[Shadowcran]

I'm playing Dark Side on Steam as the Vampire:

In Portland, after I take over the Novice, there are 3 armies that appear, featured by a priest of Light on the map. They are listed as "very weak" when you hover over them, but(and this changes)

1 stack, In front of the Abode of Light now, is listed as "very weak" when it is anything but. At this stage of the game, my forces would literally pee themselves if confronted by this in reality. Here is the make up of this very weak force:

1. 78 Assassins
2. 77 Assassins
3. 156 Griffins
4. 320 Archers
5. 319 Archers
6. 5 Priests of Light
7. 10 Priests of Light
8. 5 Priests of Light
9. 10 Priests of Light
10. 10 Priests of Light

Here is the "very weak" stack in front of a fountain of Happiness :
1. 34 Paladins(I doubt my forces at this point could defeat this if it was the only stack)
2. 228 Archers
3. 39 Archmages
4. 91 Inquisitors of Light
5. 91 more Inquisitors of Light
6. 5 Priests of Light
7. 9 PoL
8. 5 PoL
9. 9 PoL
10. 9 PoL


And I'm standing here with a mostly vampire army after kiting to Monterro. There is zero chance of my forces even putting a dent in this one.

All 3 stacks seem to have this many EXCEPT all of a sudden, one stack is actually "very weak" with 5 stacks of easy to defeat Priests of Light. It changed from hundreds of each Priest in 10 stacks to 5 stacks of 5,5,9,9,and 9. So it at least became a truly "very weak" stack.

At this point in the game, there is literally no stack I can defeat on Monterro, Iselburg, What's left of Portland, or the demon and orc lands(I get attacked by an Invincible as soon as I enter, no way to avoid it), Whitehill or Dragenberg, the only places I can visit. Every stack is labeled Deadly or Invincible. I'm Level 10

I'm playing on Normal as vampire, and having major troubles. I am also playing Demoness in separate game and it's a cakewalk so far. Here's the problems with playing the Vampire

1. My units, except for when I kited to Monterro out of sheer desperation, have been abysmal in choice, especially at the start. However, units aren't the vampire's big thing.
2. My spells of choice so far have been beyond abysmal. I've used Poison Skull hundreds of times and blur as I have no other good choices at all.
3. For what piddly spells I've gotten, I'm always running a severe shortage of magic crystals. If I get a good one suddenly, I will have to kite to get enough to even copy it to spellbook much less upgrade any.
4. The Item choices I've had have also been abysmal. I mean, bottom of the barrel pitiful.

I'm not saying this to gripe, but to simply point these out. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game, but the Vampire playthrough might need work for those who are novices at the game. A lot of new players would choose a vampire as the "cooler of the 3 choices" and be frustrated. The Demoness playthrough is going so smooth, I don't even have to think.

As for the bad units, it seems to simply be a question of terrible undead starting units that can only be played well as a horde, where the vampire lacks the leadership to actually command a horde. Perhaps the Skellies and the Zombies need some ...Oomph?

Now, the skellies seem ok for what you get but the zombies seem a complete waste of gp. I don't like to ask for changes without providing suggestions so:

They could be given a static ability to "infect" those they attack. This would give the creature they attacked a penalty in both attack and defense or even a lost turn. OR

Zombies, being something you don't want to touch you, could instead "infect" a unit they attack that causes that unit to "recoil" away from any zombie unit for x rounds, being unable to come near it and to try to keep a distance from that stack of at least 2 hexes. OR:

Give the zombies a "ranged" attack of throwing a body part instead of the saccing action points ability. This would be a 1 time only for the level 1 zombies and twice before having to reload for the Level 2's.

For some odd reason, I've also been wanting to suggest a new unit that could be termed in the evil category. Wyverns. In fantasy, they're often given poisonous tails so this could be a new poison unit, something the game actually needs. Flying Poison units who's "arch enemy" would be the griffin. It wouldn't have the "auto retaliate" of the griffin of course, but perhaps be a "no retaliation' type.

As for skellies, I cannot think of anything to improve them except increase the ranged distance maybe for the archers and give the melee ones a bit more defense.

As anyone can tell, I'm late to the genre(although I was one of those who played the original KB for Sega Genesis and the redo for PS2 constantly) but you can tell my enthusiasm.