Mod Nation - Tomb Kings - v1.03 released (March 2009)! - Page 10

llamabeast · #1 July 6th, 2009, 09:50 PM

E9 is much better than E8. The +4 protection is very handy on the Buried. With W9E9 + Resilience they are pretty hard to kill.

However, other blesses are also good. F9 obviously makes the Buried much more vicious. S9 makes them harder to kill (twist fate makes a big difference for fragile units like Buried, and obviously the MR is valuable too). D9 is very nasty on Asp Archers. I've had good results with all of those. I have to say that W9 has very good synergy with all of them though (more attacks for flaming weapons/asp archers, more defense makes twist fate better).

Certainly it would be worth considering say E9S9, W9S9 or F9W9 as well as other permutations.

Trumanator · #2 July 6th, 2009, 11:44 PM

I am thinking about some other blesses, but the thing about the E9W9 bless is that it helps both the sacred troops and the priests/kings. W9S9 would be my second choice probably, but the extra MR doesn't help the TKs at all since they already have 18 MR, and the priests could care less, though the protection from a stray arrow is useful. The main problem with the W9 bless as I see it is that it is a real PITA with the way quickness interacts with archers. By rights they should just shoot twice, but instead they decide to shoot, then run forward a bit, all the way to the front line.

Otherwise I would really look into a W9D? bless...

I hope I don't sound like I'm just shooting down everyone's ideas, I'm just trying to figure out the optimal playstyle for me.

SlipperyJim · #3 August 6th, 2009, 03:49 PM

Got an ironic message in my current game:

Of course, the irony is that I am playing the Tomb Kings. Stupid Ermorians don't release that we're already dead....

On the other hand, perhaps the AI is smarter than I'm giving him credit for being. MA Ermor knows that we're all dead, and they want to add our noble Nehekharans to their foul legions!

...

Anyway, I'd also like to add my thanks to llama for this mod. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and I finally got around to trying it. Wow, what a cool mod!

I might have even found a new favorite. The artwork is very consistent and adds to the "feel" of the mod. The units are excellent, and I've found uses for almost all of them. (A better player would use all of them, I'm sure.) I haven't gotten much magical research done, but I'm looking forward to trying out the national summons.

Note to other TK players: Marignon is just as nasty as you'd expect them to be. Sieging their home province with your undead armies is painful. Then the actual storming of the fortress is quite painful! I soon learned to hate those Holy Pyre spells.

But Marignon is gone now, and I'm looking for my next target....

Jazzepi · #4 August 9th, 2009, 01:29 PM

Just a few comments.

I found the TKs a touch too expensive for 500 GPs. My main gripe is that with a nation like EA Neiflhem, you're recruiting a very powerful thug, quite possibly even an SC level creature, for the same cost who also has very good paths.

While the TKs have great paths, they tend to be lots of low level ones which makes them good for site searching, but difficult to employ in combat as caster mages (outside of death magic) without gear. So to me, the 400 or so price tag was much more reasonable. I often just had TKs sitting at home, researching, or playing forge ***** because they had good paths.

This is mainly due to the fact that the only other good combat mage you have is the undead sorcerer, with the high priest being almost useless unless you're looking to skelly spam.

I dunno, I still like the nation a lot, but I felt like the TKs shouldn't have been increased in price.

Jazzepi

Sombre · #5 August 10th, 2009, 06:31 AM

The fact that they're immortal is clearly a pretty big part of their price tag. But it's relatively hard to abuse I guess, since they get weaker after the first death. Even so, you can worry about them a lot less than say, a Slann or oreiad.

Jazzepi · #6 August 11th, 2009, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre

The fact that they're immortal is clearly a pretty big part of their price tag. But it's relatively hard to abuse I guess, since they get weaker after the first death. Even so, you can worry about them a lot less than say, a Slann or oreiad.

Honestly, the immortality is basically worthless. If they were immortal, and kept their paths then I would completely agree with you that they're worth 500 gp.

I'd much, much rather see them lose the immortality and come down in price.

Jazzepi

rdonj · #7 August 12th, 2009, 12:17 AM

Losing paths on them is quite painful. Weakened tomb kings can be very difficult to use effectively. This is part of why we need a tomb kings guide :P

Trumanator · #8 August 23rd, 2009, 10:22 PM

A suggestion for the Ushabti Avatars- I think it would be nice if at least 2 of their non-sorcery randoms were linked. I just summoned my first in Tourmaline, and he was pretty underwhelming, 1F1A1E3D. While I will try to put him to good use, its not like I don't get those regularly from my kings. A 2 in A especially would have been a real godsend. I recognize that I was mostly just unlucky, but it still left me wishing I had my E gems back. I just feel that for 35 E and ench 8 you should really get something with a bang.

@ rdonj- I might post a bit of a guide after this game if I get anywhere, but I don't pretend that I've really had any major brainstorms.

rdonj · #9 August 24th, 2009, 05:14 AM

Even if the avatar didn't get amazingly good paths, it's still quite usable as an SC. Though ushabti avatars do annoyingly have the does not heal tag, making it somewhat problematic to use them.

Go for it

Like I've said before, some of the randoms on tomb kings are just so random it's hard to decide what to do with them. It seems to me like they are either thugs, forgers, or army buffers depending on their paths. Sorcerers and high priests can handle just about all the battle magic you really need.

Trumanator · #10 September 1st, 2009, 06:51 PM

Okay, having now summoned at least a few avatars, I am definitely coming down on the side of saying they at least need some adjustment. Every single one of them save one B3 one has been inferior to my TKs in paths, if not in stats. While I will most likely continue to summon them, I think that serious consideration should be put toward consolidating the randoms. While the spread out randoms are not so bad for the TKs, when it comes to what is billed as a national SC, it becomes increasingly aggravating. 35 E gems and researching to ench 8 is a pretty substantial investment, and feel that it wouldn't be that much of a killer to expect a little more oomph.