Do people underuse mages?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Epaminondas

The AI builds "huge" "formations of elite troops"? I don't see that even while playing on Impossible with mods designed to encourage the AI to be more selective with its troop recruitment

It depends on the nation, obviously. In my current game, I'm using Edi's BI mod v2, and Helheim for example will throw 100 Hirdmans and 40 Longdead Horsemen at me. EA Arco will send in 300 troops including two ~80 troop wings of Myrmidons.

Also, I sometimes test my troop formations by inserting "phantom" troops into easy battles (w/ Ctrl + 'U')to see where the weak points in my formations are, and I usually pick elite troops for that.

As for the comment that this proves that Ashdod needs a nerf, well, I don't play MP so I don't know. I can tell you that "fun" != "overpowered". Ashdod battlemages are great fun, but in MP I suspect you'd let those mages do research and thug out recruitable commanders as much as possible instead. Certainly MP players don't seem to have much problem with playing the nations that I loathe, i.e. without decent recruitable-anywhere mages--and isn't that what this thread is about? Apparently battlemages don't get used much.

But Ashdod is tremendously flexible and fun in SP.

-Max