Vampires - you should be afraid of the night

[Baalz]

Well, I think that this weakness is being overplayed here. Yes, there are effective counters. Yes, very powerful end game magic can not only neutralize them but give them to your enemy if he invests enough resources and effort. Name me one unit that is not the case for. The fact of the matter is that I forced my opponent to research up to level 9 in a school he may not have otherwise wanted (not much point in going up Thau unless you've got strong astral or death), summon/empower/outfit someone capable of casting undead mastery then spent the time setting up an ambush for me....meanwhile I've got no other significant undead troops to use UM on and have been benefiting from my colony the whole game up until this level of counters are available. It's probably also pointless to even bother bloodhunting in the first case because somebody could always just wish for armageddon a couple times! At the point you're worried about penetration boosted level 9 spells surprising you you're past the point any one thing can be expected to be effective by itself most of the time. Then again, you're also looking at army of lead + will of the fates buffed vampires by that time, which is a whole other ball of wax.

[WraithLord]

The points you and Trumanator raise make sense.

I want to clarify a few things.
- The analogy to a 1000 HP critter didn't sit well with me. I kept thinking RoS and earthquake etc. I mean 3XRoS would not even scratch 1K hp critter but would waste the vamps.

- The counter warefare is endless. Army of lead would meet wrathful skies in end game (I did mention storm before, right?).

- Which brings me to trying and clarify my point. I specifically said the strat. you present is solid. I still think so, I just don't see it as being the corner stone of a game winning strategy b/c of the readily available counters to it. Now I know this last statement is generically true. And that is what I aimed (albeit poorly) to convey: you have to have more than one trick up your sleeve if you want to win. And IMHO better an offensive trick than a turtling one. I guess ultimately it falls down to personal preference. I like to attack and investing in a purely defensive unit is something I will usually try to avoid. This is less true for the lords since they have a broader range of uses.

Oh and all that doesn't change my opinion that ethereality should be returned to the vamps. I don't see them as bees in a hive, I guess they'll find the analogy insulting
Well at least if they are anything like the fear inspiring critters presented in literature and movies.

[Fantomen]

Consider that such a cost effective defense as this will allow you to stay offensive while being attacked. You can put more of your resources in offensive strategies compared to your opponent since your defence is reusable and needs neither gems or gold.

Say you are playing a strong earth nation like MA agartha. You´d need a blood economy anyway and once your stone factory is rolling I´d say investing in a vampire defence makes a perfect compliment to your offensive armies of statues and mages.

[llamabeast]

Concerning ethereality, I can't think that vampires are ethereal in any popular culture references that I can think of.

The obvious etherealish thing they can sometimes do is turn into a cloud of gas or mist. However, we could imagine that that's being represented by their immortality. When you kill a vampire in battle, what actually happens is that it turns into mist and flees to the capital to reform its physical body and recover. Of course, in land under the influence of an enemy god this process is prevented. This makes more sense to me than any other explanation of their immortality. Generally popular culture vampires are pretty hard to kill, but when you do kill them it's not like they just reappear at home.

[WraithLord]

@Fantomen - I agree. So long as one doesn't neglect the other "tools" in the box using vamps as described here makes perfect sense.

@llamabeast - I'm not particularly attached to ethereality on vamps. I did, however, very much liked the threat level that vamps represented in dom-II days. Back then such a thread would not have been required b/c everyone knew how awesome the vamps are. The removal of ethereal really hurt the vamps. Hey, so much so that after what?- three years that the game is on the market - Baalz needs to come and make a claim that they are useful.
I don't care about ethereal but I want the awesome fear inspiring vamps back. It can be by way of increased strength and defense (they are described as inhumanly strong and fast), or 2nd form (wolf, bats whatever) or something else that fits thematically.

[thejeff]

I think the ethereal with vamps was supposed to reflect the normal weapons not having much effect, not actually the same as the ghostly passing through walls real etherealness, but still ignoring bullets and knives.
Ethereal is the way you get that effect in Dominions.

Even ethereal vamps in Dom2 didn't really need the nerf. I think the nerf came along with nerfing the VQ. Who didn't really need it after earlier, mostly cost nerfs.

[llamabeast]

Ah, that does make sense thejeff. Although I think it might bother me, if the vampires were intermittently see through.

[archaeolept]

I'm not particularly attached to ethereality on vamps. I did, however, very much liked the threat level that vamps represented in dom-II days. Back then such a thread would not have been required b/c everyone knew how awesome the vamps are.

Vamps were weak back in DomII days - certainly I never had any problems with them. they are weaker now.

the only thing that might be making a vamp-heavy strat viable is quantum's continual lowering of their summoning cost in CBM.

[KissBlade]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Well, I think that this weakness is being overplayed here. Yes, there are effective counters. Yes, very powerful end game magic can not only neutralize them but give them to your enemy if he invests enough resources and effort. Name me one unit that is not the case for. The fact of the matter is that I forced my opponent to research up to level 9 in a school he may not have otherwise wanted (not much point in going up Thau unless you've got strong astral or death), summon/empower/outfit someone capable of casting undead mastery then spent the time setting up an ambush for me....meanwhile I've got no other significant undead troops to use UM on and have been benefiting from my colony the whole game up until this level of counters are available. It's probably also pointless to even bother bloodhunting in the first case because somebody could always just wish for armageddon a couple times! At the point you're worried about penetration boosted level 9 spells surprising you you're past the point any one thing can be expected to be effective by itself most of the time. Then again, you're also looking at army of lead + will of the fates buffed vampires by that time, which is a whole other ball of wax.

But on the other hand, you've also gave your vampires those same very powerful magic backing (if not more so!). Even assuming, your opponent doesn't field high end magic. If you attack into a squad that can fire off two- three earthquakes, it's pretty much doom and gloom for you. Not to mention readily available priests if you don't boost the MR on those vampires. I mean, you can only play devil's advocate for so many units. =) Let's face it, there are a lot of subpar troops in dom III. I mean, if you buff up 300-400 markatas, you can make it threatening.

[archaeolept]

go go uber-markata horde!