Blood Red FIGHT ON!)

[Aethyr]

I agree, but my impression is that you really need to catch them early; once they get rolling...they're a tough nut to crack.

[Jarkko]

Who ever came up with the idea of having regenerating high-prot soldiers, supported by immortal mages and un-breaking trampling health-mosters should consider perhaps to rethink something

Once those scorpions start rolling, there is no way to stop them fast enough to actually get your hands on those immortal mages guarded by regenerating guardians (the regeneration is enough to make banishment useless against them; excellent way to basically them immune to destruction, because lets say Eriu mages will automatically revert to Banishment when fighting them, but they will never be able to Banish the guardians to death).

Suggestions for Nehekara:

Remove the regeneration from the guardians. Regeneration is just silly and stupid and make them in effect immune to Banish which the AI attempts to use against them.

The price on the Bone Scorpions have to be made *much* higher (like tenfold), because there is absolutely no way to stop them fast (unbreakable, massive HP, excellent resistances, trample), and it sucks to get swamped by them.

Immortal mages are by definition a bad thing. If immortal, they should be priced somewhere between silly and insane, not as basic affordable commanders.



Cheers to Baalz for the victory! You truly did show just how unbalanced Nehekara is in the hands of somebody who knows what to do with them

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

The price on the Bone Scorpions have to be made *much* higher (like tenfold), because there is absolutely no way to stop them fast (unbreakable, massive HP, excellent resistances, trample), and it sucks to get swamped by them.

Immortal mages are by definition a bad thing. If immortal, they should be priced somewhere between silly and insane, not as basic affordable commanders.



Cheers to Baalz for the victory! You truly did show just how unbalanced Nehekara is in the hands of somebody who knows what to do with them

Bone scorpions are already 18d per scorpion... increasing the cost tenfold would make them more expensive than seraphs! That might be a bit much. Sounds like you got hit by a bunch at once, so either baalz has a construction site somewhere or he hit you with a crazily expensive army. Also you forgot to mention they have fear :P

Also the immortal mages are 500 gold and cap only, so it's not like they go for pennies.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Bone scorpions are already 18d per scorpion... increasing the cost tenfold would make them more expensive than seraphs! That might be a bit much. Sounds like you got hit by a bunch at once, so either baalz has a construction site somewhere or he hit you with a crazily expensive army. Also you forgot to mention they have fear :P

We are talking here about summons that are in the league of tartarians. Except they don't need Conjuration 9. If the bone-scorpions required Conjuration 9, there would be no problem, because by then you would perhaps have *something* able to stop them. But no, when the first contact with Nehekara, starting as their neighbour, is to be overrun by two bone-scorpions (I actullay was able to kill those two in the next few battles, but then Baalz dragged in a few more plus the immortal mages...), then you know something is *wrong*. Either the bone-scoprions indeed need a silly price tag such as 180 gems *or* they require a hefty research (Conjuration 8 or Enchantment 8).

Also the immortal mages are 500 gold and cap only, so it's not like they go for pennies.

Immortal mages with the abilities the Nehekaran ones have should not exist. Similar capabilities can be found on 500 gold mages, true, but the others are not immortal. The thing with the immortals are that they sort of don't die. 500 gold *is* peanuts for the immortal mages Nehekara has, it would be pure idiocy to not buy one every single turn.

The immortal mages need to be summons. If in doubt at how much such should cost, take a look at the immortal mages available in the game; the other immortals require about 40 death gems and lots and lots and lots of research.

With an endless horde of immortal mages and bone-scoprions nobody has absolutely anything to stop Nehekara after about turn 3. And it is rather hard to kill out an opponent in two turns

[rdonj]

Tomb kings ARE strong... but in their immortal form they have magicboost -1, and can become fairly useless. Here's an example tomb king from an old test game I made when baalz was talking about his intended strategy for this game on IRC: 2f 2a 1e 1s d3. That one got all the randoms it has any decent chance to get... and if it dies it becomes 1f 1a d2. That's the reverse of a basic buried sorcerer. Not all of them are like that, but it is not atypical for many to be similar or even worse.

I don't think it's quite fair to compare bone scorpions to tartarians. They do nothing for your magic diversity/strength, have more vulnerabilities (for one thing they're very vulnerable to smashers, which are only construction level 2) and can't wear items (and only two misc slot items if GoRed). They don't have the versatility, or the logistic flexibility of tartarians either. Not to say that perhaps some changes aren't in order, but I think what you've suggested would be going slightly beyond the bounds of reason :P. Giving them higher research wouldn't necessarily be bad, although I wouldn't really suggest high ench or conj since nehekara really badly wants to go to 8 in both anyway. Construction 7, perhaps....


Also, yes, the regen is a national spell, gives 1hp/turn to most nehekaran units.

Edit: Anyway, I should stop arguing about this in your thread, at least until victory is declared for certain.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by rdonj

for one thing they're very vulnerable to smashers, which are only construction level 2

Unless you have plenty size 5+ thugs available, the crushers will do absolutely *nothing*. Do you know what a bone scorpion does to thugs who are smaller? It tramples them down. Good luck, you just wasted quite the gems and gold on the thug for nothing.

If using mage-priests, the combat AI reverts to casting Banish after their script is over. Banish against Nehekarans has absolutely no effect because of the (excuse me) retarded stats the Nehekarans have