Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

So, in Dom II I used to summon things quite a bit. Armies sucked and were hard to build, so your army eventually became composed entirely of summons.

In dom III, with the exception of a few notably great summons, I generally make armies out of recruitable units and save the gems for battlefield spells, rituals, and items, or I spend them on summonable commanders.

So my question is this: are there any summons you use as a part of your strategy? Any great stories from MP or SP about a lesser used summons that paid off? How do you use your summons: support troops, frontline troops, or chaff, or some other roll?

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Some summons are NOT a good for the gem investment... such as the Ziz, Behemoth and Eater of the Dead. Avoid these even in SP games unless you're totally winning and looking to splurge.

I'll let someone else list the good summons.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Some summons are situationally useful.

Claymen, for instance, when facing R'lyeh on the land. Cheap enough to form a frontline, regenerating construct that doesn't need a lab. Mindless, so makes a good frontline versus mindblasters, as long as you've got something other than your leaders for R'lyeh to target, say some deadly archers. And R'lyeh has little protection, to boot. They're poor amphibians, to boot. So they won't be great invading, but counter-attacking they can be quite useful underwater if they need not face the main force. Did I mention that pesky poisoned coral?

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

90% of summons are basically crap in my opinion. Either overpriced or underpowered. So in MP people basically just use the remaining 10%

I recently went through almost every summon in the game to suggest changes for the next version of Conceptual Balance Mod - it just reinforced how terrible some summons are. I mean look at horned serpents, shades, spectral infantry, Ziz, drakes, amphipteres,....

An example of a good summon is something like the recently added Jade Serpent. It's actually worth casting.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Thats the kind of thing I was looking for.

I mean, in a recent test game as LA Atlantis I made four Winter Drakes and was quite happy with their ability to sit near the front on Fire Closest and whip on the enemy with their Area 2 frost breath attack.

Was I twenty-four Water gems happy? I don't know. They were pretty nice though, and most likely reduced my casualties of home only troops.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Also Atlantis- or Caelum, perhaps:

Hidden in Snow is an unreliable spell. Not so hot, pun intended. BUT consider the research path. With just one school (enchantment), you get Grip of Winter and semi-tough undead. Throw some chaff (skelly spam) into battle to buy time for Grip of Winter to take effect. If you've got no mortal units, throw in Rigor Mortis for added effect. There's definetly better summons than Hidden in Snow, but with the right race and mages, Hidden in Snow delivers a powerful combination with only one school of research.

If, on the other hand, enchantment is a low priority school, then Hidden in Snow is a horrible waste of gems - except there's not a whole lot to spend water gems on.

Keeping an eye on LA Atlantis and R'lyeh... pretty much all the underwater summons are useless, excepting Sea Trolls + sharks. Combine minds with ridiculously low magic resistance plus temptingly large size and hitpoints, and you've got the perfect mindblast target.

I have to wonder what the point of the kraken and sea serpent are, though I admit they may have their uses against independents or Oceania. Decoy? Does Mindblast retarget?

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I can't usually justify summoning almost anything except end-game summons (Abomination, Iron Dragon, Tarrasqe, etc...) or summonable casters that can diversify my magic.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Well... I'll have something to share about Consecrated Ground - 200+ shade beasts at the start of year four, but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out. With six of them to a battlesquare and Niefelheims expensive units (cheapest priest 130 gold OR indep), I think I may be able to swamp their units with poision. I've seen some pesky hydra skin armor, sadly.

In Doom Chicken I was not able to survive because a). I attacked too early and b). I spread out my efforts way too much.

There are a few tantilizing ideas I botched by spreading out to thin.

I equipped Black Servants with a rod of the leper king, bane venom charm, and 8 Shades. I also summoned Wights in a seperate army. My half-strength wights got slaughtered by priests- even under darkness. As Ctis, I could have (with missing research) and should have cast Anti-Magic. The combination of Darkness and Anti-Magic would have made them merciless. Unfortunately, while quite safe in melee, they fell to banishment.

The Black Servants failed because I had too few doing too many things. They didn't serve as a stealth force because the Venom Charm left an obvious trail of disease. The eight shades the Rod of the Leper King let me lead would have done a nice job against the province defense if I hadn't advertised my presence and attacked in one fell swoop, not in dribbles. The disease was practically a memo saying: buy pd here! I think Abysia gets a priest-mage at 20, which is even worse.

From one early battle I can say I could have easily taken out typical pre-war PD with eight shades. Say 10 teams (200 death gems?! Well, I did have 15 wights...) I could have cannibalized from my other incomes), enough minor provinces siezed and taxed and I could have done something. Leaving out the Bane Venom Charm frees up 10 gems and stops advertising my presence.

On the other hand, I could have just given Black Servants Bane Venom Charms, and nothing else. (Or thugged them out, but that I didn't try). At a total cost of 15 apiece, I could have diseased every single one of their armies- much cheaper than leprosy.

But I did none of this hypothetical. Instead I did everything piecemeal. I learned a lot - but I lost.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Fire Snakes and Winter Wolves have been good to me. They are relatively low cost, and they let human nations make element-specific armies that can take advantage of battlefield wide elemental spells.

Pride of Lions is helpful if you are in a closely matched early game war.

Summon Draconian is a good choice if you only have one or two air mages, since it lets you convert a lot of air gems into a lot of meatshields in just a few castings.

The national summons are consistently worthwhile.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

National summons are consistently worthwhile? I think they're generally less awful that regular summons, but still less than a third of them are actually any good. Again, consider stuff like jaguar toads, spectral infantry, rubbish mass animal summons (pack of wolves springs to mind), demons of heavenly fire etc.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Blood summons are incredible. However, national troops can often take most enemies, with the right mage support. (Think massive buffs and battlefield wide enchantments)

Most other summons are only really good for SC/Thug chassis and magical diversification

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Ive read some of Sombres thoughts on summons. I like the direction he is taking some of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I disagree about the Behemoth. They have their niche use, especially if you can buff them up with body ethereal and
protection spells. One use, since they are size 6, they can act as decoys to protect your prentender. If I have a size five god, and am afraid of being the target of spells because of the size, I feel safer with a couple of the size 6 behemoths around. And if you are facing a squad of elephants a few behomeths could hold off some of the elephants for a bit and break them up, so your troops can deal with fewer of them at a time.

But generally building a bunch of them, and expecting to use them as tramplers does not work.


[Edit: I should add what I mentioned was theories. I haven't had a chance to try them out.]

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Going after the Jaguar Toads was a low blow. They might not be the best player on team Mictlan, but they've got heart. And except for the little toads, just about everything else Mictlan gets is worth summoning. Even the mass animal summon is good when you combine it with a double or triple bless. I would also defend the spectral infantry, as they were quite useful to me when playing as Lanka. You can send them out as a first wave, to exhaust the enemy heavy infantry or to hold the enemy in place while your archers do their work.

Still, my data set is somewhat more limited than yours. I'm sure there are plenty of shoddy summons I have not seen. Let me revise my statement to say:
"National summons, especially the holy summons, are usually worthwhile."

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

In general I only use the mass summon spells. Legion of wights, demonic forces and nice uniques that work as thugs.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I like Host of Ganas, its kinda a lowelevel cross between Spirit Mastery and Phantasmal army, but more durable. They are also fast enough to keep up, and have a decent 12 MR. They last a long time against heavy infantry. Suffer a quarter loss if the numbers are even. They are, unfortunately, massacred by simple slingers. Don't be fooled by the shield, its useless with 1 parry. I wonder why they bothered. While there are some spells in the alteration path that would help, they are way too far down the line. Thankfully, however, its not difficult for you to research or cast Mist, which should help.

I'm thinking of mixing them in with Raksharaja thugs scripted to mirror image and mistform. They're fast enough to keep up strategically and tactically, acting as a screen. As an odd little note, these are not mindless.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Monster Toads? Granted they aren't a garbage summon, but they ain't great. Mictlan does have some of the best national spells though and most of its summons being sacred when Mictlan itself is a bless nation is obviously a huge deal.


I think you mean Host of Ganas, and yes, they are another solid summon. Not that great, but they don't suck.

Spectral infantry are an Abysian summon also known as Smoulderghosts which suck in combat, have virtually no special role (ethereal with 0 prot, rarely actually do any damage), are overpriced and are impossible to cast with Abysia's national mages. They're like an even worse version of the truly awful basegame Summon Shades spell. Summon shades was dropped to one gem in CBM and still doesn't get cast much :]

There's no defending them. Oh, though thematically they are cool, so there's that.

They don't beat Ziz for worst summon in the game though. I don't think anything even comes close to that flying turkey.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I also am not a real big fan of summons. I think most are way too expensive for what you get.

I summon basically for thugs and magic users that will fill gaps in my forging abilities.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I don't think any player with a little experience will come in and shout : 'Oh my ! Summons are so much more usefull than anything else'
In facts I sometime use seasonal spirits. Those with auras (wolves and lions) can be usefull to tire up the ennemy front lines before your liners come in.Or when you have no flankers, they can play this role quite well.
My last try in low level summons was with the sea dogs (or is it lions ?) and from this summon I saved my gems for a better use.
Waiting eagerly for the next update of CBM.

PS : thanks Sombre, I play Abysia a lot, and never bothered to summon spectral infantry, now I know I missed nothing.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

The CBM makes osme of those summons more interesting. Dragon master at level 3, the stats of drakes boosted slightly, and the summmon drake spells take 6 instead of 8 gems. Suddenly using drakes sounds like a viable strategy.


In general the game would be more fun if the summons all had there use. They should not be so powerfull as to replace troops, but to supplement them and fill in holes that your national troops can't handle.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Yeah, I sort of like Behemoth sometimes.. They are a tad pricey perhaps, but they aren't that bad.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Behemoths aren't awful, as far as the non Tartarian 10 gem single monster summons go. But 10 death gems is still too much for a glorified elephant.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Personally, I always like Vine Ogres. Not fantastic in any way, but their beauty is cost-efficacy: 2 gems per casting, and each casting can easily become 100hp of meatshield (and much more in the mid/late game as you have Ivy Kings and the like). They're slow to mass, but completely upkeep-free, so you can accumulate a lot of cheap goons, especially if have many mid-level N mages.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Sadly, they don't last very long in the face of firestorm and the like. Same problem with most of hte other summons.

I'm using blocks of living statues to hold of sharks underwater in DoomChicken. Basically, they block the inevtable shark attacks long enough for the basalt kings to get buffs up/put up my own shark attack.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Vine Ogres are practically made to be buffed. They are nice normally, but throw in an army of gold and mass regeneration and they suddenly become alot more than nice.
You can also add quickening, resistances, will of the fates, fog warriors, weapons of sharpness ect but the first 2 work great on their own.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

On a related topic: other than skelly spamming, I almost never deliberately cast battlefield summoning spells. Do other people? What do you summon?

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

LA Ulm+Massed Vampire Counts in your own dominion+Several castings of Summon Lammashta

Great fun.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

In a previous post I said most everything except late game summons suck. There are a couple exceptions I missed:

Call of the Wild can be very useful
Vine Orges can be cost effective with the right summoning gear/summoning abilities.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Quite true. But even before you can lay down buffs like Army of Gold, the main use of Vine Ogres is in the early game. They are accessible and useful way, way, way before there are spells that can slaughter them en masse.

Oh, and other useful summons: I find Mechanical Men very useful sometimes. They're a niche critter, but the niche isn't a rare one: if your opponent is using lots of nasty elemental spells, you can plough through happily with these immune-everything fighters. (Even once you eventually get access to the equally-protected Iron Dragons, the MMs can still be worthwhile when your opponent backs up elemental spells with a few MR-targeting effects like Disintegrate. Neither type has excellent MR, so it can be better to have a stack of small guys than one big one.)

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Hmm. As far as (national) summons go:

I find S&A Tien Chi's rather interesting. River Oni (why are they called Oni if they're Chinese?) are quite nice, the Fire Oni are okay (but not the greatest; they don't 'play well'). Servant and Hounds are pretty craptacular. The Soldiers are solid.

Marverni's Iron Pigs are pretty hysterical. 20HP 20Prot Sacred Boars.

I think Gandharvas must be mentioned. Bandar Log can easily summon them, and IIRC Patala and Kailasa can Clam for them. Depending on the Bless, Yazatas can be in the same camp, though it's a lot harder for Caelum to get the pearls. (Someone, switch it to Air summons. It just makes sense.)

Anyone mentioned the Morrigans of Fomoria yet? They look pretty interesting. Never been able to mass them, though. Also, I'd like opinions on the Golem Cult's stone guys. Any good ones?

As far as commanders go? The Serpent Cult's Satyr has to be high on the list of 'cool and actually pretty decent'. Even taking him as an Assassin, he's not bad for the price. If you start next to LE Arco or Jotunheim, they can be even better. OTOH, you kind of have to built your pretender around using them.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Call of the Winds is one of my favourite spells. Very useful.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

The Golem Cult's summons are pretty good, speaking from experience. Even five plain un-sacred, unbuffed Attentive Statues are pretty mean. At enchant three, you can get them pretty early on, and they just carve through most independents (beware cavalry, barbarians) because of their 0 encumbrance- not to mention +10% hitpoints per candle of dominion.

... Beware of astral nations, unless you've got antimagic,an astral bless, or drain scales instead of magic. "Opposition" is your enemy, as well as "Elf Bane" and "Moon Blade", I suppose. Mind hunts will leave your golems unled unless you've got spares/decoys.

Attentive Statues: Earth Might is Alt2, gives those swords extra bite, affects three at a time. I've had five take out 70 independent troops. They're still effective against other nations, but you need beware your weakness.

Enliven Sentinels: 10 dominion, 50 hitpoints. 0 dominion, 25. Less afflictions. Nature bless, earth bless do not apply. Strength boost irrelevant, thanks to 22 strength and Granite Glaives (10 damage).

Granite Guards- I haven't experienced a situation that calls for Granite Guards- but I haven't made it to a late game as Agartha (2 games played). Too expensive to use against Astral nations with Opposition (barring mr boosts of your own), they have 150 hitpoints in 10 friendly dominion. They don't have additional damage capacity, though, and in a square by square battlefield analysis, they're a half as effective as Sentinels, thanks to their largeness.

Enliven Marble Oracles - get your MR up, especially against astral nations. Encumbrance is not a concern, so a Lead Shield works well.

The biggest threat to your golems is not astral magic (though that's a mean second place), it's running out of magical leadership on the battlefield. You need spares, even if they're just Earth Readers to prevent dissolution. No leaders and all your golems go pop!

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I think all the...shall we say "less cost-efficient" summons deserve a boost. You're not only spending the gems, you're spending the mage for a turn that could have been used for research, etc. Summons should be worth summoning, even if they're niche-national troops have a lot more room for superfluous "themed" units than summons do, especially non-nationals.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I really like the blood summoned SCs like arch devils and ice devils. The heliophagii are nice for diversifying magic too.

I am trying to figure out how to spend extra fire gems late game. In a current game I have near 900 and gain 60+ a turn. I havent found a good use for them, so I have been splurging on seasonal spirits. But they really are lackluster for their cost. I remember when summer lions used to be worth the cost.

I also like mass summons like animals, cross breeding and undead. A nice way of building up instant chaff when under seige.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Yea, HoneyBadger has got it spot on. Most summons are not worth it because you are getting 1 or 2 units/per turn and missing out on RP's.

Its nearly always better to save your gems/blood slaves and research a higher level summon spell.

Sombre has gone through a load of summon spells and suggested generally increasing there numbers you get per casting.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I'll go along with Sombre, but if it weren't for the max unit limitation, I'd suggest having more summons come with leaders, or secondary units atleast, just for the sake of interest.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

For the fire gems, use them in battlefield spells, and spam living fire. Also, boost your fire mages with them using empowerment. The only elemental in-battle summon I'm not a fan of is earth, or air against large opponents. Fire is pretty powerful, as is water.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

If you're battling undead Purgatory is good for a strong domain. Fire gems can always be alchemized into gold if you have good or great units which can be purchased in mass numbers. Empower fire mages so they can travel with archer type armies to provide an extra punch via 'flaming arrows'.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Better yet, empower thugs/SCs. Slap on a flame helm (which helps your protection anyway) and now you can phoenix pyre (and fire shield, resist fire if that helps). Very nice combo with soul vortex, on say a wraith lord. Heck, empower a second time with fire and stay in dominion for a heck of an imortal kamakazi with stock equipment. 80 fire gems isn't *that* bad considering you don't need to forge any equipment and it beats the heck out of alchemizing.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Umbrals. These guys, avaliable to all eras of Agartha iirc, are extremely good for their price. High health, ethereal, life stealing undead are one thing. But when you throw in national mages that can cast darkness and marble warriors or army of gold/lead and it's something else.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

However, Umbrals can't be central to your strategy as Middle Era Agartha, IMO. Only national mage capable of summoning them is the capital-only Oracle. If they've got the spare time, its a very good use of their summon, but unless you get (onyx?) amazons or the right independent mages, it just costs way too much to get going as a central part of your strategy. Quite a bit more viable in LA or EA.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I've not have much experience with MA Agartha but you're probably right. Still, it's nice to be able to use 'em.

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

I think the point of umbrals in a setting like you're describing is to cast Gift of reason onto them and make them into cheap, powerful, thugs.

Jazzepi

Re: Summons: Your thoughts.....
 

Summons in my case are simply things to annoy the enemy with. If you have that rare moment where you have gems lying around that no-one needs I will spend a few on a unit that causes fear and is fast like those flaming lions. Great for just causing havok with a flanking mission or tying up charging cavalary. Basically, thats what I do with any summoned unit; a small distraction. They cost way too many gems to be considered an actual force on its own capable of destroying big armies. Hopefully DM4 fixes this.