Umbrals & Agartha Balance (v3.08)

[NTJedi]

Edi said:
NT Jedi, the question is, are Umbrals enough to make Agartha unbalanced? And I'm not talking about SP games here.

In SP games the Umbrals are unbalanced mainly because the human player knows to mass summon these units whereas the AI does not mass summon these units.
From my MP experience I would say the Umbrals provide to great of an advantage now being amphibian as well. When playing Agartha and needing to summon units they are now the overwhelming obvious choice. These undead units are the most powerful and least expensive undead units based on a gem per gem and spell level basis. Their strength and high life allow their default weapon to be very powerful, their high life and good magic resistance makes banishment very difficult, their statistics and being stealthy and amphibious makes them very nasty on land and in the sea whether its a direct assault or stealthy backstab. The unit is not only powerful but an almost perfect do_everything package.

What I enjoy about Dominions is how a player has so many different strategy options, yet with these Umbrals being so powerful there's less strategy for Argatha as a whole whether its singleplayer or multiplayer.

[PvK]

I've had good successes with EA (SP & MP) and MA Agartha (SP) without using very many Umbrals. A wall of Rhuax Pact Magma Children can be devastating, of course - the tricky part is keeping your other troops from getting incinerated. Enough trogs en masse can also ruin armies. The low fighting skills from being one-eyed is perhaps the biggest disadvantage, but it's not by any means unsurmountable. Giving magic items which don't even require hitting to the giants, can give you good thugs without needing any blessing. High hitpoints, ok armor plus Legions of Steel is of course quite tough early on, as well. As I've mentioned on other threads, Agartha also gains a great deal on overall balance if it starts out near an independent ocean.

[Sir_Dr_D]

And don't forget about darkness. Agarthians are the only non-undead unit with 100% darkvision. Probably the reason they were given lower attack and defense is because they would be too overpwoering because of this othewise.

What their needs to be to make Agartha more balanced is more cave provinces.

About the Umbrals, I don't know. Haven't run into those guys yet.

[MaxWilson]

Sir_Dr_D said:
What their needs to be to make Agartha more balanced is more cave provinces.

And *working* cave provinces. I only just discovered that cave provinces aren't actually dark. Fortunately, darkness does work in cave cities, and presumably in cave forts.

(Note that demons have 100% darkvision and are not undead, although many spells/items affect both undead and demons. So Yomi works quite well in cave provinces too, or would if they worked, although Yomi can't build cave forts.)

-Max