Good Troop Summons

[Sombre]

I personally find it a bit irritating that there are some spells which are total dross unless you are using a specific item with them, such as vine men/ogre, corpse men etc. Same with dragon master and drakes - you can't make the base spell more useful because then it's too abusable with the items, which means you have more 'pitfall' summons that new players will go for and essentially waste their gems.

I'd prefer it if having the item just allowed you access to another version of the spell which was more efficient (though not 4 or 8 or 16 times as efficient) and that way the original spell could be balanced to see a bit more use.

[Warhammer]

Sombre said:
I personally find it a bit irritating that there are some spells which are total dross unless you are using a specific item with them, such as vine men/ogre, corpse men etc. Same with dragon master and drakes - you can't make the base spell more useful because then it's too abusable with the items, which means you have more 'pitfall' summons that new players will go for and essentially waste their gems.

I'd prefer it if having the item just allowed you access to another version of the spell which was more efficient (though not 4 or 8 or 16 times as efficient) and that way the original spell could be balanced to see a bit more use.

That is also part of the charm of this game. Yes, you have a spell that is absolute crap, but if you want, you can expend the resources to make that a killer spell later. I've never cast corpse men without at least a lightning rod. Its complete crap, nevermind the waste of an action for only one unit, but combined with other boosters, it is a great spell.

[Meglobob]

Sombre said:
I personally find it a bit irritating that there are some spells which are total dross unless you are using a specific item with them, such as vine men/ogre, corpse men etc. Same with dragon master and drakes - you can't make the base spell more useful because then it's too abusable with the items, which means you have more 'pitfall' summons that new players will go for and essentially waste their gems.

I'd prefer it if having the item just allowed you access to another version of the spell which was more efficient (though not 4 or 8 or 16 times as efficient) and that way the original spell could be balanced to see a bit more use.

I like it as it is now.

It encourages creative, strategic/tactical thinking and I like spells which scale upward throughout the game, so are always useful. Rather than a spell which becomes utterly useless by turn 10 for example.

[Sombre]

How is corpse man or summon drakes always useful? They're useless unless you have the item. Their transition from utterly useless to useful based entirely on the item/spell required isn't 'scaling' at all.

[Meglobob]

Sombre said:
How is corpse man or summon drakes always useful? They're useless unless you have the item. Their transition from utterly useless to useful based entirely on the item/spell required isn't 'scaling' at all.

Yes it is scaling, as you after research the items, lightning rod construction 2, staff of storms lvl 6 and Igor Konhelms Tome lvl 8. You would probably start casting corpse man when you get lightning rod.

Corpse Man Construction does require some effort to set up but once you get it going, it runs automatically, auto monthly summons.

I am not a fan of drakes summons myself, I never cast those spells, not efficient use of gems. So I agree with you drakes are not very useful at present.

[Mind Elemental]

How big a problem is the abysmal MR on corpse men? I have visions of the other guy showing up with a stack of priests, or just Undead Mastery.

[DrPraetorious]

I disagree that summon drakes is useless without dragonmaster. In fact, I'd say the reverse: once you have dragonmaster, you invariably have something better to do.

Now, if you fight with people who agree never to have any wars before turn 20, drakes are usless. OTH, for a turn 9 army of 110 guys, three drakes can make a *big* difference. Potentially a much bigger difference than five people who know fireball instead of fire flies, which would be the other option for your early research.

Dominions 3 has a lot of tactics that you wouldn't use if given the choice in the matter. But if you don't have a choice, you use them, and if you don't get demoralized, it's entirely possible to come from behind and win.

[Sombre]

Sorry but if you're summoning drakes for the vanilla gemcost without dragon master (they're pretty useless even with dragonmaster, because dragonmaster is such an abysmal spell) then you must be completely boned anyway. You'd be better off alchemising the gems for gold to buy more troops imo.