[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by velk:

One slightly related point to that though, is (while the wyrm isn't the best example) that it is easier to increase the astral on one powerful unit with items than it is to increase the astral on 10 weak units with items.

E.g. 10 starshine skullcaps vs 1 for example. Empowerment has a similar scale of effects.

I am not arguing against that, and I am certainly not suggesting that people invest heavily in equipment to boost weak astral mages to give them better odds. The Banner of the Northern Star is the only item that really makes sense for that purpose as you need one, and one only.

The one thing I wanted to point out was that 5 astral was too low to be considered safe on your pretender as it was vulnerable to fairly simple anti-astral tactics.

Not to mention that if you guess wrong about what he has been doing in the Last few turns and he shows up with astral 2 or 3 points higher, that losing 10 astral mages and their equipment would be a pretty crippling loss.

It is HIGHLY unusual to gain 2-3 astral points in a few turns except when equipping with astral equipment from scratch - but it can happen. And you could lose anyhow, as no tactic that pits low astral vs. high astral is a guaranteed success.

Worst case, losing 10 low-level astral mages (no equipment, mind you, too expensive: I would rather take twice as many mages along as boost them with expensive astral equipment) costs 900-1800 depending on nation and a number of rounds of leader recruitment depending on the number of castles. Expensive, yes, crippling, no - unless it happens in the very start of the game (where you are unlikely to have 10 astral mages anyhow, unless you play Pythium)

Again, I don't really disagree with you - most any tactic runs a risk of failure - I just find 5 astral on the pretender god to be too damn little.

[ April 01, 2004, 09:42: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]