Dark Knight

[jutetrea]

I think items like re-animating dead with a statue are just a flavor of whatever nation gets that ability. I might summon priestly "goody" statues, they summon nasty dark zombie creating statues. Shrug.

IMO things like bogus's band of merry men are something that can happen to anyone. Capture and atainment of any of the units is a spoil of war, a specific bonus to those with the right paths (or that spend the effort to get into those paths, any nation has at least the potential), blood/nature only? Enslave mind/GoR work? Seduction? Using the associated orders are again a spoil of war, as K.O. said, kind of like new training as a reward. And its not really easy.

Fire mages isn't that powerful, nice if it works, but not more powerful then the right spell. Attack commander is a bit different, there are so many weak mages/ferries sitting in the back that the payoff could be significant. I'm still thinking that payoff should only be significant once, then its just another aspect to deal with like various nasty battle spell capability or a nasty SC/item combo.

Again, IMO - the archer decoy is actually the worst of the bunch as it takes advantage of something the player has the least control over - AI. Yes there are methods of dealing with it (changing orders being the easiest), but it can have significant initial impact as well.

I also find it ironic that some can declaim something as inherently exploitable when so much of the game is exploitable. I think soul drain/master enslave is exploitable - what are you really going to do against it? Darkness? Has a counter..but pretty nasty for a reasonably common enchant. Arrow fend against my archer army? Nothing I can do. Storm against my flyers, etc, etc... there are tons of things that can be considered exploits in specific situations - you can do something I can't counter or that the developers didn't anticipate. That's my definition of an exploit...and I'm assuming there are plenty of definitions. One of the reasons I find the game both fantastic and occasionally frustrating. So many things to do, nasty combos and such... but still enough freedom to TRY to find an answer.