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Thats basically it. I feel Mansions are the strongest building in the game. Calabim have strong units but the units themselves aren't overpowered. Everything just works together far too well. Being able to instantly promote your 100+ XP vampires into National Units is just such a ridiculous jump in power. Basically makes ever T4 unit a hero that starts out with there promotions.
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Quote:I think we're agreed it's in the useful, about as good as it should be range. I agree it's not as good as those, but I think it's a darn sight better than the bad ones like Raging Seas, March of the Trees, Worldbreak and Veil of Night.
Raging seas and march of the trees both have a really good use. March of the Trees is your panic button, not as powerful a one as sanctuary, but enough to stop any attack after its available.
Raging seas is deadly. Literally. Since it causes potentially lethal damage, it means going next to the sea is suicide for any attackers of the Lanun. Max out damage from cultists, then use raging seas. Kill anybody near the sea.
In my opinion the worldspells that stand out as particularly bad are Worldbreak, Motherlode, Divine Retribution, Veil of Night. Everything else has got at least one decent use.
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Selrahc Wrote:Raging seas and march of the trees both have a really good use. March of the Trees is your panic button, not as powerful a one as sanctuary, but enough to stop any attack after its available.
Raging seas is deadly. Literally. Since it causes potentially lethal damage, it means going next to the sea is suicide for any attackers of the Lanun. Max out damage from cultists, then use raging seas. Kill anybody near the sea.
In my opinion the worldspells that stand out as particularly bad are Worldbreak, Motherlode, Divine Retribution, Veil of Night. Everything else has got at least one decent use.
I agree with Veil of night (as long as you're not playing against A.I) but i'm not sure about the rest. never tried Motherlode. Worldbreak is devastating against Elves if you're lucky (My Forests!) and can soften enemies up for an attack. as for devine retribution, it's useful if going up against Infernals and weakening a sheaim undead/pyre zombie assault.
Edit: and you're right about MotT, haven't tried raging seas.
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Raging seas is one of the most dangerous World Spells in my experience, i can tell you that. Most people don't see it because you know, AI Lanun sucks, but a single mistake against a human Lanun and your stacks are dead. The fact that he can force you to keep away from the coast due to his worldspell (and thus limit your options) makes it a good spell.
And it's needed due to the fact that Cultists are not good for defense (unless you're abandoning the city). You can still threaten people who comes near your coastal cities without destroying your economy in the process with Raging Seas, something no one else can do. (And the Lanun needs this because they're whole economy is sea based).
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Bobchillingworth Wrote:Vampires: The big one. Yes, they can summon specters. Yes, they can make stacks run fast and regenerate health through casting Regeneration or eating bloodpets. Yes, you can get a crapload of exp on them. But all of this is balanced out by some very substantial downsides. First, vampires are expensive. They cost 50% more than regular champions. Each vampire represents a substantial investment in hammers and population, and it is very difficult to produce them in large quantities compared with the main military forces for most other civs. That the best way to produce a vampire swarm relies on abusing slavery and/or drafting says more about the utility of those civic options than any imbalance regarding the unit itself. Second, vampires are weak. They have -1 strength compared with normal champions and lack the bonus vs. other melee units. They need lots of promotions and the ability to summon specters to retain any significant edge at all. Irgy boasted in the pre-game discussion that he would conjure up a "vampire hit-squad" to defeat me. This never materialized. All of the kills earned by vampires in this match were on weak defenders who were already decimated from collateral damage. The only time a vampire fought directly with one of my units in the field saw it get stomped by a base strength 4 goblin rider. Even the kills against my best defenders at Death Fort came not from super-vampires but the obscenely powerful strength 16 Beasts of Agares. This is not to take anything away from Irgy- he played brilliantly and used combined arms well. But this game demonstrated very little about the strength of vampires themselves compared to the power of the Veil and having a mobile military and good road network.
Hmmm, while you make good points about vampires being more expensive and weaker than champions, one thing that's not mentioned here is that the beaker cost of getting to champions (Smelting + Iron Working ~=6.6k) is substantially higher than the cost of getting to vampires (HBR + Writing + Trade + Feudalism ~= 4k). And the vamp path helps your economy as well along the way. For me, this is mostly what pushes vampires into the realm of "overpowered": it actually doesn't take very long to get to them. As a result, they are even stronger (relative to their contemporary units) than even their power and abilities would suggest. Consider: if vamps weren't so cheap beaker-wise, perhaps Irgy wouldn't have even had any available to summon the fear-inducing spectres, and the city might have fallen to the chariot attack.
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My point of view: the Calabim are pretty well balanced at Immortal or Deity difficulty level, or on a map with very high maintenance costs. The lack of Elder Councils really hurts them, and their tech rate can slow to a crawl if you're not careful with expansion and building an economy. Flauros is very much the best leader in those circumstances, since economy is the main problem. Change either of his traits to one that doesn't boost his economy and he is more on par with the other leaders.
At lower difficulty levels, the economy is not such a problem and Flauros is not so disproportionately strong.
On the orcs vs. vampires question: I think this match shows it to be very map dependent. The orcs are strong in the early game, but slow down a lot in the mid game. The vampires are completely ordinary in the early game, but just keep getting better as the game goes on. If the orcs can't leverage their early game boost, they'll fade into insignificance as the game goes on; if the vampires are choked in the cradle, they'll never have a chance to roll out all their cool toys.
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