Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
Wow, I guess I need to stop summoning shades. Or just stop using them in front-line armies?

Im guessing by your comments that you are a "mass armies" kinda guy. Shades are useful in creating a unit to go after SC's or Heroes. Adding them to sap strength while something else hits.

Also for drawing fire since they are etheral and poison resistant.

and for attacking water provinces

and of course my favorite, to add to a stealth army

Did you mean they were no good after other later summonings become available in large games?

No, I mean they are very near useless at any stage of the game. Of course almost all low level summon share the problem of becoming obsolete very quicky, but shades are in a class of their own as far as wasting gems.

I'm not a 'mass armies' or 'sc' or 'stealth' player, I tend to use all of the above when available/useful. Shades are virtually useless against SCs, their low (vs. sc defense) attack stat and magic resistance negates weapon mean they almost never do anything. They simply die to the SC's damage shield in a couple rounds. For drawing fire, anything works as a decoy, and you can use junk that it is a lot less expensive.

If it is really an emergency where you are getting rushed and you need your early death gems to support your army, you are better off casting reanimate or revive wight. If you want to do stealth raiding, black servants are a far better choice, they can in some cases actually perform better than three shades, and finding undead stealth leadership for the shades is not easy/cheap. Trying to build up enough of them to do almost anything underwater is ridiculously expensive, and longdead from reanimate would perform better in most cases. Even all of that is mostly theoretical... the situations where you would use revive wight or reanimation are extremely rare, but when you do encounter them, they are certainly a better choice than shades.