WarKirby
Arty person
I'm currently playing a game with khadi, and mostly doing fine because my enemies are still using warriors and hunters, and I have axemen.
But I'm looking at my future preospects, and it doesn't look so rosy.
Like the Sheiam, they're limited in their ability to create lategame units. Champions are the only ones I know of for certain, but the sheiam can't create immortals, berserkers or phalanxes either.
The intolerant trait also makes them unable to found or adopt state religions, which puts religious heroes squarely out of their reach.
So I'm trying to look at what they have going for them, and they seem to be coming up short.
Their Vault gates generate creatures similarly to Sheiam planar gates, but they seem to be inferior creatures in both strength and variety.
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Gnoslings have a base strength 2, and 1 metamagic affinity. These things come through the gates in ridiculous numbers. But to make them reasonably useful in combat beyond the warrior stage, is going to take a lot of MM mana. Maybe a non magical race like the Khazad can afford to do that, but magic is one of Khad's greatest strengths, so you can't afford to specialise that much in one type of mana, or your mages will be starved of variety and usefulness.
Aside from that, Gnoslings have Metamagic I and II to start with. The former makes them very useful as scouts, but you only ever need 1 or 2 scouts at most. The latter allows them to clear mana nodes, which is an entirely useless ability considering that they don't have the ability to also create new ones. Meaning that you still need an adept to go around building nodes for you.
I don't find gnoslings to be much use as anything other than weak cannon fodder. The only other thing they have going for them is that they jump up the first few levels pretty quickly, but even with combat V, a strength 3 gnosling is barely a match for an unpromoted axemen, and still severely outclassed when champions enter the fray. Not to mention useless against entrenched defenders.
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Thades seem to be slightly better, being that they can teleport, and have 2 movement. Not sure if this is a bug though, but they can teleport then move, but not move then teleport. Which significantly limits the usefulness of the teleporting.
Aside from that, they start with random lv1 spells, some of which can be fairly useful like haste and enchanted blade. Many though, are not. And in any case, being non-living arcane units makes the thades themselves unaffected by quite a few of the more useful spells.
They can't learn lv2 spells, and they take a long time to level up in general because they start at lv 4, I think. their 4 strength makes them minorly useful on defence, though inferior to archers, and not much use for anything else.
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Djinns seem about the most useful creature that can come out of the gate. But it's been a while since I got meditiation halls in several cities. Not seen one yet....
I'm guessing they're pretty rare, which kind of limits usefulness.
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Psions lastly, can only be gotten if you pick the dark path, which I don't personally want to do. They seem pretty good though, having strength 6 and Mind III, although they're unable to gain any promotions, and strength 6 is certainly going to be outclassed by the time you reach strength of Will
Other than that, the main thing Khad has going for him is the Ambitious trait, which makes arcane units able to upgrade 1 level earlier, which is awesome and probably going to be necessary. I'm told that this trait is lost if you pick oghma's path though, which is another blow.
I'm accumulating increasingly vast numbers of gnoslings and thades, which are all but useless on the battlefield. The gates have yet to provide me any decent weapons. Compared with the stuff that comes out of the Sheiam gates, like Revellers and Tar demons, I'm thinking the Khadi gates are severely lacking.
And by extension, the khadi are severely lacking inlategame military potential.
Am I missing something here ?
But I'm looking at my future preospects, and it doesn't look so rosy.
Like the Sheiam, they're limited in their ability to create lategame units. Champions are the only ones I know of for certain, but the sheiam can't create immortals, berserkers or phalanxes either.
The intolerant trait also makes them unable to found or adopt state religions, which puts religious heroes squarely out of their reach.
So I'm trying to look at what they have going for them, and they seem to be coming up short.
Their Vault gates generate creatures similarly to Sheiam planar gates, but they seem to be inferior creatures in both strength and variety.
---------------------
Gnoslings have a base strength 2, and 1 metamagic affinity. These things come through the gates in ridiculous numbers. But to make them reasonably useful in combat beyond the warrior stage, is going to take a lot of MM mana. Maybe a non magical race like the Khazad can afford to do that, but magic is one of Khad's greatest strengths, so you can't afford to specialise that much in one type of mana, or your mages will be starved of variety and usefulness.
Aside from that, Gnoslings have Metamagic I and II to start with. The former makes them very useful as scouts, but you only ever need 1 or 2 scouts at most. The latter allows them to clear mana nodes, which is an entirely useless ability considering that they don't have the ability to also create new ones. Meaning that you still need an adept to go around building nodes for you.
I don't find gnoslings to be much use as anything other than weak cannon fodder. The only other thing they have going for them is that they jump up the first few levels pretty quickly, but even with combat V, a strength 3 gnosling is barely a match for an unpromoted axemen, and still severely outclassed when champions enter the fray. Not to mention useless against entrenched defenders.
-----------------------------
Thades seem to be slightly better, being that they can teleport, and have 2 movement. Not sure if this is a bug though, but they can teleport then move, but not move then teleport. Which significantly limits the usefulness of the teleporting.
Aside from that, they start with random lv1 spells, some of which can be fairly useful like haste and enchanted blade. Many though, are not. And in any case, being non-living arcane units makes the thades themselves unaffected by quite a few of the more useful spells.
They can't learn lv2 spells, and they take a long time to level up in general because they start at lv 4, I think. their 4 strength makes them minorly useful on defence, though inferior to archers, and not much use for anything else.
-------------------------------------------------
Djinns seem about the most useful creature that can come out of the gate. But it's been a while since I got meditiation halls in several cities. Not seen one yet....
I'm guessing they're pretty rare, which kind of limits usefulness.
-------------------------------------------------
Psions lastly, can only be gotten if you pick the dark path, which I don't personally want to do. They seem pretty good though, having strength 6 and Mind III, although they're unable to gain any promotions, and strength 6 is certainly going to be outclassed by the time you reach strength of Will
Other than that, the main thing Khad has going for him is the Ambitious trait, which makes arcane units able to upgrade 1 level earlier, which is awesome and probably going to be necessary. I'm told that this trait is lost if you pick oghma's path though, which is another blow.
I'm accumulating increasingly vast numbers of gnoslings and thades, which are all but useless on the battlefield. The gates have yet to provide me any decent weapons. Compared with the stuff that comes out of the Sheiam gates, like Revellers and Tar demons, I'm thinking the Khadi gates are severely lacking.
And by extension, the khadi are severely lacking inlategame military potential.
Am I missing something here ?
