Units seldom used.

[Torvak]

Arcosephale - Slingers and Light Cavalery. Slingers are waste of gold, which explains why they make out your PD. Even with spellsupport shortbow archers beat the snot out of them. Light Cavalery is expensive, fragile and inaccurate. Even if they get around the infantery they can not take down the commanders.

Slingers are useless. I usually mod in some archers for Arcos

[Arryn]

Jotuns are expensive, both in gold/resources, and in supply. You get by far more bang for the buck with spearmen (or spear-armed huskarls if you're tight on resources) than hurlers. You can only afford to have so many Jotuns so you need to make each one count as much as possible. Hurlers behind the front lines aren't nearly as effective as spearmen *on* the line. Hurlers cost the same amount of gold as spearmen (while only half the resources) but their 10 protection (vs. 18 for the spearmen) and pathetic 5 defense means that you'll waste all that gold very quickly if the hurlers ever get in melee. They are simply a bad investment.

[Tricon]

Slingers are good patrolers.
Not a very redeeming use, I know... but at least they serve some purpose.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Wauthan:
Abyssia - Humanbreds and Salamanders. The former is simply a lite Version of the basic troops and the latter is way expensive for it's punch.

Humanbreds still have a good use: fire-resistant strat move 2 bodyguards for your mages.

Caelum Return of the Raptors - Raptor and Ravenguard have so far failed to prove why I should ever buy these units instead of the basic troops.

The Raven Guards are expensive but have more punch than any other Caelum flier and aren't cold dependant. I find them useful.

C'Tis - Militia, Falchioneers, Slave and Elite Warriors.

Berserked falchioneers are rather good and deal serious damage. Elite Warriors are excellent with Mass Protection. Both have dual attacks and are the C'tissian regular troops I use the most.

Jotunheim - Jotun Huskarls and Hurlers.

I find Hurlers very adequate to crush knights with their boulders. You just have to very careful when deploying them.

Marignon - You get three units with increasingly longer weapons. I can see the use of only one of them. What am I missing here?

Flexibility and countermeasures. Greatswords vs heavily protected swordsmen (best of the 3 to deal with Einheres). Pikes vs low-prot spearmen (eg, Reef Warriors). Halberds if you need punch vs tough enemy with range 3-4 weapons (eg, Ulm's battleaxe infantry). And halberdiers are good at defending castles.

Summons - Soulless, when you can get longdeads that actually hit something?

More often than not you aren't given the choice. Eg, reanimation after battles or popkilling events raise Soulless only. And Soulless have 15+ hitpoints and Last longer than basic longdeads in a meatshield role. So if your ability to deal damage comes from another source than your lowly undead troops, Soulless may be better.

[PDF]

All nations : unprotected/badly protected light Inf (Cardaces, Satyrs, ...). Except as arrow catchers :eek ...
All nations : Lt Cav. Too expensive for its -limited- usefulness (even for patrolling)
Arco : "Heavy" Cav, not that heavy, no lance and expensive...
Pythium : Velites. Get something better, it's only marginally more expensive. Hastati : why get them when you can have Principes for 3 gold more ?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Hurlers cost the same amount of gold as spearmen (while only half the resources) but their 10 protection (vs. 18 for the spearmen) and pathetic 5 defense means that you'll waste all that gold very quickly if the hurlers ever get in melee. They are simply a bad investment.

They're a good investment if you use them only for what they're good at. Spearmen have serious problems dealing with high defense high damage units, like knights. OTOH a single boulder can crush a knight flat.

[Norfleet]

I think it's a testimony to the raw niftiness of Dominions II that anytime somebody thinks something is useless, somebody else disagrees with their own reasons for what they use them for.