Anyone has a viable strategy for the Scions?

[citizenalex]

I just started playing FF and the Scions really struck me at first as a good compromise between fallow and agnostic. One big problem I had in my first game was population growth. I've read the game mechanics concerning what stimulates a higher rate of Awakened spawned and it's a rather byzantine process at best. Some buildings will increase the chances of this happening every turn, that much I understand, but there's obviously some way to climb up the tech tree that makes it easier, i'm sure.

On another note, I find it a big crutch to have them spawn only in your capital. This makes large empire building Ultra hard at least until Obsidian gates (they still have those in FF, right? ) . It would also be nice if other cities could contribute. I'm sure they will still be a very balanced civ if every city can produce awakened, if only because that would have the double edge sword effect of either choosing to grow your city or producing stuff (remember most civs can do both at once) .

Otherwise, the FF mod is great. I feel bad I hadn't tried it earlier.

[WarKirby]

Shrines to Kylorin and Kylorin cults will increase spawning rate. The Aristocracy civic also increases it significantly, and various luxury resources like silk also increase spawning

However, awakened spawning is basically only for the early game. Your spawn rate goes down, and eventually stops completely at a certain point. Beyond that, there are other ways to go.

1. You need 4 cities, at least. More than 4 can be good, but it spreads you rather thin. Scions are NOT designed for large empires. Play them like Kuriotates or Khazad, a small, focused empire. But you must get at least 4 cities and put a Hall of the Covenant in each. (available at drama). That allows the Cathedral of Rebirth later, which lets you build reborn in your capital at a much cheaper cost than awakened. That's one of your main ways of getting population in the lategame .You build it, essentially.

Another way, is through your priests. Legate/Doomsayer/Doomgiver. They have a chance to create reborn from combat, which increases as they level up. So focus on helping them to win battles and grow stronger, for example sacrificing expendable troops to weaken an enemy.

Lastly, once you have a few certain techs (sorcery, I believe) you'll get reborn every time you raze a captured city, making it fairly easy to grow through conquest. In general though, playing as Scions, you are not ever going to have a massive empire. This is not unheard of among FFH civs, and it's something you have to deal with. Go for quality over quantity. How to do that?

1. Get sun and water mana, and scorch/spring every tile in your territory into plains. That, combined with your lack of food requirement, allow you to mine/cottage/workshop every tile, and therefore keep up with normal civs quite capably despite your lesser population.

2. Rush Animal Handling. Seriously, do it. Extremely important. It gives you ghostwalkers, who can spread haunted lands. The key thing about HL, is that it's a feature (can be placed on the same tile as improvements, like cottages and farms) which gives +2 . It works similarly to how forests do for the elves, and you want to spread it across your whole empire ASAP. However, it does cause significant health penalties. And until you get Sorcery and build Necropolis', you're somewhat beholden to health concerns. Another useful feature of haunted lands is that all your units get extra movement and +15% strength in it, I believe. Making it tactically advantageous for you.

3. Rush sorcery. Although they have a decent melee line, the Scions' real strength (especially under the emperor) is their arcane line. Their Necromancers (mage UU) have 5 strength, and gain a very powerful AOE spell for a short time after they kill a living unit. Being undead, they can also learn cannibalize. You can use Alcinus' Keep to make your adepts start with a fair amount of free xp, and also to train even more at a faster rate as it trains arcane units up to 17 xp, making it easy to get lv4 required for Necromancers. The Emperor's Charismatic trait also helps. Your arcane units:

Need 25% less xp to level up, thanks to charismatic
Train faster, thanks to arcane
Train even faster, thanks to Alcinus' keep.

when playing scions, I mostly have an army comprised almost entirely of necromancers and doomsayers, with maybe a few melee units for protection. 5 may not seem like much for a midgame unit, but it works out a lot better when you weaken the enemy with a spectre first, or even a Balefire spell, and then attack.

4. Get Body Mana. It's required later for the Flesh Studio. I forget what that does, but it's good. Also, although body spells normally only affect living units, Scion casters get a unique set of Body sphere spells instead, which strengthen your troops, and weaken enemies. They're quite useful.

5. Currency is good too. You get the Scion Bazaar at that, which gives nice bonuses to trade.

6. Rush bronze working in the early game. Honored Band, your axeman UU, have 5 defence strength (before weapons) and +30% strength, making them complete defensive juggernauts, and not too bad on the attack either. In addition, they can learn cannibalize, which essentially allows one to hold off an infinite horde of pathetic enemies. You don't need archers, ever. Just use these guys to defend your cities, AND to defend armies in the field. They are very slow, though, so you may want to get force mana to speed them up (haste doesn't affect undead, and you can't cast it anyway)

7. Promote Korinna to Black Lady. She gains the ability to summon a creeper, which can give you a neat headstart on Haunted Lands, and more importantly, she can become a Haunt later once you get Feral Bond, which are very powerful. Also, the Black Lady is undead, which allows her to learn Cannibalize and Implacable, both incredbile promotions. At Str4 though, she is a kind of weak hero in the lategame when not in haunt form, but that won't be too often anyway. I recommend blacl

alternatively

8. Promote Korinna to the Red Lady. The Red lady is a melee unit, and she can use weapons. She also gets free iron weapons, giving you a str6 hero at Bronze working, which allows you to annihilate your neighbors early on. Once you research Fanaticism, she essentially becomes immortal. Although she has to rest a few turns after dying to regain immortality. The Red lady is alive, and so she can learn march, but she CANNOT learn Cannibalize and Implacable. Those two things alone make the black lady better in my opinion.

9. Settle all cities next to as many hills as possible. Don't worry about rivers, because you can get all the commerce you need from Haunted Lands later, and you don't need food or health.

10 . Run God King, constantly. I know Aristocracy looks tempting, but you need your capital to be a powerhouse because several things depend on it. Also make sure your capital is near several hills, because you need the production. If it's not productive enough, move it. God king also does give a bonus to spawning, but less than Aristo.


holy . .. .. .. ., I can't belive I just typed all that.

[KillerClowns]

I find a certain amount of aggression is required; they've got a damn good military, especially the recon line. Use it! Also, Cannibalize plus a few drill promos means enemy Zerg rushes are (hilariously) doomed; against a well-fortified T4 unit, it's quite likely that any damage dealt by a low-rank unit will be healed when they're eaten. Even if they get really lucky and manage to do more damage then they heal, the next one will undo their hard work. I once held off... oh, I think at least twenty Infernal Axemen a turn with the Risen Emperor and a pair of Paladins, starting each new turn with all involved fully healed.
Oh, and IMHO, Korinna > Risen Emperor. The Risen Emperor, as a unit, is a Death-mana fueled killing machine of epic scale, and the shiny bits you get courtesy of following a religion are well worth suffering a slower spawn rate for Awakened.

[Niveras]

I haven't played FF in a while (or FFH really) but I've always felt pretty limited in my ability to expand until I get sorcery + priesthood, which allows you to create reborn from razing enemies cities, and it's effective with either leader. I've never felt that the disciple units are strong enough combat troops to rely on their 20% chance to convert defeated enemy units into reborn. Likewise Korinna-leader cathedrals are a hefty research investment with no military benefits, not to mention needing your strongest production cities dedicated to building Reborn. Priesthood and especially Sorcery at least gives you some side benefits (particularly in terms of combat), and also allows you to concentrate your production on units.

The biggest difficulty with razing cities is obviously... having enemy cities to raze, and also getting the reborn back to your empire to settle. Still, I find it an effective mid-game strategy since it weakens your nearby neighbors (eliminating them is the best result), strengths and consolidates you, and lets you concentrate production on units rather than growth.

[420boy]

Another piece of advice: Raze as many enemy cities as possible and then settle next to the ruins, as they receive a bonus working ruins... not much of a bonus, but serves as a good reminder to keep your empire tight.

[odalrick]

It is possible to build a large empire with scions, just not a populous one. Masses of size 1 cities, built to take one or two resources ( Patrian Artifacts, luxuries, metal ). The capital provides almost all production, the satellite settlements work one high commerce tile and build spawn boosting buildings. It's ok if it takes time to build, it's not like they have anything better to do.

As Awakened spawn, build new cities or add them to the capital. It's usually obvious which to do: If you can defend one more city and have an unclaimed resource explored; build a city. Otherwise, add to capital.

When you don't need more cities, add other Awakened to cities that can use it or start making a secondary production city. (Eventually you'll want 1 production city for every four cities, to build Reborn. But that's far in the future.)

At this point I usually lose steam, buckling under the wildly diverse research requirements to build Reborn. Niveras strategy of ignoring Cathedral of Rebirth and instead focusing on unlocking Reborn from razed cities (Sorcery, Priesthood) sounds interesting.

Corporations are great, they provide a fixed bonus regardless of the size of the city and at no production cost to the city.

Also avoid Honoured Bands, they have no advantages over Archers and quite a few disadvantages:

• Archers can shoot, Honoured bands can commit suicide.
• Archers start at defensive strength 5 and can learn Headless for another point. Honoured Bands need Headless to get defensive strength 5.
• Archers are cheaper than 'bands, both upkeep and production.
• Archers can learn Mobility I.
• Archers training building is unlocked earlier.

The attacking force is composed of Centenni (Warriors), Adept Skeletons or Necromances, depending on research level.

[WarKirby]

Honored Band have a natural +30% strength from Heavy Formation
And they can use metal weapons. A bronze honored Band is 4/6, whereas a headless archer is 2/6
And headless is an experience promotion, meaning that's one level you're not spending on something else. Honored Band get it for free.

[odalrick]

Originally Posted by WarKirby

Honored Band have a natural +30% strength from Heavy Formation
And they can use metal weapons. A bronze honored Band is 4/6, whereas a headless archer is 2/6
And headless is an experience promotion, meaning that's one level you're not spending on something else. Honored Band get it for free.

Yes, I overstated my position a little, partly because I miscounted metals at first. Never the less, Honoured Bands are even more specialised than Archers.

If you need a unit that's bad at attacking, costs a lot and arrives to late to defend; Honoured Band is the unit to use. If you want a cost effective defence army, stick with Archers, supplemented with Centeni.

I can't think of a situation where I would prefer Honoured Bands over Archers, especially remembering it's not a one to one comparison.

[WarKirby]

It only costs a lot in terms of maintenance. I'm pretty sure they cost 60 to build, same as an archer.

they may be permanantly limited to 1 movement, but they can still use roads. I never give Mobility to archers in any case.

And a unit with the ability to suicide like they have is actually rather useful. Much like Pyre Zombies and Moroi, you divide them into two groups. The ones you want to keep, and the ones to use as cannon fodder, like for attacking a heavily defended city. Although they have 1 less attack strength than normal axemen, the +30% strength makes up for that, mostly. With weapons, str4 + 30 % is better than strength 5. The advantage diminishes somewhat at hgiher levels, but rank and file troops rarely reach such levels. using Emperor and Honor gives the enemy a 20% strength penalty for one battle, at the cost of the unit dying either way. It's pretty effective against units with a high base strength, but not much xp. Like... archers.

to put it another way, honored band are more flexible, and I'd disagree that they're specialised. They can defend or attack. Archers can only defend, and bombard which is admittedly nice, but killing the enemy is better than wounding them, and it gives more xp.

[Valkrionn]

Personally, I use mine like Warkirby said... The few you keep, and the many you sacrifice. Usually, I only keep the 'Chosen' you get from upgrading Centenni... Extra strength over the normal ones.

[odalrick]

Originally Posted by WarKirby

It only costs a lot in terms of maintenance. I'm pretty sure they cost 60 to build, same as an archer.

Nope, 66 . Not a lot of difference, but in my experience the maintenance penalty is not something you can ignore. Also, movement:

Originally Posted by WarKirby

they may be permanantly limited to 1 movement, but they can still use roads. I never give Mobility to archers in any case.

2 move units, can cover nine times the area compared to 1 move. At the borders it's less, but still at least four times the area. Another factor in production and maintenance cost.

Originally Posted by WarKirby

And a unit with the ability to suicide like they have is actually rather useful. Much like Pyre Zombies and Moroi, you divide them into two groups. The ones you want to keep, and the ones to use as cannon fodder, like for attacking a heavily defended city. Although they have 1 less attack strength than normal axemen, the +30% strength makes up for that, mostly. With weapons, str4 + 30 % is better than strength 5. The advantage diminishes somewhat at hgiher levels, but rank and file troops rarely reach such levels. using Emperor and Honor gives the enemy a 20% strength penalty for one battle, at the cost of the unit dying either way. It's pretty effective against units with a high base strength, but not much xp. Like... archers.

Rank and file troops rarely reach level 2? Obviously not if you suicide them all the time, although even then it'd be a challenge for Korinna.

And then once they die, it'll take twice as long to replace them.

More seriously, you get two Centeni for one 'band. Is the suicide really better than two attackers? Factor in a few pot-shots from archers as well.

I don't know why archers would have less experience than anyone else... Also don't they usually have a pile of other bonuses, + city defence, walls et cetera?

Originally Posted by WarKirby

to put it another way, honored band are more flexible, and I'd disagree that they're specialised. They can defend or attack. Archers can only defend, and bombard which is admittedly nice, but killing the enemy is better than wounding them, and it gives more xp.

Archers can attack too, even after bombarding. They're slightly worse at it than 'bands, but ultimately neither archers or 'bands are good at attacking. Centeni are better.

And again, with Mobility I archers can join offensive stacks without necessarily slowing them down to a crawl.

I don't see any flexibility in 'bands at all.

It might be a difference in play style. I have a large empire of many tiny cities. Having three Honoured Bands cover each city is impossible. On the other hand, two mobility promoted archers and two Centeni is very possible.

And I hate suicidal units. It's like giving up the fight before it even started.

edit:

Originally Posted by Valkrionn

Personally, I use mine like Warkirby said... The few you keep, and the many you sacrifice. Usually, I only keep the 'Chosen' you get from upgrading Centenni... Extra strength over the normal ones.

The few upgraded Centeni become archers, prepaid with March, Cannibalize, Headless and Mobility I. An unassailable core. The many Centeni are twice as many as your Honoured Bands, attacking bombardment weakened enemies and occasionally surviving.

And this horde is moving twice as fast as your bands with Horseback Riding.

[Valkrionn]

Ah, I see the difference... I tend to play a small, consolidated empire with the Scions, and I'm sure Warkirby does as well. I agree, the maintenance cost on them trying to guard a large empire would be killer.

[WarKirby]

Originally Posted by odalrick

2 move units, can cover nine times the area compared to 1 move. At the borders it's less, but still at least four times the area. Another factor in production and maintenance cost.

What?

No, 2 move units cover twice the area. Not nine times. 2 is 100% more than 1. and when roads are involved, 6 is still only 100% more than 3.

Rank and file troops rarely reach level 2? Obviously not if you suicide them all the time, although even then it'd be a challenge for Korinna.

I said High levels. Wherein the Band's +30% natural bonus can be overcome, assuming both he and the enemy are levelling up at the same rate. It would have to be far higher than lv2. Maybe 4 or 5.

[Vehem]

Originally Posted by WarKirby

What?
No, 2 move units cover twice the area. Not nine times. 2 is 100% more than 1. and when roads are involved, 6 is still only 100% more than 3.

Distance vs area. I'm assuming he's relying on roads, in which case a 2 move can shift from a central point to any of 81 surrounding tiles (or 169 with Engineering). A 1 move can shift to one of either 25 or 49 different tiles within range.

Still doesn't work out with the nine times for those numbers - might be some version without roads (9 squares vs 25 squares coverage) - but it's definitely more coverage than the linear distance...

EDIT: Numbers include the case of the unit remaining still

[WarKirby]

ah, but then an archer can't exactly "cover" that distance since they have low attack. They're not very good at intercepting the enemy. best they can do is anticipate movement and block the enemy's path.

[odalrick]

Originally Posted by WarKirby

I said High levels. Wherein the Band's +30% natural bonus can be overcome, assuming both he and the enemy are levelling up at the same rate. It would have to be far higher than lv2. Maybe 4 or 5.

Combat I:

1.2 * strength 5 = 6
1.5 * strength 4 = 6

Granted, to beat the natural bonus they need another level...

With iron they need Combat III, less trivial to get but: iron is later; Korinna, the leader able to build Mines of Galdur, is Aggressive; and my first five promotions are usually Combat I-III, Mobility I and March in some order.

Originally Posted by Vehem

Still doesn't work out with the nine times for those numbers - might be some version without roads (9 squares vs 25 squares coverage) - but it's definitely more coverage than the linear distance...

A move 1 unit can cover nine times the area of a move 0 unit, and I just naturally scaled up...

Or to put it in a way that put's me in a more favorable light, let's say they can attack from an area nine times larger.

(Yeah, I don't buy that either.)

Still, a lot larger area.

Originally Posted by WarKirby

ah, but then an archer can't exactly "cover" that distance since they have low attack. They're not very good at intercepting the enemy. best they can do is anticipate movement and block the enemy's path.

Well, neither can 'bands since they have low attack.

That's why I advocate an Archer/Centeni army. Archers bombard, Centeni attack. If any enemies are still standing archers can attack too, if necessary.

Of course, you can use Centeni too, but then I wonder what the 'band are for. Can't attack, can't move, can't defend better than archers, costs twice the upkeep.

Later, I switch to actual attackers: Chariots, Necromancers, Adepts and Skeletons; but I assume you do too. And the archers can support them on their rampages through enemy land, without halving their movement.

[WarKirby]

Originally Posted by odalrick

Well, neither can 'bands since they have low attack.

Compared to archers, their attack is high.

however, I am seeing your point here. I think Honored band need more attack strength.

Edit: Actually, no. see below. I think they're fine.

[WarKirby]

Originally Posted by odalrick

Of course, you can use Centeni too, but then I wonder what the 'band are for. Can't attack, can't move, can't defend better than archers, costs twice the upkeep.

I already explained this part. They defend better than archers, and centeni, and they attack better than archers and Centeni.

Granted, archers get 25% in hills or cities, so an archer in a hilltop city, or with City Garrison in any city, is a better defender. But in all other cases, the Honored Band has better defensive strength than the archer. By the time an archer spends a promotion on getting Headless, the Honored Band gets Combat I, maintaining it's advantage. They can also learn Guerilla so they're still better on a hilltop than an archer (unless that hilltop has a city)

Granted, a more experienced unit will always be stronger. When comparing units, we have to use equal levels. No matter how you look at it, an honored band is always stronger than an archer on defence unless cities are involved. And then for the archer to be stronger, one of the following must be true:

A: The city must be on a hill (Archer's natural +25% from hills and 25% from city, add up to 50% which is higher than the band's 30%)
B: The archer must have City Garrison promotions (Honored Band can't learn this)
C: The city must have walls or palisade (Archery units get Wall Defender)

However, the above only holds true for a band which doesn't have Bronze weapons. When he does, no single one of the above conditions is good enough, and at least two of them must be true for the archer to be stronger. (or the archer must have multiple levels of City Garrison)

Honored band are a very powerful defensive unit.

Math Time:

Condition A Hilltop City
Archer: 5 + 75% (25 from city, 50% from hill) = 8.75
Band (no weaps) 5 + 55% (30 base, 25 from hill) 7.75
Band (w. weaps) 6 + 55% (30 base, 25 from hill) 9.3

So for condition A, archer is better without bronze, band is better with bronze.

condition B: Both units lv2, archer has City Garrison I
Archer: 5 + 55% (25 from city, 30% from City Garrison) = 7.75
Band (no weaps) 5 + 50% (30 base, 20 from Combat I) 7.5
Band (w. weaps) 6 + 50% (30 base, 20 from Combat I) 9.0

Again, archer is better without bronze, band is better with bronze. This is assuming same levels. It's an unfair comparison otherwise. Band takes Combat I since it gives the best bonus here.

Condition C: City has Palisade
Archer: 5 + 55% (25 from city, 10% from palisade, 20% from Wall Defender) = 7.75
Band (no weaps) 5 + 40% (30 base, 10 from palisade) 7.0
Band (w. weaps) 6 + 40% (30 base, 10 from palisade) 8.4

Again, archer is better without bronze, band is better with bronze.

Seriously, Honored Band are awesome.

Do you want to try running some more tests with walls, more levels, etc? The archer may become better at some point, but it's not the best defender hands down by a long shot, and only surpasses a band under certain conditions. outside of a city, archers are never stronger. Band are always better in the field. Yes, including on hilltops.

Also consider, being melee units, band can learn Shock II. Archers Cannot. So by lv4 for example, we could have this setup

Archer: City Garrison I-III (+90% city strength, +20 vs melee. 110 total vs melee)
Band: Combat I , Shock I-II (30 natural, +20% general, +80% vs melee. Total of 130% vs melee)

Since melee units are the only serious threat to a well guarded city (only unitcombat that can learn City Raider), the band gets to trump the archer again here. Granted, shock doesn't help against mounted units or recon, but both of those have low strength, and the latter has a city attack penalty (many mounted units also get bonuses against archers - but not melee, making honored band even better)

Condition D
Let's try the best possible scenario for the archer here. Band and Archer are both lv4, on a hilltop city, with walls, against melee attackers. Level 4 isn't an arbitrary value by the way. This is the max level an archery range/training yard will take a unit to. And is usually the highest level a defensive archer will reach.

Archer: 5 + 205%(25 from hills, 25 from city, 25 from walls, 20 from wall defender, 90 from city garrison, 20 vs melee from garrison)
Band (NW): 5 + 160 % (30 natural, 25 from hills, 25 from walls, 40 from Combat, 40 from shock)
Band (WW): 6 + 160 % (30 natural, 25 from hills, 25 from walls, 40 from Combat, 40 from shock)

Archer: 5 + 205% = 15.25
Band (NW): 5 + 180 % = 13
Band (WW): 6 + 180 % = 15.6

Band with weapons is STILL stronger, despite the best posssible circumstances for the archer. Do I win a cookie now?

And yes, I know I didn't count ranged attacks, because I don't think they're relevant here. Consider:
Enemy stack of doom rolls up to your city. The melee units have a mix of Combat and City Raider promos. The ones with Combat have the best defence, and so will always take the arrows from bombard. But the ones with City raider have better attack, so using ranged attack does nothing to weaken the incoming attack, unless you have at least as many archers as the enemy has attackers.



When it comes to attack, Honored band have the same strength as Centeni, plus an extra 30%. On top of that, Centeni have a 10% natural strength penalty, unless you pay them. And when you do, they gain a net 5% bonus, which doesn't touch the band's 30%. And Band have a natural 10% city attack bonus like any axemen, farther making them better. They ALSO have +20% vs archers, making up for some of their lost strength when attacking archers in cities, or anywhere really. So band are unilaterally stronger on the attack. As you've pointed out, they do flounder a bit compared to other civs' axemen, as they become weaker by lv4, but they're better than centeni.

They lack speed, but they make up for it in power. I do agree the lack of speed is a big downside, but I think they're strong enough to make up for it. You park a band in a city and it WILL NOT MOVE. Come hell or high water, he can stand and take anything the enemy throws at him. An Immovable object doesn't need to be fast

A example scenario. Band and Centeni, attacking a city with an archer in it. For simplicity, we assume lv1 on all parties, and bronze weapons.

Band: 4 + 60% (natural 30 + 10 city attack + 20 vs archer) 6.4
Centeni: 4 + 5% (assuming he's paid, -10% if not) 4.2

band is significantly better.
No matter what circumstances you come up with, there is never, ever a scenario where a centeni of equal level can be stronger than a band, for any purpose. They are (can be) faster, and cost less, but they are significantly weaker.







I spent about 50 minutes writing this post @_@

I do enjoy a good debate though. I hope I don't seem mean.

[Tarquelne]

Re: The OP.

Expanding a little on WarKirby's excellent post:

Aggressively acquire the Luxury resources that boost spawning. (They're listed in the 'pedia. Try and collect 'em all!) I give them a higher priority than buildings because buildings *will* come with tech and hammers but you've got to take and hold territory for the luxuries. (Or be nice to other civs, which may be harder.)

Flesh Studio: Will give a spawning bonus for *each* Body mana node you've got. If you're in trouble vis a vis spawning FS + spamming Body is a good Plan B.

City sizes: I play with a central vs. satellite model, but I place a fairly high priority on getting satellite cities up to pop 3. So fewer, but larger, satellites than the pop 1 or 2 model.

Re: H. Band vs. Archer.

odalrick mentioned Headless Archers...

Lets look at Condition D again:

Arg... lost the math in an edit and don't want to re-do it. ... Anyway, I think Headless Archers worked out slightly better than Condition D above. But since that's supposed to be a best-case for the Archer that still leaves a roll for the HB.

I think the HB also comes ahead with regard to Cannibal - The req is only Combat 2, but Combat is a more natural progression for the HB. So lower opportunity cost for the HB.

Anyway...

If I had to pick one or the other it'd be Archer. Hands down. Primarily because of the HB's higher maintenance cost.

However, since we don't I use both. Most defenders are Archers, but some HB's are used where the extra gold seems worth it. Even in the field I'll often have far more Archers than HB - they're cheaper and have a nice all-around defense compared to my usually melee-specialized HBs. But a scattering of HB's can really add a lot of staying-power. (Assuming my math is right. And WK's. WK's math looking similar to mine is the only bad thing I can say about WK's. )

Two Archers might be better - higher hammer cost (often not a big deal for the Scions) but same maintenance - and can be two places at once, perhaps faster. OTOH, and assuming it survives, a single HB used instead can gain twice the xps. And in the field a first/second level HB should have a significantly higher chance of surviving than an equivalent archer. (Def of at least 7.8)

Finally, if your empire is small - or you're rich, or just feeling lucky - you can put off researching the Archery line and use the HB to fill the Archer's place. (Though you may miss the Archer's ranged attack.)

(OTOH, the converse is certainly true - you could look to the Archery line for defense, Arcane or Recon for offense and skip the expensive HB and Principes. With a tech advantage that can be very attractive.)

[WarKirby]

Originally Posted by Tarquelne

Lets look at Condition D again:

Arg... lost the math in an edit and don't want to re-do it. ... Anyway, I think Headless Archers worked out slightly better than Condition D above. But since that's supposed to be a best-case for the Archer that still leaves a roll for the HB.

That's not possible. Headless requires Combat III to learn, which means the archer would need to be at least lv5, beyond it's natural xp from the archery range. And it would forgo the entire City Garrison line in getting there. Probably putting it in a worse position overall.

Assuming it Did go to lv5 though, let's work it out again

Condition E
Same as condition D, this time it goes to lv5, and the archer takes a different promotion path.
The band uses this level for Combat II

Archer: Combat I-III + Headless
Honored Band: Combat I-III, Shock I

Archer: 6 + 155%(+1 base strength from headless, 25 from hills, 25 from city, 25 from walls, 20 from wall defender, 60)
Band (NW): 5 + 180 % (30 natural, 25 from hills, 25 from walls, 60 from Combat, 40 from shock)
Band (WW): 6 + 180 % (30 natural, 25 from hills, 25 from walls, 60 from Combat, 40 from shock)

Archer: 6 + 155% = 15.3
Band (NW): 5 + 180 % = 14
Band (WW): 6 + 180 % = 16.8




The archer gains a mere 0.05 strength from the extra level through this promotion path, while the band with weapons gains 1.2. Cementing it's lead even farther.

Honored Band still wins!

Edit: Hmm, wait, Shock II requires Combat III as well. This complicates things. I've edited this and the above post, with the HB not having Shock II, and taking an extra combat rank instead.It still wins, though by a narrower margin

Alternatively, since we're talking hilltop here, the band could swap one of it's combat Ranks for Guerilla I, which has the same defence as City Garrison (Based on FF's internal version, not the current release)

To put it simply, it is practically impossible for an archer to match up to the honored band, due to it's higher base strength, and inbuilt 30% bonus. It is a wall, quite frankly. And nothing moves it. I think they're worth the extra maintenance.


Also, although you may get two archers for the maintenance of one band, remember also that you're dividing potential xp in half. You may only get half xp for defending, compared to attacking, but when you're killing 10 units per turn, that mounts up a lot. Give a band Cannibalize, and a good mix of drill/combat/shock promotions. Put it in front of the enemy, and watch whole armies die, one after another, to your single unit. The more it kills, the more xp it gains. the better it becomes at killing, etc etc.

Double maintenance may seem like a lot, but when it can do the work of 5 or 6 of it's lesser bretheren, the cost doesn't seem so bad. If you still think archers are superior, try fighting the hippus sometime, and watch them rape your cities and field armies with +40% vs archer horsemen.