The Vine Ogre

[tinkthank]

I think that there is overwhelming consensus that the Vine Ogre (VO) kicks too much butt for its cost compared to all other units/summons.

Here are some suggestions, any combination of which could be implemented in the next patch to reduce its cost effectiveness:

- VO only has 50% Pois. Res. (In fact, I think this makes sense; cannot a tree, like a well from which it drinks, be poisoned?)
- VO only have 43 HP
- VO only have 17 Strength

What do you think?

[Azhur]

tinkthank said:
I think that there is overwhelming consensus that the Vine Ogre (VO) kicks too much butt for its cost compared to all other units/summons.

Here are some suggestions, any combination of which could be implemented in the next patch to reduce its cost effectiveness:

- VO only has 50% Pois. Res. (In fact, I think this makes sense; cannot a tree, like a well from which it drinks, be poisoned?)
- VO only have 43 HP
- VO only have 17 Strength

What do you think?

Well the 3N skill still limits them a bit, but they are truly a bit more useful than your average summons. More likely other summons' gem prices should be lowered, so there would be even some use of them.

[quantum_mechani]

Azhur said:

Well the 3N skill still limits them a bit, but they are truly a bit more useful than your average summons. More likely other summons' gem prices should be lowered, so there would be even some use of them.

I agree, besides the mage time issue, they have an achilles heel in the form of magic resistance. They seem like one of the better balanced summons.

[The_Tauren13]

Theres no easy way to exploit the low magic res, really. They are quite powerful for being so massively inexpensive...

[Jack Simth]

Oh, I don't know - a Charm Squad of Druids with Thistle Maces is always fun (or an Enslave squad of Astral-3 mages or ...).

[Arralen]

I don't think there's "overwhelming consensus" that the Vine Ogre is too strong.

Besides the points already mentioned,

- it has poor attack rating and can only serve as a meat(?) shield, but seldomly does any damage against 'real' troops

- it is suspectible to fire ..

[The_Tauren13]

Jack Simth said:
Oh, I don't know - a Charm Squad of Druids with Thistle Maces is always fun (or an Enslave squad of Astral-3 mages or ...).

I thought I just read in another thread that you can't mind enslave them... but maybe you can still charm them. I dunno though, cause they are mindless.

Actually with 2 attacks with decently high strength they can do well against most national troops. Unless by 'normal' you mean other summons...

[PvK]

Yep, I agree, NT and Mark.

Vine Ogres are good, but not overpowered. It's the more powerful summons which tend to be much underpriced, and some of the lesser summons which cost so much that people usually wait for the bargain ultra-bad-*** summons to give bargain life drain weapons so they can be SCs. I'd much sooner multiply the cost of such units as Bane Lords.

Interesting analysis below on Vine Ogres. A couple of points to add:

* Vine Ogre size is a slight disadvantage against mobs of humanoid-sized units, because on a dense front, the smaller units get more attacks per unit since more fit in an adjacent square. That will result in a somewhat overstatement of their power on the simulation which assumes everyone can attack everyone else.

* Vine Ogres are mindless... so they never gain experience.

PvK

[Verjigorm]

Based purely on the summation of the values of the various units' statistics (Size, HP, Protection, Morale, Magic Resistance, Attack, Defense, Precision, Movement, and AP), the units come up like this:
Wyvern: 129 + Fly - Cold-blooded - Animal
Ice Drake: 140 + Cold-res(100) - Animal
Cave Drake: 153 + Survive (M) - Animal - Cold-blooded
Fire Drake: 137 + Fire-res(100) - Animal - Cold-blooded + Survive (W)
Vine Ogre: 163 + Poison-res(100) + Survive (F) + Need-not-eat + Mindless - 1 x extra paths required - extra conj level (3)

Clearly the vine ogre is worth more as a unit. If you were to change the costs of the above units, one could probably infer that their gem-cost should be 1 considering that you can get more than one vine ogres for a single gem while the 2nd level summons are extremely expensive. However, that fails to take into account the factors listed as +'s and -'s above, differing values of various attributes (1hp is clearly not equal to 1 attack skill in value), and it fails to take into account divergences in the costs of the various low-level summons. Under the current modding ability it is not possible to achieve a true "balance" between these summons. My suggestion, cludgy though it may be, is to reduce the gem-cost of the 4 elemental 2nd level summons to 1 and see what happens.

My prediction is that you'll see groups of them arising in non-nature nations while nature nations retain the vine ogre. Since they can't be hoarded as efficiently, however, they will tend to be phased out later on when better things come along.

[PvK]

I sometimes have N1-2 mages make vinemen even after I have other N3 mages who can make ogres. They're both cheap. Vine men will have more attacks, but they're also clutzy (attacks at 7) while the ogres attack at 11. If the enemy has something that can kill a vine ogre as easily as a vine man, but only targets one at a time... then maybe, but I can't think what that would be. I think it's very rare that there might be such a situation, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't still consider having low-power mages adding a few vine men. I might if they were x2 (or x3) per casting instead of +1 compared to vine ogres.

PvK