Test games played

[Bahgtru]

I'm very saddened by the turn that the discussion is taking: use the easy bad solution, and call it a day.

Given that reducing the ghoul ranged attack is a no-go (probably due to its mediocre fighting abilities for its cost), I do think the best idea may instead be looking at the 'easy' and worrisome things you can raise as undead

That's really not the best idea, as it simply removes an entire playstyle - the hunt for powerful undead. Why would you do that?

Chaos spawn death immune: should then it not also have doom damage immunity, sleep immunity, and stoning immunity? You answered to yourself: it's got high resistance. It's not easy to raise, it's easy to manage because it's slow, which is different. But if that's the problem then give it guardian wind so that your beloved horsebowmen don't deal with it without any brainpower needed. Unbuffed ghouls often deal no damage to it, you need to first reduce their numbers and then finish the lairs off with FM ghouls.

Please don't use this simple and bad solution, to counter a strategy. Instead, give it a strategic counter. Maintenance. Raise maintenance based on some simple rule: linear, geometric or exponential, starting from 1 to commons and raising based on your decided rule.

[Bahgtru]

Have you guys actually played ghouls with focus magic? I'm not sure it's really a big deal at this point. But again, this list: "2 Djinn, 1 Hydra, 3 Great Lizards, 3 Chaos Spawn, 3 Chimera, 5 Gargoyles, 1 Werewolves" -- was *all* raised with one stack of 6 Focus Magic ghouls. They've got 7 ranged. It's plenty to hack away the health of a high defense unit, and resistance is irrelevant. 

Let's say you got that by '05. What if that stuff costed you 300 mana in maintenance? At that point you'd have to face some serious choices...

[Nelphine]

Well, to throw one other thing in: I play death for undead and demon lords. I already don't play for demon lords lecause it takes too long. 

If we remove the realms ability to get rare and very rare undead, I'll simply stop playing death. It shouldn't happen reliably through ghouls, but it SHOULD happen.

[Seravy]

I don't get the recurrence of the "zombies are better than ghouls" thing.

Simple. Zombies don't cost overland skill so on the cost side they are better. Using zombies doesn't require you to suffer losses either (in the form of dead ghouls because even fire bolts and aether sparks can kill them.) - basically zombies are a combat spell life life drain, while ghouls are an overland summon. To play ghouls you need to give up playing other creatures. You can play zombies and still have any overland summon as your main strategy.

Yes, ghouls have more potential but that only shines in 1 out of... X games, X being an unknown number between 3 and 5 probably. But ghouls only work as a main strategy due to their cost, so it means giving up on a reliable (read 100% wins on Expect, maybe Master) strategy for an unreliable one that might, sometimes, be stronger. This is viable on Lunatic where winning is so hard you need to do something very special and risky, and your win chances are below 50% anyway. On any other difficulty, no.

I'm not sure it's really a big deal at this point. But again, this list: "2 Djinn, 1 Hydra, 3 Great Lizards, 3 Chaos Spawn, 3 Chimera, 5 Gargoyles, 1 Werewolves" -- was *all* raised with one stack of 6 Focus Magic ghouls.

Yeah but you got nothing in the first two maps. So the overall win rate of the strategy is 33%. That's something I wouldn't play on any difficulty level I can reliably beat.

Losing black sleep as a method to create undead is a pity, and I'm still not sure why it has been removed -- was it responsible for something game breaking?

Undead werewolves, but those won't be a thing anymore so we can reopen the "do we want to allow raising sleeping units" discussion.

Anyway, the loss of Death Immunity in werewolves seems to have caused far, far more trouble than it's worth so why not just add it back? Seems like it's a case of tweaking one unit and as a result having to knock over the entire house of cards that a strategy is built on.

Yes, we are going to do exactly that. Black Sleep might still be too powerful for making undead regardless but keyword is "might", with werewolves in the mix it was 100% certainly too powerful.

To be honest, I'm not considering the death immunity on Chaos Spawn as a counter to ghouls even though it come from this discussion. I'm considering it to give Chaos a good answer against Death wizards because they have none. Although the AI isn't really using the unit much and won't be so maybe that's not a good idea.

[Nelphine]

Ah. Right we're talking two different things.

When you're talking about zombies being better, you're talking efficiency over the game due to overland casting skill limitation.

When were talking about ghouls being better, we're talking literally unit for unit, or spell for spell.

If you want to create undead, there is nothing better than a stack of 9 ghouls. If you want to create undead, there is no spell better than overland summoning a ghoul because it will probably last at least 2 battles, which makes it cheaper than 2 battles of black sleep plus zombies (and if there are multipliers on your battles, might even be cheaper than 1 battle).


And that's where my point comes in. There are other options for creating undead, and it may be hard to use ghouls correctly, but if you do, none of the other options are actually as good as ghouls, which is extremely disappointing.

[Seravy]

, which makes it cheaper than 2 battles of black sleep plus zombies

It doesn't though. Sleep plus zombies would cost cost you like 60 MP for two battles., but let's be generous and consider it 80. But let's do "per raised unit", zombies cost 40 for one.
A single ghouls, before buffs, costs 88 overland skill. That's 88 mana right there...but that's not your real cost. You cost if the 88 overland skill. We are talking about an easy game strategy, so to pay that in the relevant timeframe, you would likely need at least +2, probably much more overland casting skill increase. Assuming your average skill is 30-40 (otherwise sleep+zombies would be more effective as you could make multiple spelling units), that costs an additional 60-80 MP or more, so the overall REAL cost of a ghoul is over 160 MP. That still assumes you grew your skill over time so you get that ghoul actually paid later while the zombie is available immediately.

That ghoul will then need to raise at least 4 units by itself to be better than sleep+zombies, but keyword is "by itself". A ghoul has low ammo - 4 shots from your ghouls won't be enough to convert a unit better than swordsmen. You'd need multiples. So if I look at it "per ghoul", it's closer to 12 battles to break even with zombies.
Now, the lifespan of the ghouls might reach the 12 battles if you are careful and use a large enough stack. But Ghouls have horrible overland movement. So this will take you like 36-60 turns or something like that.
So Ghouls are better than zombies but by the time they reach that point, it's already midgame and they are obsolete. Also, they are a debt - you paid the costs initially but you only get the rewards slowly over time, while the zombies will give you your undead instantly.

So zombies are better. This assumed the zombie-sleep combo, but in the early game that's not particularly efficient. Just summoning the zombie raw will get you 2 undead units since swordsmen and the like are that weak. Adding Cloak of Fear or Wraithform can let them convert an entire 9 stack. A single Ghoul (which already costs 4 times as much overall) can't hope to convert more than 2 due to their limited ammo, even from such low tier units.

I really don't understand how you can consider ghouls better than zombies. They are more expensive, even if they pretend to be cheaper by having no recurring, per combat, cost.

(to say something positive about ghouls they don't spend your combat skill so you can cast something instead. With zombies you can't. But the early game casting skill is low compared to the strength of the stacks fighting, so that isn't really a significant difference anyway. And with Ghouls you'll always use darkness anyway if you do want to cast a spell.)

[Bahgtru]

Bah, chaos already has an answer to death: burn that shit down. I am much more afraid of a chaos wizard than of a sorcery, nature or life one.

[Bahgtru]

And that's where my point comes in. There are other options for creating undead, and it may be hard to use ghouls correctly, but if you do, none of the other options are actually as good as ghouls, which is extremely disappointing.

I don't understand. How's doing the difficult thing right disappointing though. Ghouls die like flies as soon as a sprite looks at them wrong. A demon lord, well, not. Creating undead with a demon lord, or wraith, is braindead easy, albeit not as reliable, while with ghouls it's reliable but difficult. How can that be less satisfying??

But - I say, ranged is the issue, not the fact that they're common. Because ranged makes them easier. So, make them even more difficult to use. That makes them more satisfying. Make them have a breath attack instead of ranged. Perhaps don't let them be as squishy as now, but force them to risk it in order to create their undead - kind of like zombies, except they cost skill.

[Nelphine]

No.

If you want to do sleep plus zombies, you need your 40 casting skill. And 2 battles is 80 cost.

If I want to do my ghouls, I need 2 casting skill. It'd be silly, absolutely, but I do. So to get the zombies + sleep, you MUST increase your skill, but not for ghouls.

And cloak of fear or wraithform on your zombies? Wait... I heard that works on a ghoul too. And I can (if I want) put endurance on my ghoul, but I can't do that to my combat summon zombie.

And again, I'm not looking at long term efficiency.

If I have 500 casting skill, and 13 books and 6 retorts, the best method of creating undead.. is to summon ghouls and buff them. Why???

In fact, if I buff my wraiths or demon lords (say with lionheart and survival instinct) they will actually create LESS undead! So I HAVE to find ways to abuse ghouls, because nothing else scales. (Syphon life sort of, but anything syphon life can kill in 25 casts, mega buffed ghouls can STILL probably kill more effectively.)

[Seravy]

Eh, whatever. For that 40 skill I get that zombie and sleep in all my battles.
For that 2 skill I get one ghoul that's incapable of killing an uncommon creature by itself and won't be present in 98% of my battles because it only moves 2 on the map or DIES to the enemies. So I'd need 20 ghouls to be at the level that matches zombies, but it'd still be less versatile and cost more MP.

I tried the endurance thing and it sucked. Should have spent that 1 life spell pick on Healing instead to...actually keep the ghoul alive because Endurance does not.

I don't think we'll ever agree on this, you are far too obsessed with ghouls. Try playing some werewolves for a change while converting things using zombies. (or try skeletons, or night stalkers, or shadow demons, or anything, really. The good thing in zombies is that they DON'T take up your main strategy "slot" and work with everything.)