Quote:
Originally Posted by Zywack
[...]Thugs[...]
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Before even discussing anything else I think it's important to restate what is meant by thugs. When talking about thugs people generally mean somewhat beefy units that can be recruited and equiped relatively cheaply but can still move out on their own* (or sometimes in pairs/with light support) to accomplish a specific goal, the most common being to raid enemy PD.* Examples might include Bane Lords with vine shield and a fire/frost brand, or Vanjarls with [some weapon] and E/N bless casting Mistform at the start of battle. If you're using CBM Shishi's are practically the epitome of thugishness, either naked or with some cheap equipment.
This type of thugs works very well in MP as they can easily and cheaply take out moderate amount of PD or small wandering troop squads without mage support, while not representing a big loss when they inevitably run into something they can't handle. Not so in SP though, where the AI's habit to recruit massive amounts of troops and have them running around in all provinces means such thugs will inevitably get swamped by sheer weight of numbers without accomplishing anything much, meaning that too take (or hold) provinces from the AI you really have to move towards what constitutes a SC. (See below)
* Another type of/purpose for a thug can be to accompany a regular army to cause some extra damage to the enemy in support of the regular troops/mages. While this certainly can work I've never been very fond of this myself, since regular battlemages often do similar or more damage, while not risking themselves on the frontline. If you do go this route you generally want to put a bit more effort into maximizing damage and adding an extra layer of protection, while crowd control is somewhat less important since you're less likely to be surrounded. (If you take the above Bane Lord example you might want to add boots of quickness as a for instance, while the vine shield is less crucial - though still nice.) Also, when accompanying an army you can often have your mages add extra buffs to your thugs, replacing or supplementing their equipment. (luck, etherealness, quickness, regeneration, mistform to name but a few are all available in one form or another, from short range one target buffs, to battlefield wide effects.)
A SC (Super Combatant) on the other hand is a true collossus on the battlefield, who can take out entire armies on his own. (Theoretically at least. In practice this roughly translates to: "Any amount of troops with moderate mage support not specifically tailored to deal with the weaknesses of said SC." Since players obviously don't like to loose big/expensive armies they try to foresee as many eventualities as possible in their mage scripting and/or accompany their armies with Thugs/SC's of their own specifically outfitted to take out enemy SC's. As such attacking large armies with a single SC in MP is most often suicidal unless you totally outgess your opponent and catch him unprepared.)
In SP though SC's, even the less inventive ones are pretty much an 'I win' button, since the AI doesn't know how to counter them. A low research example (specifically avoiding F magic) might be a Bane Lord with Shadow brand or sword of swiftness, vine shield, starshine skullcap, boots of swiftness, lucky charm, and ring of regeneration. While this would be complete suicide against a player (far too expensive while vulnerable to fire and lighting, all undead counters and with lowish MR) the AI won't know how to counter it, and it will be able to clean out entire provinces of chaff on it's own.
[disclaimer: it's been a long time since I played SP, and I might misremember what it takes for a SC to be effectively immune to AI effort.]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zywack
[...]Early Expansion[...]
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First off, many pretenders, especially in vanilla, really aren't very suited to soloing independents without equipment, even if they look impressive. The Titan for example is potentially really nice with some equipment and research for self-buffs, but cannot really be made to work for naked expansion, due to having too low protection. (You can get awe from high dominion, but this really isn't enough to protect you.)
Some things too look out for when choosing a pretender for this role:
* High(ish) hp's. (Say, anything above 40. Less can work, but becomes very risky, and you better know what you're doing.) Really, hp's are only there to counter bad luck, and the occasional hit that will inevitably get through though, and no matter how much hp's you have, it will never be enough on its own.
* Awe/fear. From your opening post I gather you have a good idea of base mechanics so I won't go into detail. Bottom line is awe forces a morale check to hit you in melee, while fear lowers enemy morale. This is
the combo that most expansion pretenders are built around. You get awe from having 9 or 10 dominion, while lots of chassis come with built in fear, while getting 5D also grants you fear. (And any extra points of D magic increas your fear score.
* At least medium protection. Even with damage avoidance from (for example) the awe/fear combo, some hits will get through. You really want the average hit to do little or no damage. So, against the average human with a pointy stick/piece of metal this means around 12 protection. More is very nice. Less is workable if you have other defenses, but makes things risky. Remember that taking earth magic also improves your protection. (Note that this in itself is rarely reason enough to take earth magic, but if you're taking it anyway...)
* extra perks: regeneration, recuperation, etherealness, immortality all help.
Classic chassis for early expansion include (off the top of my head) Wyrm, Prince of Death, Cyclops and Great Kraken. (Underwater only) The dragons also work fine in CBM, although I seem to remember they're suboptimal in vanila. Others that require a bit more work and/or are a bit riskier might be the Geat White Bull, Lich, or even Ghost King. (And there are various national ones of course)
And, as others said before me, even the strongest expansion pretender can succumb to the stronger independent provinces (Lizards, knights, barbarians, possbily massed crossbows,...) so attacking on turn 1 will allways be a risk.