The Airship

[Stoan]

The Greywatch Airship is absolutely fantastic, one of the better city rewards. Airship should be a priority for midgame any playthrough.

[Mindeveler]

What do you even do with it?
It has tiny radius without might amplifiers, it's slow (and unlike the tower, its speed can't even be buffed).
At first I thought "wow, cool" too, but then for the lack of better uses I just sent it to the corner of the map to explore a handful of locations I left unexplored.

It can be used to cover 1 landmark location (like Niethalf's statue or adamantium mine) but if you have instant castle it's the second worst reward after herb garden imo.

[PewSquare]

Yo, don't be dissing on my bro herb garden. (i wish it were better)

[Drakilian]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

What do you even do with it?
It has tiny radius without might amplifiers, it's slow (and unlike the tower, its speed can't even be buffed).
At first I thought "wow, cool" too, but then for the lack of better uses I just sent it to the corner of the map to explore a handful of locations I left unexplored.

It can be used to cover 1 landmark location (like Niethalf's statue or adamantium mine) but if you have instant castle it's the second worst reward after herb garden imo.

Even if it has a radius of a single tile being able to hold an extra landmark is very nice

[Celeborn]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

What do you even do with it?
It has tiny radius without might amplifiers, it's slow (and unlike the tower, its speed can't even be buffed).
At first I thought "wow, cool" too, but then for the lack of better uses I just sent it to the corner of the map to explore a handful of locations I left unexplored.

It can be used to cover 1 landmark location (like Niethalf's statue or adamantium mine) but if you have instant castle it's the second worst reward after herb garden imo.

Like said it's essentially able to hold onto a landmark if dont have the fortress spell which isn't always possible to get even though can guarantee getting earth pages. Don't go dissing the herb garden haven't played alchemist near that in a bit but from memory it was really good in giving the healing root or whatever plant I found lacking. Healing root is good item in itself was popping those every tough battle which would help turn it around, but also provides decent amount life essence.

[HozzMidnight]

The Herb Garden is terrible. It's easy to be swimming in Elven Healroot without it. A lot of the tower rooms suck but Herb Garden is one of the worst IMO. That said, I have never actually built it so I don't know what the upgrades are but I can't imagine they make it worth it when room slots are at such a premium.

[Celeborn]

Originally posted by HozzMidnight:

The Herb Garden is terrible. It's easy to be swimming in Elven Healroot without it. A lot of the tower rooms suck but Herb Garden is one of the worst IMO. That said, I have never actually built it so I don't know what the upgrades are but I can't imagine they make it worth it when room slots are at such a premium.

Lot of my runs I never get healroot and when did have it pretty much could spam use in whatever battle (like 40 stockpile). The room gives you whatever plant you want by building extension. It just makes easier to get whatever plant you would need for crafting. I don't play alchemist enough/if do rp restricting where I go(was only able to be on west coast territory with demon lands being the endpoints of expansion and was guardian). I don't think I play alchemist as nature pages often if do play them usually as something else. So maybe why I don't get healroot since believe only really get from the nodes that heal stack.

[Darial]

The airship's domain creates a portable wisp spawning point and teleportation point once you have the spell. Very useful in areas where you don't have a lodge or captured Allfire node to generate domain.

[Stoan]

The airship can carry other units. This is really, really powerful if used properly. A stack can use its entire movement ending up on the ship, which can then also move. This makes for a very maneuverable army, particularly useful for a scout army. The tiny mobile domain is not only a useful teleporter location, but it also can give your army powerful buffs and simultaneously weaken enemies. If you can have every fight in your domain- do it.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by Stoan:

The airship can carry other units. This is really, really powerful if used properly. A stack can use its entire movement ending up on the ship, which can then also move. This makes for a very maneuverable army, particularly useful for a scout army.

Oh wow, my army will move extra 6 or so tiles once.
Why once? Because on the next turn the party will be far ahead of the ship. You can move your party twice but you can't move your ship twice.
And what a coincidence that the ship was waiting for my stack exactly at a point where it would run out of its movement points. Given its own low speed, it's a miracle it managed to be at a place where it was most needed.

Also e.g. artificer parties can relatively easily reach 15-20 speed (and much more by the end of the game since the moment you start mass producing speed glyphs). The ship is nothing but hindrance, a damn turtle.

[Stoan]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

Originally posted by Stoan:

The airship can carry other units. This is really, really powerful if used properly. A stack can use its entire movement ending up on the ship, which can then also move. This makes for a very maneuverable army, particularly useful for a scout army.

Oh wow, my army will move extra 6 or so tiles once.
Why once? Because on the next turn the party will be far ahead of the ship. You can move your party twice but you can't move your ship twice.
And what a coincidence that the ship was waiting for my stack exactly at a point where it would run out of its movement points. Given its own low speed, it's a miracle it managed to be at a place where it was most needed.

Also e.g. artificer parties can relatively easily reach 15-20 speed (and much more by the end of the game since the moment you start mass producing speed glyphs). The ship is nothing but hindrance, a damn turtle.

Apples are nice, but they do not negate oranges. Carry movement allows a hero to scout out tangentially from their main movement direction. Artificer parties that are using that many group speed glyphs are missing out on more important buffs such as damage immunities, unlimited retaliation, lifesteal, and damage boosters. Movement spells are not available in every playthrough either.

[Mindeveler]

Even 1 corrupted speed glyph per unit in, say, a 7-unit party = +18 speed.
Everything else can be filled with other glyphs if you even need those and if 1 t3 unit with vampiric glyph per party isn't enough to get the job done.

The suggested ship/scout synergy is an extremely hypothetical situation that won't work in an actual game. If your speed is, say, 8, well, resources aren't lying exactly 4 tiles from your ship's movement line.
Trying to coordinate the movement of the ship with the movement of your party means that you'll either have to return back to the ship each turn (instead of overall moving diagonally) or the ship will still spend half of its turn moving forward to grab you further down the path of exploration. Which means you'll get like what? extra 2-3 movement points per turn as a result of some extreme micromanagement?

The ship is extremely slow and its speed can't be buffed. It's not really viable for any dynamic purposes. You want domain's bonuses? Get your tower with you, it's faster. You want to get your wisps to some distant nodes? Spawn them and make them fly there, it will be faster.
The ship's best use is just being a free "instant castle" to occupy 1 more landmark for you and stay there permanently.

[Syiss]

I used to clean up a lot of smaller resource node groupings that weren't worth dropping a lodge or castle on. Of course this was with 3 Might Amplifiers running so it had a pretty decent range on it.

[Stoan]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

Even 1 corrupted speed glyph per unit in, say, a 7-unit party = +18 speed.
Everything else can be filled with other glyphs if you even need those and if 1 t3 unit with vampiric glyph per party isn't enough to get the job done.

1 glyph per unit is a truly massive missed opportunity. If you can afford a glyph spot on *each* of your units in your main army, something is deeply weird. Do you really do without lifesteal/ damage immunity/resistance/ free upkeep/ damage boost?

The suggested ship/scout synergy is an extremely hypothetical situation that won't work in an actual game. If your speed is, say, 8, well, resources aren't lying exactly 4 tiles from your ship's movement line.
Trying to coordinate the movement of the ship with the movement of your party means that you'll either have to return back to the ship each turn (instead of overall moving diagonally) or the ship will still spend half of its turn moving forward to grab you further down the path of exploration. Which means you'll get like what? extra 2-3 movement points per turn as a result of some extreme micromanagement?

extra 6 movement per turn is how it has worked out in practice for me- if your micromanaging is only getting you 2-3 you are doing it wrong

[Vvv]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

Originally posted by Stoan:

The airship can carry other units. This is really, really powerful if used properly. A stack can use its entire movement ending up on the ship, which can then also move. This makes for a very maneuverable army, particularly useful for a scout army.

Oh wow, my army will move extra 6 or so tiles once.
Why once? Because on the next turn the party will be far ahead of the ship. You can move your party twice but you can't move your ship twice.
And what a coincidence that the ship was waiting for my stack exactly at a point where it would run out of its movement points. Given its own low speed, it's a miracle it managed to be at a place where it was most needed.

Also e.g. artificer parties can relatively easily reach 15-20 speed (and much more by the end of the game since the moment you start mass producing speed glyphs). The ship is nothing but hindrance, a damn turtle.

Lmao, the airship "Peak of dwarven ingenuity". What's so special about it?

IT FLOATS 😁

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by Stoan:

1 glyph per unit is a truly massive missed opportunity. If you can afford a glyph spot on *each* of your units in your main army, something is deeply weird. Do you really do without lifesteal/ damage immunity/resistance/ free upkeep/ damage boost?

Something's deeply weird if you think you need each and every one of your units to be fully stacked with combat runes in the current version of the game.
Just a single (!) thicc t3/t4 unit (ragehammers, keepers, trolls, haunted armor, titans, griffons etc.) per stack with 100% lifesteal & unlimited retaliation is enough to win most fights (2 of them are already overkill). And you still have the 3rd (from spell) and the 4th (from levelups if you're lucky or use the mod) glyph slots to use on other glyphs.
Not to mention some units like shaper golems have 5 glyph slots.

Originally posted by Stoan:

extra 6 movement per turn is how it has worked out in practice for me- if your micromanaging is only getting you 2-3 you are doing it wrong

i'll never believe it until I see it.
Show me a video of like 6 consequtive turns where you manage to get +6 movement per turn from that slowpoke ship which you wouldn't be able to get otherwise (i.e. just by moving forward instead of keeping returning back to the ship) on every turn.