Blademaster, with Krolm's Beserker spell (and perks) can take capitol in two turns. Alone.
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Flying Goblin Archer could kill any number of Blademasters without suffering any damage. Specific situations aren't much helpful for understanding the general course of war.
Although I agree what Veteran spam with further upgrade to Blademasters and/or Paladins sounds like a viable strategy.
Just make sure to not put melee unit next to that archer. Whirlwind Blademaster attack kills of fliers too.
Anyway, there is a reason why Hella temple is next to Krolm, fire support.
Anyway, there is a reason why Hella temple is next to Krolm, fire support.
Yes, I already understand what if you play humans, you need 1 temple of Krolm, 1 temple of Dauros and 3 temples of Hellia (for all the required units and spells). So after you conquest 3/4 of huge map, you could finally begin war
Cutthroats are really underrated. You don't just look at their naked stats and say, meh! That's not how it works. First you have to consider the fact that they're really easy to mass produce, seeing as you can get them from every gold city, and they're cheap to upgrade. That's not a small advantage. As a UD you might have maybe one or two cities that produce your precious vampires, and those really really can't keep up with a cutthoat spam. Monsters is even worse in a way, because you can't even really make old trolls from your capitol, because it takes too damn long to get both the military acadamy and troll bridge lines, because they're on different building chains. Which means you have to upgrade them from other cities, and unlike cutthoats that are dirt cheap, old troll upgrade is really rather expensive. So this leads to cutthoats having vastly superior availability.
Secondly due to how the upgrade line is structured. Cutthoats will have two upgrades, that really improve their abilities, straight out of the gate. Those being Drilled and Fine armor. Astute players can combine this with coatl training for a rather beefy, spammable high damage unit that comes out before turn 20. They also benefit from one of the best perks in the game which is the Silver weapons, which only affects fighters and ranged (so no luck for you caster vamps or creature trolls/werewolves). This is always an ultra high priority for human players to get early in the game, and an abundant resource, so a pretty safe bet that it can be obtained early. This will easily make your already rather beefy, spammable unit also rather deadly. Also it might be just me but it seems like fighters in general have the best access to upgrade perks?
Thirdly, and this one is important, cutthroats have movement 5, straight out of the gate. What this does is to help you get your units where you want them quick, and most importantly it helps in picking off focus targets. Did I also mention that they are also dirt cheap?
Now of course one-on-one they will lose to vamps and trolls, but they should never be one on one, and they're only a placeholder unit untill temple units anyway. And if you go the Lunord route, you also have access to several leveled up assasins straight away, which is yet again one of the benefits for humans. UD can't upgrade any units into temple units, so they all start at level one. Monsters are a bit better at this, but for them the temple units are more of an expensive side-grade so one questions the point of it. Also no old troll upgrading so SOL there. Also fun fact, monsters and UD only produce temple units from the temple city, humans? every gold city can make assasins, and if you want, the ability to produce Krolm/Dauros units only requires one bulding available straight from start.
Secondly due to how the upgrade line is structured. Cutthoats will have two upgrades, that really improve their abilities, straight out of the gate. Those being Drilled and Fine armor. Astute players can combine this with coatl training for a rather beefy, spammable high damage unit that comes out before turn 20. They also benefit from one of the best perks in the game which is the Silver weapons, which only affects fighters and ranged (so no luck for you caster vamps or creature trolls/werewolves). This is always an ultra high priority for human players to get early in the game, and an abundant resource, so a pretty safe bet that it can be obtained early. This will easily make your already rather beefy, spammable unit also rather deadly. Also it might be just me but it seems like fighters in general have the best access to upgrade perks?
Thirdly, and this one is important, cutthroats have movement 5, straight out of the gate. What this does is to help you get your units where you want them quick, and most importantly it helps in picking off focus targets. Did I also mention that they are also dirt cheap?
Now of course one-on-one they will lose to vamps and trolls, but they should never be one on one, and they're only a placeholder unit untill temple units anyway. And if you go the Lunord route, you also have access to several leveled up assasins straight away, which is yet again one of the benefits for humans. UD can't upgrade any units into temple units, so they all start at level one. Monsters are a bit better at this, but for them the temple units are more of an expensive side-grade so one questions the point of it. Also no old troll upgrading so SOL there. Also fun fact, monsters and UD only produce temple units from the temple city, humans? every gold city can make assasins, and if you want, the ability to produce Krolm/Dauros units only requires one bulding available straight from start.
You don't need to mass produce units, which survive. Upkeep reaches limits quite fast (the Cutthroats, for example, require 5 gold per turn each). The only reason I see for cutthroats to be mass produced is what they die to easy on the front line.
The same applies to Veterans and many of the other other units. Speaking of Monsters, they have wonderful creature upgrades like Hil-O-Win blessing. And Vampires have magical transformation. Not an advantage.
If we compare Cutthroats with other human units, they are just support - they die on front line immediately. Comparing with other races - Ratman Pirates have the same movement and reduced movement penalties.
Everyone speak of template units. What should humans do if they need to go to war before gaining access to the first holy ground?
Invest in perk heavy buildings, perk upg. spells and resources hexes that build merc units.
About blade master, it is the only unit in the game that has higher attack than gold dragon. I was very surprised at this.
This
Plus Mass Cutthroats, i'm not kidding.
Cutthroats exist exactly for support and fodders, you must be ready to allow them to die though, it's just like that, the surviving one will get the honor to avenge their fallen comrade, i mean they get the honor to become assassin. Using Cutthroats = You create a natural selection for all your Cutthroats, yeah a very cruel game, but that's how Mass Cutthroats strategy work.
Or you can spam veterans, if both strategy fail, you can surrender the game, again, i'm not kidding . That's how human is in this game, they depend on luck. But once their temple units grace the battlefield, they start to trample everything. I recently playing with blade master, this unit is insanely scary, attack can reach over 200 (higher than gold dragon).
This
Plus Mass Cutthroats, i'm not kidding.
Cutthroats exist exactly for support and fodders, you must be ready to allow them to die though, it's just like that, the surviving one will get the honor to avenge their fallen comrade, i mean they get the honor to become assassin. Using Cutthroats = You create a natural selection for all your Cutthroats, yeah a very cruel game, but that's how Mass Cutthroats strategy work.
Or you can spam veterans, if both strategy fail, you can surrender the game, again, i'm not kidding . That's how human is in this game, they depend on luck. But once their temple units grace the battlefield, they start to trample everything. I recently playing with blade master, this unit is insanely scary, attack can reach over 200 (higher than gold dragon).
A note on dead units.... not a problem once you get the ELEM resurrection spell, then any unit can essentially become a fodder unit IF you have the mana reserves to reanimate them.
Right, resurrected unit level is the same, they keep their level perk. Nice point 2Coats.
Once those experienced Cutthroats are resurrected, they can be upgraded to experienced assassin too.
Once those experienced Cutthroats are resurrected, they can be upgraded to experienced assassin too.
Yeah.... its a bit gamey for me, esp. in singleplayer. Though in MP it could (eventually) bring a nice surprise against an opponent. *evil laugh*
I doubt cannon fodder Cutthroats worth it. It's for elites.
But in general yes, I'll try some of the strategies. Still think spending a lot of gold for fastly dying Cutthroats is good path, but Veteran spam sounds viable. I've tried them and they are quite tough.
Veterans are powerful and durable unit. But their 3 movement points can be a pain in rough terrain (another reason why I like their upgrade to blademasters).
Still, if I get access to some neutral resource unit, like stubborn knights, halbediers or minotaurs, I switch to those as main foot soldiers, while keeping surviving veterans for later upgrade to blademasters.
Still, if I get access to some neutral resource unit, like stubborn knights, halbediers or minotaurs, I switch to those as main foot soldiers, while keeping surviving veterans for later upgrade to blademasters.
Cutthroats will be good desposable damage dealers against some targets, but hopeless against others that are resistant or immune to death magic. A valid response to any attempt in MP to spam cutthroats will be to recruit more undead troops. Skeleton warriors and especially veterans will kick cutthroats around very easily and on a cost effective basis. Players starting with monster or human will probably use a neutral undead city (if available) to recruit a few of these troops if they suspect the cutthroat spam strategy atlatea is advocating.
Plus it isn't really cutthroats that we should be considering, but rogues in most circumstance, since most of them will actually start life as rogues (spam built in ordinary gold cities that can only build rogues) and then cutthroats will effectively cost 100 gold for a high damage but very fragile unit (with no free perks). Against some targets when the cutthroat will die anyway it will not be worth upgrading a rogue to cutthroat as it only adds a little extra damage for 5 times the cost (100 gold versus 20) and the damage only increases from 8 melee to 11 and poison damage from 4 to 11, that's increasing a total of 12 to 22 or about 80% increase in damage for a 400% increase in cost. As long as you can produce rogues fast enough there is little need to upgrade. Cutthroats only really make sense when you want the unit to survive the attack and force the enemy to finish it off next turn to stop it retreating and healing, it is a sort of gambit, like exchanging pieces in chess.
Although most rogues and cutthroats will be disposable a few can be produced in your main unit pumps (a city giving useful perks for free). These could start with fine armour, iron armour and so on and be worth looking after rather than simply sacrifing to inflict damage on more expensive enemy units. I guess most Assassins will be promoted from these units as they will have accumalated more experience.
I think this is an interesting sub-strategy for MP but will only work sometimes; and against some opponents and is fairly easy to avoid or counter.
JJ
Plus it isn't really cutthroats that we should be considering, but rogues in most circumstance, since most of them will actually start life as rogues (spam built in ordinary gold cities that can only build rogues) and then cutthroats will effectively cost 100 gold for a high damage but very fragile unit (with no free perks). Against some targets when the cutthroat will die anyway it will not be worth upgrading a rogue to cutthroat as it only adds a little extra damage for 5 times the cost (100 gold versus 20) and the damage only increases from 8 melee to 11 and poison damage from 4 to 11, that's increasing a total of 12 to 22 or about 80% increase in damage for a 400% increase in cost. As long as you can produce rogues fast enough there is little need to upgrade. Cutthroats only really make sense when you want the unit to survive the attack and force the enemy to finish it off next turn to stop it retreating and healing, it is a sort of gambit, like exchanging pieces in chess.
Although most rogues and cutthroats will be disposable a few can be produced in your main unit pumps (a city giving useful perks for free). These could start with fine armour, iron armour and so on and be worth looking after rather than simply sacrifing to inflict damage on more expensive enemy units. I guess most Assassins will be promoted from these units as they will have accumalated more experience.
I think this is an interesting sub-strategy for MP but will only work sometimes; and against some opponents and is fairly easy to avoid or counter.
JJ
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I agree. Good point player1 fanatic.
Nice point too UncleJJ. Though from my experience, the availability of undead city sometimes comes late enough that your opponent already have stubborn knight or Cutthroats. Sometimes there are no undead city nearby.
@stealthnsk
If you hate Cutthroats so much, you can always use stubborn knight until you have access to holy ground. In regard of resurrecting, just prioritize on the higher level Cutthroats.
Nice point too UncleJJ. Though from my experience, the availability of undead city sometimes comes late enough that your opponent already have stubborn knight or Cutthroats. Sometimes there are no undead city nearby.
@stealthnsk
If you hate Cutthroats so much, you can always use stubborn knight until you have access to holy ground. In regard of resurrecting, just prioritize on the higher level Cutthroats.
Against AI this is true, but do you think your units will survive very long in a muliplayer scenario? I mean old trolls are pretty beefy, but regen does jack against focus fire. Which is what cutthroats excel at as a side note. Any units you make, you have to be prepared to lose. Things is, some units are easy to replace, some are not. Also 5 gold isn't that much, and the really nice thing is that it's almost all gold. Which mean you can just plunk down more gold cities instead of having to produce a balance of all three resources. And if you ICS with motly gold cities, you really won't run out of gold as a human.
Thing is though, the two upgrades I mentioned don't require any external resources and are on the building chain that is required to build cutthoats anyway, so no wasted buildings. Smithy and Barracks really should be the first 2 human buildings built in almost all cases anyway. The two you mentioned need external resources, though rather abundant ones admittedly, and are not buildings you naturally build in your first cities, unless you specifically want the perk, so they're comparable to the silver weapons I mentioned...except i think I'd rather have the silver weapons...
Except out of the three options available at the start, cutthoats easily win to get a place as the go to unit, except against UD, but that's a separate case requiring separate tactics anyway, and not just for humans, but for monsters and other UD aswell. And once you get silver weapons, cutthoats aren't that bad against UD either.
Also, cutthoats are really not that easily killed if you get the coatl training and the smithy perk. Even less so with Foundry perk, but that's a separate thing again. No they don't have the staying power of elite units, but they shouldn't have, when you consider their spammability and cheap price.
UncleJJ does bring a good point about the necessity of the upgrade though. Personally I think the upgrade is worth it just because it brings them up from a unit that can't solo other units up into a unit that can hold their own against most others, changing their role significantly. But that's an arguement worth having I think.
So, to sum it up.
Hunters and Rangers are waste.
Veterans are backbone of the army, it's good to build them in a city with free perks. The best could be upgraded to Blademasters and/or Paladins.
Rogues are cannon fodder. The surviving ones could be upgraded to Assassins if Lunord temple is available. Upgrade to Cutthroats without Lunord temple is mostly waste of money.
Mages are for special tasks like eliminating Greater Fire Elementals, plus for some ranged support.
And the ultimate goal is to survive before you could start building temples.
Hunters and Rangers are waste.
Veterans are backbone of the army, it's good to build them in a city with free perks. The best could be upgraded to Blademasters and/or Paladins.
Rogues are cannon fodder. The surviving ones could be upgraded to Assassins if Lunord temple is available. Upgrade to Cutthroats without Lunord temple is mostly waste of money.
Mages are for special tasks like eliminating Greater Fire Elementals, plus for some ranged support.
And the ultimate goal is to survive before you could start building temples.
Rangers are okay support in early/early-mid game.
Hunters are okay in mid-game and if you can spare the cash to perk em up, early-lategame.
But I never create more than 4/5 units unless I dont have Elves handy OR if I am going to try to get friendly with Helia or Fervus, so they can be upgraded.