Ghouls

[Immaculate]

I recently found a site that lets me enter to summon ghouls.

Are ghouls a good unit? is it worth giving up 4rp/turn?

Is it true that they will eat the population of the province they are located in? If so, how fast?

Do people make use of this free summon effect?

I.

[K]

OK.

No.

No.

No. By the time you get a decent number of ghouls, the game should be over.

[Gandalf Parker]

According to the "tips" file:
Reanimation of ghouls will decrease population. Reanimation of soulless will decrease unburied corpses.
But Im not sure how that applies to sites.

They are useful in some situations. But I would "create revenant" if you have it and use just that 1-death magic mage for it. Dont waste anything higher.

As to the worth "game should be over" I guess that depends on the game you are playing. If its a blitz-type MP game on a small map that would be true but a solo game on a large map might be a very different consideration

[thejeff]

Interesting, slightly larger scale question: Which of the "Enter to summon x" sites are actually worth using?

Just off the top of my head, I wouldn't bother with the ghouls or with soulless.
I do send a death mage to the one that gives the longdead archer and horse, though I've never really got much value out of them.
The one that gives (non-commander) banes is definitely worth it.

[K]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Interesting, slightly larger scale question: Which of the "Enter to summon x" sites are actually worth using?

Just off the top of my head, I wouldn't bother with the ghouls or with soulless.
I do send a death mage to the one that gives the longdead archer and horse, though I've never really got much value out of them.
The one that gives (non-commander) banes is definitely worth it.

Personally, I like the site for winter wolves, the site for devils, and the one for Banes.

I also like the one that lets you summon crap like you were Ry'leh, but I'm a sucker for sites with random effects (you'd be surprised how much I've sent into that site that gets you random treasure and items).

[Stavis_L]

Well, depending on which site, you get either 3 or 5 ghouls, and while I wouldn't do it while still researching, I might do it after finishing research, if a death mage happened to be there already.

As for which "enter to summon" units are worth it, I'd submit that the following are usually worth it, and the rest are situationally worth it.

Devil's Den			304	Devil	1			
Dragon Jaws			593	Draconian	1			
Dragon Mountain			593	Draconian	1			
Jungle Temple			394	Lamia	1			
Kraken Pit			438	Kraken	1			
Mount Frost			511	Winter Wolf	2			
Skull Temple			535	Longdead Archer	1, 	189	Longdead Horseman	1
Temple of Darkness		675	Shadow	1,	676	Shade	1
The Bowl of the Lost		185	Bane	1			
The Demon Gate			88	Fiend of Darkness	1			
The Factory			532	Mechanical Man	1			
The Forest Beneath the Waves	1062	Sea Stag	1			
The Hippocampoi Fields		1058	Hippocampus	1			
The Lesser Abyss		88	Fiend of Darkness	1			
The Mountain of Power		403	Horned Serpent	1			
The Sea of Dead Memories	676	Shade	1			
The Shaded Lands		676	Shade	1			
Tomb of Seven Oracles		1501	Cavern Wight	1			
Tower of Seven Tombs		625	Mummy	1			
Valley of the Dead		625	Mummy	1

[thejeff]

But even in a huge game you're still trading 4rp/turn for 5 ghouls (at best).

Early on the 4rp/turn could be important. Later the research will matter less, but the power curve has gone up far enough that a couple of hundred ghouls (40 turns worth!) are basically irrelevant.

The game may not be over in a huge game, but power levels increase faster than the number of ghouls. 5 ghouls/turn never catches up.

[Agema]

At bare minimum, although their combat usefulness is low, a large number of no-upkeep undead like ghouls can be jolly handy for knocking castle walls down quickly.

[Foodstamp]

I'm a sucker for those sites, so even if it is not worth it I will stick a 1D guy summoning them.

[Gandalf Parker]

Absolutes tend to always be arguable, everything has its pros and cons. In general, Im not sure if ANY summoning site is particularly useful if you have to keep creating a special commander and send it to pick up the units. BUT if the site is on the path that commanders have to move anyway and they can pick some up on the way then they can add some useful variety to an army. Or in a far forward location where a mage might be just waiting for awhile anyway.

As far as ghouls go, how would a site compare to reanimation? or a spell? If it doesnt impact population, doesnt cost gems, and generates about the same number of units (not sure on any of those) then it just becomes the usefulness of ghouls. I wouldnt build an army of them but their special abilities can make them useful to have a few along