Ashdod is worthless now

[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.