[quantum_mechani]

I agree with most of the things mentioned here, with three exceptions:

1. Flagellants, they are not the best sacreds out there, but for 10 gold, non-capital only, and two attacks, they really can be worthwhile. Admittedly the crossbows kind of overshadow them, but they overshadow almost any human troop.

2. Basalt Guards. They certainly pale to many other sacreds, and are not generally something to build a strategy around, but they are quite viable as a resource sink. There comes a point very quickly where you can't afford to use other troops to use up all your resources, and slowly building an elite corps of these is fairly cheap and useful to have given the vulnerability of all your other troops to arrows if you venture on land.

2. EA Ulm two weapon warriors. It's true, for the most part they suck compared to the women, but compared to human troops on average they are actually fine, if somewhat niche. I suppose a little extra attack skill wouldn't hurt, but with the CB nerf to the women warriors I can see using them in cases where you have low defense and high armor foes.

Now, as far as adding to the dud options list, that seems a rather ambitious task given that I would estimate at least 75% of pretenders/spells/units/etc. apply.