Best MA sacred unit

Huzurdaddi · #1 April 9th, 2007, 02:34 PM

In terms of cost effectiveness I think it is a toss up between the Jaguar Warrior and the Van.

I still do not know how many HP a Jaguar Warrior has ( I think it is 30 ).

Xietor · #2 April 9th, 2007, 04:24 PM

Heart companions cut through about giant's best troops as well as light infantry. heh. And they dispatch Ermor's sacreds with ease. They are slow though(:

With solar imprisoned, you can have a f9 4n bless plus very good scales.

Though slow, they form a good front wall, while the elephants, which are fast, circle to rear troops. And provide protection for the astologists which are paralyzing.

Micah · #3 April 9th, 2007, 05:48 PM

Good bless strat sacreds need to have something really special about them to be worth it. Shadow vestals are Eth and reasonably high defense, Vans and white centaurs are stealthy/glamoured and have 3 map move. Niefel giants are tough as hell, have enough HP to make regen amazing on them, and have a chill aura, plus the Jarls gain a lot from a good bless. The various Abysian sacreds dual wield, berserk and hit like a ton of bricks (and are still not really good for a pure bless strat). Jag warriors are cheap, really damn good, and can be made everywhere. All of the sacreds except Abysia all also have very low resource costs so you can take some sloth picks to offset the bless cost, and Abysia needs production anyhow because all of their units are resource hogs. The Heart companions don't stack up at all. They're great blocker units for your mages, but they do that just fine without a bless. Sinking in the points to make them a little bit better is a massive waste...if your mages were sacred I could see a high earth bless for reinvig (9 encumberance on them too, seriously, they're NOT GOOD) and the prot bonus, but since your mages won't get the reinvig that's right out the window. MA Arco is not a bless nation. I think you'd be much better served with an awake/dormant pretender to help expansion and good scales.

Xietor · #4 April 9th, 2007, 07:11 PM

You opinion is well reasoned, but Acrosphale with a f9 4n bless, with the Solar as the pretender(imprisoned), still has very good scales. With a few heart companions and elephants, you do not need any help with early expansion from your pretender.

The fire bless turns the heart companion from a good blocking unit, to one that takes down giants, ethereals, and any other tough units with relative ease. The 4 nature is something I find useful on a pretender anyway. Solar starts with 3 fire, so getting to 9 is not too bad.

So I actually agree with you that the heart companions may not be worthy of a bless strategy, if you had to sacrifice scales. But it still allows 3 growth, 3 order(with 2 heat).

Also, similar to pangaea's infantry, since afflictions are healed, by midgame they have 3 stars which makes them even tougher. Since astrologers are brutal with paralyze, having a solid wall of these troops shielding them, while cutting other players elites to ribbons, makes a good combo.

Now a heart companion is not going to catch a KOA or Van, but that is what flanking elephants mixed with the quicker hyperists (high morale) are for. And for 25 gold, you can have tons of these guys and not notice if a few are fireballed etc.

At 75 gold a pop, and no way to heal afflictions, you have to wince when 20-30 vans are destroyed by some nasty spells.

And someone said above, he would pit 50 vans against 50 Heart companions. at 3 times the cost, you would have to pit 15 vans against 45 heart companions. With no simulator handy, my money would be on the 45 heart companions, who with the fire bless, would hit those vans.

I like the vans, but they can be killed or get afflictions from 10 gold ind archers quite easily.

Shovah32 · #5 April 9th, 2007, 07:20 PM

With the way your using heart companions my reccomended bless would either be E9(great prot+reinvig), E9N4(same as before+less afflictions) or, my personal choice for blocking, N9. With N9 you get 2 regen rather than 1(quite helpful on an armoured unit) and get the very helpful berserker ability which gives you extra prot, makes you do more damage and makes you practically unroutable(very important for a meatshield). You will do a bit less damage vrs regular troops and quite a bit bless vrs ethereals and high defence troops but the berserking and extra regen really helps you hold the line.

Shovah32 · #6 April 9th, 2007, 07:35 PM

Sorry for not just using edit but i feel this deserves a new post: I just tested 45 of xietors heart companions(F9N4 blessed) against 15 F9W9 Vans(they have worse scales but lower resource cost so i based it purely on gold cost) and the result?
45 Heart companions dead alongside 1 dead van, a complete massacre. The battle was in a province with no scales(no dominion had spread), all units were blessed, it was farmland, arco had the defenders advantage, no units had afflictions.

Sure you could make various arguements such as astrologers would have paralyzed the vans and elephants would trample them but then there are easy counter arguements such as vanadrotts would thunderstrike heart companions, dwarven smiths would destroy their armour and skinshifters and einheres would have killed elephants(high damage attack=dead elephants) ect.

In a pure test of vans vrs heart companions the vans did win, and by a rather large margin.

edit: no vans had afflictions after the fight. The vans also have glamour, stealth and higher movement and so could have avoided the heart companions rather easily.

Xietor · #7 April 9th, 2007, 08:10 PM

Well, you have vans with 2 9 blesses. heh. try van with 1 9 1 4. My whole point was you can get a solid, not spectacular, troop without giving up scales, and for a relatively cheap 25 gold. But you ran the fight, and my hat is off to you for that.

Still, i am surprised the heart companions did so poorly.
Fire bless is better than e9 bless, they need the added attack bonus more, plus can hit ethereal units. They never rout anyway, sick morale, then blessed and divine spell, and exp star or 2. Since the priestess heals their afflictions, i am not too worried about them getting hearts.

What god did you use for those double 9 blesses, and what were your scales?

If you do not mind, i would be curious to see the vans fight the koas of man. I am sure with the double 9 bless they would trash them.

Micah · #8 April 9th, 2007, 08:43 PM

Actually, I just tested it, 15 E9/W9 Vans killed 45 N9/F9 Heart Companions, taking 6 losses, I replicated the test several times, Van losses ranged from 4-6, Arco lost all 45 every single time. Prophet commander on both sides, in Arco dominion. Troops set to hold and attack, prophets to divine bless, sermon of courage, stay behind troops, center of the field.

This gives Arco a stronger bless than is suggested, and also gives them every other conceivable advantage...they actually get to find and fight the vans instead of moving around ineffectually protecting one province at a time while their empire is raided to death, the ridiculous resource differential cost is ignored, as is the triple Holy cost of producing that many Heart Companions, and the benefits of having an Earth bless with sacred mages on Vanheim's side is also not accounted for. Actually fighting a straight up battle is the Van's WORST point, and they STILL win.

Xietor, it seems your understanding of the competitive MP environment is not very developed at this point, and I was there myself about 6 months ago, getting killed in a few games, and doing well in others where I've taken advice has really led me to trust the opinions of the people on this board that have had extensive MP experience. Dom is a very complex game, and while something may look great on paper the people that have actually played a lot of MP are the ones that will be able to tell you if that translates to actual gameplay or not. I guess it might be hard to tell who is actually experienced and who is not, but in general most of the people that are posting here using a definitive tone are fairly accurate in their statements. (Like my earlier post about Arco being a bad bless nation) Your tendency to argue for your favored strategies despite not having nearly the amount of experience as some of the other posters is slightly frustrating, since you can always come up with SOME situation where unit X is better than unit Y. If you're not sure WHY someone is saying what they are then feel free to ask, but arguing based on hypothetical situations doesn't accomplish much.

Xietor · #9 April 9th, 2007, 09:03 PM

I do not consider myself an experienced mp player. Though i have played many mp games, they are not against people that are hardcore DOM II and III players, giving me a huge advantage(regardless of strategy). I would be glad to play a game with 1 or 2 players and 12 Ai on difficult. A game with
10 or so players has little appeal to me.

I like to play for 3-4 straight hours and get in many many turns in one setting. The more people, the harder that is to coordinate. I also see no point to diplomacy. If you are relying on your skills, then you should not need to team up
to eliminate another player. How can you accurately assess your skills if you are being aided or double teamed?

I am not actually arguing that the heart companion is better, but that with his low gold cost, he can be quite effective with a slight bless, and allowing acrosphale to keep good scales.

Additionally, I think(do not know) that the heart companion would withstand missile fire much better than the vans due to better protection. With e9 bless that is not true, but many on here claim the f9 w9 bless is the best for vans, and the added defense would not help against missiles.