Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Just a quick question Fanto: what kind of bless did you put on the templars? I've been running some tests with your 4 templar+priest expansion parties (with a 4N4E4D4S4B bless: I compromised my scales more then I'd like to). They do great against light infantry/archers/light barbarians, but the parties die when put up against barbarians (regular barbarians), HC, or large numbers of HI. I can see using Call Horror+scout against these types of indy provinces, but Call Horror is blood-4, which, if you're going to start blood hunting early (like you should), you're going to be tight in research (as well as unable to touch evocation/construction for some time). I can see the strategy working pretty well, I just think it cuts into Ulm's other research priorities, and leaves Ulm somewhat vulnerable to attack. What was the pretender build you used (since the build has a big impact on the optimal strategy for a nation)? Now that I think about it, you can probably incorporate parties of templars in a general infantry/ranger/villain expansion to make the whole thing go quicker and smoother. I'm going to have to look into that.

Call horror is now blood 2 in CBM, but before the last update it was blood 1. So you can get it pretty quick. In that game (cbm1.5) I used a f2d4b6 awake blood fountain, with the intention to go for vampires and soul contracts. Worked out well enough but If I could start over I would have used a a4d4b4 vampire queen probably.

I don´t advocate heavy use of templars anyway, but during expansion just two templars flanking makes a big difference. The thing is you can buy them right away and they don´t require undead leadership like the guardians. Past early game I´d say the templars are too expensive in most cases. So quite handy as flankers during early expansion but little else, definately not worth spending any extra points for a blessing.

In conclusion, while I think the Templars have a niche for LA Ulm, and you can definitely expand with them, I don't think they're ideal by themselves as a method of expansion, or warrant a bless strategy. They could definitely benefit and and should receive a slight 10-20 reduction in price, but I don't think it'll be too major, or will allow Templars to really flourish. They'll still be a niche unit, albeit now a more cost-effective niche unit. Really it comes down to the age old question: ghoul guardians, or black templars? When it comes down to that, guardians will win out in most situations.

Agreed 100%