Comparison of Knights

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Firebreath:
I'm curious though, has anyone found a good use of the fire mage cavalry

Put a life draining weapon on him and have him cast fire shield, phoenix pyre. That's always a useful combo, but it can be overcome by killing him quickly enough that he can't regain his fatigue.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by tinkthank:

In general, it seems to me as if the Van is just way too scary for its price and non-captial-availability. I would like to see Vans cost a bit more. I'd also like to see the Red Guard either cost a bit less or have some increased bonuses of some sort.

Some of the other Posts have pointed out some down sides for the Van, but I wanted to address this point. I don't think it's a great idea to push for nerfs and boosts on the basis of just comparing against a handful of other races' equivalent units. Dom2 (thankfully!) doesn't have unit-by-unit balance among the races. Some races have fantastic cavalry, some do not. Some have awesome missile units, and some do not. Same thing with mages, etc. Every race has some benefits and tradeoffs. IMHO, if you don't look at the bigger picture when comparing race's units, you risk either throwing the overall balance out of whack, or homogenizing all the races.

[DeathDaemon]

Machaka spiders?

I'm always scared of them, but not much else other than sorcerers and bane spiders (assassins).

code:

---

(1). Spider knight - web spit, fangs (16 dmg, web, death poison), spear, forest survival. Not bad 

(2). Black hunter - lance, fangs (18 dmg, web, death poison), spear, forest survival, sacred.  Scary.





	(1)	(2)

	----------------

HP	12	13	

PROT	18	22

MRL	11	14

MR	10	11

STR	11	11

ATK	11	12

DEF	13	10

MOVE	2/12	2/20

COST	55/25	125/38

---

You should add the Centaur Cataphract. It is very cheap, has 20hp, can be build everywhere and has recuperation (like the knight of avalon) but no lance.
Well, if money is not a problem, the Van is clearly the best OMHO.
Cheers

[LDiCesare]

I'm not very experienced, but I don't like the red guards. (I don't like Tien Chi a lot).
Vans are powerful but their low protection means they are far easier to get rid of than the others with spells and arrows or bolts, against which defense doesn't help. They are still very powerful.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
1. Why is the K of the Chalice so expensive?

Because it's sacred, so should be better than the non sacred knights, and overall, it's better than the other two sacred knights. Better protection, str, and HP than the red guard and the Van doesn't get a lance.

2. Does anyone else feel the Van to be the "winner" (for its price and availability)?

It doesn't get a lance so it's hard to even put it in the same class as a knight. That first strike of armor piercing damage can be really nice. But it's still a good unit.

All of the units have their pros and cons. I don't see any glaring problems with them, but maybe someone more experienced would.

[PvK]

I'm with Lintman. Comparing heavy cavalry between nations is academically interesting but since each nation is chosen as a whole, in practice one needs to consider each nation, in which case the conclusion is that they are all rather different, and are also different depending on the play style, the choice of pretender and blessings, the situation, etc.

Machaka spider cavalry is very good, especially since killing the rider doesn't kill the spider, who is deadly and hard to kill, all by itself. Machaka has lots of other good stuff, too.

PvK

[Vynd]

Ermor's Knight of the Sepulchre has excellent killing power for its cost.

[mlepinski]

Originally posted by LintMan:
Some of the other Posts have pointed out some down sides for the Van, but I wanted to address this point. I don't think it's a great idea to push for nerfs and boosts on the basis of just comparing against a handful of other races' equivalent units. Dom2 (thankfully!) doesn't have unit-by-unit balance among the races. Some races have fantastic cavalry, some do not. Some have awesome missile units, and some do not. Same thing with mages, etc. Every race has some benefits and tradeoffs. IMHO, if you don't look at the bigger picture when comparing race's units, you risk either throwing the overall balance out of whack, or homogenizing all the races.

An excellent post and I agree wholeheartedly. Yes, Ulm has excellent heavy cavalry for the cost, but they need to have strong national units (like Black Knights) because their magical options are severely limited. Similarly, it's reasonable for Marignon's Knights of the Chalice to be expensive, because Marignon has a variety of solid national units, excellent priests and useful mages. If Marignon was able to field Knights of the Chalice in large numbers (which they could easily do if the cost were lower), then they would likely be too strong.

For the specific case of the Red Gaurd, (which was the orginal topic of this post), it's very possible that the Red Gaurd could be strengthened without unbalancing Tien Chi.

However, in general, I feel that the homogenizing the empires is the worst thing that could happen to Dominions 2 and we should be very worry of unit-to-unit comparisons taken without the greater context of their respective empires.

- Matt Lepinski :->

[tinkthank]

Yes, forgot about Machaka spiders (since they dont look like horsies), but I shouldnt have.

I have never played (for or against) Ermor seriously, so I dont know what those knights can do.

I also agree with the general gist of Lintman, and Mlepinski. Please note that I *did* mention in my original post that these units must all be seen in what I called their "context" of their nation, and that a unit-for-unit comparison will often be misleading. I didnt want to say: "Hey, the This is better than the That: nerf!" It would be foolish, in my opinon, to suggest, for example, that Ulmish Infantries are way to strong for their price compared with others (since they *must* be tougher physically than most other infantries).

Nevertheless....

It seems that the Red Guard of Tien Chi doesnt really have much going for it, even in its context, which compares to Vans, whereas both the Red Guard and the Vans could be said to have similar roles.

I feel that my question regarding Marignon's Chalice Knights has been answered duly. Thanks!

best to all