how do you use T4 and T5 units?

[daniel1vicentevieira]

I'm asking specifically about the Imperium upkeep, these units don't feel powerful enough to justify it until very very very late in the game. The Dread Reaper is a particular bummer, costs Imperium AND Souls, and feels very underwhelming. An army of Dark Knights or Watchers or any T3 seems just better. What are your thoughts on this?

[Aluminum Elite Master]

T4 and T5 are spotty.

Gold Golems are spear units, IIRC, so they are super-cavarly-killers. I find them pretty solid.

Reaper is sort of bad. I'm not a fan. Totally agree there, though by the time you can get him out, you can usually find ways to get souls pretty easily.

Tyrant Knights are great. Good dmg, lowers morale. Gets a charge bonus. Isn't too easily counter.

Phase Beast is pretty sweet.

Shrine of Smiting is meh. Any of the mythic magic-caster units feel a bit weak because they can usually still be jammed by just having a T1 unit next to them, which then cancels out their 3-action-point abilities.


Overall:

I find T4 and T5 to be imbalanced and still need a bit of work. But beyond that, the imperium is less an issue than the actual utility of the unit... I can declare justified wars, and build the throne tower, and take a few wonders to keep imperium pretty high.

The bigger issue is just the gold/mana cost for T4 and T5, and how sometimes those higher units are sort-of weak.

But yeah, Reaper is especially bad IMO, because IIRC it has no AoE ability, its 'death' ability is just a long-distance assassin ability like a hero could have, and its stats aren't superb for how late it appears.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by daniel1vicentevieira:

how do you use T4 and T5 units?
I'm asking specifically about the Imperium upkeep, these units don't feel powerful enough to justify it until very very very late in the game. The Dread Reaper is a particular bummer, costs Imperium AND Souls, and feels very underwhelming. An army of Dark Knights or Watchers or any T3 seems just better. What are your thoughts on this?

I use them... pretty normal? Yes, the Imperium upkeep can be steep, but in lategame you get so much Imperium anyroads. Unless you plant cities left and right, you have plenty leftover. I think my last game... it was like 120 Imperium per round, including the units, plus almost a thousand every now and then via events.

Their main role in my armies is either tank or trailblazers.

[daniel1vicentevieira]

Yea, the Gold Golem is the only one I liked, actually, a strong son of a ...

But all of them I only feel 'inspired' to make when I already have ~100-something Imperium income and lots of the empire upgrades that I want. Before that, even a 3-7 Imperium upkeep feels kinda crippling for the benefit these units give. And they are available quite soon. Tyrant knight is only marginally better than a Dark Knight with the right enchantments, a Phase Beast is strong but tends to be the first to die in an army that is mostly battle mages...

Reaper needs some inspiration from AoW2, they were awesome there.

[Magic A. I.]

Originally posted by daniel1vicentevieira:

I'm asking specifically about the Imperium upkeep, these units don't feel powerful enough to justify it until very very very late in the game. The Dread Reaper is a particular bummer, costs Imperium AND Souls, and feels very underwhelming. An army of Dark Knights or Watchers or any T3 seems just better. What are your thoughts on this?

Personally, I don't. GG is the only one worth investing in because of its stopping power, and tier III with heroes can do the job just fine otherwise.

[CrUsHeR]

Already wrote this in a recent thread:

Specifically the Mythic units are super-bad, because they do not share any unit class to qualify for unit enchantments. They aren't racial units either, so no transformations.

So all they ever get is the numbers on their info card, plus a couple of points from hero support skills. Assuming you have a hero to spare to babysit a "Reaper".

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Already wrote this in a recent thread:

Specifically the Mythic units are super-bad, because they do not share any unit class to qualify for unit enchantments. They aren't racial units either, so no transformations.

So all they ever get is the numbers on their info card, plus a couple of points from hero support skills. Assuming you have a hero to spare to babysit a "Reaper".

This, too.

The T5 Mythic units backslide a lot if you have the research/mana to buff up T3.



But like I wrote earlier, imperium upkeep shouldn't really be an issue. By the time I can make T4 or T5, I'm usually doing alright for imperium. Just don't start unjustified wars... that's the only thing that usually can drop me below +50 imperium a turn. If the worry is really about imperium, I feel that's less a T4 or T5 unit issue and more of an imperium management issue... late game, I can often field 3 full stacks of T4/T5 without seeing imperium drop to a negative yield.

[daniel1vicentevieira]

I don't usually start unjustified wars, only once I did it against a really painful neighbor... But for comparison, An unjust war eats up ~60% of imperium upkeep, and that's really bad. Let's say instead of an unjust war I build T4-5 units enough to get that same amount in upkeep. Thjat's something like 10 units spread across a number of armies. and they are only a little bit more powerful than T3's with some enchantments, and get worse and worse as the game goes by and T3's get more and more enchants... and I'll delay like hell the empire upgrades, city growth, city annexation... for that? I mean, it's a payable cost, but doesn't feel worth most of the time. They need to either do away with the cost or seriously buff these units.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

Originally posted by daniel1vicentevieira:

I don't usually start unjustified wars, only once I did it against a really painful neighbor... But for comparison, An unjust war eats up ~60% of imperium upkeep, and that's really bad. Let's say instead of an unjust war I build T4-5 units enough to get that same amount in upkeep. Thjat's something like 10 units spread across a number of armies. and they are only a little bit more powerful than T3's with some enchantments, and get worse and worse as the game goes by and T3's get more and more enchants... and I'll delay like hell the empire upgrades, city growth, city annexation... for that? I mean, it's a payable cost, but doesn't feel worth most of the time. They need to either do away with the cost or seriously buff these units.

With Inspiring Leader, though, the support skill, I think you can reduce imperium upkeep as well. For me, I tend to get a whole lot of T4 or T5 pretty easily by late game without that rough of an imperium dip.

But I agree that, yes, there are *some* T4/T5 that aren't that much better than what is available at T3.

The imperium for upgrades and stuff... I usually have spent most of that before even getting to T4 or T5. Only the city cap do I usually need to pay imperium for after hitting the late game techs.

And one final thought: some culture types have weak units at some tiers. The T3 spellshaper (Mystic) is good but is not a solid line-holding melee unit obviously, and neither is their spell-shield at times. And Feudal has the worst spear of all... that peasant pikeman is super weak. So the value of getting to a T4 or T5 quickly is sometimes also dependent on what you have available earlier for that culture. I think the War Engine or whatever the Chaos T4 is called is already available on just their third tome... so that's a handy T4 to use as a stop-gap while waiting to get more enchantments up on my weaker units of some culture types. Meaning: T4 and T5 sometimes are good temporary units to use even if they eventually backslide behind the power of a heavily enchanted T3.

[Howell-Barrex Soldier Ja'kala]

order can generate a ♥♥♥♥ ton of Imperium (my highest so far has been 400 per turn) so the upkeep isn't really a problem

[snuggleform]

Tyrant Knights are extremely good, try stacks of them. They move at 48 speed so if the full stack is mounted the world travel is a lot faster than the standard 32, their demoralizing charge is pretty insane.

Warbreeds are also extremely good; while they lack the mobility of Tyrant Knights, they come with Siegebreaker and are extremely resilient with their regeneration, making them perfect for chaining siege after siege without losing momentum.

Gold Golems may come a bit too late to mass seriously unless you're just goofing off, but adding 1 or 2 to your armies is almost always a good thing because they counter all melee units extremely well, and the AI is bound to use melee units in all but the most narrow of circumstances.

Shrines of Smiting are amazing. You just add 3 or so to your existing armies of Faithful units and bask in the synergy. They have an extremely hard hitting 1 AP nuke that scales with Faithful units. The same tome that shrines of smiting comes with also has a spell that ranks up units, so it's easy to get shrines of smiting to legend rank which makes them even more monstrous than they already are at baseline.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

In terms of synergy, like the post above said:

The Astral/Mystic abilities and tomes really, really work well with Magic Origin units, which some of those T4 and T5 are. Going Astral/Mystic is one way to get a lot out of Magic Origin T4/5 units with just the one spell for 30% more dmg and faster movement... that's A LOT more damage on a late-game Magic Origin summon, lol.

[Aimstrong]

My fav summon is the phase beast for the low maintenance/good efficiency, fast movement, rapid response & deep into enemy territory force projection.

Max 1 or 2 v late game:
-Shrines of smiting for lols and big numbers using 12-13 faithful units in big fights (18 vs 18). They are pretty slow and expensive.
-Golden golems for anti-melee and on steroids anti-large & cavalry. cool status effect immunities (morale included). Again pretty slow and expensive.

[PrawnWonton]

Everyone freaks about the Imperium upkeep, but that is honestly a non-issue. By the time tier 4 and 5 units come online, you've already gotten all your important affinity unlocks.

If you play your cards right, Imperium is never a huge bottleneck unless you are playing a super long game and maybe trying to unlock everything.

Additionally, people love to point out that low tier units with a million enchants are better than high tier units. To that I say, I would hope so. The upkeep for that many buffs is more expensive than a high tier unit, so it should be better at that point.

This game was made to last maybe 60-80 turns, for better or worse. And in that time frame, a couple tier 4 or 5 units are very useful. Once you get to 100+ turns, less so as you will have so many tomes unlocked. But even then, your income should be so absurd that it doesn't really matter anyway.

Ultimately, since the AI is literally incapable of actually sieging cities, and thus never a real threat in any way, it doesn't matter what your army composition is. Build units you think are cool and have fun using.

[jesusjr]

Honestly I only use them as easy auto resolve. When I need extra armies but don't have my lvl up units they are easy summons that win auto resolve far too easily even if not best army make up.

[Fortuna]

I might use one or two for fun, but really I feel no need to use Imperium to defeat AI a little more.