Question about EA Tir Na N'og

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Colonial

Thats a bit daft from the perspective of a bunch of MP players. Don't rightly care if I get hammers or not SP .


@ Torgon:

I reckon the fact that they pay clever people full time to modal one system would be evedance of how unrealistic it would be to accurately modal another system without in entire corporate R&D department or think tank at out disposal :P

I have a personal pet pieve with people imposing economic/statistical models where they don't fit. I studied history at univerisy and that discipline is full of instances of people trying to study an economic history without re-evaluating econ's basic assumptions. so they end up analysing renaissance trade, for example, while assuming shipping costs are zero (which works in a modern, oil-feuled, context). But of course in reality renaissance shipping costs were on the order of 350% .

Haha... Totally agree. A huge number of economists are idiots. I guess I got way too mathy in trying to explain what I was asking for. What I really wanted was realtive comparisons rather than absolute comparisons. The last few posts have provided that. Now I'm happy. Didn't really want or need a mathematical disseration, just used a mathematical dissertation to try to explain why simply giving an absolute statement "thugs are worse off after hammers" doesn't really help. A relative statement "Thugs are much worse off than SCs, and here is why: thugs require a massing strategy and are thus more gem/forging intensive than SCs" is helpful.

[Fantomen]

The simple truth is that we don't know yet, there hasn't been enough games after hammer removal to draw conclusions.

For the purpose of low PD clearing, Tir's thugs can be used naked and in pairs instead of kitted, and so can several other nations recruitable thugs. I suppose we'll see more of this, with players only kitting thugs chosen for special battles.

Add to that the removal/heavy nerf of several classic lategame options like Tartarians and gemgens(wish spam etc) which greatly increases the relative power of recruitable thugs and other midgame national strenghts.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Torgon

Now the baobhan sidhe seems to be a strange beast. An expensive assassin with A2. If someone can figure out something else to do with her I'm all ears. Is she a money sink or would something interesting work?

I have recently fallen in love with the LA Man summon Bean Sidhe (this is a MP game using CBM1.82). Despite she being called Bean Sidhe she is actually closer to the Baobhan Sidhe (both have Stealth +45, both are assassins, etc).

There are a couple very big differences though. While all Baobhan Sidhe have Air 2, only 25% of the Bean Sidhe summons have. Then again, the Bean Sidhe summon is (in addition to what the Baobhan Sidhe is) ethereal, cold immune, poison immune, causes fear but is undead. The Bean Sidhe has Wail of Doom (pretty much useless, or at least I've found no use for it) while Baobhan Sidhe has the somewhat useful Life Drain.

Just for the record, I've used in a current ongoing MP game the Bean Sidhe summons both as thugs (practically as semi-SC's to be honest) and as assassins. Gotta love those chicks. I use the A2 versions as thugs/semi-SC's with Fire brand, Shield of Valour, Dragon Helmet, Copper Plate, Flying Boots, lucky ring (I know, I know, retardedly expensive as thugs, but as SC's not that hard; just have to be careful *what* to attack); they are thus immune to everything (Fire, Frost, Poison, Shock). They can Cloud Trapeze anywhere, or fly hidden 3 provinces per turn. In combat script Cast Mistform, Attack one turn, ShockwaveX3, Attack Rear (and *always* make sure you have at least one (I prefer two) S1 magister sneaking in the target province; it sort of lessens the risk of Mind hunts on the girlie when the hidden magister fries the brains of the mindhunters; I've a couple times risked moving a girlie where there was no magister protecting her, counting on the opponent being paranoid enough not to attempt Mind Hunts as that just results in burned brains). As she is sneaky, resistant to everything *and* protected by hidden astral magisters it is practically impossible to catch her, in combat she is immune to 80% of all missiles and glamour + ethereal makes her hard to hit in melee, and then they will just hit the mistform.

Anyway, lets look at the Baobhan Sidhe. You can't make her immune to everything like a Bean Sidhe summon. You can't protect her with cheap sneaking astral mages. She doesn't have fear. She isn't ethereal. I think we can forget about using her as a thug against anything else but weak PD.

What about using her as a pro-assassin? The weaknes of the Bean Sidhe summon is that she is undead, so there are many ways she could be killed before cutting through the body guards. Dust to dust, Banishment, plus all the other usual anti-assassin tools. The Baobhan Sidhe doesn't suffer those (except the normal ones, obviously).

So, what gear to give a Baobhan Sidhe assassin (looking this from CBM 1.84 perspective, notice that I am theorising ie not been tried in action)? I wouldn't actually give much. Copper Plate would be cool (not only does it give SR100, but it also zaps the first one hitting the wearer, which is pretty cool for an assassin) and is easy and cheap for TNN to craft. A shield maybe, perhaps a shield of valor (again, easy for TNN to craft, but a bit expensive at 10 air gems) or perhaps something simple as a black steek tower shield (makes her practically immune to missiles). A weapon shouldn't be needed as she has Lifedrain anyway. Script Mistform, Flight, AttackX1, ShockwaveX2, Attack Rear.

One could send her to action via Cloud Trapeze (possibly hitting somewhere where other TNN thugs hit the same round too), and then sneak in to where ever she is going to assassinate enemies. Or directly cloud trapeze to an enemy fort, a couple Ri's and a Baobhan will be able to kill most PD protecting forts (all PD in the game is toast, unless they have patrolling mages boosting the PD), and after that the girlie (or girlies, why not send in more than one if you are going to assassinate commanders anyway?) could start harvesting enemy commanders inside the walls. With the Stealth +45 it is *very* hard to find the Baobhan, unless there are hundreds and hundreds of patrollers in the province (and then those patrollers aren't fighting at the front).