Worthwhile summons (early to mid)

[samoht]

As the title of the thread suggests, I'm wondering what players here consider to be summons that are actually useful and not just a waste of gems, specifically in the early to mid game. Sometimes it seems as if a lot of the gems I spend on earlier summons would be better used if I just focused on thugging or saved them for late game summons, because spending a little extra gold on a few more soldiers would do just as well with a lot less effort.

Any diamonds in the rough that I'm missing?

[chrispedersen]

my focus on summons is entirely to get paths that I don't have.

So, I like treelords for blood.
Specters for astral
mound fiends to bootstrap death
Lamia queens
faerie court for entry to air.

Golems, tarts, poison golems for SC.

I like banefire archers, and manifest vitirol for combat.
Storm demons can be effective. Elemental royalty.. ok.

I'm sure I'm missing one or two.

[Jarkko]

In vanilla, I would rather save the gems. In CBM lots of goodies, like for example

-Dragonmaster -> summon cavedrake, icedrake, flamedrake or wyvern
-bonefiends
-banes
-sleepers
-firesnakes
-naiad warriors

[Knai]

Some of the nationals are pretty good. Lanka in particular has some nasty stuff, although typically at blood 6+, starting with that air demon with blood vengeance, and ending with the big one that autocasts darkness.

[AdmiralZhao]

Behemoths and the skeleton calvary are both decent choices. If you have national death mages, you can convert your entire stock of death gems into summons in a single turn, which can be a nice surprise in a mid-game war. They also don't need to eat, which is a plus if you want to make a really big army to march on your opponent's capital.

[13lackGu4rd]

this question is not so easily answered as the others here have. the answer to your question is very situational. the main determining factos are:
- magic access(from national mages and lucky indies you found)
- gem income
- your enemies
- value of your mage time
- urgency of early research goals

most of these factors are subjective, hence experience is your best guide. but even without much experience you can evaluate your situation(even if slightly mistaken). generally though, when considering summoned troops you need to aim at the cheapest(both in gems and mage turns) summons that fills gaps in your national armies or counters what the enemy throws at you.

anyway, I assume that you'll still seek actual summon names, so the above posters gave you some good options, just consider which to use according to these guidelines I've written above.

[Baalz]

Winter wolves and summer lions can be worthwhile sometimes for their cold/heat auras, and I've seen fall bears/spring hawks pull their weight in some situations.

Storm demons and to a lesser extent demon knights are effective in small enough numbers to make it worthwhile to summon them one at a time.

Several summons can be real tide turners for early fights if you buff them. Body ethereal, luck, iron warriors, quickness, regenerataion, etc. and some otherwise fairly useless guys become things that really require a specific counter to keep from dominating the early battlefield with just one or two of them. For instance:
Behemoths
Kraken
Sea serpents (mostly for the fear aura)
Dark vines
Sea trolls
Crushers

[sector24]

All of the early game summons are meat; they exist to take damage and die for your amusement. That can be useful if you have something worth protecting like archers but it is still inefficient. Your best bets are:

Cave Drakes: 22 Protection lets them last a little longer than other meat.
Vine Ogres: High HP but they fall very quickly. Much better if you are an Ivy Lord.
Bane Summons: These are all pretty decent actually, but there's a strong draw to add equipment to them which bumps up their cost.

Most of the time you are better off with a battle summon. Sprites are going to be much more useful as a meat shield than Vine Men or Vine Ogres. An Air Elemental is more cost efficient than a Wyvern, etc.

[chrispedersen]

Oh. And summon sprites is WAY worth the cost.

[Digress]

For what they can do to the unprepared they are way, way, way, way worth the cost.