Are TK Dynasty Lords worth it?

[Aenarion]

They have some nice bonuses, but you are unlikely to be able to afford the canopic jar cost until you're some way into the game, by which time you've levelled up a regular lord or two. Is it worth getting them anyway or should you generally spend the jars on something else?

[Red Dragon]

if you play them with the units they buff, they can be incredibly strong. I had an all ushabti/great bows army with the lord that buffs them and the advisors as well ... worst thing that happened to me was loosing one unit in a fight against a nasty lizardmen army and their reinforcemennts. 200 jars are actually not that difficult to collect, since a victory against even a small army will give you 30 (which is much more valuable than the movement buff and 100+ gold that you could choose as well)

[Ashantai]

Lamizzash especially gets beastly Ushabti. Wakhaf also is quite good too. The others are better than regular lords, but only get them if you have the jars. By turn 100 of this game I have 50+ coming in a turn before battle harvesting so I can afford it.

[Aenarion]

Thanks, it was more super early (first 30 turns), when you're short of jars, that I was unsure. It doesn't take long to get to 200, the issue is whether the lord is how you should spend your first 200. I think it probably is.

Related question - what do you think about completing the techs (at least the ones with no jar cost) in each dynasty vs rushing the next dynasty? It's basically a quality vs quantity question. You will complete everything faster if you complete the techs first due to the -30% research nerf per dynasty, but there's something appealing about having as many no upkeep armies as possible...

[hammerinn]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

if you play them with the units they buff, they can be incredibly strong. I had an all ushabti/great bows army with the lord that buffs them and the advisors as well ... worst thing that happened to me was loosing one unit in a fight against a nasty lizardmen army and their reinforcemennts. 200 jars are actually not that difficult to collect, since a victory against even a small army will give you 30 (which is much more valuable than the movement buff and 100+ gold that you could choose as well)

When you attack with tk, always kill the general. You can get 3 retreats. Great for jar collection.

[harleyquinrazer]

I haven't actually found it difficult to acquire jars since I don't really spend on the mortuary cult until much later. That said, once players get to the fourth dynasty there's little need to rush for more since there's diminishing returns and only four of the dynasty lords are really worth getting for their traits alone.

It certainly helps players to invest in at least one canopic jar per lord/hero as early as possible since the early investment pays off nicely later on, especially when the bone giant structures start coming into play. I don't bother with normal tomb king lords since I can get the dynasty ones straight off the bat and can make use of their immortality immediately.

[kamikharzeeh]

really love them. most of them have supergood faction traits and enable further tech. found it no issue to get the canoptic jars despite playing on max difficulty :) they are treated as legendary lords and i think their melee skills are better than those of regular TK lords.

u need many canoptic jar horders anyways, at some point u get loads of that stuff each turn. for example the necrotects u bunker at your cashCow-city to boost income have no other use than *3 canoptic jar horder + 3* boost income :D

[SClark92]

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

Thanks, it was more super early (first 30 turns), when you're short of jars, that I was unsure. It doesn't take long to get to 200, the issue is whether the lord is how you should spend your first 200. I think it probably is.

Related question - what do you think about completing the techs (at least the ones with no jar cost) in each dynasty vs rushing the next dynasty? It's basically a quality vs quantity question. You will complete everything faster if you complete the techs first due to the -30% research nerf per dynasty, but there's something appealing about having as many no upkeep armies as possible...

I find it helpful to think of the %/fraction of a tech/dynasty you are researching. In this way getting a tech down to one turn remaining is helpful as it means you can then switch to researching dynasties and even when you get that 30% penalty the original tech will still probably only take one turn to complete (unless you are getting down to 40% overall research rate, which you shouldn't be).

Eg. Option One)Three techs each take 6 turns @ 100%; Next Dynast takes 12 turns @ 100%, researching all tech then dynasty would take 30 turns, so you are waiting 30 turns before a new army.

Option Two) Unlocking the Dynasty First will take 12 turns and cut your research rate to 70%, meaning each of the techs will now take 9 turns to research, so you will need 39 turns in total to research the dynasty and techs.

Option Three) You spend 15 turns researching each tech down to one turn remaining, then research the Dynasty, in 27 turns you have your extra army slt, but the techs will still only need one turn to complete. You get your army three turns earlier than in option one and the techs+dynasty still takes the same overall.

Obviously there are choices to be made depending on your own preferences/army comp/and need for another army slot. But remembering that one turn of research @100% is worth three turns @40% is a good way to think about it. So researching evenly across dynasties withouth completing them and then finishing all six over six-eight turns will get you all six faster, but you will have to wait for longer with only one army.

[Aenarion]

^ the problem there is you're not getting access to any of the upgrades until much later. I see the upside in terms of overall research time, but still, if it's worth spending five turns researching a tech, it's probably worth it to spend another turn to actually unlock the benefit.

[SClark92]

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

^ the problem there is you're not getting access to any of the upgrades until much later. I see the upside in terms of overall research time, but still, if it's worth spending five turns researching a tech, it's probably worth it to spend another turn to actually unlock the benefit. [/q
As I said it depends on your preferences and where you are in the game. A tech that improves warsphinx when you only have one or two is probably less valuable than a new army. Whereas the tech to ipmprove your tomb guards is probably a priority if you already have them as your main infantry line. And you can always 'buy' new army slots for gold and jars in the crafting section.

[SClark92]

Originally posted by SClark92:

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

^ the problem there is you're not getting access to any of the upgrades until much later. I see the upside in terms of overall research time, but still, if it's worth spending five turns researching a tech, it's probably worth it to spend another turn to actually unlock the benefit.

As I said it depends on your preferences and where you are in the game. A tech that improves warsphinx when you only have one or two is probably less valuable than a new army. Whereas the tech to ipmprove your tomb guards is probably a priority if you already have them as your main infantry line. And you can always 'buy' new army slots for gold and jars in the crafting section.

[Aenarion]

^ I suppose the strategy is applicable to a specific kind of unit that you're not using much now, but will be in the fairly near future.

[Cacomistle]

I think for the upgrades its too conditional to make a definitive statement. Obviously don't spend your upgrades on units you aren't using. Personally, I go for 2 extra lords as fast as possible, and always go for Lamizzash first so I can level him quickly since regarldess of my LL his stacks is always the strongest in my faction. The army techs there aren't particularly useful early game, and I think its more useful to have 3 trash stacks than 2 slightly above trash stacks early game.


After that, I usually get relevant army techs, and I'll start researching 2 dynasties at once. Sometimes if I don't have any immediate need for a 3rd stack, I might put a few points into a new dynasty before I finish my second dynasty (not usually the army techs since as I said the ones for Lamizzash aren't particularly great early). Its not a huge cut, but it does cut down on overall research time. And I'll start getting relevant techs (techs for units I have like 5-10 or more of), and finish the techs for my 4th and 5th stack close to the same time.

I did that specifically on Arkhan, where my campaign before on Settra I was just researching what was interesting as it was my first campaign on them. I think Arkhan specifically its good to prioritize extra stacks, because the vampire counts units come in reallly large numbers from the building and don't get affected by any tech. Which means have to use far fewer skeleton warriors and such, and likely fewer units will be affected by techs. Playing another lord it might be better to go for the dynasty with the tech that improves skeleton warriors first, I think that might be the same one as for chariots which are way more cost effective than the infantry building.

[Bladiumdragon]

Originally posted by Ashantai:

Lamizzash especially gets beastly Ushabti. Wakhaf also is quite good too. The others are better than regular lords, but only get them if you have the jars. By turn 100 of this game I have 50+ coming in a turn before battle harvesting so I can afford it.

Oh yeah. Lahmizzash buffs them to hell, then you add to that his regular lord traits that buff them, the research, and then the research at the end of the tree and you have around 60+ melee attack and defense ushabti.