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I used Shamblers recently against R'lyeh, as Oceania. I use Knights of the Deep for fighting. But I need more weight to siege Rlyeh dark fortresses.

I can spend 30 gold on 3 Knife Tridents for 3 siege reduction, or 30 gold on 1 Shambler for 2 siege reduction. But 3 Knife Tridents are going to be stuck underwater costing me money forever. At least the Shamblers will do me some good out of the water. At worst, at least they'll die!

And I've got sloth-3, so resources are always critical. It's nice to be able to buy 60 points of siege reduction without having to drag it one province at a time from a faraway fort. I'm looking at pretty much only 30 points average of resources in unforted provinces.

By the way, if you're planning on invading R'lyeh underwater, Ichtyids are not a good plan. With 8 MR they will just get destroyed.


Above ground, I should try Shamblers out versus tramplers sometime. Defense 9 is a base 38% chance of taking just 1 damage, and Shamblers don't fatigue much. There's only 2 Shamblers per square to trample. They'll usually survive the first 20-point damage trample from a size-6 trampler. And 2 Shamblers is 4 15-damage attacks against one elephant.

... testing ... testing ...

I did some testing, and you pretty much need double the gold in elephants, then the Shamblers win. I tested with a big blob of 18 Elephants versus a big blob of 120 Shamblers. Guess I won't be winning any economics prizes. Still, a bunch of Shamblers up front could slow/disperse elephants somewhat, and Shamblers might fare better versus Troglodytes or Minotaurs.