Magic shield effects

[Psycho]

If you are comparing vine and gold shields, I'd say that gold shield has a better overall value.

You would prefer vine shield for troops with MR lower than moral - undead, ulmish troops, animals (monkeys). On the plus side compared with gold shield, it disables the target for at least two rounds as opposed to one. A niche combo can be achieved with evening star which reduces target strength on hit (no MR check), thus making it harder to release from vines.

Gold shield is better for troops where moral is lower than MR - that is usually more elite troops and thugs. Most thugs (Van, Eriu and the like) have 17-18 MR, but 14-15 moral. In addition it has much better parry and protection values, so it's overall more useful. Plus it needs 1 gem less to forge and needs less valuable gems (fire and earth compared to nature). There is the synergy with fear as well.

[Rookierookie]

Originally Posted by Psycho

If you are comparing vine and gold shields, I'd say that gold shield has a better overall value.

You would prefer vine shield for troops with MR lower than moral - undead, ulmish troops, animals (monkeys). On the plus side compared with gold shield, it disables the target for at least two rounds as opposed to one. A niche combo can be achieved with evening star which reduces target strength on hit (no MR check), thus making it harder to release from vines.

Gold shield is better for troops where moral is lower than MR - that is usually more elite troops and thugs. Most thugs (Van, Eriu and the like) have 17-18 MR, but 14-15 moral. In addition it has much better parry and protection values, so it's overall more useful. Plus it needs 1 gem less to forge and needs less valuable gems (fire and earth compared to nature). There is the synergy with fear as well.

14-15 morale would, for all due intents and purposes, pass the morale check every time unless you have fear.

Practically speaking, vine shield is almost always more effective than awe, which is really fickle even against standard 10 morale units. Syncing with fear is another story, but remember that many units simply don't care about morale. Vine shields will work against undead, berserks, morale 30, etc. Gleaming Gold Shield would not.

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Rookierookie

14-15 morale would, for all due intents and purposes, pass the morale check every time unless you have fear.

Practically speaking, vine shield is almost always more effective than awe, which is really fickle even against standard 10 morale units. Syncing with fear is another story, but remember that many units simply don't care about morale. Vine shields will work against undead, berserks, morale 30, etc. Gleaming Gold Shield would not.

I am going to disagree here. In particular about the 'almost always' bit.

Yes, the Vine Shield is better against generic human chaff and I even agree that it is useful in more situations than the Shield of Gleaming Gold, but there are also quite a few situations where the latter is better.

Given that the penetration numbers in this thread are correct - and they seem to agree with my in-game experiences - MR needs to be 2 higher than morale for the two shields to be on even footing when it comes to averting attacks from sizeable numbers of units. This is not that uncommon in standard troops as long as you go outside the purely human nations - firbolgs and agarthans would be two examples.

Thugs with higher MR than morale are definitely not uncommon; particularly not since MR-enhancing gear is very common. Added to that is that when we are talking about fewer, but harder, attacks per round, the fact that the Shield of Gleaming Gold has much better parry and protection values really comes into play.

Furthermore, it is not particularly relevant to view the Shield of Gleaming Gold and awe in a vacuum. Fear attacks are pretty common, not just as items or inherently on thugs, but also from spells. For that matter you can just fight in your own dominion and automatically give your opposition a penalty on morale. These are all things that at least I tend to use regardless of access to awe. The shield is often a rather effective way of capitalizing on what I am already doing for other reasons.

As mentioned there are some units against which awe just does not work, but reasonably speaking you equip your thugs with whatever you have that is effective against the expected opposition. Sometimes an item is just not right for the situation, but that goes for all things - including the Vine Shield.

[Finalgenesis]

Thanks, I'll do some testing!

[Squirrelloid]

I can guarantee vine shield is not MR negates. It triggers way too often for that to be true.

Edit: Apparently should read second page before posting.

[chrispedersen]

Many times people will see unentangled men next to a vineshield, and assume MR is involved.

There are many reasons such a unit would not have attacked in the first place. Sufficiently negative actions points is one; fatigue another.

[thejeff]

Or simply broke out this round and thus didn't attack.
So if I understand this correctly: given sufficient strength (most thugs and SCs), you'll get to attack a vine-shielded opponent with every other attack action?

[Psycho]

Hmmm, I guess I was wrong after all. Units that get entangled do actually get to attack on the turn they get entangled. It's really funny how I managed to miss this in all this time playing Dominions. Well, I am sorry I spread this misinformation, but it's a good thing it is corrected.

As for the rest I said, it still stands. Squirrel, diceman and others - instead of posting your beliefs, you'd be better served by testing things. Finalgenesis, as you can see, not even the basic mechanics are completely clear to the veteran players of this game, so the best advice is to test whenever you are not sure of something.

[Action]

So Vine Shield doesn't check MR, but works on everyone no matter what, although they get to swing first?

Amazing if true, but seems to agree with in game testing (that first round of combat often makes or breaks borderline thugs with vine shield)

So at a minimum, it reduces attacks by 50% (attack one turn, break out one turn, attack one turn, repeat, but often a lot more vs low strength units?

Confirms my opinion that it's way more broadly useful than gleaming gold, although gleaming gold is probably better for really wimpy mage thugs facing PD etc.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Psycho

As for the rest I said, it still stands. Squirrel, diceman and others - instead of posting your beliefs, you'd be better served by testing things.

If it checks MR, as you claim, then you should be able to produce a debug log demonstrating this with about a minute of work with the debug mod.