose dormant or imprisoned pretender, and considering that role of single SC in the mid-late game is much less in Dom3 than it was in Dom2, and finally considering that defence attribute in Dom3 in general got a very large nerf from Illwinter (esp. so for SCs), +1 def per water level for your pretender is certainly not a major factor when evaluating water bless.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Heh those yakashas are one of my favourite blessable units. I tried air10 w9 n4 dom9 lady of rivers and it mops up indies and most AI troops. The usual 9 guys + priest you get per turn can beat any indie 5 province with very few losses.

in addition to combat the low protection you have e3 mages, which can easily cast legions of steel once you get const 3, but I haven�t tried that strat yet.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Oh really? Well actually it's a huge factor if you want to go single bless. While double bless is a rusher's dream, you can't play that with every nation since they don't have usable sacreds.

Also the W9 Blue Dragon or Father of Winters is nearly as effective as the Cyclops after 2 Research (depending on your nation initial gem income) and can be crucial for some nations to hammer through HCav provinces quickly turn >5.

Maybe this is not something that you consider, but I consider initial expansion and Awakened Pretenders for early expansion for non sacred-heavy nations at least as important as double blessings with heavy sacred nations.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Initial expansion with pretender is still a valuable (and old) tactic, just like it was in Dom2.


However since now each attacker reduces defence attribute by 2, as an opposite to -1 as it used to be in Dom2, even 4 attackers will reduce your effective defence almost back to its original level. And you are usually attacked by much more than 4-5 units when you are fighing indpes with your pretender. Unless you prefer to play on indep strength 1. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

+def is a nice little bonus when you take W9, however it certainly not as important factor as the effect of w9 bless on your sacred troops. And if you don't have good sacred troops, it doesn't make much sense to take W9 bless just for your pretender for inital expansion. You would be much better taking few magic paths for the same money, and buffing your pretender with low-level buffs, than with +9 def from water.


In other words - for your Dom3 pretender beneficial effect of W9 bless is smaller than beneficial effect of W4 bless was in Dom2, in vast majority of situations.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Yeap, Air bless is very good for yakashas, since it take care of one of their critical weaknesses. Prot 1 is still going to hurt vs humans, if your opponent has high morale troops who won't mind smacking units with "awe". But at least the archers and most indep provinces won't be much of a problem.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Or you don't have your pretender attacked by more than 3 or 4 units at a time and your pretender has fear and you can make your opponents rout effectively.

It's rare in Dom3 that I expand with just a pretender, since it's more useful to use a half-strength army and a pretender to hammer those HCav and Xbow provinces.

I don't know about that, with the introduction of sacred summons and some few support sacred units (not hardcore sacreds) I don't think it's neccessary to not consider a bless for them. Especially since good summons especially in the early/mid game are few and far between unless you happen to like Vine Ogres.


I do not agree in a MP setting and don't agree with your assessment as far as bless situations. However, I do agree that in Dom2 water was more effective, if only for the fact that quickness affected spellcasting. I doubt anyone can say that water, as a whole path, has not gotten weaker overall from Dom2 to Dom3. If you look at their summon line, battlefield line, and evocation/thamu line, they are nearly all have a lesser impact than water did in Dom2.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I'll have to agree with this point entirely. If I'm not going a bless strat, an Awakened Pretender is almost always my decision just forthe quick jump boost in expansion ability. A dragon is still very adept at fending off indie 6 and the dom 9/10 cyclops/medusa build are both very effective. I do like to goof off a bit occasionally with VQ or GK chassis still though for the old time SC sake.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I afraid of people who feel that balance should move closer to each nation getting equal pieces which wear different colored uniforms like in some games. And actually, I havent seen worthless units yet. Only worthless units to me. Most of the units people dont like are cheaper and less armored so they feel that they are worthless compared to the "better" units. To me thats a play style choice.

My personal preference (Pangaea) tends to get "improvement" suggestions which remove all of my favorite pieces, and replace them with more Ulmish pieces. Less stealth, more armor, and in my opinion.. less Pangaean.

I dont think I commented on any particular persons choices. I talked generally based on many conversations Ive seen. If you feel I was talking about you in particular then I apologize for that.

And Im not trying to imply that any one is too stupid to figure out a style different than their own. If I did then I would have to include myself since obviously I could never master the use of certain nations and their units on the level of some of the players whose strategy stresses large armored armies built with formulas so efficient as to make an accountant dizzy. But I am leary of declaring such strategies as the ultimate winner of everything. Nor do I consider them the ultimate decider of what is good or not good to have in the game.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

To be frank Gandalf, people feel that the unarmored versions of units that have the same gold cost as armoured versions are useless because they _are_ useless compared to the other choices. Battles between equal gold costs of hysapists and cardaces will end in an overwhelming victory for the hysapists. Equal resource cost battles are closer, but gold, and not resources, is almost always the limiting factor on troop production beyond the first dozen turns. If you have the ability to choose between slingers and shortbows, the contest comes out overwhelmingly in favour of the short bows. There are some nations where the basic troops have natural protection values that make light infantry more effective, such as Atlantis or C'Tis, but on the whole, light infantry are to be entirely avoided. The same can be said of unarmoured horse archers, who cost more gold than regular archers, yet do not provide any kind of battlefield or strategic advantage over foot archers.

As it currently stands, most of Pangaea's units serve little useful function. Pangaea's best stealthy raiding units are also their most effective fighters in a pitched battle. You could remove both generic Satyr units, both minotaurs, and centaurs archers without having any serious effect on the nation.

Satyr sneaks at least have a strategic use, hoplites have the armour to not be slaughtered by arrows, and revelers go berserk so they can be an effective meat shield. The two generic satyrs have almost no armour, and a morale score of 8 that virtually guarantees that they will run at the first sign of trouble. The minotaurs would be decent if trampling units would also attack smaller units with their weapons, and if they had attack and defense skills at least as good as a normal human. Currently, they are size 3, and meaning that they they don't cause sufficient damage to size 2 troops to be worthwhile. Centaur longbows cost almost three times as much gold as Man's longbows, giving them only a third of the offensive punch. Then there's centaur warriors, which completely overshadow any other Pangaean unit other than the Cataphracts and white centaurs. If given the choice between purchasing one centaur warrior, or four satyrs with javelins and spears, the correct choice is almost always going to be the single centaur warrior.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

I think you misunderstood the part of my post as far as water bless concerned. My initial post was objection to your statement that having +9 def on a single unit (your pretender) is such a big deal in Dom3 when evaluating the merit of W9 bless.

You said (quote): "it is by far the best universal bless because not only does it give +4 Def/Quickness but your pretender recieves +1 Def for each point of Watermagic it recieves. "

I've pointed to several reasons why it is not the case anymore in Dom3, due to several changes in game mechanics.

I do agree that water school in general, as well as W9 effect on sacred troops are weaker in Dom3.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

In theory, swarms of lightly armored units should be able to overwhelm heavily armored enemies. In practice, it's often better to just use heavy armor instead. It's not just initial gold cost. If my understanding of rules is correct, you pay much higher gold upkeep costs for light infantry, because it's based only on initial price which is the same as heavy's and sometimes holiness. In addition, you need more supplies, and growth scale was never considered very strong. Population growth is next to zero, and Order gets you bigger income bonus.

A new mod command could be useful: #lowupkeepcost . Or just decrease prices of low infantry, but that would break with the convention of resource cost for equipment and gold for body. So I prefer #lowupkeepcost, to keep things nice and tidy.

Re: Useless or redundant units?
 

Thank you Graeme.
You have always been one of my best examples. Lets both hope that neither of us ever have anything to say in the games development. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif