Poll: morale and routing

[The_Tauren13]

i just dont understand why nations can recruit so many troops if all but 1 or 2 are useless. there just isnt any good argument for including something useless in a game

[Gandalf Parker]

The_Tauren13 said:
i just dont understand why nations can recruit so many troops if all but 1 or 2 are useless. there just isnt any good argument for including something useless in a game

Hmmm that would seem to clearly say that you missed Arryns point. The game is designed so that you can develop your own tactics. If all of the units except 1 or 2 are useless then Im guessing that they are useless to you in playing the way you play. One person plays a nation and only uses the highest armored units. Another uses the cheapest in bulk. Another makes huge use of the sneak units. And yet another buys all mages except for the minimum needed army.

Personally, I love to explore the "useless" pieces of the game. The pretenders that people wonder why they are there. The nations people think have no winning strategy. The units no one uses. The spells that seem worthless. Very few end up having NO tactic although there are a good number of them that tend to be only useful to some people in some situations.

PLEASE dont make an effort to "tidy up" the game of worthless pieces. One of the things I love about this game is that its full of things that even the developers didnt realize how we would use them when they were put in.

[The_Tauren13]

ok i worded things poorly

i dont think useless troops should be *removed* from the game, i think they should be made, well, usefull. have you ever seen anyone recruit e.g. a salamander?

[deccan]

When I started out playing Dom2, one of the mechanics that shocked me the most was that summonables had no upkeep while national troops do. As a MoM fan, I was used to the idea that summonables were cool, powerful but rare due to the need to pay magical upkeep for them.

Whether or not you like armies Dom2 style or MoM style is I suppose a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I tend towards the MoM thing.

I think that the description of an army of bowmen, spearmen etc. and two or three golems towering above them and some gargoyles whirling overhead is cool. When it becomes all golems and gargoyles, it becomes not so cool.

[Cainehill]

The_Tauren13 said:
ok i worded things poorly

i dont think useless troops should be *removed* from the game, i think they should be made, well, usefull. have you ever seen anyone recruit e.g. a salamander?

Let's see - I've had them used against me, so yes.

And when I play Abysia, I've recruited them, so yes.

Perhaps you have another totally "useless" troop in mind?

Well, actually, I can think of one, maybe. Man's Slinger unit, useless because of the Longbowmen, albeit I'd have to check and see if the slinger is substantially cheaper, in which case I can think of a use for it also.

And then I believe C'tis has a commander that's worse than the stock independent commander, which begs the question of why anyone would recruit one of those instead of the readily obtained independent.

But these are basically anomalies, imo.

[Stossel]

Well, I think Tauren has a point.

When I was in IRC, everyone I talked to about playing Vanheim said sloth-3 was good to take. Now, Vanheim troops are not that cheap resource-wise. I was blown away at the thought of sloth 3, but everyone in the chat seemed to think it was no big deal. Now, I think any negative-3 should hurt, badly, but with mostly commander-armies, it's no big deal.

I don't think national troops are useless, but at this point, they seem highly cost inefficient.

I'm determined to find a decent strategy that fields me armies as well as mages and fighting commmanders, but it doesn't look promising.

[Graeme Dice]

FM_Surrigon said:
When I was in IRC, everyone I talked to about playing Vanheim said sloth-3 was good to take. Now, Vanheim troops are not that cheap resource-wise.

Van and Valkyries do not cost lots of resources. If you plan on paying for a decent bless effect, then they can be quite effective. Einheres on the other hand, do require a large number of resources, and they are very useful in most situations.

[Stossel]

Graeme Dice said:
Van and Valkyries do not cost lots of resources. If you plan on paying for a decent bless effect, then they can be quite effective. Einheres on the other hand, do require a large number of resources, and they are very useful in most situations.

This is just what Tauren was talking about. Going sloth-3, which most of the people I've talked to seem to think is no big deal, makes everything besides vans and valkries cost inefficient before the game even begins.

[Arryn]

The_Tauren13 said:
ok i worded things poorly

I'd call that an understatement.

The_Tauren13 said:
i dont think useless troops should be *removed* from the game, i think they should be made, well, usefull.

Just because you consider something to be lacking in usefulness does not mean that others share your opinion. I do not intend for the following to be an insult, but have you stopped to consider that others might be more creative than you are in thinking up of uses for what you deem "useless"? Gandalf was making such a point in his Last post. I'm sure that the guys at IW do not agree that the game has useless units, just as I'm sure that they had something in mind when they created said units.

Please do not confuse the concepts of efficient and/or cost-effective with "useful". All too frequently folks dismiss what they perceive to be non-optimal. For example, when playing Jotuns, I build spearmen, almost exclusively. But I would not assert that axemen or slingers are useless. It is simply my preference to not build them. I could, if I chose to, make effective use of them.

Rather than dismiss certain units as "useless", likely because they are less than optimal for your chosen play style, consider Gandalf's words and see if you can devise a clever way to put them to good use. You might just do two things: surprise yourself, and stumble upon what was going through the developer's mind when they created the unit.