Pls explain how early summoning spells are useful

[NTJedi]

Teraswaerto said:
Why do you say think Howl is so bad? The wolves come from all sides, even behind, and can kill enemy mages and disrupt their troop formations. Swarm only hits the front lines, and doesn't kill anything.

Howl costs 2 nature gems and requires 2 nature to cast. Howl provides very very few wolves which usually retreat after a few are killed.
Swarm is cheaper to cast, easier to cast, and the units will all fight to the bitter end not retreat unlike the wolves. Their flying works great for stopping the fleeing units as well. If you cast one Howl(2_gems) against one swarm the swarm will win and you'll have an extra gem.

[danm]

Fire Drakes would be great if they were just willing to let someone else do the melee fighting for them. (same problem as Giant and Agarthan Rock Throwers)

As Abyssia, a nice mass of fire drakes is wonderful right up to the point where it charges into melee and gets cut to ribbons. Would be totally worthwhile if you could script them to stay behind another group of troops and snipe.

[Shovah32]

How about just setting them to fire closest with a fire resistant unit infront set to attack closest?

[danm]

Shovah32 said:
How about just setting them to fire closest with a fire resistant unit infront set to attack closest?

My experience with that(EA Abyssia and Agartha) is that they gleefully outrun their supposed blockers in their excitement to get into firing range -- usually ending up just far enough ahead to be finished off just before their "protectors" catch up.

I'm sure there's a way to tweak starting positions/etc to get it to work, but it seems trickier than it should be. And any mistake means they are toast.

An AI tweak to force short-ranged artillery set to "fire closest" to try to stay [range] squares behind the "front" would potentially "fix" a lot of units that are only marginally useful now.

Failing that -- adding a "hold and fire ___" command would probably accomplish the same thing with less dev effort -- give the lines a chance to form, and then step in and throw your fireballs/boulders/etc.

[Shovah32]

Just place the drakes a little further back or the blockers a little further forward(and with fire resistant blockers make sure they are attacking rather than holding and attacking)

[danm]

yeah, I've probably been too excited about making sure they don't "loose rounds" getting to the fight.

Next time I play Abyssia, I'll try starting them even further back and see how that works for improving longevity

[Teraswaerto]

If you have enough melee troops in front the drakes will never get a chance to engage the enemy even if they are close to the front line.

[Baalz]

NTJedi said:

Howl costs 2 nature gems and requires 2 nature to cast. Howl provides very very few wolves which usually retreat after a few are killed.
Swarm is cheaper to cast, easier to cast, and the units will all fight to the bitter end not retreat unlike the wolves. Their flying works great for stopping the fleeing units as well. If you cast one Howl(2_gems) against one swarm the swarm will win and you'll have an extra gem.

I like howl a lot better than swarm in several situations. One big difference is that the wolves appear all around the battlefield, while the dragonflies from swarm are clumped. The implications of this is that the wolves are vastly superior for being decoy targets. I've had several battles I've won thanks in no small part to the fact that the enemy mages were casting all their best spells at the wolves which spawned near them while my mages obliterated their army. Try that with swarm.

The wolves also have a much better attack than the dragonflies. Its certainly not anything special, but the dragonflies essentially are there just as warm bodies while the wolves can actually do some damage against some troops. For instance, if you're storming a castle with a bunch of enemy mages and a few elite gate blockers, casting several howls can bring an easy victory, while the dragonflies are much more likely to get hung up on the blockers up front.

[Gandalf Parker]

In other word Wolves is better for flanking, and Swarm for an instant front-line attention getter. So if I didnt have units that I preferred for front-line distraction and I didnt have units I preferred for flankers, then Id do well using those spells. It doesnt sound like it would be a this-or-that choice.

In fact, it sounds as if a combination of the two would be great. Maybe with a slight pause such as both of them being scripted to be the second or third spell to cast.