Vampire Queens and Sneaking Armies

[Minrhael]

1) Sneaking Armies: Is there any way to set these to move and patrol that I haven't figured out yet? I had one army full of sneakers, one with no sneakers. Both of them I wanted to move 1 province and patrol as there was a castle there I expected to come under attack. I could set the non-sneakers to, but not the sneakers.

I probably could have solved it in this case by moving a non-sneaking unit into the sneaking army, but is there any way to do it if I don't have a non-sneaking trooper available?

2) Trying out the vampire queen for the first time and just starting hitting the better construction levels. What kind of items do you generally stick on a VQ? (I only have access to death, water, air, nature, no slaves for the VQs blood magic.)

[Wendigo]

1) You likely have to issue the 'move' order first into the province with the castle, and only then 'move & patrol' will show.

2) Vamp chicks look better naked.
If you insist on dressing her up: add some resistance item vs fire/lightning proficient opponents, or MR vs SG Ermor/Astral Users. Armor can be good also.

I am starting to think that the VQ should be nerfed, she is soo much better than the comparable Liche types.

[Truper]

Originally posted by Wendigo:

I am starting to think that the VQ should be nerfed, she is soo much better than the comparable Liche types.

As a combat pretender, she is soo much better than anything. No other pretender can make any number of mundane troops irrelevant from turn 3 on, but a VQ can. I'm thinking of any nation that can hire an earth mage turn 1, forge a black steel plate turn 2, and send the VQ out to begin the slaughter turn 3. For any other nation, it takes only slightly longer - until alteration 2 is researched. I'm not sure what kind of nerf I'd suggest - removing the regeneration might be a start, so that at least anything that does manage to hit her would have a greater chance of inflicting an affliction, but this is probably not enough. Possibly increasing the new path cost to 80 would help - a little harder to have both earth and water, which is my favorite combo for a naked queen - quickness and stoneskin and off she goes. Lets not even mention what Ermor can do with one...

As it stands right now, if I played strictly to win, I would never take any other pretender. Never.

[archaeolept]

yeah, the VQ is the worst of the lot.

I'd suggest two things:

1. no regen would be good - that way, even though immortal, she would at least possibly get some afflictions. Lessening the implicit recuperative powers of immortal units would be good too.

2. Extra paths are far too cheap. those are what make a truly insane supercombattant. I'd raise the VQ's extra path cost to 60 or 70, and the Ghost King's extra path costs to 40. Also a few others should recieve similar increases.

edit: oops, I see I've basically repeated what Truper said.

And even increasing the costs for new paths won't really interfere w/ the creation of crazy supercombattants. but at least it would help a bit. Norfleet's standard vampire queen has 400 points invested in paths. increasing the initial path cost would only lower her numbers a little, and wouldn't much affect her brutal combat power.

[ April 13, 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: archaeolept ]

[Minrhael]

Issuing the move order first then click again to get patrol doesn't work for sneaking armies; as I said I got the non-sneaking to work. It seems to just be a missing option unless I'm doing something really stupid. For the record this is with a sidhe champion and all daoine sidhe in case it matters. Can anyone get any sneaking army to move & patrol?

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Minrhael:
Issuing the move order first then click again to get patrol doesn't work for sneaking armies; as I said I got the non-sneaking to work. It seems to just be a missing option unless I'm doing something really stupid. For the record this is with a sidhe champion and all daoine sidhe in case it matters. Can anyone get any sneaking army to move & patrol?

ctrl-click to move instead of sneak, then change movement order to move and patrol.

[Arralen]

.. play with indies=7 or better even 9. Bet you won't get far with your VQ ...
A naked VQ with fire-4-shield kills 5..15 milita per combat. That won't make 60+ troops root 4 in 5 times. To make things more interesting, use difficult or extremly difficult research.

[Minrhael]

ctrl-click to move instead of sneak, then change movement order to move and patrol.

Nope, this does not work, just went and quadruple-checked. With 2 armies, one a monk leading 10 daoine sidhe and one and sidhe champion leading 24 sidhe moving between 2 adjacent provinces that I control.

In both cases if I originally sneak, then re-click to change I get choices of: defend province, patrol province (which patrols current in both cases), move, search, preach, blood hunt, construct, pillage, cancel. If I originally ctrl-click to move instead of sneak, I get the exact same choices except move is replaced by sneak in the list.

It seems there's something missing as I can think of no logical reason why they wouldn't be able to move&patrol like every regular army.

[Slygar]

I agree. The VQ needs to be more expensive, or something. Compare her to the Bog Mummy and Master Lich (or whichever lich is more expensive..) and it's pretty obvious that she just totally overpowers them. Since most of her abilities are pretty thematic, I would rather see more expensive paths and an increased cost than an actual nerf of the unit.

Maybe she could be restricted to only blood nations, such as Abysia and Mictlan - but not Ermor, since they aren't exactly blood focused But one way or the other, a Pretender with so many obvious advantages (from immortality, regen, etherealness, stealth, decent path cost, immortal vampire groupies, etc) should also be the most expensive.

[archaeolept]

Originally posted by Arralen:
.. play with indies=7 or better even 9. Bet you won't get far with your VQ ...
A naked VQ with fire-4-shield kills 5..15 milita per combat. That won't make 60+ troops root 4 in 5 times. To make things more interesting, use difficult or extremly difficult research.

*cough*

a fire 4 shield? well, sure, if you're not even trying. W/ Alt 3 Enchant 1 a cheap VQ can destroy pretty well anything on the planet w/out breaking a sweat.