No metal weapons for Crusaders or Paramanders?

[BvBPL]

Is there a reason that Crusaders and Paramanders cannot receive bronze, iron, or mithril weapons? I find that really strange since Stygian Guards and Soldiers of Kilmorph both can use metal weapon promos. Indeed, Soldiers of Kilmorph given mithril weapons have a higher strength than Paramanders which is really weird and puts players in the odd situation of actually having an upgrade that is potentially weaker than the base unit.

I’m sure there’s a reason these units don’t receive metal promos, and I wonder if anyone can fill me in on it. Is it just that SoKs and SGs are melee units whereas Paramanders and Crusaders are disciple class units? Is there a balance issue involved; is it just to keep the Malakim from overrunning everyone else (although they could do that just fine w/ Stygian Guards)?

Also, I think it is disappointing that Ecclesiastics don’t upgrade to Radiant Guards. Is there a reason for that?

 

[Breunor]

I suspect that the reason is game balance. The Paramanders make a contrast to the Soldiers of Kilmorph.

It does make the game interesting. Crusaders and Paramanders make a moderate fighting force if you don't have metals, they can shore up your forces and help against metal wielding foes. Crusaders heal, and giving them weapons also without other adjustments could be brutal - oculd you imagine having a few level of the Altar and churning out metal using crusaders or paramanders starting with 15 experience points or so?

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Emptiness]

Another point to consider is that, because they are disciple units without metal weapons, Crusaders and Paramanders are immune to being weakened by Rust. This gives them an edge when fighting foes with access to Entropy magic. A mithril-wielding Soldier of Kilmorph that gains the Rusted promotion and loses the Mithril Weapons promotion is about half as strong as a Paramander.

 

[BvBPL]

I suspect that the reason is game balance. The Paramanders make a contrast to the Soldiers of Kilmorph.

Ok, but you can't build SoKs after fanaticism. The contrast is there, but it doesn't last.

It does make the game interesting. Crusaders and Paramanders make a moderate fighting force if you don't have metals, they can shore up your forces and help against metal wielding foes.

It does make the game interesting, that's for sure! I like the availability of Paramanders as sort of 2.5 tier units that work for a good length of time but peter out in effectiveness versus civs that pursue the metal line. I do have to point out that you need metal to build Crusaders and Paramanders though. Paramanders require copper, which isn't a big deal, but Crusaders require iron or mithril. If you have iron working then there's less of a reason to build Crusaders instead of Champions.

Crusaders heal, and giving them weapons also without other adjustments could be brutal - oculd you imagine having a few level of the Altar and churning out metal using crusaders or paramanders starting with 15 experience points or so?

I'm playing the Malakim looking for an altar victory right now so yes, yes I can imagine it!

The contrast w/ the Stygian Guards is noteworthy though. Thanks to the guards, OO civs can ignore the metal line for a long, long time. No other relgion can do that nearly as a well as the OO, although the RoK can for a while. Plus the OO gets drowned and lunatics.

I haven't played it yet, but the OO seems ridiculous powerful relative to other religions. I wish the other religions had as many options as the OO does.

--

I'm not sure if there's a good way to change crusaders and paramanders to make them more useful units. I was thinking that if I were to change the crusader and paramanders around, I would lower the strength of both to five, let them receive metal promotions, and remove the metal requirements for both units. Thinking about it more, I'm unsure if that would create a useful unit; if anything the units could be less effective than they are now.

I'm also not really sure if such a change is necessary. It seems desireable to me now, but that could be because I'm playing as the Malakim.

 

[Breunor]

Ok, but you can't build SoKs after fanaticism. The contrast is there, but it doesn't last.



It does make the game interesting, that's for sure! I like the availability of Paramanders as sort of 2.5 tier units that work for a good length of time but peter out in effectiveness versus civs that pursue the metal line. I do have to point out that you need metal to build Crusaders and Paramanders though. Paramanders require copper, which isn't a big deal, but Crusaders require iron or mithril. If you have iron working then there's less of a reason to build Crusaders instead of Champions.



I'm playing the Malakim looking for an altar victory right now so yes, yes I can imagine it!

The contrast w/ the Stygian Guards is noteworthy though. Thanks to the guards, OO civs can ignore the metal line for a long, long time. No other relgion can do that nearly as a well as the OO, although the RoK can for a while. Plus the OO gets drowned and lunatics.

I haven't played it yet, but the OO seems ridiculous powerful relative to other religions. I wish the other religions had as many options as the OO does.

--

I'm not sure if there's a good way to change crusaders and paramanders to make them more useful units. I was thinking that if I were to change the crusader and paramanders around, I would lower the strength of both to five, let them receive metal promotions, and remove the metal requirements for both units. Thinking about it more, I'm unsure if that would create a useful unit; if anything the units could be less effective than they are now.

I'm also not really sure if such a change is necessary. It seems desireable to me now, but that could be because I'm playing as the Malakim.

You make some interesting points! I think sometimes when we begin playing FfH for the first time, you get the impression that the Octopus Overlords are powerful for a water map only; it isn't true! They have some great stuff and yes, Stygian guards have a lot of juice! It may be that OO is OVERPOWERED on a water map!

Like everything in FfH, Stygian Guards come with some negatives - they aren't human, so you can't cast haste if they are in a stack (or you have to leave them behind), etc.

RoK is really powerful for a few things - money, spreading early, and (not least!) the Mines of Gul-dur, which can be a game changer if you can't find iron. However, I think this contrasts to OO's general strength. And I think OO is 'earlier' and 'weaker' than Order and AV.

I do get the sense that the 'consensus' view is that Crusaders and Paramanders are a tad underpowered, for the reasons you state. So I view them as what they are with the current game rules, real good troops for special situations: a few crusaders to get the free heal promotion, if you are going for the altar and have lot's of Disciple XP's, or if you don't have metals. In those situations, these troops are powerful.

And so the contrast is in 'normal' games, they appear underpowered. Without extra free XP's, they will not stand well against troops with iron weapons.

So do they need a 'boost'? I think it comes down to how important the 'special situation' ability is viewed relative to more 'standard' abilities, which can be a function of map used, strategy used, game speed, etc.

Personally, I think Crusaders are more useful than Paramanders, simply because I tend to build the Mines of Gul-dur if I don't have iron and play RoK.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[BvBPL]

I think at this point the reasonable fix for crusaders and paramanders is to remove the metal requirement for both all together, or at least let crusaders be constructed w/ copper, but drop the idea of metal weapon promotions all together. That enables an alternative, but time-limited, military strategy around these troops. Again, I’m not totally convinced a fix is necessary, but it would be nice to make these units more useable.

As for OO being the most powerful religion, I was thinking about this outside and realized that it might not be as overpowered as I first thought. As you point out, RoK has a lot of benefits, as do most religions. OO might be the most powerful, but something has to be. Maybe OO just seems more fleshed out then other religions, like more time was given to it than others.

In contrast, Empyrean really gets the short end of the stick. There’s no unique buildings or civics for the religion, and while their military units are useful in many situations, they really can’t be used as the backbone of an army the way stygians, paramanders, or crusaders can. Their religious hero is among the most powerful of heroes and their shrine is really useful, but those are benefits only one civ can obtain. If you’re late to the honor game, there’s not much to recommend it, at least in contrast to other religions. Their high priests are pretty wicked, but so are most high priests.

Edit: For some reason I though crusaders need iron or mithril and couldn’t be made w/ just cooper. Apparently I was wrong. Oops.

 

[Breunor]

Empyrean is interesting. As you said, Chalid is so powerful that IF you get him, he can be a game changer.

However, at very high levels the radiant guards and rathas are really good, although it is somewhat of a bad AI exploit. That is, when the enemy SoD has 600 units and you have your highly promoted 70 guys, the RG's and rathas use blinging light, freeze the enemy stack in place, and your guys start whittling down the enemy stack.

But I do kind of agree with you. I find Empyrean is either TOO GOOD (the blinging light exploit is too good or Chalid simply wins the game) or not good enough without much of a middle position.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Tholal]

Paramanders are great when fighting Demon units, which includes things like Stygian Guards, Eidolons, the Infernals, the Horsemen, many Ashen Veil units, Planar Gate units and several heroes including Saverous!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

congrats for finding one of the many Missed Opportunities in FFH

for me, the best use for crusaders and paramanders is to give the mercurians high xp angels. just get some levels of the altar, build em there and when they die... your allies will get some excellent angels

 

[BvBPL]

The more I think about it, the more interesting I find the current situation and the more uncertain I am that it can be classified as an error or a missed opportunity. As it stands, fanaticism allows RoK, Order, and OO civs to deploy units that are superior to axmen but inferior to champions. This allows religion-minded civs to obtain a military advantage during the limited span of time between teching fanaticism and enemies obtaining iron working, but they run the risk of their army becoming outclassed when other civs obtain champions. This makes for interesting gambit that can either pay off big or crash and burn. Whether or not this is the intended use of these units is a different story.

So, basically, I’m not longer confused about crusaders and paramanders not being able to use metal weapons or being stronger. What remains odd is that stygians are significantly superior to crusaders and paramanders. That and SoKs can be superior to the units they upgrade into (althought that could be fixed by never making SoKs go obsolete.)

 

[HoratiusFlaccus]

Let's not forget that Stygian Guards are demons, and so crusaders and paramanders are made to be ready for them (+40 vs demons) or corpses (crusaders imune to disease), etc.
I think it's a fine option if you want to go through the religion line with a spiritual leader (maybe also doing the altar).
If hell is spreding fast, you'll probably want to use them.

Finally, they get the Command promotion - nothing to sneeze at.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah, as a spiritual leader they will get mobility I which is of course pretty damn good.

 

[HoratiusFlaccus]

A spiritual leader also gets, of course, the potency promotion.
With the help of the altar one gets a lot of high-level paramanders.

Now that I think of it, blessed paramanders with Iron and command promotions could be a little bit unbalanced, not just against demons.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm pretty sure Potency will not allow them to get free xp

 

[HoratiusFlaccus]

Yeah, you're right. They don't get the Command either (it needs Channeling II of course), i really thought they did. I should play with them more often, lol.
The Ex from the altar make them playable though.

 

[BvBPL]

I'm pretty sure Potency will not allow them to get free xp

Actually, I noticed that potency-enhanced disciple units do earn xp passively over time, W/ that in mind, I don’t see why paramanders and crusaders wouldn’t do the same.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The only units that get free xp from the potency or channeling promotions are those that have <bFreeXP>1</bFreeXP> in their unit's xml defines. That includes arcane units, priests, and the first tier disciples but not the holy warriors.

 

[xalien]

I once had a game where I was at big war with Order Malakim. Their damn blessed crusaders that I couldn't rust made my life hell. It was the most fun FFH game I ever had.

 

[hzf]

I just want to restate what was said about Empyrrean. The hero is game changing. I am not quite sure how you can lose when you have Chalid in a stack, especially if you have a few mobility promoted Ratha to lock things down. Chalid also completely negates the need for siege.

I have used Paramanders with great success. The Mines of Guldar are not realistic (I find, on immortal), because an AI will always build them first. And with no metal, Paramanders are great mid-game units.

Stygians are ofcourse better though. The one and only way I can win on deity is with Falamar beelining to Stygians. (I hope that does not come accross as a brag, I just cant get close on deity with any other method).

 

[Jarrema]

Hmmm...

kill Chalid with assassins?