Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!

[Agrajag]

Archonsod said:Depends. I mean, if there's a "kill all other pretenders and win" spell which is only available to a specific side they might have a point

You mean if one nation has a spell that makes it so that at the start of each game all other nations will ally together against it?

[Gandalf Parker]

Wow, I guess I need to stop summoning shades. Or just stop using them in front-line armies?

Im guessing by your comments that you are a "mass armies" kinda guy. Shades are useful in creating a unit to go after SC's or Heroes. Adding them to sap strength while something else hits.

Also for drawing fire since they are etheral and poison resistant.

and for attacking water provinces

and of course my favorite, to add to a stealth army

Did you mean they were no good after other later summonings become available in large games?

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
Wow, I guess I need to stop summoning shades. Or just stop using them in front-line armies?

Im guessing by your comments that you are a "mass armies" kinda guy. Shades are useful in creating a unit to go after SC's or Heroes. Adding them to sap strength while something else hits.

Also for drawing fire since they are etheral and poison resistant.

and for attacking water provinces

and of course my favorite, to add to a stealth army

Did you mean they were no good after other later summonings become available in large games?

No, I mean they are very near useless at any stage of the game. Of course almost all low level summon share the problem of becoming obsolete very quicky, but shades are in a class of their own as far as wasting gems.

I'm not a 'mass armies' or 'sc' or 'stealth' player, I tend to use all of the above when available/useful. Shades are virtually useless against SCs, their low (vs. sc defense) attack stat and magic resistance negates weapon mean they almost never do anything. They simply die to the SC's damage shield in a couple rounds. For drawing fire, anything works as a decoy, and you can use junk that it is a lot less expensive.

If it is really an emergency where you are getting rushed and you need your early death gems to support your army, you are better off casting reanimate or revive wight. If you want to do stealth raiding, black servants are a far better choice, they can in some cases actually perform better than three shades, and finding undead stealth leadership for the shades is not easy/cheap. Trying to build up enough of them to do almost anything underwater is ridiculously expensive, and longdead from reanimate would perform better in most cases. Even all of that is mostly theoretical... the situations where you would use revive wight or reanimation are extremely rare, but when you do encounter them, they are certainly a better choice than shades.

[Gandalf Parker]

Anything is a better choice than shades. Anything is a better choice than anything if you use them by themselves. But a simulation of shades mixed in slightly with other units does pretty well. Unless of course you have higher level units available with amphib, or stealth, or ethereal, or strngth sap.

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
Anything is a better choice than shades. Anything is a better choice than anything if you use them by themselves. But a simulation of shades mixed in slightly with other units does pretty well. Unless of course you have higher level units available with amphib, or stealth, or ethereal, or strngth sap.

Yes, and mixing any not very good unit with other stuff dilutes their suckiness, that doesn't really show anything.

The abilities you list are either 'extras' (i.e ethereal doesn't isn't really a niche in itself, it's just nice to have, and on a weak and expensive unit it is just not nice enough alone), available easier and better other ways (amphibian and stealth) or just plain negligible (steal strength).

[Gandalf Parker]

If you say so, I dont see it except in later units

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
If you say so, I dont see it except in later units

Well, I don't know what to say then. I've clearly pointed out better same-or-lower-level alternatives to all their niches (apart from steal strength, and it only takes a few combat tests to see how ineffective that is vs. almost anything).

I should also point out that the CB mod more than halved their price and they were still almost never used.