Hello. It's really all in the title. Why aren't there other options to protect mages in a stack against marksman units than stacking them with a bird? Particularly for Arcane leaders.
it feels exploitive really.


Why doesn't Arcane promotion offer some protection against marksman, or why isnt there a separate promotion purchasable for this purpose?(War Wizard?)

What about giving Summoned units the guardsman promotion, encouraging mixes of summoners and mages perhaps? Summoners just really suck right now..

Hello. It's really all in the title. Why aren't there other options to protect mages in a stack against marksman units than stacking them with a bird? Particularly for Arcane leaders.
it feels exploitive really.


Why doesn't Arcane promotion offer some protection against marksman, or why isnt there a separate promotion purchasable for this purpose?(War Wizard?)

What about giving Summoned units the guardsman promotion, encouraging mixes of summoners and mages perhaps? Summoners just really suck right now..

i dont agree on any point this time.

I also think it's unfitting that a hawk is misused as protection of a mage. It doesn't make much sense in my opinion from a logical point of view.

The idea with summons having the guardsman promotion is pretty good. I'd guess that every conjurer/summoner would prefer to send his summon to defend him rather than get killed himself.

Something should be changed, although carefully, not to make mages unkillable by marksmen/asassins.

they can be used to protect anything, not just mages or summoners. In short I agree with SeZereth, neither the OP objection or the solution seem resonable to me.
I personally don't like the mechanism of marksmenship anyways, since it doesn't work exactly as intended for various engine reasons, and it seems just a cheap way to eliminate wounded units that are supposed to be defensively strong.

The sense of marksmen is basically mage-hunting. Hawks was good when they were able to rebase to carriers not only to cities. Now they are not so good (if it is not fixed). Still there are enough ways to protects mages but each has its price. :)

The hawk isn't the only solution. You could also stack a worker with the mage, though that could be considered equally cheesy. Alternatively, stack a basic warrior, who should be weaker than the mage, and therefore should get whacked first. That's assuming I understand the marksman kill preferences, but I believe there's been some debate lately over that issue anyway (see recent thread "assassin preferences broken" or something like that).

i see the hawks as the mage's familiar :D

Perhaps a stupid question, but how do you stack a bird other than in a city??
I mean - now, when birds can't be carried by rangers etc.

AFAIK now birds can be carried but they should be loaded to a ranger in a city, not rebased directly. Ranger should visit a city to pick up a bird. So it is hard to renew killed birds now.

Workers may be too expensive, warriors with iron weapon are stronger then mages. Maybe scouts? There are also some summons with power 3: skeletons are good as easily renewable. Sometimes Water II is useful. And again you may manipulate stacks, pillage roads etc. but this is sophisticated and slow.

Edit: I found that Sphener acts against assassins as guardsman though it is not documented.

The sense of marksmen is basically mage-hunting.

Where is this written or implied ?

Where is this written or implied ?
Never read it but it is natural. What are most valueble weak units in the same time enough powerful to need balancing in this way? Arcane spellcasters. No?

Maybe also hurt units but it is secondary. Workers? Settlers? Birds? Secondary, IMHO. :) Maybe naval in cities but i feel it like an exploit.

I don't like the idea of giving Summons the Guardsman promotion, I think that should remain as unique as it is now. Giving it to every summon would really cheapen it, IMO, considered it already is only useful in one circumstance.

Mages are the everything-killers, I don't see what's wrong with having an assassin be the counter to that. If you're worried about it, be cautious where you place your mages, you never know what might be sneaking around. Give them mobility, extended range, try to keep your distance.

The possible imbalances of a late-game unit killing spell casters is well worth preventing spell casters themselves from going rampant, easily, throughly, completely. Warriors won't do, because you'd probably have copper or iron hooked up at that point, unless you're the elves. Besides, using workers or hawks is fine; again, cheesy, but mages running wild and beating everything must be prevented, and we have to go to great lengths to prevent that from happening.

I agree that using hawks to defend stacks does seem exploitive. I disagree with the posts saying that better defenses need to exist to defend against assassins and other marksman units. What's the point of an assassin if not to kill the important, but physically weak units (mages, heavily damaged combatants)?

If the concern is that hawks, workers, etc is exploitive, how about the following?

-Remove STR value from Hawk
-Marksman attack the weakest unit in the stack, as long as the unit has a STR value greater than 0

That way, they're consistently hitting combat units (whether injured troops or casters). It'd also prevent them for "attacking" items. :)

I think damaged combatant killing is enough reason to justify their existance.

I'd appreciate more options for guarding mages. They're a heavy investment, which Assassins are not ( replacable much faster).

Thats a good idea (do hawks have a non-zero strength now?).

I also think that units with high offensive strength but low defensive strength should be more likely targets of Marksmen.

What about Scouts? They are weaker than Mages and should draw fire.

i see the hawks as the mage's familiar :D

I like the idea of familiars. There shoud be a way to associate other animals with a mage as a familiar for various effects.

assasin order choice is not broken:
mages are much less likely defend
heros are less likely to defend

marksman takes the opposite of who would normally defend, Ie: Hemah

I'd appreciate more options for guarding mages. They're a heavy investment, which Assassins are not ( replacable much faster).

That's true, but mages are also absolutely devastating, with assassins being their only true counter.

Let me put it this way, if you have a Meteor-throwing mage in a stack of defending units, how else are you going to get rid of him before he obliterates you?

if I have an Archmage in a stack and he dies to an assassin somebody built in 3 turns, I'd feel more like uninstalling the mod and calling curses down on all the children of the authors for all time, than anything else :P

I can understand that :) But the point still stands, without a unit like the Assassin, how is the opponent supposed to counter the meteor-tossing Archmage? The strongest of stacks gets pretty well liquified before they can get too close.

I guess my argument is, with Archmages being as powerful as they are, they need a big counter. If the counter is removed or mitigated, you need to reduce the effectiveness of their attacks.

I haven't used marksmen in a while, so my objections may not be up to date. Do they still kill workers and settlers if they're in the stack? They really shouldn't. I just now heard about this hawk exploit, and I seriously hope people aren't using it thinking it's an actual game mechanic. What's the hawk gonna do, swoop down in front of the marksman's arrow? That'll save my archmage.

I feel that marksmen should somehow take into account the value of a unit, which I assumed they already did. For example, if given the choice between a wounded warrior and an archmage, it won't attack the warrior just because it has a 99% chance of victory instead of 95% against the archmage.

I feel that marksmen should somehow take into account the value of a unit, which I assumed they already did. For example, if given the choice between a wounded warrior and an archmage, it won't attack the warrior just because it has a 99% chance of victory instead of 95% against the archmage.

the promotion already does, marksmen are more likely to attack units with arcane 1, sorcery, summoning, divine, arcane 3 and of course, hero
(not sure where hero is on that priority list)
reverse of the effect where units with said promotion were more likely "not" to defend

Thematically, don't forget Taskmasters. They use marksman, don't they? And from a unit theme point of view, it makes sense that they would attack (and enslave) the weak and wounded. Not quite like regular assassins, whose theme would be more to attack and kill powerful individuals (i.e. Archmages.)

It might be too much of a pain to come up with a different promotion for Taskmasters, though. I agree in general that Assassins should be the mage-counter.

Never read it but it is natural. What are most valueble weak units in the same time enough powerful to need balancing in this way? Arcane spellcasters. No?

Maybe also hurt units but it is secondary. Workers? Settlers? Birds? Secondary, IMHO. :) Maybe naval in cities but i feel it like an exploit.

No. I don't see Mages as valuable units as most of you seem to. Exactly beacuse they are weak, and IMO they are a support for the really powerful units in the game. Assassins are good at killing superpromoted and defensive injured untis/Heroes defended by a stack, that otherwise would be practically unkillable. Mages are only attacking or support units, so you can easily kill them with initiative.

I guess my argument is, with Archmages being as powerful as they are, they need a big counter. If the counter is removed or mitigated, you need to reduce the effectiveness of their attacks.

Anything that anyone can build is countered by itself.

No. I don't see Mages as valuable units as most of you seem to. Exactly beacuse they are weak, and IMO they are a support for the really powerful units in the game.

That's what I believe they should be. Supporting, buffing, improving uits. But now with fire magic they in fact are absolute destructive power.

I suspect that many were just "dominated" by the Fire Archmage and don't realize that it's not *that* unstoppable power. Before this, I remember the Cult of the Ring of Fire. Which btw remains a stronger weapon than Fireball/Meteor Shower IMHO, if you consider that its unit is stronger.