Warning Wall of text incoming! tldr: I feel these guys are rather pointless atm, skip to the end for some suggestions.
Unlike in WOM you can train these troops in ANY city not just the closest to the camp, a HUGE improvement. I also really like the mechanic that spawns the lower tier camps.
Not including the Serpents Pact you have the ability to train units from the following:
Darklings:
Empire Only. From Darkling Camp, original spawn point must have spawned a "Darkling Shaman's Army" otherwise the camp is cleared and looted by moving onto it.
Pros:
Cons:
Wildlings:
Kingdom only. From Wildling camp, same spawn method as Darkling camp.
Pros & Cons:
See Darklings, though they are marginal stronger.
Ogres:
Empire Only. Camp starts in play, I think, must be cleared before building.
Trolls:
Kingdom Only. Camp starts in play, I think, must be cleared before building though. Currently bugged.
Dragons:
Both (Kingdom, Storm. Empire, Fell). Camp starts in play, must be cleared before building.
Mercenaries: Both. Bandit camps once a "Bandit Captain's Army" has spawned.
Don’t know, the only time I have built the camps I got nothing new in the “Train” window and as they were part of the cities I couldn’t stand a unit on the camp to see if a new option appeared.
Scions:
Empire Only. Recruitable after researching Scion Temple tech.
My suggestions:
For examples:Darklings could be limited to the basic weapons & leather armour, only allowed Wargs as mounts & lock the Spell Resistance Trait so it cannot be removed. Add the “grants spell” traits to make a Shaman.Ogres limited to one handed blunt & 2 handed (any) only, no mounts, armour or equipment, very limited normal traits. Add new traits for things like “Thick Skin” +1 def per lvl.
No comments L Well on to Serpents Pact then.
Comparing the trained units with wild ones, unfortunately I forgot to screen grab the Ophidians & Forrest Drakes so Heirgmothingy pics will have to do. The Drake does not apperar to have an entry so i'm stuck with the lvl 11 one i spotted.
Ophidians:
Camp costs 100 Guildars.
Training: 2 Diplo, 1 Food & 60 Production.
Max per camp: 3
Trained Unit:
Wild:
So most if its stats are lower, as you might expect from a "domesticated" animal. The loss of 2/3rds of its Hp to me looks like a bug with the con not giving the right amount per point?
Forest Drakes:
Training: 3 Diplo, 5 Food & 250 Production.
Max per camp: 1
Trained:
That Hp HAS to be a bug right? Even if its not the rest of his stats took a major beating from the nerf-bat.
Drakes:
Hp bug again. Hard to compare due to the lvl diff, but trained looks ok to me.
Overall not bad, just the HP bug to fix, some stats boosted and swap diplo capital for their own resource .
Are they worth a Faction Trait? Right now, no. With corrected Hp values maybe, its a completely useless trait if you can't get the camps.
Yeah honestly I don't understand why the creature mechanics are the way they are. Seems pointless. Especially since they're so high in the tech tree.
I don't think they've touched these yet. 0.75 they didn't even have building graphics, they added placeholder buildings in 0.76 so they wouldn't be invisible. Pretty sure their stats are placeholders too.
Would like to be able to build hordes of expendable darklings/wildings...
Some interesting points. There are a couple things I disagree with though:
They don't need an additional resource limitation. There are already enough resources to keep track of, and diplomatic capital does a fine job of keeping the number of them that can be hired in check. The camps themselves could provide a source of diplomatic capital.
Allowing them to be customized could easily result in balance issues where it is always better to train -non-human- type troops for your armies. Customizing to some extent would be okay (like a tech that unlocks a bigger club or something)
Overall I want to see more uses out of these creatures. The civics tree should be useful for more than just a tech crutch. Unlocking bigger groups, and/or stronger types (like warrior troll vs young troll) could be obtained by researching higher levels of technology. The resource required to hire them (diplomatic capital) can be balanced with iron/crystal to limit the buildable forces. Certain creatures, such as dragons could have a diplomatic capital upkeep cost, to prevent hording the map with them.
Building an army of darkling warriors would be super!
I agree!
I really agree that the recruitable critters ought to be more powerful. They were actually decent (well some where) in WOM. Being able to customize darklings/ogres is a must. I understand not customizing a dragon because....its a dragon. How am i going to equip a bloody dragon?.
Diplomatic captial should be an alternate resource for these guys. Like you can recruit the unit for normal cost or pay the capital.
I just played a game where I was severely disappointed by Scions. By the time you really get them, their low unit number (of one) means they are exceptionally fragile. Granted they get more health as they level, but in the meantime you're coddling a diet-champion along. A great deal of this fragility comes from the fact that if defeated, they're flat-out dead rather than just injured as other Champions are, and the difficulty of equipping them with new gear that comes along. You can up-armour them, but if I find a nice piece of magical gear that would suit them perfectly or research a new magical ring I'd like them to have, no such luck.
Edit: Additional: While I understand it may be extremely limited by the engine of the game, I would love to see these creatures recruited with special creature-resource, and as many of them used as mounts as possible. While I imagine an Ogre wouldn't make a very willing mount, using a Drake or Dragon as a mount for a Champion or Scion would be UTTERLY AWESOME.
Replace magic rings with piercings of <magic effect> and have your smiths make him a "club" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_ball
I would say that DiploCap is a good way to pool what could end up to be 10 separate resources into one generic monster resource. There just isn't enough room at the top of the screen for so many more resources.
The lairs and trained creatures are a great idea. They a give diplomatic and civic minded civilization a chance to defend against someone just climbing up the Warfare Tree. The best balance would be getting some really nice units, superior for their tier, but very few. This prevents them from becoming an army. Defense and supplements to a regular army should be the goal. Creatures need to be scary and powerful, requiring a valiant hero to slay them in battle.
It is pretty clear that this area of the game is just not finished yet, so I will hold judgement. I hope the update in the next week or two gives us some idea of their vision for this area. There is just so damn much in this game, I fear for features that might get overlooked.
I said it during WoM ideathons and I'll say it now: I absolutely want to be able to train and equip my useless allies to make them less useless.
By the time I go through the hassle of finding the appropriate lair and get the techs, the random schmucks coming out of my barracks are way better than these exotic critters.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account