Best - worse magic paths

[Graeme Dice]

FrankTrollman said:
This means that summonings like Vine Ogres are no longer the holy grail that makes you automatically win - instead you're looking for units that cover holes in your national army.

Vine ogres never made anybody automatically win. They were cost-effective meat shields and nothing else. Anybody who lost to an army of vine ogres would have lost to any competent player, using any powerful strategy. A single bane lord with a blood thorn, charcoal shield, lucky pendant and jade armour would have been enough to kill 50+ vine ogres in a single battle, and a failure to field such a unit to deal with an army of vine ogres is the fault of the losing player, not game balance. Now, thanks to a doubling of their gem cost, they are barely cost-effective. Bizarrely, lamias, which were already the best nature summon, have been made cheaper.

[Endoperez]

Lamia Queens are much harder to get, though, and they summon more Lamias, so that makes Lamias somewhat less cost-effective than they would have been in DomII.

[Truper]

Graeme Dice said:

[Vine ogres never made anybody automatically win. They were cost-effective meat shields and nothing else. Anybody who lost to an army of vine ogres would have lost to any competent player, using any powerful strategy. A single bane lord with a blood thorn, charcoal shield, lucky pendant and jade armour would have been enough to kill 50+ vine ogres in a single battle, and a failure to field such a unit to deal with an army of vine ogres is the fault of the losing player, not game balance. Now, thanks to a doubling of their gem cost, they are barely cost-effective. Bizarrely, lamias, which were already the best nature summon, have been made cheaper.

This "analysis" ignores the fact that vine ogres can be buffed, and do not operate in a magic-support-free vacuum. In Dom2, Vine Ogres were absurdly underpriced. Calculate the number of gems spent on that Bane Lord, and then calculate the number of hitpoints possesed by an army of Vine Ogres on which an equal number of gems was spent.

[Graeme Dice]

Truper said:
This "analysis" ignores the fact that vine ogres can be buffed, and do not operate in a magic-support-free vacuum.

If the person lost a battle because of mage support, then they lost it because of mages, not because of vine ogres. It's also not like there's a useful battlefield wide buff spell other than mist warriors and arrow fend for vine ogres.

In Dom2, Vine Ogres were absurdly underpriced. Calculate the number of gems spent on that Bane Lord, and then calculate the number of hitpoints possesed by an army of Vine Ogres on which an equal number of gems was spent.

Easy. 10 death gems for the bane lord, 20 slaves for the blood thorn (The equivalent of about 5-10 normal gems), 5 pearls for the luck pendant, 5 water and 5 earth for the jade armour, 5 earth and 5 fire for the charcoal shield. That's a grand total of 40-45 gems for the bane lord, or 80-90 vine ogres and 40 mage turns to summon them.

Those vine ogres have two fist attacks and a protection of 5, so they cause themselves 11 damage each turn they attack, and the bane lord causes 34 damage per turn. Over the course of the battle, the bane lord will kill 25 vine ogres by himself. The charcoal shield takes five turns to kill one, but since up to 16 will surround the bane lord, you can expect him to kill up to a maximum of about 160 vine ogres given optimum placing.

I've seen what fireshield does to vine ogres. On a dragon that's currently at F7 the shield killed 50 vine ogres well before the 50 turn limit. I also know from first hand experience that sea trolls, which are better meat shields than vine ogres will die to a similarly equipped ice devil.

Vine ogres were one of the few early research summons that had actual use, despite their expense, throughout the game, which is hardly a bad thing.

[Shovah32]

Mass protection and/or regen make vine ogres alot more survivable and weapons of sharpness (would it work even though they only have fists?) could make them deadly if they hit.

[Graeme Dice]

Shovah32 said:
Mass protection and/or regen make vine ogres alot more survivable and weapons of sharpness (would it work even though they only have fists?) could make them deadly if they hit.

Mass protection only raises their protection to 10 as vine ogres don't wear armour, and makes them 25% susceptible to fire, so that's only a small boost. Mass regeneration is enchantment 8, so you pretty much deserve to have such a powerful spell by the time you research it. Weapons of sharpness is E5 which limits its access to only a few nations. Although to be fair, there are a couple of nations that have access to both N3 and E3 mages. However, I'd rather not spend 23 gold a turn to summon two vine ogres with a Pan.

[Shovah32]

You could always play an earth heavy nation and take nature on your pretender (he could then summon vine kings to summon vine ogres and lead them)