Ashdod is worthless now

[ghoul31]

Originally Posted by rdonj

. You can still make them fatigue neutral with just a girdle of might,.

I was wiped out on turn 15. You can't make a girdle of might that early. Their sacreds are ridiculously expensive, 150 gold 88 resources, and commanders are 500 gold 83 resources. So you can only make 1 or 2 troops a turn.

And the troops aren't even that good. They have 13atk, 16def, 18prot. The only thing that saved them was being able to make them fatigue neutral.

Now after about 10 rounds, they fatigue out and become worthless.

[rdonj]

There's more on their roster than just sacreds though. Bshanites and Gileadites aren't awful, and can help prevent your other giants from being swarmed. Plus you have access to 7 gold slingers which can help a lot in weeding out chaff. Ahiman Anakites are a lot less appealing now though, you should probably buy the sheshai now instead if you want the sacred soldiers. Or to ignore them altogether.

[Squirrelloid]

You have your other better cheaper sacreds, which only have 5 encumbrance. You know, for anyone reading this who might actually believe ghoul since he isn't going to read this.

[Valerius]

Yeah, I was going to mention the Sheshai Anakites since they also have half the resource cost. Usually gold will be the limiting factor here but resources could sometimes come into play.

The only thing is, with 14 prot they will likely take some damage and go berserk even with an E9 bless so you may end up with a similar fatigue situation as with the nonberserking Ahiman Anakites. But if you can reach Alt. 3 for BE you could delay them going berserk.

But I think rdonj is right in that you have to look at other options in your lineup or even indie units like archers. In this case I think ghoul was facing a 3 vs 1 so he may not have had the gold to switch up his troop composition much anymore but generally speaking you have to tailor your approach to the opponent and can't rely on one unit to handle all situations (if a unit can do that it's almost a sure sign that it's OP).

[P3D]

The main problem of Ashdod is that all giants are owerwhelmed easily now, and the human slave troops are worse than chaff. There is no researcher that is marginally affordable, either. The Rephaite sage should cost ~160gp instead of 200, the 140gp units with Augury are better

Giving all the size-4 Ashdod units a gore attack would solve that problem. It's even thematic.

[triqui]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

You have your other better cheaper sacreds, which only have 5 encumbrance. You know, for anyone reading this who might actually believe ghoul since he isn't going to read this.

Those are Berserkers, and also fatigue while they are berserking.

I don't think Ashdod is "worthless". They aren't the worse nation in the roster, not by a long shot. However, the OP is right in one thing: that 2 extra encumbrance is hurting them, badly.

They are incredibly outnumbered in any fight. With fatigue, they have a tough time fighting almost any chaff. For a unit that is worth 100+ gold and 40-80 resources, they aren't that good.

Not only that, but even more important, in my opinion. With encumbrance 7, they are FORCED to have a high earth bless. There's no option, no other chance, no way to play them in a original way. 7 encumbrance per round means they'll autodeafeat themselves by fatigue, unless they have E9+ bless.

That, imho, is horrible. There should not be any "mandatory" bless for a nation.

Just my 0,02

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by triqui

Those are Berserkers, and also fatigue while they are berserking.

I don't think Ashdod is "worthless". They aren't the worse nation in the roster, not by a long shot. However, the OP is right in one thing: that 2 extra encumbrance is hurting them, badly.

They are incredibly outnumbered in any fight. With fatigue, they have a tough time fighting almost any chaff. For a unit that is worth 100+ gold and 40-80 resources, they aren't that good.

Not only that, but even more important, in my opinion. With encumbrance 7, they are FORCED to have a high earth bless. There's no option, no other chance, no way to play them in a original way. 7 encumbrance per round means they'll autodeafeat themselves by fatigue, unless they have E9+ bless.

That, imho, is horrible. There should not be any "mandatory" bless for a nation.

Just my 0,02

Lets be clear on a few things:
(1) Fatigue neutral giant sacreds from turn 1 are too good. There's abundant evidence of this before CBM started fixing the problem. Ashdod was so ridiculously overpowered before CBM decided to reign it in that the changes had to make it 'hurt' relative to before. That just brought it down from 'so much better than other nations it wasn't funny' to 'reasonably balanced'.
(2) Building up 2 encumbrance every round is not the end of the world. Its better than most units, especially with the kind of armor Anakim pack.
(3) Berserk is an advantage - it means you don't run away.
(4) No one is forcing you to take a bless at all or use the sacreds troops
(5) You're going to take an E+N bless anyway if you're going to use the sacreds, they're giants. They were never played with other blesses before the encumbrance changes. Acting offended that the only logical bless is E+N is ridiculous. So yes, its assumed if you're going to invest in Ashdod's sacreds you have an E9-10 bless, probably E10. Because that's what everyone was playing them with.

And none of this changes the fact that he got clobbered by *MA Ulm* while trying to use a pure sacred army of size 5 giants. Anyone with half a brain would realize that size 2 guardians are going to clobber size 5 sacreds. Even vanilla MA Ulm would trash vanilla Ashdod. Its the single worst matchup in the game for them. Take one of the only MA sacreds that can get outnumbered 3:1 locally, realize that you're going to be outnumbered more than 3:1 overall from a gold standpoint (ie, Ulm can afford losses without losing tactical numerical superiority), and then add in a unit which specifically hoses sacreds. Only a fool would think they can win that combat.

It may well have been the only 1 on 1 early game matchup MA Ulm would expect to win in vanilla.

[triqui]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Lets be clear on a few things:
(1) Fatigue neutral giant sacreds from turn 1 are too good. There's abundant evidence of this before CBM started fixing the problem. Ashdod was so ridiculously overpowered before CBM decided to reign it in that the changes had to make it 'hurt' relative to before. That just brought it down from 'so much better than other nations it wasn't funny' to 'reasonably balanced'.

I might agree with Ashdod beeing to powerful. It doesnt change my stance that they got really really hurt now.

(2) Building up 2 encumbrance every round is not the end of the world. Its better than most units, especially with the kind of armor Anakim pack.

The rest of the units do not cost 150g and 88 resources, so they actually have a chance to kill their oponents in less than two hundred years. An army of 300g 176r worth sacreds from Ashdod do *four* attacks per turn.

(3) Berserk is an advantage - it means you don't run away.

but still invalidates the point I was quoting, which was saying their other sacred unit was encumbrance neutral. It is not, becouse Berserker makes you to fatigue.

(4) No one is forcing you to take a bless at all or use the sacreds troops

Nop, they give you two options: that one, or losing incredibly fast.
Good luck trying to beat anything but indies with 150g88r troops that get 7 encumbrance per turn.

(5) You're going to take an E+N bless anyway if you're going to use the sacreds, they're giants. They were never played with other blesses before the encumbrance changes. Acting offended that the only logical bless is E+N is ridiculous. So yes, its assumed if you're going to invest in Ashdod's sacreds you have an E9-10 bless, probably E10. Because that's what everyone was playing them with.

There are guides in the web about playing Hinnom with high scales, I'm sure I'd try it with Ashdod as well... if it would be viable. It's not, with 7 encumbrance per turn.

However, you are just agreeing with my. They are now a "play like this, period" nation after CBM. I thought CBM was a mod to make more options viable, not the other way around.

And none of this changes the fact that he got clobbered by *MA Ulm* while trying to use a pure sacred army of size 5 giants.

I haven't mentioned Ulm in my post, so this is useless rant. I just mentioned that the CBM "balance" approach might be wrong.

I'll elaborate:

Encumbrance neutral Ashdod giants are too powerful.
150g88r units with 7 encumbrance are too weak.

CBM 1,92 balanced the first issue, but did nothing about the second. Now Ashdod have sacreds that are not worth they cost, by a *far* margin. If they aren't encumbrance neutral, they aren't worth 150g88r.

[kianduatha]

I think the point is that while yes, specifically Ahiman Anakites are less powerful, Sheshai Anakites are the same fatigue-wise and most of their non-sacred options are both cheaper and have less encumbrance. So it might behoove you to experiment with their actual troops.

[Squirrelloid]

Triqui, I'd be happy to duel you, and I'll play Ashdod without an E9+ bless. We'll see how weak Ashdod really is. Hop on IRC to arrange it.