Dud units / monsters / summons

[Juzza]

Sombre said:
Another couple of recruits up for discussion.

Marignon - The flagellent. This guy just sucks. Seriously. Starts with a random affliction, often crippled or diseased, crummy stats and chaff status - they're sacred but in this case it's actually a drawback because you can't amass them. Are they /ever/ worth recruiting?

EA Oceania - Amber Guard Triton. Ok the goldcost isn't too bad. I can forgive the fact that they are aquatic. But check out that resource cost and they only get one more protection than the oceanian trooper. The shield isn't too helpful since they aren't going to run into missile fire either. So would you guys use them?

First of all there are a lot of different strategic ways to use Flaigrents mostly their moral for me, they have two attacks with one weapon, that means no ambidextrous penalty which means their getting 2 attacks at 9, or whatever it is for 10 gold, and if their blessed with fire, say 9, thats like an attack of 13 with fire, each two attacks takes 4 off a creatures defence and if you have but 3 of them blessed up to something with even 20 defence they will take it down within one round.

Second Shields don't only effect missle fire, if an attack beats defence but not the shield parry you add the shield protection to the creatures normal protection, shields are far from useless.

Dedas said:
Somehow it seems like a waste as you rarely need all that extra magic resistance on any sacred Marignon unit.

Any scared unit? all the Marignon summonable angelic units are sacred not to mention the knights of the chalice for the MA, if you don't bless them your missing out on a huge part of Marignon.

HoneyBadger said:
Here's another one, the EA Atlantis Basalt Guard. Powerful unit, but because it doesn't wear a helmet, it can't get the full use of an earth-bless, it's got ridiculous resource-cost, it's capital only, and doesn't even get a patrol-bonus, despite-in the description-being the "ultimate guards".

Again, like the Niefel footsoldier, neat unit in theory, in practice-not much worth using at all.

Their desined for clogging castle gates, with even a little bit fire bless and earth to reduce fatigue, two attacks with high attack, almost impossible to take down underwater with no missile fire.

I also have to dissagree with the Niefel footsoldier, theres alot of strategic ways to use this unit using things such as a 4N bless will make them next to impossible to take down with all that heath, with regeneration their chance of getting alifictions is next to nothing because of all their health.

Jazzepi said:
Has anyone actually found a good use for patrol bonuses? It seems like castle defense/seige is far more useful.

Or pillaging bonuses, for that matter. I actually think it would be interesting if pillaging was a switch you could flip on and off. I don't see why an army can't pillage as it moves through a province. It could be more effective the longer you stay in one place, but I think it would be more realistic to have a huge army rampaging through the opponent's land pillaging as it goes.

Jazzepi

Simple, for patrolling, if you've got a commander with say 20 patrol bonus you can have say 5-8 of them patrolling in a province where your constantly blood hunting, your still getting money from the province, not using an army to patrol the province so thats another army to fight rather than sitting in the middle of your nation patrolling and if you have a decent grow this will hardly even effect the population of the province.

[Sombre]

I'd give 'em +1+1 att/ambi for a total of 12 attack, 2 ambi, or possibly just +1 ambi since in CBM the women have been nerfed a bit (or so I hear).

Actually this is my current thinking for a balance addition to CBM:

Att 2 on blowpipe.

Bakemono to size 1.
Sea Trolls more useful: Claw with 0 0 0 stats rather than fist.
Ambidexterity increase of 1 for ulmish warriors. Possibly +1 attack too.
Remove scout from marignon - they have spy etc.
Abysia's old age problems - remove oldage from 'initiate level' units.
Lower water strike research level so it is useful for water mages underwater early on.
Agarthan MA PD above 20 produces pale ones that are supposed to be rare and suck as PD. This is no good.
EA Rlyeh could do with the Slave Troll unit. As national summon or recruitable.
EA Oceania amber guard need to either be better or have lower rcost.
LA Marignon Flagellents without afflictions.

Obviously I want this list to be longer. Any more units you'd never use?

[Sombre]

Juzza said:
First of all there are a lot of different strategic ways to use Flaigrents mostly their moral for me, they have two attacks with one weapon, that means no ambidextrous penalty which means their getting 2 attacks at 9, or whatever it is for 10 gold, and if their blessed with fire, say 9, thats like an attack of 13 with fire, each two attacks takes 4 off a creatures defence and if you have but 3 of them blessed up to something with even 20 defence they will take it down within one round.

You're ignoring the fact that they're all crippled and diseased - half of them aren't going to do any good at all without a serious bless and a serious bless could make any unit good. I do take the point about two attacks, but I still think they're not worth it unless they have afflictions removed.

Second Shields don't only effect missle fire, if an attack beats defence but not the shield parry you add the shield protection to the creatures normal protection, shields are far from useless.

I'm not saying shields are useless, just that they're less useful for aquatic chappies. My main gripe with the amber clan guys is that they get 1 more protection on body, head and shield for 14 resources, which makes their Rcost almost double that of the standard oceanian soldier (34 compared to 20). They are better in stats, but that's what your extra gold is paying for - the amber armour is a resource hogging ripoff.

Any scared unit? all the Marignon summonable angelic units are sacred not to mention the knights of the chalice for the MA, if you don't bless them your missing out on a huge part of Marignon.

He's not saying don't bless them, he just doesn't think the MR boost is worth it for marignon.



Does anyone make use of pillaging bonus? It seems rare, slight and pretty useless.

[Edi]

Only units that I remember having pillage bonus are the barbarians, barbarian chief and barbarian lord. Might have been one or two other units, but there are very few units that have it.

[Juzza]

I never use pillaging on computer players, only ever vs human opponents, with large sneaking armies, you appear in provinces next to their capital or major cities with somthing like a harvester of sorrows and a huge army and decimate their populations, then they can't move armies though there easierly, rec is reduced and income from the province is gone, and you make enough money from the pillaging to replace the army you just sent deep into enemy territory from whiping out 20000 people.

[quantum_mechani]

Sombre said:
QM: I don't think it's true that 75% of the stuff in the game is 'dud'. Maybe not for preferred use in highly competative MP, but most things still have their uses or are merely below average. What I'm looking for is units which flat out bite and punish you for using them,.. and make them a bit more usable.

It's amounts to the same thing, just a matter of degree of disadvantage. If something is only a little worse than your other options (but very similar in function) it might as well be a lot worse.

And that aside, few of the thing mentioned here fall into the extreme 'bite me' catagory. Things like Wrath of the Sea, Light Cavalry without lances, Amulet of Vengeance, Call Lesser Horror, Bonds of Fire, Dragon Master, Iron Pigs, Serpent Cataphracts, Bell of Cleansing, The Sphinx, Son of the Sun & Co., etc.

[HoneyBadger]

Again, it's completely besides the point that they're a powerful unit, as I said. The point is that they're a dud, a dead end. They're fine for a few things, but they're expensive, limited, and pretty much the only game in town. Why waste money on them? If you've got a good bless, recruit Jarls.

[quantum_mechani]

Sombre said:
Att 2 on blowpipe.

Already done in CB.

Bakemono to size 1.

I think the graphics would look screwy if that were done.

Sea Trolls more useful: Claw with 0 0 0 stats rather than fist.

Seems reasonable, I think something similar was done in dom2 CB actually.

Ambidexterity increase of 1 for ulmish warriors. Possibly +1 attack too.

I'd rather up the attack than the abidex, seems somehow more thematic.

Remove scout from marignon - they have spy etc.

I suppose, not harming anything though.

Abysia's old age problems - remove oldage from 'initiate level' units.

IW's stance, which I tend to agree with, is that the old age is part of the theme and other ways should be found to boost them if needed.

Lower water strike research level so it is useful for water mages underwater early on.

I actually use water strike quite a bit as it is, just because it's more or less the only option. The real issue here is not enough direct underwater combat spells. In theory new ones should be able to be modded in.

Agarthan MA PD above 20 produces pale ones that are supposed to be rare and suck as PD. This is no good.

For most nations, I'd rather not tweak something as invisible as PD, but MA agartha needs all the help it can get.

EA Rlyeh could do with the Slave Troll unit. As national summon or recruitable.

An interesting idea, though it would make the shambler thrall an even poorer choice.

EA Oceania amber guard need to either be better or have lower rcost.

The problem here isn't that they are too bad, but that oceanian tritons are so much better. I have hard time seeing a thematic solution.

LA Marignon Flagellents without afflictions.

Even if I thought flagellants were underpowered, I would rather make them cheaper than remove such a unique feature. And I don't find them weak at all, they beat sacreds like Red Guard hands down (not on an individual basis obviously).

[Sombre]

quantum_mechani said:
It's amounts to the same thing, just a matter of degree of disadvantage. If something is only a little worse than your other options (but very similar in function) it might as well be a lot worse.

And that aside, few of the thing mentioned here fall into the extreme 'bite me' catagory. Things like Wrath of the Sea, Light Cavalry without lances, Amulet of Vengeance, Call Lesser Horror, Bonds of Fire, Dragon Master, Iron Pigs, Serpent Cataphracts, Bell of Cleansing, The Sphinx, Son of the Sun & Co., etc.

Well if it's just about degrees of disadvantage, you might say that you should never use anything that isn't the hands down best unit or nation in the game. But people want to, both for variety and because the use of different units and nations changes depending on the situation you're in. I mean there are times when unit A, though generally worse than unit B, will be a better choice. What I want to 'fix' is unit C, which has a clear purpose (it's got AP weapons, good mapmove, fire resistance or some other ability which fits into rock paper scissors balance) but still sucks. While I'm at it I figure unit D, which is just a worse version of another unit, could do with either being given a new ability or at least made to be roughly average so it doesn't punish the AI which seems to build at random, or the player who wants to use it for flavour's sake.

The stuff you mention there is 'fixed' in the CB mod is it not? I personally think that if a unit is just bad, severely underpowered, it should be improved. Useless units add nothing to the game and are fairly easy to turn into units which provide more variety (gameplay, flavour, graphics) with a little stat tweak.

[Sombre]

Already done in CB.

Not in v1.00 it isn't. There's a mistake in the code - the weapon is typed in as #prec 2 when it needs to be #att 2. Since I'm proposing a mod on top of the CBM mod, I thought I'd fix that little typo.

I think the graphics would look screwy if that were done.

I'll check, but I think they'll look fine. They're the same size as the vaetti after all (graphically). Maybe even the same as a hoburg.

Seems reasonable, I think something similar was done in dom2 CB actually.

Might have to make them slightly more expensive, but it just seems daft that the can't fight worth a damn currently.

I'd rather up the attack than the abidex, seems somehow more thematic.

End result is the same, so I don't mind.

I suppose, not harming anything though.

Just a tidying thing. They have zero need of the scout.

IW's stance, which I tend to agree with, is that the old age is part of the theme and other ways should be found to boost them if needed.

I completely agree, but not for the initiate level units. Their description suggests they are young(ish). The nation as a whole would still have oldage problems and I'd only make it so the initiates at least didn't /start/ old. 2-3 years down the line, who knows?

I actually use water strike quite a bit as it is, just because it's more or less the only option. The real issue here is not enough direct underwater combat spells. In theory new ones should be able to be modded in.

I agree, but in the meantime I think waterstrike could be lower. As someone on the forums said, water mages should be useful underwater out of the box. I suppose I could come up with a couple more attack spells underwater which are weaker and at lower levels. I still think water strike is high up considering how specialised and relatively underwhelming it is.

For most nations, I'd rather not tweak something as invisible as PD, but MA agartha needs all the help it can get.

Makes sense from balance, theme and fun perspective to me.

An interesting idea, though it would make the shambler thrall an even poorer choice.

Depends on the cost of the slave troll. If the shambler thrall is currently a bad choice it could be given a boost or made a bit more unique, too.

The problem here isn't that they are too bad, but that oceanian tritons are so much better. I have hard time seeing a thematic solution.

Well there's always magic or some elemental resistance. That would play on the fact that they have armour crafted by specialised mages from traditionally magical matter.

Even if I thought flagellants were underpowered, I would rather make them cheaper than remove such a unique feature. And I don't find them weak at all, they beat sacreds like Red Guard hands down (not on an individual basis obviously).

Well I'm willing to go with the flow regarding flaggies. People here seem to think they're useful and I'm no expert, so I'm not going to argue that one any further. If the description explained about their afflictions I suppose that would make it less bothersome.

If you agree with me on the whole regarding some things, I'd be happy to just work with you and others at improving the CB mod. The problem is I come at the game from a SP and theme angle, not MP. I still want to improve balance, of course. I'm a CB convert, or I wouldn't be wanting to build on it, see? I just think more can be done without harming the game or watering it down any, by sorting out the many other duds in the game not touched by CB (yet?).