Dud units / monsters / summons

[Sombre]

This thread was inspired by Xietor's complaints about the pale ones, dicussion about 'dud nations', discussion of the CB mod and the changes it makes and a number of other things people have said on here. I really hate the idea of dud units in a game, but in Dom3 it seems there are many. Actually I think quite a few are fixed in the CB mod, but for the moment let's see what we can agree on.

So, which units are duds? They can be summoned, recruitable, indies etc.

Couple of things other people have said on here before, just to get the ball rolling...

- EA Ulmish warriors who have two weapons but bad ambidexterity bonus leaving them wit awful attack.

- Pale One soldiers for MA Agartha have terrible attack and numerous other problems (including old age?) there's a thread about this.

- Spear armed huskarl of Helheim (I think) is never ever worth buying because his nearest equivalents are much better at very little change of cost.

And remember to say /why/ you think they're duds :]

[HoneyBadger]

I have a rather controversial one. I would say the basic Niefel soldier (the guy with the axe, not the jarl) is a dud. Yes, they're extremely tough troops, and yes, they're sacred, and yes, they can be *used*-in very large combats, and to support PD, but I wouldn't say they're very use*ful*-and they're the only Niefel troop you ever get besides the Jarl. What's the point of that? Why not more variety and interest here?

It's, after all, *Niefel*heim. I almost never use them, because they're an expensive dead-end. They have some use in the game, but not nearly as much, for me, as a Niefel Jarl. If there were other factors-like more appropriate (read: "specialized") equipment, for instance, I'd use and enjoy them a lot more.

As it is, I hardly ever use *any* Niefel troops, except for the Niefel Jarl, the Huskarl, and the javelin-thrower, and there's something wrong with that.

I'm planning on modding in a Niefel Jotun that uses a wooley rhinocerous for a mount, and another that uses a flail in combat and does area damage. A third may throw large balls of ice, and a fourth will be better armored, weild a war-hammer, and do extra fortress-damage. Ofcourse, they'll all be very, very expensive, but I don't have a problem with that-I may even try to figure out a spell that replaces a Jotun Jarl on foot with a Jotun Jarl on an ice-drake.

[Edi]

Heartily seconded on EA Ulm. There's something seriously wrong when a nation of supposedly ferocious barbarian warriors is reduced to using armies composed solely of its women to get anywhere, leaving the men home to tend the children and farms. The only exceptions to that are the iron and steel warriors, who use 2-handed weapons.

Increased attack skill and ambidexterity bonuses would take care of this.

[Sombre]

Yep, I read about that, tested it and found it to be true. There's very little point in using anything but the women.

I'm very tempted to make a CBMplus version which 'fixes' this, among other things (like bakemono size etc etc). One of the reasons I want to hear about more units people find to be useless.

[Sombre]

Another couple of recruits up for discussion.

Marignon - The flagellent. This guy just sucks. Seriously. Starts with a random affliction, often crippled or diseased, crummy stats and chaff status - they're sacred but in this case it's actually a drawback because you can't amass them. Are they /ever/ worth recruiting?

EA Oceania - Amber Guard Triton. Ok the goldcost isn't too bad. I can forgive the fact that they are aquatic. But check out that resource cost and they only get one more protection than the oceanian trooper. The shield isn't too helpful since they aren't going to run into missile fire either. So would you guys use them?

[Sombre]

Another couple of recruits up for discussion.

Marignon - The flagellent. This guy just sucks. Seriously. Starts with a random affliction, often crippled or diseased, crummy stats and chaff status - they're sacred but in this case it's actually a drawback because you can't amass them. Are they /ever/ worth recruiting?

EA Oceania - Amber Guard Triton. Ok the goldcost isn't too bad. I can forgive the fact that they are aquatic. But check out that resource cost and they only get one more protection than the oceanian trooper. The shield isn't too helpful since they aren't going to run into missile fire either. So would you guys use them?

[Sandman]

The Lord Warden.

It's not that he's especially bad, but he's capital-only and can't compete with Crones or Daughters of Avalon. He's a stealthy leader, but the Mother of Avalon has the same leadership level and decent magic to boot.

[Juzza]

Sombre said:
Another couple of recruits up for discussion.

Marignon - The flagellent. This guy just sucks. Seriously. Starts with a random affliction, often crippled or diseased, crummy stats and chaff status - they're sacred but in this case it's actually a drawback because you can't amass them. Are they /ever/ worth recruiting?

EA Oceania - Amber Guard Triton. Ok the goldcost isn't too bad. I can forgive the fact that they are aquatic. But check out that resource cost and they only get one more protection than the oceanian trooper. The shield isn't too helpful since they aren't going to run into missile fire either. So would you guys use them?

First of all there are a lot of different strategic ways to use Flaigrents mostly their moral for me, they have two attacks with one weapon, that means no ambidextrous penalty which means their getting 2 attacks at 9, or whatever it is for 10 gold, and if their blessed with fire, say 9, thats like an attack of 13 with fire, each two attacks takes 4 off a creatures defence and if you have but 3 of them blessed up to something with even 20 defence they will take it down within one round.

Second Shields don't only effect missle fire, if an attack beats defence but not the shield parry you add the shield protection to the creatures normal protection, shields are far from useless.

Dedas said:
Somehow it seems like a waste as you rarely need all that extra magic resistance on any sacred Marignon unit.

Any scared unit? all the Marignon summonable angelic units are sacred not to mention the knights of the chalice for the MA, if you don't bless them your missing out on a huge part of Marignon.

HoneyBadger said:
Here's another one, the EA Atlantis Basalt Guard. Powerful unit, but because it doesn't wear a helmet, it can't get the full use of an earth-bless, it's got ridiculous resource-cost, it's capital only, and doesn't even get a patrol-bonus, despite-in the description-being the "ultimate guards".

Again, like the Niefel footsoldier, neat unit in theory, in practice-not much worth using at all.

Their desined for clogging castle gates, with even a little bit fire bless and earth to reduce fatigue, two attacks with high attack, almost impossible to take down underwater with no missile fire.

I also have to dissagree with the Niefel footsoldier, theres alot of strategic ways to use this unit using things such as a 4N bless will make them next to impossible to take down with all that heath, with regeneration their chance of getting alifictions is next to nothing because of all their health.

Jazzepi said:
Has anyone actually found a good use for patrol bonuses? It seems like castle defense/seige is far more useful.

Or pillaging bonuses, for that matter. I actually think it would be interesting if pillaging was a switch you could flip on and off. I don't see why an army can't pillage as it moves through a province. It could be more effective the longer you stay in one place, but I think it would be more realistic to have a huge army rampaging through the opponent's land pillaging as it goes.

Jazzepi

Simple, for patrolling, if you've got a commander with say 20 patrol bonus you can have say 5-8 of them patrolling in a province where your constantly blood hunting, your still getting money from the province, not using an army to patrol the province so thats another army to fight rather than sitting in the middle of your nation patrolling and if you have a decent grow this will hardly even effect the population of the province.

[PvK]

HoneyBadger said:
I have a rather controversial one. I would say the basic Niefel soldier (the guy with the axe, not the jarl) is a dud. Yes, they're extremely tough troops, and yes, they're sacred, and yes, they can be *used*-in very large combats, and to support PD, but I wouldn't say they're very use*ful*-and they're the only Niefel troop you ever get besides the Jarl. What's the point of that? Why not more variety and interest here?...

Try seeing what happens when a bunch of Vans (blessed if you like) fight a wall of Niefel giant soldiers. Unless the Vans have cold protection somehow, after a couple of turns, the Vans will be frozen into unconsciousness, and then chopped into chum. So will just about anything else that isn't cold-immune.

[MaxWilson]

Sombre said:
- Spear armed huskarl of Helheim (I think) is never ever worth buying because his nearest equivalents are much better at very little change of cost.

I said this, but I've since retracted the comment since it turns out I was misremembering his stats.

-Max