Death-Growth d Productivity-Sloth scales?

[Cohen]

Are these well balanced?

Often I see people taking Death to add design points, and it's a small lose of gold and people, and instead Growth is a very small advantage even because a flooding or other cathastrphes kills pop quickly than it grow.

And Productivity ... if the game is almost based on summons and other similar stuff, does real matter?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cohen:
And Productivity ... if the game is almost based on summons and other similar stuff, does real matter?

I'd still like somebody to point out what summoned creatures make normal troops obsolete. I hear this claim over and over again, but nobody ever provides an actual summoned unit.

[Cohen]

I didn't understood you Grame, perhaps cause I'm Italian and don't understand well all the english phrases there ...

to claim a summoned unit?

this means?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cohen:
this means?

What I'm looking for is a summoned unit that you think makes national troops and mages obsolete.

[SelfishGene]

Devils.

But only national troops. Mages never go out of style.

I used to feel that Growth was not sufficient but today im more fond of that scale. I like to take Growth and Order together. Your income will slowly but steadily grow, and with Growth 3/Order 3 you gain a not inconsequential 10-15% income within a very short timeframe. And believe it or not the supply bonuses are helpful as well, especially if you have either large, expensive forts or the cheap kind that lack Admin - which is basically most of them.

[Teraswaerto]

There are spells that boost mundane troops. Antimagic, Warriors of Muspelheim/Niefelheim, Quickening, Army of Gold, etc.

[Endoperez]

If you can choose, do you take 50 devils or 50 devils, 20 Knights (of any kind) and 30 Heavy infantries?

50 Devils will propably lose versus, say, 100 crossbowmen, or atleast be killed. If you have some shielded, heavy-armored units in the front, you will take less losses. Also, if your enemy is using mages+(staff of)storm combo, your knights will reach them before your devils.

Yes, you could argue that you can make Demon Knights as flankers, Storm devils to take out mages protected by storm, and get arrow fodder with Crossbreeding, but all of those cost slaves. You would have to be Mictlan to have that enough slaves to make even one army of them. And Mictlan is meant to rely heavily on summons.

Devils are good, but you can't get as many of them as you can get your national troops. And in most cases, elite armies will lose if they are put versus many times bigger armies that know what is coming and have had the time to get ready for it.


Just my 2 cents, or opinion, or whatever. I never understood where that saying came.

[tinkthank]

I rarely rely that much on summons as Cohen does, certainly never early game.
I like productivity with many nations where I want lots of my own troops (Knights of the Chalice, Imperial soldiers, Principe, Hoplites, etc.), and these situations are common.
Growth is also nice if you are doing a lot of patrolling.

There are often very good other reasons to take even just one point of growth. I do so, for example, if I think that one or more opponents are going to go heavy death (like vs Ermor, to name just one) -- when my dom is strong, it is a shield against his death, whereas if I choose none, his death gets through much faster. Ditto for choosing a point of productivity if I think someone is going to go heavy sloth (Mictlan, etc.) near me. At least it seems to help in my opinion. (Likewise, I will also take a point of heat or cold if I know I am up against a Jotun/Abysian, just to even things out a bit and perhaps even piss them off.)

[Cohen]

Well, I didn't rely on summon too ...

But what happen when you see hundreds of you men falling down cutted by Summer Lion (yeah I had mages with 3 earth too casting those earth bullets on SL) in few battles, or far worse, entire armies slaughtered by 1 single uberpowered creature like an Ice devil with full equipment.

And Growt is really useful when someone can easily plague/flood etc etc your lands ...

[Norfleet]

Hundreds of men cut down by Summer Lions? You're kidding, right? Summer Lions are crap. How many lions did that TAKE?