upkeep

[Norfleet]

I think the bottom line of this: Sea Kings Good. Trolls bad. As with anything that sucks up gold in upkeep at a rate greater than they are actually worth, the actual trolls are a Bad Thing as opposed to a good thing. The moral here: Always summon your Sea Trolls close to the front line, and abuse them as harshly as possible so that they die, preferrably in a gainful manner that doesn't simultaneously kill the Sea King, who is good.

[NTJedi]

I agree with Norfleet

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Boron:
the bigger the map the more likely it is that your income drops in the long run due to global enchantments like utterdark. then with common events most likely many events happened which killed population of you and so on .

I don't know how big is big for you, anyway I've seen that phenomenon happen on maps of all sizes, except the tiniest (the likes of Urgaia).

the main problem with big maps is that you can cast summon trolls e.g. 5 - 10 times but then you will be at your upkeeplimit and you have much less flexibility than anyone who has summons which need no upkeep . they can spend the money on castles , pd , additional mages , whatever they like .

(Hmmm, additional mages with no upkeep, you mean?)

There's some logic in what you say, but you're missing a very important point: Trolls are (reasonably) powerful mid-level summons. The upkeep-free summons you can get at the time Trolls become available either aren't as powerful, or as durable, or as easily available (eg, Draconians may not be available because you need your air gems for other things - a common case). Sure you can wait for upkeep-free summons which are as powerful as Trolls or better, but in the meantime the players who chose to invest in Trolls while you didn't will get an edge over you. And if that edge translates in extra provinces, sites, income, whatever, that more than covers the initial cost and upkeep of these Trolls (IOW, if these Trolls are paying for themselves), then you're already at a disadvantage you may never negate.

i still don't see what makes trolls / sea trolls so special compared to all other magic summons that they are the only ones who need horrible upkeep .

Lots of things I enumerated several times (to no avail it seems), so I'll only list the most important points.

They're available early, need only a level 3 mage to summon, and are flexible in their summoning, allowing you to save on gems or on mage time, depending on your priorities.

They're very resilient to virtually every form of attack, due to the combination of regen, high HPs, and MR.

They don't eat and are strong, and that make them extremely well suited to sieges, particularly in remote or desolate areas where supplies are a problem. For the same reason they're also great for castle defense (actually my main use for Trolls is as fortress crackers - even if they don't participate in the final showdown, instead I often prefer to relocate them to the next enemy fortress while my other troops storm the place).

Sea Trolls are OFC natural amphibians and great for sieging underwater fortresses.

so in the long run building clams is most likely always better than summoning the trolls.

It's surely better than summoning Trolls you'll leave idling in your castle. Otherwise a dozen clams won't save you when your neighbour's Trolls will knock at your door.

the upkeep is really prohibitive for them .

Not for them, not for me. It's only prohibitive for you.

every nation that doesn't need trolls / sea trolls but can summon death / nature ... creatures has this creatures + troops / mages worth 60 upkeep and so they always win against the trolls .

Win what? A virtual war of relative costs? It has little meaning on the battlefield. Whoever has the strongest army wins (usually). If reinforcing my army means summonning Trolls, I sure wouldn't pass on it.

i think atlantis would be much more played if the sea trolls would cost no upkeep but loose their ability to get 1 watergem / turn .

Well, I don't like Atlantis much, but certainly not for that reason.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Upkeep does not scale proportionally to ones own income for some players. I've witnessed strategies where allied players(hotseat) would never exceed X amount of gold upkeep [...]

What I wrote is exactly

Army sizes tend to scale proportionnally to empires sizes, and thus your upkeep tend to scale proportionally to your income

Notice the use of the verb tend? It's a general rule. And you're trying to refute that with atypical examples where it isn't applicable because of players' choices. So basically your point is Trolls should be changed because of special rules or alliances you use only on XL maps? Sorry, but I find this hard to swallow.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
They're available early, need only a level 3 mage to summon, and are flexible in their summoning, allowing you to save on gems or on mage time, depending on your priorities.

You need LEVEL_6 Conjuration... that's not early. Also Vine Ogres are ready at level_3 where it's possible to get 2 or more per gem... plus they don't have upkeep and won't retreat like Trolls. If you're looking for a better deal for a mass of units all at once it's the pale riders. The pale riders LEVEL_5 Enchantment, zero upkeep, cheaper per gem, won't flee like trolls, faster then trolls, and more resistances.

Also both vine ogres and longdead horsemen don't eat. So if you're popping out 10 trolls/per turn I could match this with at least 15 vine ogres/per turn. And on the other scale if you spend the 90 Earth GEMS for two troll kings and 30 trolls... I guarantee a matching 90 death gems for 180 longdead riders and possible to get over 200 longdead riders would cause LOTS more damage... unless your opponent has over a dozen priests waiting.


Also more importantly even if you do have lots of successful armies of trolls... the upkeep will hurt even after 10 turns it's 600 gold for just 15 Trolls. The longdead riders and ogre vines cost nothing and won't retreat either.

[ July 15, 2004, 01:45: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
So basically your point is Trolls should be changed because of special rules or alliances you use only on XL maps? Sorry, but I find this hard to swallow.

That's not what I've been writing... my point is that trolls have an upkeep which doesn't match their true value.

Lets say I give you 100 Trolls during the start of a game... and I start with 100 Vine Ogres. I didn't even include the bonus I could get from the vine crown. Now keep in mind your Trolls are LEVEL_6 Conjuration and mine are only Level_3. If you eventually meet on day 10 for battle... you have spent almost $4000 gold on upkeep(3 died). I had an extra $4000 gold to spend on well you name it. Then your 97 Trolls fight my 97 Vine Ogres... you're trolls will almost always lose because the trolls eventually retreat and/or the $4000 gold allowed me to arrive with 5 times as many commanders you had thus more spells helping me and hurting your army.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Lets say I give you 100 Trolls during the start of a game... and I start with 100 Vine Ogres. I didn't even include the bonus I could get from the vine crown. Now keep in mind your Trolls are LEVEL_6 Conjuration and mine are only Level_3. If you eventually meet on day 10 for battle... you have spent almost $4000 gold on upkeep(3 died).

While I agree that troll upkeep is greatly overpriced and strongly discourages the use of trolls, I think the point you're missing here is that trolls cannot be used like Vine Ogres!

Building up a massive hoard of vine ogres is a perfectly serviceable deal, since Vine Ogres cost nothing: Trolls, however, cannot be used in such a manner. Trolls are best lobbed at the enemy in suicide assaults that hopefully take ground, or at least distract your enemies, generally because they came as byproduct of the King summonings, and you want the king, not the trolls. Kings good, trolls bad.