Ashdod is worthless now

[Dimaz]

Squirrelloid, while I don't know anything about Ashdod, I think you're wrong about vanilla Ulm. In early game it's rather strong and can deal with most opposition. The problems begin with transition to mid-midgame if you don't diversify with pretender/indies by that time.

[Mightypeon]

Originally Posted by Dimaz

Squirrelloid, while I don't know anything about Ashdod, I think you're wrong about vanilla Ulm. In early game it's rather strong and can deal with most opposition. The problems begin with transition to mid-midgame if you don't diversify with pretender/indies by that time.

Indeed, there were a number of nations even crappy vanilla Ulm (after the Black Guard adding patch) could rush, and CBM Ulm can rush a lot of people successfully, provided they are close enough.

[ghoul31]

had I realized the sacreds were worthless now, I would have just used regular troops.. They should have just deleted the sacreds, so people don't mistakenly use them like I did.

[Scaramuccia]

Just tested non-bless start.
Used dormant sphinx e6s4 dom7 03/P3/H3/G3/M1.
No problems with expansion - starting army is abysia class.
archers + amorites for second army are good too,
Recruited Zamzumites each turn (starting from turn1). Had adon with lantern shield, luck pendant , earth braces and black steel plate on turn 8. He rocks.

Don't see what problems ashdod have.

[Starbelly Geek]

Originally Posted by Scaramuccia

Don't see what problems ashdod have.

My issue would be that the principal behind CBM was, I thought, to reduce the number of "useless" units each nation has and encourage diversity. This change does the latter (because Ashdod becomes more of a mage-variety emphasis and de-emphasizes the cap-only sacreds), but at the expense of the former (the sacred troops are much more niche-utility, where their use was already limited by their extreme cost and limited massability). Sure, people are more likely to consider strategies other than high Earth bless now, but I'm not sure that the high Earth bless is even a good investment any longer.

For Adons, you can just replace their armor with something lower encumbrance (even Black Plate Cuirass is better), but Anakites (both types) are likely to see very little use. Was an Ahiman Anakite bless rush really a constant problem with Ashdod? Why not just push them up to a higher cost?

I don't understand why, facing Ulm, one wouldn't load up on the cheaper giants. Amorites and Edomites should be able to do a number on the base troops of Ulm and survive most of the early things the smiths can do. So "Ashdod is worthless" sounds a lot like "monkey PD is crippling" to me, but I'm not sure the change made here was well considered.

[PriestyMan]

Originally Posted by Starbelly Geek

My issue would be that the principal behind CBM was, I thought, to reduce the number of "useless" units each nation has and encourage diversity. This change does the latter (because Ashdod becomes more of a mage-variety emphasis and de-emphasizes the cap-only sacreds), but at the expense of the former (the sacred troops are much more niche-utility, where their use was already limited by their extreme cost and limited massability). Sure, people are more likely to consider strategies other than high Earth bless now, but I'm not sure that the high Earth bless is even a good investment any longer.

The problem with this assertion (although it is a goodthought) is that without the nerf, the sacreds, and the high E bless was so good that it made all other strategies severely sub-optimal. So CBM has at the very least kept the number of options the same. I think it has increased because personally i think at least E6 is still huge for ashdod just for the SC's.

[Valerius]

I did the same as Scaramuccia and tested an expansion with both the non-sacred troops and E10n6 sacreds. I also found things worked fine with the non-sacred troops. Both types of sacreds did fine as well, even with fatigue accumulating. Fatigue as a possible counter to them seems reasonable.

I also agree with Squirrelloid that beyond initial expansion, it's the sacred commanders that matter, not the troops. And there you can swap out the encumbrance 3 armor and give them reinvig items if needed.

Actually, looking at the troops my main thought is that they are among the better GoR candidates in the game. Probably not worth it since you've got Zamzummite's but 6 gems is a reasonable cost to pay for that type of thug.

[PriestyMan]

you didnt test them before the game started?

[elmokki]

"Oh god, why didn't CBM remove flagellants! I made a bless for them and lost the game!"

[Admiral_Aorta]

remove all nations except mictlan so no one accidentally picks a bad one