The Vine Ogre

[Verjigorm]

Based purely on the summation of the values of the various units' statistics (Size, HP, Protection, Morale, Magic Resistance, Attack, Defense, Precision, Movement, and AP), the units come up like this:
Wyvern: 129 + Fly - Cold-blooded - Animal
Ice Drake: 140 + Cold-res(100) - Animal
Cave Drake: 153 + Survive (M) - Animal - Cold-blooded
Fire Drake: 137 + Fire-res(100) - Animal - Cold-blooded + Survive (W)
Vine Ogre: 163 + Poison-res(100) + Survive (F) + Need-not-eat + Mindless - 1 x extra paths required - extra conj level (3)

Clearly the vine ogre is worth more as a unit. If you were to change the costs of the above units, one could probably infer that their gem-cost should be 1 considering that you can get more than one vine ogres for a single gem while the 2nd level summons are extremely expensive. However, that fails to take into account the factors listed as +'s and -'s above, differing values of various attributes (1hp is clearly not equal to 1 attack skill in value), and it fails to take into account divergences in the costs of the various low-level summons. Under the current modding ability it is not possible to achieve a true "balance" between these summons. My suggestion, cludgy though it may be, is to reduce the gem-cost of the 4 elemental 2nd level summons to 1 and see what happens.

My prediction is that you'll see groups of them arising in non-nature nations while nature nations retain the vine ogre. Since they can't be hoarded as efficiently, however, they will tend to be phased out later on when better things come along.

[FrankTrollman]

Based purely on the summation of the values of the various units' statistics (Size, HP, Protection, Morale, Magic Resistance, Attack, Defense, Precision, Movement, and AP)

That is quite possibly the most inane measurement of worth I have ever seen under any circumstances. By that rubric, we could have a size 1 flying creature with 2 AP, 30 strength, 20 attack, 0 precision, 0 defense, 1 hit point, 20 MR, and 37 protection and have it come out to only 110+fly.

Some stats are worth more than others. All stats are worth a lot more when you have a lot of them than when you don't.

My suggestion, cludgy though it may be, is to reduce the gem-cost of the 4 elemental 2nd level summons to 1 and see what happens.

I'd go for 2 or 3. 1 Air Gem Wyverns would be a thing of pure ugly. I don't want to see the Air nations with that kind of upgrade.

-Frank

[Verjigorm]

I mentioned that I did not take into account the values of various abilities I also mentioned that the values of individual attributes are not equivalent.

Your monster does not exist in practice. The values of attributes do not have a linear increase in value per point. They have a value (negative or positive) based on their statistical deviation from the mean values of their opponents'. This makes it difficult/impossible to determine a "cost" for a given point. If you take a look at the creatures I compared, they all fit into a relatively small variance with some outliers: The Wyvern has roughly 20 hp fewer than the others. The Cave Drake has 22 protection. The Vine Ogre has 50 morale. The Wyvern has the best combat skills with 13 Attack and 11 Defense--which since it is at or slightly above the values that the majority of national troops spawn with makes it much more valuable than the skills of all except the vine ogre who has 12 attack skill--allowing it to successfully attack units. It can't fly, but it doesn't eat either. Is Flying better than Doesn't-Eat? Probably, but it restrictys amassing hordes of Wyverns (like you'll see of Vine Ogres). This, combined with the morale of a wyvern (the lowest in the group) makes it less effective as the game progresses.

Would you buy a 3 gem Wyvern?

I'd save mine up for Draconians (which aren't quite as good, but the spell grows cheaper as your Draconian Chief summons more draconians) or Air Queens. You get one chief and 16 draconians for 45 gems--if you don't count the chief's value, since he's basically just a draconian producer, each Draconian cost 2.81 gems when you initially cast the spell. After 10 rounds of summoning, your draconians cost an average of 1.73 gems apiece. It goes down from there. Of course Draconians is a 6th level spell, but saving up for it is better than buying 3 gem wyverns

2 gems might be ok--I'm not sure. I haven't done any actual testing.

If you don't like my evaluation, come up with your own rather than simply attacking mine with arguments I already foresaw

[Oversway]

Another approach would be to keep a higher price but make the drakes/wyvern better. Zen's mod was more to this approach. I don't know if it was effective or not.

At low spell levels I'll usually want my mages researching instead of summoning. It is usually not much more research to get something that (at least appears) better. Maybe with very difficult research you might buy drakes?

[Agrajag]

My unit value calculation will probably be:
(HP/10)*(Morale/10)*(Protection/10)*(Strength/10)*(MR/10)*(Attack/10)*(Defence/10)*(Precision**/10)*(AP/10) = Unit Value.
If you want to include Encumberance just divide by it (but Encumberance isnt always important).

** Only if important to that unit, otherwise just ignore Precision