Nations with weakest troops

[Makinus]

What are the nations with the weakest national troops? I´ll set a new SP game with very huge research costs (modded), where troops will have a greater impact, so to give the AI some chance i wish to play the weakest nation(s) in the troop department...

BTW: i´ll be using the mod that allows nations of all ages to play in the same map, so what i want is the weakest among all ages...

All AIs will be set to difficult, and the map will be the Latus one...

Thanks.

[Redeyes]

The crown goes to Bogarus for a lack of both good infantry and cavalry, though they have decent archers (but slow).

[Meglobob]

Yep, overall probably Bogarus has the weakest troops. The AI will probably stand a greater chance of overwealming you before your magic research kicks in, obviously avoid putting 21, etc into PD thou.

[Lingchih]

Bogarus, definitely. Patala has some of the crappiest PD.

[JimMorrison]

I would have to agree that probably the worst combination of national troops (Bogarus may have slightly worse troops, but these are hard to use effectively!), and bad PD, belongs to Patala.

I ran some tests with various Blesses, and even their Sacreds are not affective without support. Their normal troops, even less so. ;) And of course, the dreaded, "Monkey PD, Ruiner of Games, Department of Homeland Insecurity". :p

[Wrana]

I have to disagree. MA Oceania even Baalz thinks hopeless!
Of course, it has a slight advantage as a sea nation, but still... ;)

[JimMorrison]

I have to disagree. MA Oceania even Baalz thinks hopeless!
Of course, it has a slight advantage as a sea nation, but still... ;)

Well, both EA and MA Oceania are kind of pathetic (thematically so!), but he doesn't want to just struggle by himself, but also struggle to defend himself, and 90% of the time the AI just won't bother you much underwater.

[Baalz]

I have to disagree. MA Oceania even Baalz thinks hopeless!
Of course, it has a slight advantage as a sea nation, but still... ;)

Well, to be fair, I think MA Oceana troops are actually above average, it's their mages which are hopeless. If you're asking who has the weakest troops and are not considering magic support then certainly MA Oceana is not a contender, I actually lead the score graphs in Kingmaker (60+ nations) using MA Oceana...right up until I had to fight against real armies with mage/heavy blessing support. Hmmm, I'd have to say my short list for worst troops in a tight magic environment is MA Atlantis, Bogarus, Caelum (although nothing but mammoths might actually work against the AI).

[rdonj]

Is Caelum really worse than Ea Agartha? Mammoths theoretically are better than troglodytes due to size and durability, and Agartha's infantry is almost completely hopeless. At least with Caelum you have some modest raiding potential due to flying.

[Redeyes]

I think Caelum's troops have many things going for them.

They have mobility, extreme wall-breaking power, a good number of resistances and they scale quite well with army buffs (quickening + ubiquitous fly is great for a strong alpha-strike).

Their troops might not all be the most battlefield worthy, but they are the greatest in the game at covering large areas.

Admittedly I have a hard time building anything but their archers who are quite good, I use them as a raiding vector (usually lead by a singular Wind Guiding Mage).

For large enemy armies, you have Mages and Thugs to do your heavy lifting.

[vfb]

I have to disagree. MA Oceania even Baalz thinks hopeless!
Of course, it has a slight advantage as a sea nation, but still... ;)

Well, both EA and MA Oceania are kind of pathetic (thematically so!), but he doesn't want to just struggle by himself, but also struggle to defend himself, and 90% of the time the AI just won't bother you much underwater.

EA Oceania KoTDs are pretty good. They are just stuck beneath the waves. Wave Warriors are decent too. I think EA R'lyeh is much worse off army-wise than EA Oceania. Your options with EA R'lyeh are pretty much chaff spam, chaff spam, chaff spam, or chaff spam. (CBM gives them trolls though).

[Baalz]

Oh absolutely Caelum's troops are far worse than EA Argatha. Argatha has sacred giants which can be pretty decent if you invest in a bless, are amphibious, have darkvision, and even their "regular" infantry are pretty good outside of a low attack score (which there are several ways to compensate for).

Caelum minus support spells and evocations is abysmal any way you slice it. Sure you can fly around, but that's not too helpful if you struggle mightily to even take out PD....

[KissBlade]

EaRyleh has the worst troops. Followed by LA Bogarus. Anything with elephant access is out of the "worst" range.

[AreaOfEffect]

Yes, you can just use mammoths against the AI and win. I ran my first SP game this way because I didn't know how to use magic effectively. Though I suppose you could just not recruit them since you are trying to challenge yourself.

You could even remove the unit entirely with a mod.

[Lavaere]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.

[Kuritza]

Caelum, Bandar Log and Patala all have ridiculuously weak troops. Bogarus troops are actually semi-decent.
P.S.
Oh well, against AI elephants may help, of course. But even then, there are nations with worse troops than Bogarus. Eriu, for example. :)

[chrispedersen]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.

Well, I don't know if you are playing CBM - but CBM in its various flavors helps Bogarus quite a lot.

[lch]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.
The question was which nation had the weakest troops, and the OP specifically said that he wanted to impose draconic limitations to research. I'm not that sure, but I don't think that Bogarus is being considered all too weak in general in the MP scene. I've seen people asking specifically for that nation, at least. You shouldn't give up just by drawing them in a game, but you might consider building your pretender around them accordingly. MP games aren't really decided by troops, I'd say.

[llamabeast]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.

They have some of the worst troops, but super-awesome research and magic. I don't think they're considered especially weak overall (are they?). Though they are considered good targets for a rush. Get treaties with your neighbours!

[Meglobob]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.

Troops wise, rubbish.

Magic wise, awesome.

Just take a awake pretender that can take indies from turn 1 and reseach like mad spells to hurt anyone who is going to attack you.

Then build up a awesome research avantage.

Caelums troops are actually quite decent, you after use them on guard commander and issue the attack orders to the commanders. Also avoid any provinces with heat!

[llamabeast]

Why does using guard commander with Caelum help Meglobob?

[chrispedersen]

A. Because you don't want your troops engaging. Your commanders will be spamming lighting, orb lightning, storm, etc.
If your troops engage, you might flee due to morale lost a fight that would otherwise be won.

B. On the first turn, if you are not immune to missiles, there is a chance a body guard will catch a missile that otherwise might have had your commanders name on it.

[llamabeast]

No, but chris, in Meglobob's post he suggests putting the troops on guard commander and then setting the commanders to attack (which will result in the troops attacking too).

[Tifone]

Maybe to have more time for buffs? (totally hypothetical answer :) )

[AreaOfEffect]

He might be under the impression that it somehow avoids the accumulation of fatigue gained from flying. This is not the case however. Though, if the units move in small increments, probably the distance equal to their AP, the unit does not suffer the flying penalty. Therefore, if the commander was perhaps an indy commander, his suggestion might make more sense.

[Micah]

Bogarus is Marignon on suck. Everyone sees the nice big RP number on the starets and forgets to actually calculate their gold/RP ratio, which is actually worse than a lot of other nations. True, they have a good shot at getting to one of the level 8 research milestones first if no one is bothering them, but invariably after that when I've seen them in a game they're overtaken in research because their upkeep starts getting prohibitive, and it's nigh-impossible to win an early war with them so they can expand enough to keep the gold flowing. At that point the only thing they have going for them is some CR and nether darts on their occultists.

[Amhazair]

One of the big problems of caelums flying melee troops is that if you just give them attack orders they spread out attacking all over the place and loose cohesion. Keeping them on hold commander should keep them nicely clumped together so they can support each other.

Think the tactic works best for smaller raiding groups though, not sure what the effect would be with really large lumps of troops.

[Wrana]

I'd still say that you overemphasize weaknesses of Bogarus. While their infantry IS bad and sacreds are worse, cavalry can actually hold their own. As for late game - they have good enough unique summons.
I also see that the idea of Patala as the worst-troops nation have been deservefly buried. As for EA Agartha - their Troglodites are excellent rushers in their own right, needing less support than Elephants do.

[Micah]

Yeah, Bogarus' top of the line cavalry is functional in melee, but suffers from the usual problem when you pack 50 gold into 13 HP: they're incredibly vulnerable to magic.

I have no clue what you're talking about WRT their late game unique summons. Their summons have good value serving as magic diversity aids, but outside of that they're just terrible. (Plus they're incredibly overpriced outside of CBM)

[Meglobob]

Why does using guard commander with Caelum help Meglobob?

It stops the troops from spreading out and being picked off one by one. Guard commander helps keep Caelums flyers in a tighter formation around the commander and they perform better as a result. Also you can do attack rear/attack archers and use hold, hold etc and decide the battle round you attack on.

Sadly, its not much good at the start of the game with only one castle, mammoths mixed with higher morale, slower infantry rule the day when taking indies.

However, with Ma Caelum I enjoyed alot of success around the midgame with storm generals with iceclad bodyguards (protection 20 in cold-3) as raiders. I usually equipped the storm general with a frost brand, only 2w for Ma Caelum. Wolven winter any tougher provinces obviously.

Chrispedersen is correct, bodyguards (iceclads) on Caelums mages are very useful too. They protect the mage, so he can wipe stuff out with shock wave/orb lightning. A bottle of water works really well also for Ma Caelum leaders/mages, only 5w gems as well.

You might wonder, why recruit a storm general instead of a mage? Well, there comes a point where you have a number of castles, lots of mages and its simply more cost effective to start recruiting storm generals, as well as mages when you can afford them.

[AreaOfEffect]

Micah, I feel that the Master of Names invalidates your entire argument regarding Bogarus' research potential, particularly with any sort of Magic scale.

Edit: Actually, It appears the gold/rp ratio is roughly the same for both. However, the master of names is slightly better. They are both in fact better then half the nations of their age. If gold is your limitation, may I suggest an awake pretender (either a rainbow or SC) and reach for Evocation 3 as early as possible. I'm sure you could expand quite nicely with a batch of kite shield units set to hold while a Starlet cast fireball repeatedly. Then you could also use the starlets to actively search for magic sites. I've practiced a very similar strategy with EA Ermor and it seems to work out quite well. The indies are easier in my opinion as well for late-age.

This assumes a normal research game of course. I imagine this would be harder for the original poster to accomplish.

[Wrana]

By the way, there is another interesting question - how much Single Age mod affects this? I'd say that many EA nations would fall into "weak troops" category due to just the fact that they don't have armor such as becomes standart by LA...
Particularly I'm thinking about Yomi who needs much research for it troops to be any good and either research or highish bless for its recruitable thugs...

[Lavaere]

Well this has been rather disheartening, picking a race at random LA Bogarus. In my first ever MP game, and they are being said as one of the worst.

They have some of the worst troops, but super-awesome research and magic. I don't think they're considered especially weak overall (are they?). Though they are considered good targets for a rush. Get treaties with your neighbours!

Well I guess thats one good thing that I'm in the middle of a team with no fighting. But then my stealth units seem rather pathetic from what I see and are of no real use.
Which brings me to another problem. In a situation when your inside a circle with limited expansion. What the frell are someone like a Bogarus suppose to do if enemies break through to them. Or can pure mage armies actually do some damage in battles.

[chrispedersen]

Quite often late game battles are pure mage and/or SC affairs.

Let me give you some ideas:


Research Thau 2: Blood 2. Then your offensive spell of choice.

Some I'm partial to include, paralyze, stellar cascades, paralyze.

Make a communion. Cast communions slaves, communion masters, Blood Master.

Cast Power of the spheres. when your fatigue is high cast relief.
Otherwise spam the offenseive spell of your choice. If you are in the middle of a donut of your allies - you should be in gravy - you have the best upside of any la researcher.

[Kuritza]

I would argue about Caelum's troops. Of course, when you set them on 'guard commander', iceclads get better. Instead of being completely useless, they become semi-decent, still being prone to rout and rather squishy even in a cold domain.
But even then they are extremly hard to mass and not cost-effective. I'd take independent heavy infantry over iceclads any day.

[VedalkenBear]

Hmm. I'm surprised that people think that Bandar Log's troops are _that_ bad. I don't seem to have much problem with them.

Also, someone mentioned that Bogarus's cavalry are good, but very weak against magic, due to their high gold/hp ratio. Well, if the game is specifically 'insanely high research cost'... shouldn't that make you reevaluate the rankings?

As for myself, I find that Caelum's troops, outside of the Mammoth, are good for almost absolutely nothing.

[Wrana]

I'd say that the "bad Bandars" idea was buried some time ago. They DO have a disadvantage in siege due to "animal" tag, however. Still, they work good enough - and they often have Elephantes with them.
Super-high research cost will probably help Bogarus somewhat - and they have mages to research faster than opponents. Still, this will postpone the time when their powerful summons will appear...
Actually, I think that extra-slow research will change the normally perceived balance in many cases - including making some low-research spells/summons viable. Maybe it would be interesting to test it...

[Kuritza]

Bandar Log troops have a terrible gold-to-power rating, they are bigger than humans (thus easily overwhelmed, but not nearly as tough as giants), are extremly vulnerable to arrows because their stupid bucklers dont qualify as shields.
If you have a powerful bless, Bandar Log sacreds become quite good warriors (still vulnerable to arrows and magic). Patala doesnt even have that.

[Baalz]

Nah, Bandar troops have several things going for them. Stealthy archers, long bows, elephants, high strength, double attack sticks and stones (which gets pretty nasty with very light magic support like strength of giants), good hitpoints, cheap, high defense, size 1 troops (great for tying up expensive elite enemies), fairly decent sacreds. Not a top notch army, but used right I think you have a hard time classifying them as the "worst" troops.

[AreaOfEffect]

"Worst" can be somewhat relative. Some nations come with a higher learning curve when it comes to utilizing your troops. Most nations have some specialized unit that can elevate their effectiveness when situations are right.

[Dedas]

I reacted to labelling them as "worst" as well and can only concur with Baalz. People who build only one type of troop and then scream suck should be locked away with a bunch of markatas. There are several types of infantry with different flaws and strengths, use them together why don't you... :)
If that isn't enough boost or patch with magic.

[JimMorrison]

Well like was said before, it's hard to classify Caelum as in the bottom of the list, because Mammoths (much better than Elephants) can fuel your entire expansion.

As far as Bandar Log, Bucklers -are- considered a "shield", the 2 Parry may not seem like much vs missiles, but it is still far superior to not having a shield at all.

Ultimately a big problem, looking at the entire range of the "Bandar" nations troops, is the morale on their cheaper units. When you actually go for armored units, they tend to cost more in gold and resources than comparable human units, and overall they have more flaws than strengths.

As far as "good with buffs" goes, well sure. For those nations, generally Barkskin is readily available, but for Bandar Log specifically, you are not soon going to have access to Strength of Giants, without communioning your limited supply of Rishi to do it - and in the Very Hard research scenario the OP wants to play, relying on buffs to make your army more competitive, seems like a silly angle to go on.

I kind of liked the suggestion of playing Caelum or Bandar Log and not using tramplers at all - it seems a bit masochistic, but it sure would handicap you.

[Baalz]

Exactly, compare this to, say, Caelum with very little magic. Your opponent deploys mammoth counters, and you.....do what? As I mentioned, I guess it's a different question if you're talking about playing against the AI where there will be no mammoth counters, I can't think of many tougher positions than playing Caelum with light magic against an astral opponent with Thau-2 (mind burn) researched, or massed longbows, or etc. etc.

[JimMorrison]

Well it may be useful to try to remember to frame this discussion around the OP's actual initial question - what nations have the weakest troops for fighting the AI, when combined with reduced magic via Very Hard research".

Honestly, I think it will be easier to debate, as in the framework of Normal research, and competitive MP play, just about anything can be polished up to look dangerous. ;)

[VedalkenBear]

Jim: Yes, this is a good idea. If you ignore commanders, EA Rlyeh is really quite pitiful in its troop selection. The best idea I can think of for them is to screen their Soul Suckers (TM!) with chaff until you can 'harvest' better troops. And that still relies on the commanders.

CBM adds the Trolls, but I'm still not that impressed with them.

Of course, Rlyeh has the usual 'water nation' advantages, and the commander strategy doesn't require magic, but it's remarkably fragile.

At least,so I've found so far... if someone has suggestions, I'd be quite open to them.

[JimMorrison]

Yeah that's the thing, if you take high scales, you can start stocking up Mind Lords ASAP. All he has to do is consolidate the oceans if he plays them, then he can really just take his time crawling on land, if he wants. The typical easy way is to plan to Clam like crazy for a few years once you're safe.....

It is true that natively they have the hardest time crawling out onto dry land with their recruitables, but in SP, you have all the time in the world, pretty much (though I had one recent SP ruined by LA Ermor casting Burden of Time :p).

[Meglobob]

Well, I think caelums troops could have alot of fun raiding monkey PD. The monkey armies can't be everywhere and you never know where caelums flyers are off too next.

Caelums PD I actually like, for the simple reason they are flyers and jump on any cloud trapezing/teleporting mages/thugs in the 1st round. Occassionally, getting lucky.

I will stick with Bogarus for weakest troops thou...:)

[VedalkenBear]

Meglobob: I'm not sure how tenable that is with research being weak. That increases the worth of their cavalry. Sure, their Archers are basically indy archers, but at least they have them. Their infantry is not impressive, but they have shields, and decent stats, so what else can you ask for? Their cavalry is adequate, and better in these circumstances. You even get Stealthy troops with ancillary benefits (unrest).

I would think that MA Agartha is worse than Bogarus, if only because you have very few options. I think they get Crossbows, but not many good options.

[Dedas]

As far as Bandar Log, Bucklers -are- considered a "shield", the 2 Parry may not seem like much vs missiles, but it is still far superior to not having a shield at all.


Yes, shields parry count double when under missile fire meaning 4.

[Gokufan1988]

I would think that MA Agartha is worse than Bogarus, if only because you have very few options. I think they get Crossbows, but not many good options.

They actually don't get crossbows. Just light, medium and heavy infantry and normal/giant pale ones.

Also, someone mentioned that you'd need to use a communion of Rishis to cast strength of giants as Bandar Log. Actually, they get to summon national E3/4 mages for 25 nature gems at conj4 I think.

[VedalkenBear]

Goku: Ah, right, LA gets the Crossbows. That's what scares me about MA Agartha. They more or less have to rush to get their Statues to be competitive, and with really bad research...

And yeah, the Yakshas are really nice for buffing... but 25 Nature gems and Conjuration-4 is... rough.

[Tyrant]

The Winged Rats of Caelum are not going to win a stand up fight against anyone who can stop elephants, but their mobility and utility make up for it.

C'tis' troops are just awful in all three eras. Ulm's army, though nice on parade, is functionally pretty weak. Arco has elephants, but past that is completely inferior.

[VedalkenBear]

C'tis: Desert Rangers aren't bad in the least. Of course, LA C'tis generally has the best troops anyway. I've had good success with Elite Slave massing for them.

Ulm: MA, you're pretty much on. LA and EA are very different animals.

[ano]

As for C'tis, their infantry is awful in late era - all but desert rangers who are pretty good guys. In general, herbivore lizards are all bad troops but in EA and MA they have slave lizards which are very good and fast units and in LA - desert rangers and tomb chariots. So their troops cannot be called bad.
C'tis is quite good and balanced in all three eras, IMO.

[JimMorrison]

Bandar Log really must research Thaum to -some- degree to be competitive where it matters most.

So you are talking about a bare minimum of Thaum2, Conj4, and Ench3. Sure, that's not a lot in the "grand scheme", but with Very Hard (or he said modding it to some sort of Even Harder, or Plaid Research), that is a LONG ways off, before you can even hope to start dropping Strength of Giants on anything. Now if he also reduces Magic Site Frequency to further impede magic as a factor, then who knows how tough it will be.

Point being, he described a scenario where buffs are not really a part of the early stages of the game, and maybe are hard to really saturate even in the mid-game.

[Dedas]

MA Ulm troops not functional, I have to disagree, strongly! But you all knew I would. :)

[vfb]

Well, besides the Tower Shields, Pikemen, Flails, Sappers, and Cavalry, what does MA Ulm troops have going for it? Oh yeah, the Guardians, well, that's a given. But besides the Tower Shields, Pikemen, Flails, Sappers, Cavalry and the Guardians, what has Ulm got for troops? NOTHING!

MA Ulm will never win because of the PD^H^H troops.