Umbrals & Agartha Balance (v3.08)

[Shovah32]

The umbral is far superior to a black sevant.

Umbral:
68 Health
22 Strength
12 Attack
12 Defence
15 Magic Resistance
20 Morale
14/3 Movement
40 Normal Leadership
Amphibious

Black Servant:
18 Health
13 Strength
11 Attack
11 Defence
10 Magic Resistance
17 Morale
12/3 Movement
No Leadership

Both are undead(umbrals MR alone makes it superior due to this), both have 100% cold and poison resisance, both have stealth+0 and are ethereal.

So yes, imho Umbrals are that much superior to black servants.

[Ygorl]

For their cost, the research required to summon them, and the single-nation limitation, they'd better be superior to black servants! Umbrals are nice, no doubt, but I've never seen them make or break a game. Keep in mind that you only get one per casting, so to amass a horde you need a lot of mage time (and at least in the early age you either need expensive mages or 4x that many cheap mages). While they're powerful, and a great value if you just look at gem cost, I don't think they remotely overpower the nation. I don't even think they dramatically out-cool other things Agartha can do - for the same gem cost, I can get five magma children, which aren't too shabby on their own, or a big earth elemental that can trample all over unfriendly chaff-mobs. The only cheap EA Agarthan mages that don't have a useful summon, actually, are the WE guys. I guess they can research or something.
If you restrict your attention to things you can summon with death gems, even, I don't think Umbrals are that obvious a choice. Say you've got five Oracles of the Dead and a bunch of death gems. You could summon a pile of Longdead Horsemen and with the rest of the oracles do a bunch of research or forge some things or preach a lot or lead some armies, or else for the same gem cost summon five Umbrals and do nothing else. It's not clear to me that the second choice is always or even usually better.

[MaxWilson]

Ygorl said:
If you restrict your attention to things you can summon with death gems, even, I don't think Umbrals are that obvious a choice. Say you've got five Oracles of the Dead and a bunch of death gems. You could summon a pile of Longdead Horsemen and with the rest of the oracles do a bunch of research or forge some things or preach a lot or lead some armies, or else for the same gem cost summon five Umbrals and do nothing else. It's not clear to me that the second choice is always or even usually better.

While Oracles will generally have something better to do with their time, they're capital-only. 25% of Earth Readers will be E1D1 and can summon umbrals, which means you can set up an umbral factory without interrupting your Oracles. I don't know if that affects your argument.

-Max

[mivayan]

MaxWilson said:
While Oracles will generally have something better to do with their time, they're capital-only. 25% of Earth Readers will be E1D1 and can summon umbrals, which means you can set up an umbral factory without interrupting your Oracles. I don't know if that affects your argument.

-Max

Oracles are the only way (except perhaps summoning spectres via pretender-made booster items) to get umbrals in MA...

so EA balance is more interesting. Cost 2 or 8 is meaningless when discussing Gift of reason, and presumably items too.

[MaxWilson]

Okay, I buy that. A GoR'ed Umbral looks slightly weaker than a Wraith Lord (a bit higher ST, stealthy, life drain attack vs. Soul Vortex casting, Wraith Lord has 22 Prot without needing forged armor, Wraith Lord is immortal) but is available at a lower research level (and doesn't need Alt-6 to cast Soul Vortex). Increasing the death gem cost for Umbrals won't affect this one way or the other, because the nature gem cost dominates.

Still, I think if I was Gift-of-Reasoning undead creatures I'd rather have a Tartarian. Umbrals look more like something I'd throw Marble Warriors on and use as footsoldiers, unless I really wanted a stealthy commander. Disclaimer: I'm not an MP player so I may be missing some tricks.

-Max

[PvK]

I've had good successes with EA (SP & MP) and MA Agartha (SP) without using very many Umbrals. A wall of Rhuax Pact Magma Children can be devastating, of course - the tricky part is keeping your other troops from getting incinerated. Enough trogs en masse can also ruin armies. The low fighting skills from being one-eyed is perhaps the biggest disadvantage, but it's not by any means unsurmountable. Giving magic items which don't even require hitting to the giants, can give you good thugs without needing any blessing. High hitpoints, ok armor plus Legions of Steel is of course quite tough early on, as well. As I've mentioned on other threads, Agartha also gains a great deal on overall balance if it starts out near an independent ocean.

[Sir_Dr_D]

And don't forget about darkness. Agarthians are the only non-undead unit with 100% darkvision. Probably the reason they were given lower attack and defense is because they would be too overpwoering because of this othewise.

What their needs to be to make Agartha more balanced is more cave provinces.

About the Umbrals, I don't know. Haven't run into those guys yet.

[MaxWilson]

Sir_Dr_D said:
What their needs to be to make Agartha more balanced is more cave provinces.

And *working* cave provinces. I only just discovered that cave provinces aren't actually dark. Fortunately, darkness does work in cave cities, and presumably in cave forts.

(Note that demons have 100% darkvision and are not undead, although many spells/items affect both undead and demons. So Yomi works quite well in cave provinces too, or would if they worked, although Yomi can't build cave forts.)

-Max