About the Urkan after defeating one in battle

[Nukoolamukmuk]

Note: this post includes spoilers about fighting Urkan

I just defeated a deadly Urkan and its attendant lice (lice??).
I won the battle no problem, but it left the boss Urkan with only a few hitpoints left standing there in the snow looking miserable. Is that a pacified 'native tribe' theoretically? If the player colonizes that province, the Urkan can be assimilated?

The big problem for me were the swarms of enemy armies moving through the province. There were multiple neutral stacks of 5 units leftover from a quest which I was reducing, but I was attacked by 2 enemy factional stacks of 6 units each in 2 battles which destroyed the fragile Urkan before my reinforcing army could protect him, although the Urkan got in a couple of very hard slaps on enemy units before crumbling. I destroyed both enemy armies, losing two of my own veteran units in the combat, but the Urkan was gone. If the fragile Urkan remnant is destroyed, there is no chance to assimilate them (it?) or what? Please advise.

[PhailRaptor]

Urkans can't be assimilated, because their mere presence prevents the region from being colonized while they are rooted. You can uproot them, or relocate them, by using the buttons on the action pane. They are sort of like the Roving Clans' Setske, in that they can be a city or a unit depending on what you tell them to do.

In your case, it sounds like the roving Minor Faction armies were able to defeat it right after you did? Like any army, it takes quite a few turns for the Urkan's health to regenerate. And unlike your cities' Militia, which are replaced at the start of the next turn, the Urkan's Lice take a very long time to replenish. This means that when they are freshly captured through combat, they are extremely vulnerable to further attacks.

Based on your description, I assume that the Minor Faction defeating your Urkan returned the Urkan to it's "wild" state. Their default behavior when released from player control is to deep tunnel through the crust of Auriga to a different region.

[Nukoolamukmuk]

PhailRaptor, thank you for the excellent reply. I didn't know anything about Urkans until reading this. I thought they could move around which terrified me when I first saw the beast come up through the ground near my field army while de-fungalizing a ruin I needed to search for a quest. So the main reason to defeat an Urkan is to colonize a province. The Urkan in my case joined me in battle when my army was attacked by a stack from the giant evil mouse faction (allari or something). The Urkan was on my side in the battle but was destroyed in the fight although I was able to win the fight and another battle after it. The minor faction armies (tetke archers) were in 5 unit stacks which I had been knocking off before de-funalizing the quest ruin but there were still another 4 stacks left of them when the Urkan appeared but they did not engage me or the Urkan and just roamed about the province and seemed afraid of the urkan.

The Urkan after I defeated it seemed to be my faction color and on my side. What happens if I had colonized that province and protected the Urkan remnant?

[Potatocracy]

The Urkan, after you capture it, can be uprooted and moved around, or can teleport (burrow) across the map to uncolonized regions. You can't colonize a region with an Urkan planted there, but if it is in "army mode" then it's fair game. After capturing one in combat, you usually should just teleport it somwhere safe while it heals. Additionally, if your army is weak you can wait for the AI to fight it and capture it, then snipe it while its health is low.

Overall, they are very overtuned right now and can almost completely replace your entire army if you go for all three. They are definitely most useful as combat units, just make sure you burrow them to somewhere safe if they get overwhelmed by enemy units.

[Khardinal]

Originally posted by Potatocracy:

Additionally, if your army is weak you can wait for the AI to fight it and capture it, then snipe it while its health is low.
Overall, they are very overtuned right now

And the AI is not very smart, often they just feed the Urkan free XP.
So he becomes level 10 in no time. Often remaining full health.

Then you show up, donate him 30 of a luxury you bought from the market or traded.

And voila, you have your level 10 Urkan early game.

That can just walk up to enemy capitals and wreck everything in it's path.

[Nukoolamukmuk]

Thanks for replies. Must be nice getting an Urkan as your own army unit to slap around the badguys at will. But I wouldn't trust it in a lategame battle though cause the enemy stacks are full with extremely upgraded troops. I'd probably keep the Urkan as a pet at my capital.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

It strikes me as the sort of unit that should always be used as a reinforcement ala most guardians.

You'll get the hang of them as soon as you catch another and get a chance to read the tooltips, clearing out the other enemies first might be a good idea though.

[Nukoolamukmuk]

Okay. Another Urkan showed up but I have the mushroom clan spreading fungus on one side of my land and the Kapaku on the other volcanizing land so my two field armies are desperately putting out fires and fighting the Kapaku instead of going for the new Urkan. I'm using minotaurs and elven archers (I don't know actual unit names) which are a potent combo for culling the enemy as long as I upgrade them. One of my armies is lead by a Kapaku cavalry hero and the other by a elven archer. I'm starving for money cause I don't have any resource production so I have to buy glass steel and the blue stuff. Sometimes the Kapaku takes over one of my cities and I have to retake it by destroying a Kapaku army. It is kind of like a Stalingrad battle with neither side benefiting from the war despite the dreadful cost to my economy and loss of units in combat and from selling off almost all new units in desperation for money.