Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful

[PvK]

My opinions/experiences (which I have little interest in arguing with anyone about, BTW, especially if the word "useless" is going to be exaggerated):

Banes can make good thugs if you use them carefully.

A few Wights can be good accent for some careful mixes of troops.

Giant Scorpions are easy for some mages to cast and are not terribly expensive and fairly tough & dangerous.

Wyverns I have always had bad luck with, and usually would rather use air gems on many other things, but they are fliers, which can in theory be used to good effect in some cases.

Hawks are good for the fast flying leader, for attacking very weak targets/provinces, immediate attacks anywhere on the map, providing air fodder, flying hold & attack rear light strikes, etc. I usually like to summon them to a friendly province so I can script and formate them before use. I also often separate the leader from the minions. Sometimes you have flying troops with know flying leaders, so the hawk can lead them for much improved map movement (e.g. indy Pegasus Riders).

PvK

[Teraswaerto]

Why do you say think Howl is so bad? The wolves come from all sides, even behind, and can kill enemy mages and disrupt their troop formations. Swarm only hits the front lines, and doesn't kill anything.

[NTJedi]

Teraswaerto said:
Why do you say think Howl is so bad? The wolves come from all sides, even behind, and can kill enemy mages and disrupt their troop formations. Swarm only hits the front lines, and doesn't kill anything.

Howl costs 2 nature gems and requires 2 nature to cast. Howl provides very very few wolves which usually retreat after a few are killed.
Swarm is cheaper to cast, easier to cast, and the units will all fight to the bitter end not retreat unlike the wolves. Their flying works great for stopping the fleeing units as well. If you cast one Howl(2_gems) against one swarm the swarm will win and you'll have an extra gem.

[danm]

Fire Drakes would be great if they were just willing to let someone else do the melee fighting for them. (same problem as Giant and Agarthan Rock Throwers)

As Abyssia, a nice mass of fire drakes is wonderful right up to the point where it charges into melee and gets cut to ribbons. Would be totally worthwhile if you could script them to stay behind another group of troops and snipe.

[Shovah32]

How about just setting them to fire closest with a fire resistant unit infront set to attack closest?

[danm]

Shovah32 said:
How about just setting them to fire closest with a fire resistant unit infront set to attack closest?

My experience with that(EA Abyssia and Agartha) is that they gleefully outrun their supposed blockers in their excitement to get into firing range -- usually ending up just far enough ahead to be finished off just before their "protectors" catch up.

I'm sure there's a way to tweak starting positions/etc to get it to work, but it seems trickier than it should be. And any mistake means they are toast.

An AI tweak to force short-ranged artillery set to "fire closest" to try to stay [range] squares behind the "front" would potentially "fix" a lot of units that are only marginally useful now.

Failing that -- adding a "hold and fire ___" command would probably accomplish the same thing with less dev effort -- give the lines a chance to form, and then step in and throw your fireballs/boulders/etc.

[Shovah32]

Just place the drakes a little further back or the blockers a little further forward(and with fire resistant blockers make sure they are attacking rather than holding and attacking)

[Baalz]

NTJedi said:

Howl costs 2 nature gems and requires 2 nature to cast. Howl provides very very few wolves which usually retreat after a few are killed.
Swarm is cheaper to cast, easier to cast, and the units will all fight to the bitter end not retreat unlike the wolves. Their flying works great for stopping the fleeing units as well. If you cast one Howl(2_gems) against one swarm the swarm will win and you'll have an extra gem.

I like howl a lot better than swarm in several situations. One big difference is that the wolves appear all around the battlefield, while the dragonflies from swarm are clumped. The implications of this is that the wolves are vastly superior for being decoy targets. I've had several battles I've won thanks in no small part to the fact that the enemy mages were casting all their best spells at the wolves which spawned near them while my mages obliterated their army. Try that with swarm.

The wolves also have a much better attack than the dragonflies. Its certainly not anything special, but the dragonflies essentially are there just as warm bodies while the wolves can actually do some damage against some troops. For instance, if you're storming a castle with a bunch of enemy mages and a few elite gate blockers, casting several howls can bring an easy victory, while the dragonflies are much more likely to get hung up on the blockers up front.

[Gandalf Parker]

In other word Wolves is better for flanking, and Swarm for an instant front-line attention getter. So if I didnt have units that I preferred for front-line distraction and I didnt have units I preferred for flankers, then Id do well using those spells. It doesnt sound like it would be a this-or-that choice.

In fact, it sounds as if a combination of the two would be great. Maybe with a slight pause such as both of them being scripted to be the second or third spell to cast.