The Vine Ogre

[The_Tauren13]

Theres no easy way to exploit the low magic res, really. They are quite powerful for being so massively inexpensive...

[Jack Simth]

Oh, I don't know - a Charm Squad of Druids with Thistle Maces is always fun (or an Enslave squad of Astral-3 mages or ...).

[Arralen]

I don't think there's "overwhelming consensus" that the Vine Ogre is too strong.

Besides the points already mentioned,

- it has poor attack rating and can only serve as a meat(?) shield, but seldomly does any damage against 'real' troops

- it is suspectible to fire ..

[sushiboat]

Vine Ogres are fine as they are. Building a VO army of a decent size requires lots of mage turns. Compare that to the same number of mages casting Pale Riders. VO are fodder, albeit fodder with quite a few hit points. One SC will slice up any number of VO and give the SC a ton of life drain HP. So there goes your investment (in time as well as gems).

Nerfing the VO gives an even greater edge to death and blood nations. Of the three major summoning paths, nature is definitely not the strongest and arguably the weakest.

[Saber Cherry]

Vine ogres are pretty strong, IMO. They would be fine EXCEPT that there are various ways to summon lots more than 1 per gem, and Nature's thistle mace, the avalibility of druids, and the fact that vine beings are one of the few mindless units that don't require magical or indead leadership combine to make them far better than any other low-level summon.

Not that this solves the problem, but I don't think anyone could have a real complaint against raising their price to 2 gems. 2 gems for (generally) 2 vine ogres... still a bargain, isn't it?

As for poison immunity, vine creatures are certainly not immune to poison. They're just immune to blood poisons that affect animals and humanoids with hearts and organs, since they are plants. Nobody said they were immune to herbicides... =)

[Saber Cherry]

For reference... here are the relative simbat powers of a few meat shields.

Deathmatch Power Ratings for 100 rounds:

100*Heavy Inf Scale --------- Wins: 46.2% Power: 890 Overall: 1000
179*Light Inf --------------- Wins: 52.1% Power: 1064 Overall: 990
354*Militia ----------------- Wins: 53.8% Power: 1121 Overall: 1006
275*Vine Man ---------------- Wins: 50.5% Power: 1014 Overall: 992
81*Vine Ogre ---------------- Wins: 46.6% Power: 903 Overall: 999
345*Corpse Construct -------- Wins: 50.8% Power: 1025 Overall: 1007

Average --------------------- Wins: 50.0% Power: 1003 Overall: 998
Median ---------------------- Wins: 50.8% Power: 1025 Overall: 1000
Overall RMS: 999
Overall RMH: 999

Vinemen are big, cheap, upkeep-free, need-not-eat, poison proof, and mindless, which are huge advantages. But they are not super-powerful in combat. Far better than soulless or corpse constructs, though.

P.S. And I think all mindless are immune to mind-altering or soul-slaying spells, like charm.

[The_Tauren13]

Are you sure about those numbers? Why are militia stronger than heavy inf? And what does the 'scale' after heavy inf mean?

[Graeme Dice]

Saber Cherry said:
For reference... here are the relative simbat powers of a few meat shields.

Unless these numbers take into account positioning, and multiple attacks on a single target they don't really mean too much.

[The_Tauren13]

Jack Simth said:
Oh, I don't know - a Charm Squad of Druids with Thistle Maces is always fun (or an Enslave squad of Astral-3 mages or ...).

I thought I just read in another thread that you can't mind enslave them... but maybe you can still charm them. I dunno though, cause they are mindless.

Actually with 2 attacks with decently high strength they can do well against most national troops. Unless by 'normal' you mean other summons...

[PvK]

Yep, I agree, NT and Mark.

Vine Ogres are good, but not overpowered. It's the more powerful summons which tend to be much underpriced, and some of the lesser summons which cost so much that people usually wait for the bargain ultra-bad-*** summons to give bargain life drain weapons so they can be SCs. I'd much sooner multiply the cost of such units as Bane Lords.

Interesting analysis below on Vine Ogres. A couple of points to add:

* Vine Ogre size is a slight disadvantage against mobs of humanoid-sized units, because on a dense front, the smaller units get more attacks per unit since more fit in an adjacent square. That will result in a somewhat overstatement of their power on the simulation which assumes everyone can attack everyone else.

* Vine Ogres are mindless... so they never gain experience.

PvK