Units/heroes feel too uncontrolled and random?

[themendios]

I really like this game and thus far this is my only complaint (besides archers being sticky in combat sometimes like they won't fire and I have to cycle all the toggles to get them to stop advancing and just shoot).

It doesn't matter what you play, you always get more or less the same heroes / same units no matter what. I want some evil-ass Unseelie heroes or at least the black knights when I go Tyrant and vice versa.

Plus the units just feel too random, was rolling with a pretty good setup but keep trying random units as they come in (ie the single unit of Giants, Unseelie Warriors) - but I could get them no matter what I was if I just paid and/or picked the right choices.

I wish I could recruit something other than my basic units even if it's only one place on the map - I allied with the Smiling Prince and thought maybe if I went over to that village I could recruit Seelie but nope just the same old crap. Plus he attacked me a couple turns later? At least I am assuming that's who 'Prince of the Sidhe' is. I'm not even sure wtf allying with the Smiling Prince even does, to be honest.

Maybe I just need to play the Druid campaign? Even that, the starting heroes are underwhelming! I dunno, maybe I'm not far enough into the game - I keep restarting to see if I can go another direction but by the time I'm on Stronghold #2 I've always got the same heroes +-1 and the same units +-1-2 random odd units.

I dunno, maybe I'm not far enough along but I can't help feeling that no matter what direction I pick I end up with the same stuff.

I guess it's less units feel random than units feel uncontrolled in that I pretty much have zero say on what units I will end up using. I hope KA2 lets you pick your starting knight at least!

 

[unmerged(248976)]

You can recruit different type of units depending on your morality and faith. You can check it, just open the Morality Chart and click on the Units tab. You get most of your heroes from the Objectives and these have a strong relation with your morality, so most of the heroes are very different in theTyrant/Righteous or Old Faith/Christian way. When I followed the Old Faith/Tyrant way, later in the game I got an Unseelie hero and I could recruit Unseelie troops.

 

[Arilou]

Yep. You'll get different types of units and heroes as you go along. Especially book 3 pretty much features a bunch of quests where the goal is to gather up knights, usually there's one a couple variations. (Most notably are Lancelot (Rightful) Mordred (Tyrant) Galahad (Christian) and Merlin (Old Faith)) though there are a bunch of others.

There really are a lot of knights, all over the place on the morality spectrum. And yes, you can get sidhe to join you as well, depending on the events that pops up.

Remember also that there's a penalty for using units that aren't of "your own" morality. (using sidhe units as a christian, unseelie as rightful, etc.)

 

[themendios]

Thanks for the replies - so basically when I can recruit the extra unit types I can recruit them anywhere? I remember hanging onto the one Marauder unit I got randomly forever because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't recruit them with something like 5-6 Tyrant, though I could recruit Brigands. The unit tech tree doesn't have any of those on it so I'm not really understanding what the conditions are (and I didn't see them on the morality chart either but maybe missed em)

Regarding the knights maybe it's just that your starting guy is so all-important and it feels like the next few (which will be the rest of your main army heroes for a long time) are all on rails with minor deviances. Then again I've mostly gone through the scripted stuff maybe it gets more free-form later.

 

[Novacat]

Regarding Heroes, it really depends... in the Main campaign, Kay is very important because not only are Warlords extremely rare, but Kay is the only hero in the game whom you can develop to your liking, and most of the warlords actually suck pretty bad, Lucan is missing passive leader buffs like Victorious Army and Bedivere has all his skill points in the wrong skills. The only hero that is arguably better than Kay is Brandelis, and only if you are going Old Faith because of Sanctuary (otherwise Kay is better).

Aside from Kay, though, most of the better heroes are actually late-game...

Regarding DLC... The DLC actually kind of annoys me because most of the campaign heroes are copypasta (As Welsh you get three heroes that are exactly the same, all druids in white robes, and the Warlord you get after Virconium looks exactly the same as the Warlord you start with), you actually get more variety from recruiting heroes off hero diplomacy, or even recruiting Sidhe/Christian heroes, then you do from events. But in terms of skills all of the DLC heroes range from mediocre to terrible. Your best hope is that you get heroes at a low level, before the AI has a chance to screw up their skill picks.

Remember also that there's a penalty for using units that aren't of "your own" morality. (using sidhe units as a christian, unseelie as rightful, etc.)

There is no penalty, actually. The only penalty comes into play would be using two differing moralities in the same army. Sidhe/Christian, Seelie/Unseelie, Tyrant/Rightful are some examples.

So you could be a Old Faith/Rightful king building an entire army around Christian/Tyrant units, as long as you do not use any Seelie/Unseelie/Rightful units in that army, it will have no penalties at all.

so basically when I can recruit the extra unit types I can recruit them anywhere? I remember hanging onto the one Marauder unit I got randomly forever because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't recruit them with something like 5-6 Tyrant, though I could recruit Brigands. The unit tech tree doesn't have any of those on it so I'm not really understanding what the conditions are (and I didn't see them on the morality chart either but maybe missed em)

You missed them. Although, one unfortunate bit about the Rightful/Tyrant units is that half of them will not even show up unless you go Christian. If you go Old Faith, the only Tyrant/Rightful units you will see are Golden Gryphons/Raven Guard, and Yeomen/Brigands. You will never see Marksmen, Sentinels, Wasteland Warriors, or Marauders, as they all require Christianity.

But your morality choice will have a huge effect later on weither you will side with the Seelie or Unseelie, so I suppose thats a tradeoff. Too bad the Born/breed units are complete turds though.

 

[Arilou]

If you check the morality chart on the campaign screen (not on your heroes) you'll see a "point of light" at some point, basically there's an axis where old faith/christian is the left-right and Rightful/tyrant is the up-down. If a unit is "between" the center and where your "point of light" is you can recruit it. Otherwise you can only get them via special stuff. You also get special abilities, etc. from this morality chart, and some bonus spells.

Remember that even one of the earliest quests will give you two different knights, with different spells. (Balan or Balin)

 

[themendios]

Thanks for all the help, started over again today and feel like I got a pretty good handle now, not even using any special units this time and being very picky which heroes I keep (so far just Dagonet and Gerald who both rock). Actually finding heavy infantry and archers to be absolutely devastating. Especially once I get longshields to just plug up chokepoints.

Also that robber baron (I think?) Warlord Morlon is awesome and is mostly why I feel good about it this time. Just have Lucan sitting in a knight tent by himself raising liege lord skills cuz now I'm super broke thanks to higher tier/experience supertroops (and an addiction to AutoBattle) while Old Faith Tyrant Kay/Dagonet and Morlon/Gerald tear up the countryside. Still got 2 points to go to make Dagonet not Rightful any more.

By the way, Rightful is an odd choice when Righteous is not far away!

 

[Arilou]

But your morality choice will have a huge effect later on weither you will side with the Seelie or Unseelie, so I suppose thats a tradeoff. Too bad the Born/breed units are complete turds though.

The breeds certainly aren't. Sure, warriors are better, but Winterbreed still pack a lot of punch if you teleport them around.

 

[Novacat]

The breeds certainly aren't. Sure, warriors are better, but Winterbreed still pack a lot of punch if you teleport them around.

The problem is that they cannot teleport around on their own like warriors can, Golden Gryphons/Raven Guards (which are available at around the same time, earlier if you abuse disaster events) are much better at brute force (only marginally lower stats per soldier, but 36-man armies as opposed to 24-man armies), and they do not get sidhe path at all which means that they need a hero with sidhe roads to teleport.

 

[Arilou]

The problem is that they cannot teleport around on their own like warriors can, Golden Gryphons/Raven Guards (which are available at around the same time, earlier if you abuse disaster events) are much better at brute force (only marginally lower stats per soldier, but 36-man armies as opposed to 24-man armies), and they do not get sidhe path at all which means that they need a hero with sidhe roads to teleport.

They do get pathwalker though, which helps a lot early on. (before you can beef up the mana of your champions)

 

[themendios]

There is no penalty, actually. The only penalty comes into play would be using two differing moralities in the same army. Sidhe/Christian, Seelie/Unseelie, Tyrant/Rightful are some examples.

Out of curiosity, I noted (with a bit of a laugh) that Giants are Orkney, is there an opposite? Also can you ever recruit them?

Giants are pretty nice, wargs are pretty underwhelming despite being on paper pretty damn good, they usually die instantly to arrow fire even in horde formation before they can ever use those bonuses.

 

[Arilou]

Out of curiosity, I noted (with a bit of a laugh) that Giants are Orkney, is there an opposite? Also can you ever recruit them?

Giants are pretty nice, wargs are pretty underwhelming despite being on paper pretty damn good, they usually die instantly to arrow fire even in horde formation before they can ever use those bonuses.

I don't think the "cultural" units (Saxon/Briton/Welsh) have an alignment per se, but not sure.

There's a couple instances you can recruit giants, but only via events/quests, AFAIK.

 

[Novacat]

Out of curiosity, I noted (with a bit of a laugh) that Giants are Orkney, is there an opposite? Also can you ever recruit them?

Giants are pretty nice, wargs are pretty underwhelming despite being on paper pretty damn good, they usually die instantly to arrow fire even in horde formation before they can ever use those bonuses.

As said, not sure if Cultural units have opposites, or if what their opposites would be. Might be one for Welsh/Saxon, but I never tested it.

They do get pathwalker though, which helps a lot early on. (before you can beef up the mana of your champions)

Never liked sidhe roads, preferred sidhe path/shifting pools...

 

[Kjeld]

Never had any morale penalty with giants (or other orkney) in my armies, I am pretty sure they are neutral.

Sure, breed/born are not as good as sidhe, but they are accessible early in the game (you'll even get some as quest rewards/hero retinues before you have the morality to build them) and have, as Arilou pointed out, the great pathwalker skill that allow you to efficiently use sidhe road tactics (with heroes) effectively in the early/mid game - and they have it right at level 1.

Sure, self teleporting Seelie/Unseelie are better, but they are recruited much later in the game, and need experience to actually get the ability (and the pool spell is harder to get too). Plus costs, upkeed considerations ...

So they are maybe not top "endgame" units, but until you get there (and in my experience, the early/mid game is actually more difficult than the rest), they are useful. But even later in the game, you can still leverage your experienced, veteran "changelings", because they are effective in the specific weather conditions that match your sidhe troop strength (storm for seelie, darkness for unseelie), and can be included without drawbacks in armies that will use these specific tactics.