[Boron]

Originally posted by Rainbow:
Ahem. Vine ogres against an equal number of trolls, and the trolls will break? I don't think so. More likely, the trolls will mow down the vine ogres and suffer close to zero casualties in the process.
As I recall, trolls use two-handed mauls, and vine ogres use fists. It's going to hurt, bad. Hurts just thinking about it.

/Rainbow

100 trolls vs 100 vine ogres will win mostly yeah right . but as NTJedi and i said 100 trolls cost 400 upkeep . if you say everything is equal , you and your oppenent have about the same number of provinces and income and gemincome then your opponent can afford 40 150 gold cost mages or 20 300 gold cost mages for the 400 upkeep you pay for your 100 trolls .
so if i field 100 vine ogres + 33 mystics or astrologists (= upkeep of 400 ) versus your 100 trolls guess who wins ?

Originally posted by Norfleet:
While I agree that troll upkeep is greatly overpriced and strongly discourages the use of trolls, I think the point you're missing here is that trolls cannot be used like Vine Ogres!

Building up a massive hoard of vine ogres is a perfectly serviceable deal, since Vine Ogres cost nothing: Trolls, however, cannot be used in such a manner. Trolls are best lobbed at the enemy in suicide assaults that hopefully take ground, or at least distract your enemies, generally because they came as byproduct of the King summonings, and you want the king, not the trolls. Kings good, trolls bad . [/QB]

yep the kings themselves are quite useful . unfortunately they cost upkeep but for the special abilities you get from them ( especially the sea king ) their upkeep is reasonable .
the problem is that you can't summon a troll / sea troll king alone . you always get the in the long run unwanted trolls too .
the nettocost of a troll king is 30 gems .
if you already have earthmages ( e.g. ulm ) there is no need for a troll king .
a troll king has only earth 3 , costs 10 upkeep and 30 gems . a lamia queen is a much greater mage , costs only 15 gems and is the same conjuration level .

conclusion : the trolls / troll kings are almost useless the only reason why you perhaps summon 1-2 is if you want to ensure that you get decent earth magic item forgers .

the sea trolls / sea troll kings are a bit different because they are of greater use .
the sea trolls enable you to fight underwater .
the sea troll king has the unique ability to produce gems as non unique summon.
so for the sea troll kings i agree finally with Nagot Gick Fel that they but only they need upkeep costs but for a different reason .
if they would not need upkeep you could hord them . they produce water gems themselves and are water 3 mages . so after 45 turns you got repaid your summon costs . and you could forge hordes of clams with them with their own water gem income .

so either let the troll kings too generate 1 earthgem / turn or make them upkeepfree.