EA Ulm - Flying Conans of Doom

[Baalz]

Oh no, the steel warriors don't come close to justifying the E9 blessing. What justifies it is the shamans who are not only your thugs but also the teeth in your armies. If you're already going to E8 it's not *that* much more to go to E9, which makes those thugs much tougher and makes your combat mages more likely than not to ignore a stray arrow even without ironskin. Since I suggest using your mages pretty aggressively (spamming charm from the front line, etc.) it seems a prudent investment. Stacking on the steel warriors is a very tasty bonus which has great synergy.

If I was taking a bless primarily for the steel warriors I'd probably look more at a water/blood blessing to maximize damage output since that's the niche you're using them for.

[WraithLord]

What's the lab size anyway?- Isn't that 30?

Another great guide.

Curiously, I have an SP game that I started a few months ago the follows very similar lines
The blessed SW and dirt cheap shaman thugs are way too much for the AI to handle, even on Faeron adventure, so I naturally lost interest.

[licker]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Oh no, the steel warriors don't come close to justifying the E9 blessing. What justifies it is the shamans who are not only your thugs but also the teeth in your armies. If you're already going to E8 it's not *that* much more to go to E9, which makes those thugs much tougher and makes your combat mages more likely than not to ignore a stray arrow even without ironskin. Since I suggest using your mages pretty aggressively (spamming charm from the front line, etc.) it seems a prudent investment. Stacking on the steel warriors is a very tasty bonus which has great synergy.

If I was taking a bless primarily for the steel warriors I'd probably look more at a water/blood blessing to maximize damage output since that's the niche you're using them for.

I'm still not sold on the E9, or even E8. What's the difference in one more point of reinvig? What's the point in 4 more protection when you are already going to be at 30?

It just seems you give up a ton in opportunity cost, either for better scales, more diversity, sleeping as opposed to dormant, for 4 protection on units who are unlikely to be heavily used (steel) or targeted without prot buffs anyway(shamen). Now you may be right, and the benefit of not taking E9 doesn't really help that much, so you might as well do it.

I think the question is really do you want slightly more survieable shamen, or just MORE shamen in the first place, because if you plow those extra points into order or growth (to get away from issues already raised about taking death) you will have an easier time putting up more castles and recruiting more shamen in the first place.

Now I grant that I am not looking at the early game so much, and for some map types E9 may make alot more sense (small cramped maps with slow research). But for a 'normal' (yeah, whatever that is) set up with some room to set up, and normal research speed, it seems the benefit of taking better scales (or to a lesser extent better magic diversity on your pretender) out weighs the E9 bless.