Summons: Your thoughts.....

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I like Host of Ganas, its kinda a lowelevel cross between Spirit Mastery and Phantasmal army, but more durable. They are also fast enough to keep up, and have a decent 12 MR. They last a long time against heavy infantry. Suffer a quarter loss if the numbers are even. They are, unfortunately, massacred by simple slingers. Don't be fooled by the shield, its useless with 1 parry. I wonder why they bothered. While there are some spells in the alteration path that would help, they are way too far down the line. Thankfully, however, its not difficult for you to research or cast Mist, which should help.

I'm thinking of mixing them in with Raksharaja thugs scripted to mirror image and mistform. They're fast enough to keep up strategically and tactically, acting as a screen. As an odd little note, these are not mindless.

[Sombre]

AdmiralZhao said:
And except for the little toads, just about everything else Mictlan gets is worth summoning.

Monster Toads? Granted they aren't a garbage summon, but they ain't great. Mictlan does have some of the best national spells though and most of its summons being sacred when Mictlan itself is a bless nation is obviously a huge deal.

AdmiralZhao said:
I would also defend the spectral infantry, as they were quite useful to me when playing as Lanka. You can send them out as a first wave, to exhaust the enemy heavy infantry or to hold the enemy in place while your archers do their work.

I think you mean Host of Ganas, and yes, they are another solid summon. Not that great, but they don't suck.

Spectral infantry are an Abysian summon also known as Smoulderghosts which suck in combat, have virtually no special role (ethereal with 0 prot, rarely actually do any damage), are overpriced and are impossible to cast with Abysia's national mages. They're like an even worse version of the truly awful basegame Summon Shades spell. Summon shades was dropped to one gem in CBM and still doesn't get cast much :]

There's no defending them. Oh, though thematically they are cool, so there's that.

They don't beat Ziz for worst summon in the game though. I don't think anything even comes close to that flying turkey.

[Edratman]

I also am not a real big fan of summons. I think most are way too expensive for what you get.

I summon basically for thugs and magic users that will fill gaps in my forging abilities.

[Ewierl]

Personally, I always like Vine Ogres. Not fantastic in any way, but their beauty is cost-efficacy: 2 gems per casting, and each casting can easily become 100hp of meatshield (and much more in the mid/late game as you have Ivy Kings and the like). They're slow to mass, but completely upkeep-free, so you can accumulate a lot of cheap goons, especially if have many mid-level N mages.

[Valandil]

Sadly, they don't last very long in the face of firestorm and the like. Same problem with most of hte other summons.

I'm using blocks of living statues to hold of sharks underwater in DoomChicken. Basically, they block the inevtable shark attacks long enough for the basalt kings to get buffs up/put up my own shark attack.

[Shovah32]

Vine Ogres are practically made to be buffed. They are nice normally, but throw in an army of gold and mass regeneration and they suddenly become alot more than nice.
You can also add quickening, resistances, will of the fates, fog warriors, weapons of sharpness ect but the first 2 work great on their own.

[Evil Dave]

On a related topic: other than skelly spamming, I almost never deliberately cast battlefield summoning spells. Do other people? What do you summon?

[Shovah32]

LA Ulm+Massed Vampire Counts in your own dominion+Several castings of Summon Lammashta

Great fun.

[Ewierl]

Valandil said:
Sadly, they don't last very long in the face of firestorm and the like.

Quite true. But even before you can lay down buffs like Army of Gold, the main use of Vine Ogres is in the early game. They are accessible and useful way, way, way before there are spells that can slaughter them en masse.

Oh, and other useful summons: I find Mechanical Men very useful sometimes. They're a niche critter, but the niche isn't a rare one: if your opponent is using lots of nasty elemental spells, you can plough through happily with these immune-everything fighters. (Even once you eventually get access to the equally-protected Iron Dragons, the MMs can still be worthwhile when your opponent backs up elemental spells with a few MR-targeting effects like Disintegrate. Neither type has excellent MR, so it can be better to have a stack of small guys than one big one.)

[VedalkenBear]

Hmm. As far as (national) summons go:

I find S&A Tien Chi's rather interesting. River Oni (why are they called Oni if they're Chinese?) are quite nice, the Fire Oni are okay (but not the greatest; they don't 'play well'). Servant and Hounds are pretty craptacular. The Soldiers are solid.

Marverni's Iron Pigs are pretty hysterical. 20HP 20Prot Sacred Boars.

I think Gandharvas must be mentioned. Bandar Log can easily summon them, and IIRC Patala and Kailasa can Clam for them. Depending on the Bless, Yazatas can be in the same camp, though it's a lot harder for Caelum to get the pearls. (Someone, switch it to Air summons. It just makes sense.)

Anyone mentioned the Morrigans of Fomoria yet? They look pretty interesting. Never been able to mass them, though. Also, I'd like opinions on the Golem Cult's stone guys. Any good ones?

As far as commanders go? The Serpent Cult's Satyr has to be high on the list of 'cool and actually pretty decent'. Even taking him as an Assassin, he's not bad for the price. If you start next to LE Arco or Jotunheim, they can be even better. OTOH, you kind of have to built your pretender around using them.