Good Indie Troops

[rdonj]

Indy commanders, mages, scouts, priests and archers. Okay, and depending on the situation sometimes woodsmen with blowpipes, wolf tribe warriors, and light infantry can be worth buying, especially the ones with javelins. Sometimes you can find sacreds, the jade lizard riders being generally the best of those. Or sometimes you'll run into a province that lets you recruit elephants, which is another sometimes-useful one. Other than that there's not much that you'd generally want.

I like how torgon and I said basically the same thing. And yeah, hoburg crossbowmen are just awesome. 8g5r for a crossbow, that's all you need right there.

It's worth noting that the recruitable amphibians suck pretty badly, but it's true that they'll help you get into the water. And occasionally ichtyids can be worth recruiting in small numbers just for the nets they carry.

[Shangrila00]

I've recruited heavy cav with kite shields to be arrow catchers for nations that don't have any of their own that have map move 2. It's pretty expensive, but still better than arrows hitting unshielded troops or ones with only bucklers.

Lion tribe archers can be useful for nations that can put together map move 3 armies.

I really wish Nightmares aren't so awful at actual fighting for their sky high price, though I guess it would be overpowered if you can get the equivalent of sacred recruitable demon knights. Not terrible like the Gryphon riders at least, I mean 125g for a 10 hp unit. The lizard and pegasus riders are pretty nice with a good bless though, at least in the EA where their lackluster damage output doesn't hurt too bad. Pegasus Riders are practically EA Tien Chi's other national sacred, since they go so well with flying celestial masters to lead, bless, and buff them, and Amazons are pretty common in the EA.