ghouls

[Arnuz]

Ghouls won me an impossible game alone, I found a djinn node early, grabbed it with maybe 5-6 ghouls. When coupled with your focus magic they make an impressive unit, but without it too - more powerful than wraiths at their cost imho. Then I proceeded to fly around and get each neutral city, converting the garrisons to undead.

I've been thinking about how to fix it but... I have a feeling that creating undead on ranged is just too strong. In the original I still remember the amazement on that game, 20 years ago, when I discovered that an undead djinn had access to the entire death spell list! Now it makes it just too easy, with 2 books you have ensured every combat spell costing 40 (50 with focus) or less as long as you encounter some casting unit.

A related question.. Should undead troops really reduce uprising? IMHO they should do quite the contrary - police eating brains - but if that's too harsh, at least not be considered for unrest, like fantastic units do (do they still in Caster?).

[Seravy]

No, fantastic units do reduce unrest in the mod, and undead won't be an exception to that.

[Nelphine]

I'm still trying to figure out how ghouls could kill a djinn in a node. I suppose with focus magic it would be doable. I assume magic immunity isn't combat castable?

[asche]

I have found (massed) ghouls to be pretty strong in the latest experimental version, too - they consistently slaughter my unbuffed Longbowmen. Could it be that they have gained Poison -1 vs. earlier versions? Suggestion could be to slightly increase ranged damage but to remove Poison?

[Nelphine]

They cost far more than unbuffed longbowman. Why would you expect them to lose? By cost 1 ghoul should be equal to about 3 longbowman.

By the way this also applies to Djinn - straight cost compared to 2 neutral djinn, 6 focus magic ghouls SHOULD win.

[Arnuz]

They cost far more than unbuffed longbowman. Why would you expect them to lose? By cost 1 ghoul should be equal to about 3 longbowman.

By the way this also applies to Djinn - straight cost compared to 2 neutral djinn, 6 focus magic ghouls SHOULD win.

I should have been perhaps clearer. I'm not discussing the strength of the unit. I'm however of the opinion that creating undead with ranged magical attacks is:
- un-flavourable (braiiiins, not pew pew. Yeah they're not zombies, but ghouls are iconic melee units too)
- OP, for the reasons stated.

I've managed to get djinns from ghouls in the old MOM, hand to hand, but it requires quite a lot of effort more: webs, or flying for example.

[Seravy]

I think Magic Immunity is combat castable by Djinn but only in EXP9, otherwise it's too expensive.
They can cast Dispelling Wave though and without Focus Magic, the Ghouls can't kill them.
Even if neither was used, they can cast Invisibility or Blur to reduce the damage taken.
So it takes a large amount of luck to win that battle - there has to be exactly one Djinn, no other strong units, and it needs to cast something useless like summon a Phantom Beast.

Based on costs, yes, 6 ghouls with FM cost a lot more than a Djinn. That doesn't mean they should win because the Djinn is very rare, but honestly I don't think they will, at least not consistently enough to base a strategy on it.

While ranged units creating undead is powerful, it doesn't compare to hitting a sleeping monster with a zombie. Also, don't forget that relevant battles will have an enemy wizard throwing fire or exorcism at your ghouls while you're doing it. Only neutrals are that easy.

Making Ghouls melee changes nothing : Focus Magic grants a ranged magical attack. (Yes, they would do less damage but they'll still shoot). I did use Ghouls in the original MoM and they sucked. They had to melee, had low defense so they were guaranteed to get hurt, and they couldn't get healed. You lost more value in damaged ghouls than what the raised monster was worth, unless it was already sleeping and unable to fight back (or it had so crappy stats but why raise a crappy monster?).

Longbowmen btw are a cost 50 normal unit while  Ghoul is a cost 80 fantastic unit, and by definition fantastic units of an equal cost are stronger. So the Ghoul should win, although in reality whichever side attacks first is usually the winner because longbowmen do high damage but have low durability.

[Catwalk]

When I tried it, both Djinns cast Magic Immunity immediately. I agree that Ghouls + Focus Magic is potentially powerful, but I think it's slow to get going.

Arnuz, are you up for testing your strategy in mine and Nelphine's next comparison game?

[Nelphine]

Arnuz, my comment on cost was aimed at asche

[Arnuz]

Maybe I lucked it out with the djinn then. Yes, it was a lonely djinn. I still think that it's a very powerful combination, even just for neutrals, though probably kept contained by the slow speed of the undead.

But there's also the aspect of flavour: ranged ghouls will make a lot of fantasy nerds shake their heads ^_^'

What's kind of ranged, death flavoured and missing from the game is the terror fog/miasma trope in case this gives you ideas.

Happy to test this, Catwalk. I've been looking at the reports - just found this place - and I'm sure that gnolls and barbarians are faster at the beginning, but finding a way to move the ghouls around quickly early would make neutral cities with free garrison possibly expand quicker in the medium term. Of course it's quite high risk with the need for appropriate targets, but what isn't in impossible