Ghouls

[Immaculate]

I recently found a site that lets me enter to summon ghouls.

Are ghouls a good unit? is it worth giving up 4rp/turn?

Is it true that they will eat the population of the province they are located in? If so, how fast?

Do people make use of this free summon effect?

I.

[K]

OK.

No.

No.

No. By the time you get a decent number of ghouls, the game should be over.

[thejeff]

Interesting, slightly larger scale question: Which of the "Enter to summon x" sites are actually worth using?

Just off the top of my head, I wouldn't bother with the ghouls or with soulless.
I do send a death mage to the one that gives the longdead archer and horse, though I've never really got much value out of them.
The one that gives (non-commander) banes is definitely worth it.

[K]

Interesting, slightly larger scale question: Which of the "Enter to summon x" sites are actually worth using?

Just off the top of my head, I wouldn't bother with the ghouls or with soulless.
I do send a death mage to the one that gives the longdead archer and horse, though I've never really got much value out of them.
The one that gives (non-commander) banes is definitely worth it.

Personally, I like the site for winter wolves, the site for devils, and the one for Banes.

I also like the one that lets you summon crap like you were Ry'leh, but I'm a sucker for sites with random effects (you'd be surprised how much I've sent into that site that gets you random treasure and items).

[Stavis_L]

Well, depending on which site, you get either 3 or 5 ghouls, and while I wouldn't do it while still researching, I might do it after finishing research, if a death mage happened to be there already.

As for which "enter to summon" units are worth it, I'd submit that the following are usually worth it, and the rest are situationally worth it.

Devil's Den 304 Devil 1
Dragon Jaws 593 Draconian 1
Dragon Mountain 593 Draconian 1
Jungle Temple 394 Lamia 1
Kraken Pit 438 Kraken 1
Mount Frost 511 Winter Wolf 2
Skull Temple 535 Longdead Archer 1, 189 Longdead Horseman 1
Temple of Darkness 675 Shadow 1, 676 Shade 1
The Bowl of the Lost 185 Bane 1
The Demon Gate 88 Fiend of Darkness 1
The Factory 532 Mechanical Man 1
The Forest Beneath the Waves 1062 Sea Stag 1
The Hippocampoi Fields 1058 Hippocampus 1
The Lesser Abyss 88 Fiend of Darkness 1
The Mountain of Power 403 Horned Serpent 1
The Sea of Dead Memories 676 Shade 1
The Shaded Lands 676 Shade 1
Tomb of Seven Oracles 1501 Cavern Wight 1
Tower of Seven Tombs 625 Mummy 1
Valley of the Dead 625 Mummy 1

[Gandalf Parker]

According to the "tips" file:
Reanimation of ghouls will decrease population. Reanimation of soulless will decrease unburied corpses.
But Im not sure how that applies to sites.

They are useful in some situations. But I would "create revenant" if you have it and use just that 1-death magic mage for it. Dont waste anything higher.

As to the worth "game should be over" I guess that depends on the game you are playing. If its a blitz-type MP game on a small map that would be true but a solo game on a large map might be a very different consideration

[thejeff]

But even in a huge game you're still trading 4rp/turn for 5 ghouls (at best).

Early on the 4rp/turn could be important. Later the research will matter less, but the power curve has gone up far enough that a couple of hundred ghouls (40 turns worth!) are basically irrelevant.

The game may not be over in a huge game, but power levels increase faster than the number of ghouls. 5 ghouls/turn never catches up.

[Agema]

At bare minimum, although their combat usefulness is low, a large number of no-upkeep undead like ghouls can be jolly handy for knocking castle walls down quickly.

[Foodstamp]

I'm a sucker for those sites, so even if it is not worth it I will stick a 1D guy summoning them.

[Gandalf Parker]

Absolutes tend to always be arguable, everything has its pros and cons. In general, Im not sure if ANY summoning site is particularly useful if you have to keep creating a special commander and send it to pick up the units. BUT if the site is on the path that commanders have to move anyway and they can pick some up on the way then they can add some useful variety to an army. Or in a far forward location where a mage might be just waiting for awhile anyway.

As far as ghouls go, how would a site compare to reanimation? or a spell? If it doesnt impact population, doesnt cost gems, and generates about the same number of units (not sure on any of those) then it just becomes the usefulness of ghouls. I wouldnt build an army of them but their special abilities can make them useful to have a few along

[Immaculate]

Whats their special ability? paralyze touch?

[Foodstamp]

They have a poisoned claw that weakens enemies if I remember right. It doesn't actually poison in the sense that it does damage over time.

[John_Madlock]

Their attack adds fatigue.

[vfb]

I'm a sucker for the sites too, I'll usually send in a mage to grab the free troops once my research is chugging along (or send in a mage right away if it's good summons like devils, winter wolves, or mummies).

Ghouls can actually be pretty useful. They're great for defending walls without starving. They've got morale 18 to avoid Awe, and do 50AN fatigue damage (MR-resistable) if their claw hits for at least 1 damage. So against something using just Awe-mistform, they are good (thanks Executor :)).

[Gandalf Parker]

They are also poison immune. And their fatigue-causing attack can be quite useful in a "hold and attack closest" frontline to charging large units.

[Foodstamp]

The most I have ever got out of them is they are effective arrow magnets. Months of summoning them usually results in all of them or nearly all of them being lost the first battle.

[K]

The most I have ever got out of them is they are effective arrow magnets. Months of summoning them usually results in all of them or nearly all of them being lost the first battle.

Yeh, ghouls are what I think of as a "template unit", one that sucks by itself but becomes actually useful with battlefield spells added in. Toss on some decent armor and MR with Army of Lead, some Str with Strength of Giants, and something like Darkness to offset their bad attack and defense and they are perfectly servicable.

On the other note, Strange House in the Mist is the site that lets anyone summon void monsters.

[Sombre]

Their claw fatigue very rarely does anything.

They do work well with str buffs and the like though, it has to be said. They're a bit like undead maenads.

[KissBlade]

They're not shabby chaff as they can both repair walls/siege without worrying about supply. Summon a revenant and stick him on summon duty there.

[Sombre]

Can revenants summon ghouls? Oh in the site. Yeah probably worth 1 rev.