The Ghost King

[Aezeal]

how does the generating ghost thing work.. I never used him and I wonder how much you usually get

[Omnirizon]

it think it's one ghost a turn when you're in really strong dominion (around 5 or 6+).

nothing real significant, but a nice touch I suppose, and presents another option to the Ghost King. that's why he's attractive to begin with, he has so many options. Thing is I just don't know if all the options are worth the price, and they don't combine well at any rate (like I said, a rainbow pretender who dies are gets feebleminded because you use him as an SC too isn't anygood as a rainbow any longer).

[DonCorazon]

Never used him other than a couple SP runs (the kind where you play about 10 turns in 10 minutes to see how something works). He always seemed to get smacked by indie PD / priests. Could have been bad luck but I got the sense he was too fragile to be an SC, too expensive to be a RB, and a waste to be a sleeper/Bless. I'd never use him in MP.

[Wrana]

Yes, I see mostly 1 ghost/turn & no in weakish Dominion. I agree he's no blesser - I used it as a side effect of Rainbow.
As for sinergy - strong Dominion helps both for SC and ghost production; said ghosts can help him with stronger independents while he has no great equipment or with initial wars; he also produces them while researching/casting rituals; Rainbowing helps with research, diversification, blesses - and combat! He may be suboptimal, but he can be built to good effects which tie with each other well, as I see.
By the way, when I used him as SC in trial run, I used independents strength at 7 - he just needs a combination of equipment & existing Dominion which is reachable when he is asleep. He just isn't viable awake from my point of view, and making him imprisoned defeats his purpose - though he isn't so much more costly than Master Lich, by the way...

[thejeff]

I'm probably a suboptimal player, but I'm often looking for a number of things from my pretender, based on the nation. Some diversification in magic, at least enough for boosters in paths my mages have but can't boost, for hammers and for access to death. If the nation has decent troops I'm willing to forgo the starting SC, but unless it's got recruitable thugs it's nice to have a pretender who's capable of playing that role until the better summons are reached.

If the Ghost King can give me my desired magic cheaper than other SC chassis I'll use him. Usually sleeping for the points and so he has some gear when he wakes up.

[Micah]

I think he has a niche, though it is a pretty small one. I think I'd likely give him a serious look for the monkey nations, especially Bandar Log and Patala. They have pretty crappy sacreds out of the box, starting E income to pound him out some armor quickly, good S access so you don't have to give him a magic duel Achilles Heel, and they benefit from taking air, which you'll want for air shield for early expansion (it helps a lot since arrows > awe) and they don't have D to start, which he also has. They also don't need production, which frees up points to play with.

A GK can SC out the gate with air shield and awe, since his high defense + eth makes him pretty resilient to normal melee attacks. You'll get an unlucky hit eventually, but you have to hope that'll come after you can get some armor on him or some buffs up...ironskin is a life saver. Later on in the game he becomes pretty effective with cloud trapeze and stealth to be a spot-killer, and he'll come in with a ton of extra HP to those encounters since you can port straight out of your cap or other high-dominion location.

[Aezeal]

ghostking won't give magic cheap since he has lots of other options..

[Saulot]

Ghost King and Vampire Queen used to be faves of mine back in Dom 2, but don't use them anymore.

[MaxWilson]

IMG, I've made VampireQueen #gcost 110 (that is, cost 110 design points), ethereal, and D2B2 for starting paths. I'm still not tempted to use her but it ought to help out any AIs which choose to take her (so far I haven't encountered one). It's probably a little underpriced (I should drop it back down to D1B2 per vanilla) but Blood is a pretty weak path for SCs and she's an SC, so for now I'm leaving it.

-Max

[CUnknown]

Ghost King is incredible .. that's my opinion. That being said, I rarely use him.

I love the combo SCs / rainbow pretender choices such as GK and the Nagas. They are perhaps a tad pricey, but they do everything you want them to do. You can get a decent bless with him, too, by taking maybe 3 level 4 paths. GK does it all, but nothing extremely well, maybe.