Speaking of mass summon spells, how do you guys make use of ivy men spam and corpse construct spam? It doesn't really ever seem to be worth it other than to create a massive choke point in fortresses. Is it really worth the item building to make these summons more efficient?
Corpse constructs, definitely, the things are honestly kinda' amazing. They're superlative and rather impressively gem efficient HP sponges if you stick a couple of the boosters on whoever's summoning 'em,
if you have need for something that's basically just a bundle of health and sod else (and you'll almost certainly have plenty of situations where you will, so having a supply sitting around is nice if you can field 'em
and if you have things that can summon them you have things that can lead them, probably).
Depends a lot of what casters you have, though... folks like the bat doods, who have fairly easy access to A1D1 casters you probably don't have much better to do with makes a solid target. If you've got the items (and a storm spool and the zappy stick are pretty cheap), it's a pretty decent use of their time, and if left alone long enough or enough casters are invested it can give you something that can really jam up an enemy army or five while your actually combat effective stuff gets work done.
Ivy men... well. Let's comparison shop!
and vastly bloat the size of this post in the process :V They're less efficient HP/blocking wise -- they start with 3, but their boosters only total up to +4 with the artifact (and that only if the caster has two heads. Realistically it'll cap at +3, with the artifact), and one of those is the staff, which costs
40 nature gems. Meanwhile the constructs start at 1, but get +5 between the two easy items, another +2 from their expensive booster (staff of storms, still 10 gems less than the treelord stick, and +2 over the lightning rod) and +
10 from the tome. So the likely base investment would be 4 (just the +1 crown, for 68 hp and 4 size 2 bodies per gem, 1 1/3rd squares blocked) vs 6 (150 HP, 6 size 3 bodies per gem,
three squares blocked) per cast, with a kit cost of 5N vs 5E5A -- though it's obvious enough which of those two you're more likely to have the magic access for, heh.
Max output is incredibly telling, though, ha. Vinemen will realistically (very little has two heads, and none of them are worth using to make vinemen -- vine
ogres, maybe, but not men. Conceptually you could be using a unit that has built in ivy lord but again if you've got them they probably have a hell of a lot better things to do than summon vinemen... even animists) top out at 6 per batch (102 total hp, 6 size 2 bodies, 2 squares), while the constructs top out at
18 (450 total hp, 18 size 3 bodies, 9 squares), with N50 (max path N6) vs 45A10D (max paths A5D2; and that only loses on 2 constructs (50 HP, 1 square) if you want to swap 30 of that A for 5E and bring the max paths down to A2D2E1). If what you're after is a lump of HP to get in the way, corpse constructs are ridiculously more efficient gem wise, even with just the base boosted loadout. Providing you have access.
Stat wise, the vine men have a bit of protection and 2 attacks (which with the size two makes them theoretically more effective at actually damaging larger targets, but functionally they're not going to be hitting much anyway so *shrugs*), and a bit of attack type resistance, but they lose out on basically everything else, save being
not undead (which can indeed be an issue, as the constructs' MR is shite. Vinemen's only one better but they don't have banish to deal with, either)... though they
are magic beings, which means it's probably even harder to get commanders for 'em.
... tl;dr: If you're comparing the two the vine men are a
lot easier to get to*, but broadly speaking the corpse constructs are a hell of a lot more effective at what you're going to be using them for, more or less always and on every front. Or, saying it another way, you've probably got vine men but spending the gems on them is pretty iffy (among other considerations, you've probably got a lot of better things to be spending the N gems on), whereas you probably
don't have constructs but if you
do there's not terribly many better uses out there for one air gem and some rando A1D1 caster with a couple trinkets on it.
So yeah. Constructs are worth investing in boosters in, imo, and I
definitely try to have a handful of spool/rod summoners set on monthly if I've got access. Vine men... not so much. They're still decent chaff, but unlike the constructs they're not really
amazing chaff. Though you're a lot more likely to incidentally end up with their boosters and/or N1 casters, so if you don't actually have to go out of your way for it, it probably won't exactly hurt. Much.
*Just N, only N1 if you want to pump out 4 at a time, vs A1D1E1 if you want 6 constructs a go -- though you're still more gem efficient on HP and roughly on par with obstruction with just 3 constructs via spool and no E access.
and now I have wall of text'd over corpse constructs. folks, i may like corpse constructs i never really get to use them but bloody hell they're just great
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Topic: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension (Read 542940 times)