Useless or redundant units?

[quantum_mechani]

There are actually a lot of very redundant or useless units in dominions, however most of the ones you mention are not.

Icarids are indeed rather difficult to find a niche for, even with modding. Chariots are not really redundant with wind riders, but they are little overpriced.

Markatas are servicable for taking lance hits/decoying, and the archers are usable with flaming arrows.

The Kailasa sacreds are actually very good, so long as you protect them from archers with some air on your bless, or just lots of decoying.

[Talleyrand]

I will go through and try to find it but I remember one faction in the Early Age having two units that were exactly alike, down to their looks, costs, stats, and equipment pieces. It must have been a mistake to include them both.

[quantum_mechani]

Talleyrand said:
I will go through and try to find it but I remember one faction in the Early Age having two units that were exactly alike, down to their looks, costs, stats, and equipment pieces. It must have been a mistake to include them both.

Probabaly Helhiem's two Helhirdlings, the noncapital only one is indeed a mistake.

[Talleyrand]

Aye, I just checked. You're right.

[Nerfix]

Kailasas sacreds get Awe which is better than armor, and they have high Def from what I remember. And they can get blessed for even higher def or Air shield.

[Twan]

Chariots trample and cost 3 times less gold than wind riders, so I don't see them as useless. Chariots will be used with "attack rear" to kill indep infantry since the first turns, 125g wind riders will be made later in the game and used with "attack archers" it's not exactly the same thing. Icarids may complete a wind rider group (as you need more than 4 units to avoid too frequent morale checks it's good to have some cheaper flying units to add when you start to use the very expensive wind riders). Chariot archers are the only archers of Arcocephale, but too expensive I agree.

Markatas are size 1 when the good melee troops (bandars) are size 3. As each attack gives -2 to defense even if they miss, using markatas in addition to bandars isn't a bad idea. And if you can BE or luck them markatas may become really annoying as your ennemies will waste 2 or 3 attacks to kill totally expandable units.
The only thing not to make with markatas IMO is to use them as arrow catchers. A single arrow will kill one in most cases, they make the ennemies waste far more damage if they reach melee.

Markatas archers... hum... ok nothing to do with them, except to hope they will be targeted by "attack archers" instead of your longbow squad.

PS : the cruel thing for bandar nations is to start with markata archers instead of real ones. They make the starting army not usable before turn 3 (or even 4 if you have a big sloth scale) when most other nations may take a province in turn 2. I'd like to see a pack of atavi or vanaras archers instead.

[Leif_-]

Twan said:
Chariot archers are the only archers of Arcocephale, but too expensive I agree.

Something they share with pretty much all cavalry with bows. The lack of a "skirmish" command pretty much means that infantry archers are always going to be better value than their cavalry counterparts.

[Epaminondas]

Nerfix,

I don't think saying that the Kailasa sacred are blessable is really of help, because so can the sacred of other nations. Units should be evaluated first on the basis of their raw stats.

Several folks have mentioned "awe," and how, pardon the pun, "awesome" it really is. Could someone be kind enough to explain the arithmetic of it? I only have the Demo, so I don't know how "awe" or "fear" work. It would be helpful if numbers are thrown out. For instance, if a particular has a plus 10 awe (or plus 10 fear), what does it exactly do to troops fighting against it?

[Zen]

Epaminondas said:
Several folks have mentioned "awe," and how, pardon the pun, "awesome" it really is. Could someone be kind enough to explain the arithmetic of it? I only have the Demo, so I don't know how "awe" or "fear" work. It would be helpful if numbers are thrown out. For instance, if a particular has a plus 10 awe (or plus 10 fear), what does it exactly do to troops fighting against it?

As far as Awe is concerned. Awe makes a unit do a morale check in order to even attack the unit with Awe. I'm not sure if the Awe modifier just adds to your side of the OE roll, but I'm pretty sure it does.

This means that most units under 17-18 Morale have a very difficult time attacking units with base Awe. This makes awe very powerful against mundane units (standard units with 8-14 morale, before blessing) but nearly useless against high morale units (Undead, Mindless, Constructs)

Fear works by making a unit force a morale check with a modifier equivilant to the fear formula in the AOE the fear covers. I don't know if lesser fear is in Dom3, I haven't noticed it yet, but lesser fear is invdividual units, while /Cause Fear/ gives a AOE equal to the modifier, with a -1 to the morale check for every 5 levels of the fear.

[Unwise]

Epaminondas said:I don't think saying that the Kailasa sacred are blessable is really of help, because so can the sacred of other nations. Units should be evaluated first on the basis of their raw stats.

I must respectfully disagree. If you have two units that are absolutely identical other than one being sacred, you simply cannot price the sacred one the same as the mundane one. If for no other reason then the mundane one would never be purchased... even with no bless strategy, a generic bless causes sacred troops to have better morale.

You have to look at the sacred attribute as a "raw" stat to be priced as well, and it is not one that can be assigned a set value because so very many factors come into play. Sacred archers will benefit from a water bless more than a sacred cavalry unit, which will benefit from a fire bless more than a an armored unit, which would benefit from an Earth bless more than....

The proper choice of a bless strategy and the greater availability of sacred units in one nation over others is one of the major themes of Dominions, and probably more so in Dom3 then in Dom2.