Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!

[quantum_mechani]

Archonsod said:

It kind of depends. One thing to consider is how the spell type effects this process - Shades may be weaker than other summons of the same level, but if you only took the Death path at creation you have no alternative, without a large outlay of resources to learn another path. To take something you said earlier: "The abilities you list are either 'extras', available easier and better other ways or just plain negligible. " Is it possible to get all of those abilities on a single unit? with a single selected path?
To be honest, comparing directly across spell lists is ignoring a huge factor of what goes into the balance of those lists. From the creation of your pretender your going to be paying for it - perhaps you'd be better off spending points on Dominion scales, or strength, or a better castle, or a better pretender. Then you need to consider the nation your using - will you start with access to gems of the path, or will you need to find a site which can give you those gems first? Can you afford to raise your paths with gems rather than paying for them at creation? Is it worth taking a specific path to make up for deficiencies in another (which leads on to multi-path spells, items available and similar).
You have imbalance on the one hand because, unlike chess, all of the choices a player makes are not equal. On the other, the balance is across the whole game rather than concentrating on a specific area - the choices the player can make are balanced, but only if the player understands the effect of those choices. It is possible for the player to ignore magic completely and go for a combat oriented pretender with hordes of troops, and still win.Or simply max out their Dominion strength and go for the dominion victory. Neither way is inherently imbalanced, each require different choices and offer different challenges. However, if a player doesn't know precisely what they're doing then it can lead to percieved imbalance. If the above mentioned combat player gets wiped out by the dominion player they may come to the conclusion that there is an imbalance in the way dominion works. However, what is more likely is that the combat player has made some poor choices in the creation of their nation/pretender, or simply don't know how to combat dominion spread - i.e. they don't fully understand how to play their chosen strategy.
This is why you get the experienced players ignoring certain units. It doesn't necessarily mean that those units are useless, imbalanced or obsolete. It's more to do with the player understanding enough about how the game works to know that those particular units or choices are not the best (or most required) compliment to the strategy (or what they are attempting to achieve). These units will change depending on what the player wants to achieve - what is ignored in one strategy may play a central role in another. Units which never see the light of day in multiplayer may be indispensable in single player. Simply because most players ignore a particular unit does not necessarily point to a problem with that unit, it may simply be that nobody has found a strategy which would suit the particular unit.

Actually, all of the examples I gave were using death magic.

While it's true many combinations of abilities/stats can allow the application of unique strategies, it's a matter of cost. The whole point of balance is insuring that a variety of strategies get into play, since at the first go at pricing things are naturally not all at similar levels of cost effectiveness. They don't need to be perfectly so, it's not really possible anyway, but they need to be comparably effective for the price or the entire strategy will just get pushed aside. It is certainly the case that a player that is skilled/familiar with their strategy can still win with one that that is less cost effective, but like everything else, it's a matter of degree. Someone who trained all their life with a bow and arrow could probably easily beat someone who just picked up a gun for the first time in their life, but that doesn't make the weapons 'balanced'. If you pit people very familiar with both weapons against each other, they are going to end up picking the same one. The nice thing about a game rather than reality though, you can give each option a unique advantage (it doesn't have to be a direct advantage, it could be something as simple as price, if the incentive is enough).

I think we agree that almost everything has possibilities to be used in a strategy, the hang up is just that some strategies can be employed far more effectively than others with the same resources available. That, and sometimes units/spells/items are simply so similar to each other they need some tweaks to find their own unique niche.

[Nerfix]

What is the number of shades/gems used ratio?

[Gandalf Parker]

3 shades for 5 gems.

Looking at an old game I remembered that I dont know how many times they have saved my mages from assassination. In most cases I cant think of anything else Id use that I wouldnt rather use front-line instead. And as I said, its often the only stealth or aquatic troop I have available early in the game that an draw fire so my mages or priests or leader with a a nasty weapon can do their work.

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
3 shades for 5 gems.

Looking at an old game I remembered that I dont know how many times they have saved my mages from assassination. In most cases I cant think of anything else Id use that I wouldnt rather use front-line instead. And as I said, its often the only stealth or aquatic troop I have available early in the game that an draw fire so my mages or priests or leader with a a nasty weapon can do their work.

Well, first of all, there are few assassins shade bodyguards can kill that national troops ones can't. Second, you can for the most part only use them for death or blood mages, which are pretty tough to assassinate in any case.

I don't see how it could possibly the only stealth or aquatic troop available often, reanimation and black servant are both level one research. And for both cases you still need a leader to use them for the purpose.

I'm not saying that shades can never kill anything, I'm not even saying that their abilities can't be useful, only that you can virtually always accomplish the same things better in other ways. Just because the hammer you paid 100$ for works for pounding in nails doesn't mean you weren't gypped compared to the 25$ hammer that does the same thing.

[Cainehill]

I mostly agree about the shades, but note that black servants aren't aquatic unless you put an item on them.

[Gandalf Parker]

I didnt say they killed anything. But having someone to draw fire for even one shot can mean survival for many leaders. If I have a stealth leader then I need stealth bodyguards. If I have an aquatic leader then I need aquatic bodyguards. And ethereal isnt bad to toss in also.
I havent verified the thing about strength-sap never working. I had thought it was a factor in my taking out strong units with leaders/bodyguards that wouldnt otherwise have prevailed. But I may have been wrong.

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
I didnt say they killed anything. But having someone to draw fire for even one shot can mean survival for many leaders. If I have a stealth leader then I need stealth bodyguards. If I have an aquatic leader then I need aquatic bodyguards. And ethereal isnt bad to toss in also.
I havent verified the thing about strength-sap never working. I had thought it was a factor in my taking out strong units with leaders/bodyguards that wouldnt otherwise have prevailed. But I may have been wrong.

I didn't say strength sap wasn't working, only that in most cases it was a negligible effect. Against normal troops having sometimes a couple points less damage from one of them is an extremely minor effect, large summons tend to have extra str and mr to spare, and SCs most of the time use damage shields rather that strength based damage anyway.

Stealth leaders that are sneaking every other turn can't be assassinated anyway, and if they aren't normal guards will do. As for aquatic, I've said it before, the longdead from reanimation can go underwater. It is certainly true in assassination attempt even one bodyguard is usually a lot better than none... but that's a niche other things fill much better than shades.