Gimped by strong units (availability and leadership)

[ganjatron]

I notice I tend to hire level 1 units, mainly because of their availability. For example, I don't mind using peasants and devilfish, or even thorn hunters. What I really hate more than anything with this game, is having to restock my units when there are no units around! Losing 5 of my 11 Alchemists in Freedom Isles makes me wonder... why am I using Alchemists at all?! I need to run back to the marsh to fill 'er up and get the full potential of that slot... very time-consuming.

Also related is the leadership cost of these units vs. the leadership you have available. To get the most out of your leadership, you would need a very low leadership requirement to be the denominator. For example, I have 3000 leadership right now and I just saw a Giant available in Dwarven lands. Each Giant needs 1600 leadership - so if I get one, I'm basically letting that 1400 remaining leadership go to waste...does this make sense? Giants may be an extreme example, but how about Royal Thorns - 380 leadership each means I can only use 7. That means I have 340 leadership going to waste in that slot.

So - Is it better to use up all your leadership and fill up your slot with level 1 units (low leadership req. units) or get the best unit available and not worry about meeting your cap? 600 peasants(no leadership waste/easy to replenish) or 1 giant(1400 leadership wasted/very hard to replace)?

[Cabezone]

You have to do the caluculations to see if the tradeoff is worth it. If you can have 50 of a lesser unit, but only 30 of an upgraded version do the math. Perhaps the stack of higher units does a bit less damage, but they may have a lot more hitpoints. So they're less likely to die and retain high damage output longer.

It's all a bunch of tradeoffs.

[Tuplis]

Originally Posted by ganjatron

So - Is it better to use up all your leadership and fill up your slot with level 1 units (low leadership req. units) or get the best unit available and not worry about meeting your cap? 600 peasants(no leadership waste/easy to replenish) or 1 giant(1400 leadership wasted/very hard to replace)?

To me that question is clearly one that is mostly about personal opinion. Part of the game is figuring out what's good for you RIGHT NOW. If you really think your army can manage better with the peasants than a giant, then by all means go for the peasants. To me, finding the answers to these kind of questions is what this game is all about.

Right, you probably wanted an opinion as well. I'm not going for either option but rather present you with a third and fourth options:

3) Get the reserve skill. Towards the end of the game I was able to field about 300-400 griffins. They were my tanking troops (unlimited retaliations, oh boy, oh boy) and as such despite the fact that I spammed resurrection they sometimes took losses. That's why I carried another ~500-1000 griffins with me in the reserve slot to avoid having to run back all the time.
4) Peasants have great damage-to-leadership-ratio (1,5 damage for 5 leadership) but they lack in initiative, speed, attack and defense. I would replace them with griffins, swordsmen or guardsmen.

[ganjatron]

Well Tuplis, the reserve slot is an interesting suggestion - and ironically, I never really thought about using it as a true "reserve" - more like a replacement slot in case you need to change your strategy - i.e. swap melee for ranged depending on your opponent.

But using it to horde your favorite units sounds like a good plan. And I love griffins too (I've been toying with the idea of casting stone skin and archmage shield on a griffin and plopping him in the middle of the enemy for retaliation hell.) From your post, I guess these reserve slots do not consider leadership so you can carry 1000 dragons if you want, for example.

Cabezone, I agree with your statement - and I guess that is one of the aspects that makes this game so fun. I love devilfish because they're cheap, can fear mobs on attack, and have very high initiative and speed. I still tend to prefer those units that have a good balance so I'll see what works for me.

[Zhuangzi]

Basically, this game encourages you to use what is locally available to a certain extent. It does this through the wives/artifacts you find in a certain place. Therefore I try to kill the Kraken and Captain James quickly to get Mirabella in Freedom Islands, as well as another quest to get a pirate flag, and there's also a pirate belt too. All of this turns Pirates and especially Sea Dogs into killing machines, so you can clear out the Freedom Islands this way.

But then it becomes too much of a hassle to keep going back to Freedom Islands to replenish the stocks of Pirates/Sea Dogs, so I move on to Dwarven units, with the appropriate artifacts, in Kordar.

I never use peasants or devilfish. I can't really comment on them for this reason, but my rationale for not using them is that I'd rather have fewer stronger units that I can successfully keep alive, rather than a massive stack of cheap units that will need replenishing after every fight. This is what is so good about the Dwarven units, especially the Giants. If you manage them correctly you can ensure zero losses in most fights.

There are a couple of units I use all the time, however. These 2 are my favourite in the early/mid game.

Royal Snakes (2 square attack, no retaliation)

and the best of them all:

Griffins (huge hitpoints, huge stack with Griffin regalia, huge movement, unlimited retaliation). Really, this is close to the best unit in the game, at least in the first half.

[Saridu]

Unfortunately there's no guarantee that you will get Griffins in the game

Royal snakes on the other hand, if you complete the toads quest, it's almost a given, those babies rock

I also found when I hit the islands that I was continuously running back and forth replenishing my archers and swordsman, change of mindset (I love the way the game forces you to rethink you strategy) those pirates with their multi attack are well worth it.

[Zhuangzi]

Saridu, if you complete the quest for the Griffin king then you can buy LOTS of Griffins from him.