Tips for New Undead players.

First of all Grats on picking Undead, now you have the right to use the Farao smiley next to your name.

If you are reading this, chances are you joined an easy game and had your... army handed to you by the grassleaker Elves , the drunkard Dorfs or the Knights who say Ni! Ni! Wondering if you made a mistake you run to your library to read the manual that came with your minions. You librarian, Google the allknowing git, handed you a bundle of books (most of detailed human female anatomy) and the Guide to Udead by Mort .

First unit you get are the skeletons. The backbone of any Undead army, they are legendary...for their weakness.
Don't cry, don't despair it gets better. First thing to remember about them is that they are cheap and 25 of them in every legion (yes you are , you can call em legions instead of regiments), they have a high morale (they are too stupid to figure out that they are losing) and they get 7 as Reaction (they hit faster than all Light melee).

That means two things: a)They are the perfect Legion to place Heroes in and b) when you flank AND get flanked by the
will flee before your halfwits realise they got half-slaughtered. Don't pursue the they are great at running away, kill the as they try to jump above the grass and pebbles to get away from you.
When they get to level 3 (two stars! TWO I tell you), they get a very very good racial (police academy pun intended) that allows them to not die 20% or the time (treat them like they are 30 instead of 25 from now on).

Next thing you get are the skeleton archers. You had the bright idea to send em to kill archers and they got slaughtered. You cry of despair echoed through Region 51 (the one with the bridge), since then that place is called Lammoth, everyone joining a battle there can still hear your curse "Don't die you gits!".

Back to the drawing board again! Archers get a racial at level 3 (two stars I tell you, TWO) that allows their missile related attacks to hit with more strength. And that means two things again a) They are better against high endurance targets and b) Heroes don't get this bonus so you nerf their dmg by placing a hero among them.
The hidden benefit however is c) when you shoot at a unit engaged in melee you have reasonable chances to hit your own troops, your melee troops don't flee,are more AND have a chance to not die because they don't feel like it. So kill the enemy infantries by shooting your troops and theirs at the same time. When your infantry is free charge the enemy archers, don't forget the Evil laughter (practise that while you wait for your researches)

Then come the Necros! An undead death-trap of spears and shields in phalanx formation. You read the manual and find out they have 2 life each and are 25 in every legion. You try them in pve and they lay waste to everything, you get cocky and join PvP. Chances are you run onto an whose Horse was stolen by a girl who likes with a bit of mud on their faces. His archers decimate your deathtrap of Doom! You suddenly hear your old curse "Don't die you gits!" and the field is lost.

Once again back to the drawing board. A scream echoes from you tower... "Whaaaaaaaaat? Movement 10? Oh crap!" Yep your death-trap of spears and shields in phalanx formation can't run. When you have any number of them in your army YOU BLOODY WAIT BEHIND SOMETHING TILL THE ENEMY COMES FOR YOU!
When they get to level 3 (two stars I tell you, TWO!) They force the enemy to do a morale check, if they fail they can't hit for squat! So break your enemies takes a higher priority than staying alive! Shoot into melee with your archers, flank with your skellies, anything, make sure they suffer loses. After they lose this check you can switch targets with your archers, the enemy is too broken to fight back.
Heroes in this legion can make the unit better, but not by a lot. A high lvl hero inside the Skeleton ranks makes the unit hit like 5 lvls higher, Necros on the other hand are almost as good as heroes on their own.

Next legion you get is not a legion, it is the bloody cavalry! The Nergals!
You get them, you join a pve game you charge your enemies, they get slaughtered! As always you cry etc. for some strange reason you still need tips so you continue reading this. With tears in your eyes you mutter "But cavalry is always better than infantry, it always has been!" Yes that is true, what is also true is that it is more expensive so you get four riders. If you had 25 they whould decimate everything, but you have 4.

There are two things to remember about cavalry:a) It loses 1vs1 vs everything except archers. b) They are four, meaning for every one you lose, you also lose 25% ouf your dmg output. At level three (no more, no less. Unless you proseed to 6 in which case it improves. ANd how many stars is that???) They have a chance to kill two people instead of one every time they hit. This makes them the fastest way to kill archers and artillery AND get out of there fast enough. If there are no more ranged units on the battlefield, flank or rear charge the enemy infantries.

And the canons of destruction have begun. A bit later you get the Bonethrower.
This wonder on engineering (and infused with necromancy) allows you to shoot at things near the horison and behind houses, towers, lakes etc. It doesn't aim very well (it usually hits the house instead of the armies behind it) BUT WHEN IT HITS IT DECIMATES. If you have one you drop your anchors and don't move from you possistion. Let them come, you have all the time in the world. If you have time, hide it behind an obstakle. Kill archers cause they will kill it fast. Also usefull here is the light infantry. Send one of them to attack the enemy in miod field. Ofcourse it will die but remember....IT IS CHEAP AND EXPENDABLE AND DOESN'T FLEE (a lot). Untill the 10 enemy regiments kill it your bonethrower ill have claimed half their lives.
At level three.... it doesn't gain anything atm. But it doesn't need to.

And this concludes the Guide to Udead by Mort .
On a serious note, the Undead army has extreme strengths and weaknesses, if you don't exploit your strengths you will never win against an equally good oppoment. While other armies have to be better than their oppoments, you can just exploit exeptable losses and shoot your guys, no moral delema here they are already dead.

On my god the typos!

good read!

Nice guide Mort!

But what is a grassleaker? And why do Elves look like this -->

I have no idea what gressleaker is, but it sounds insulting, gives a vivid image of what loving plants too much will do to your number 2 AND promotes in-game racism.

As for the bunny it is because you run too fast.

Great post!

I'll throw my hat into the ring here. Undead need a little tuning.

They start off very, very weak. You will lose to everything 1 on 1, no matter what it is. 2 on 1 flanking on easy, you will still take heavy losses even if you win. Undead starting units are very, very weak.

They do, however, have more skellies per unit. This was intended as a bonus, but it isnt. As each individual skelly is weaker, you will take heavier losses (even proportionally) versus other races, and it will be costly in gold and time to repair them. Yo will be forced to play easy battles far longer to level up your units, not even able to win the normal questing battles in your first day of play. Again, because of the increased time and gold in healing.

My advice, having played them high enough to get over the hump: Dont play them. They have no real advantages later as they still suffer the above problems, and at early stages it is crippling. reroll, play something else. But if you are forced to play them, or you have some inherent personality defect where you like aabuse, here is my advice...

1. Level your gold production building. Alot. You will need more gold early than other races.
2. Forget about doing normal battles. Fight on easy until your units are level 2, and then try the waters on normal.
3. Until they get rid of the nasty durability stuff, forget equipment entirely. You wont be able to afford it anyway. Sell the shard, keep any better ones for later.
4. Take some courses on patience, learn mefitative techniques. Play on easy for a long time.

Once you get level 3 skelly units, you will have a far easier time. Consider this an accomplishment.

-Ug

As an Undead player since Beta, I've seen the complete evolution of the race to what it is now. I think I can have an opinion on this, no matter if it is correct or not.

But let me take it from the beginning:

Quote :

They start off very, very weak. You will lose to everything 1 on 1, no matter what it is. 2 on 1 flanking on easy, you will still take heavy losses even if you win. Undead starting units are very, very weak.

That exactly is the case. Undead starting unit (Light Infantry, as everyone) is really weak. Skeleton Warriors have, by far, the worst stats of all Light Infantries in the game. BUT (I can't make it any more obvious) they are 25.
Being the UNIQUE unit of 25 troops, when all others are 20, gives you an advantage which takes me to the next:

Quote :

They do, however, have more skellies per unit. This was intended as a bonus, but it isnt. As each individual skelly is weaker, you will take heavier losses (even proportionally) versus other races, and it will be costly in gold and time to repair them. Yo will be forced to play easy battles far longer to level up your units, not even able to win the normal questing battles in your first day of play. Again, because of the increased time and gold in healing.

That would be a fair and precise description of the Skeleton Warriors, in a game that none of the following existed:

1. Undead as a race have a special racial bonus of 5% faster unit and hero healing rate, so they healing equally (and maybe faster) than others.

math e.g. Say a troop needs 1 minute to recover (which is almost true, it's about there accoring to my calculation) that means that a 20troop unit needs 20 minutes to fully heal, if it died during last fight. The same Undead unit is 25troops so it needs 25 minutes to recover. With the 5% heal bonus the 25minutes become .............. 23mins and 45 seconds. That's without any research. Since research is also %, imagine that bonuses that apply to 20 are less than bonuses that apply to 25. 50% of 20 is 10, 50% of 25 is 12,5.

To conclude, mathematically and adding the racial bonus: The 25troop unit heals almost equally than 20troop unit since the % research bonuses are more effective to it. Thus, calling that being 25 is disadvantage due to heal time is off.

2. Undead are THE cheaper unit to buy (and thus to heal, since the healing cost in gold is at worst case equal to the gold you pay to recruit -1 e.g. Undead Light Inf. costs 60w / 50s / 40i / 57gold to recruit, so the maximum cost to heal would be 56gold.).
So it's by default the most cheap to heal even if you sustain great losses.

3. At level 3 (2 stars) all units receive a special ability. The Skeleton Warriors receive Raise Dead, which is:

Raise Dead: The Unit has a probability to soak damage and therefore avoid damage. 20% / 25% / 30%

It's 20% chance that a troop WILL NOT DIE. The fact that a troop will not die, gives you the next advantages:

a. You do not lose Morale (not the stat, the yellow bar under your units health bar) thus you are less likely to flee, or receive the -melee effect (the icon with - and a sword that appears next to a unit's flag)

b. The enemy does not receive morale for killing. Thus again you no flee, or losing melee.

c. The troop is still there fighting (duh!)

d. It's 20% chance, so if you are neither lucky, nor unlucky let's say it will get in effect 20% of the times that a unit would be killed. That means that 25 troops, need 25 SUCCESSFUL hits to die (will talk about that right after) and you block the 20% of 25 hits which is 5. You blocked 5 hits! 5 hits that would kill a troop, did not kill it. Which in fact it practically and effectively gives you 5 MORE UNITS! Yes your Light Infantry level 3 is actually a 30troop unit, that everyone treats it like 25troop unit.
You Light Infantry level 6 (with 25% chance to avoid damage) is effectively a 31-32 troop unit and a level 9 is effectively a 32-33 troop unit that is treated as 25 troop.
I hope you see the advantage.

Now about what I said of Successful hits. This special ability is the LAST step in a hit. The steps, are pretty much these:

Step 1: Chance to hit (see melee skill)

Step 2: If a hit strikes, then chance to be avoided by enemy's armor (see strength and armor skills)

Step 3: If a hit passes armor, maybe it will be soaked by enemy's endurance (see strength and endurance skills)

That's the normal procedure. Then comes the undead racial (Raise dead) as:

Step 4: If a hit is becoming a killing blow, there is a 20 / 25 / 30% chance that it will be negated.

See the advantage now?

Quote :

My advice, having played them high enough to get over the hump: Dont play them. They have no real advantages later as they still suffer the above problems, and at early stages it is crippling. reroll, play something else. But if you are forced to play them, or you have some inherent personality defect where you like aabuse, here is my advice...

If you read all the above, you can see this is a not so good advice, no offence

With all respect, you have only tried the first of 5 units. You can't judge a race by the very first Unit and only. Or you can if you want, but you better give new players the advice by saying that you have not fully experienced the race, but as it seems you dislike it. That's to avoid misleading them.

Quote :

1. Level your gold production building. Alot. You will need more gold early than other races.

Very correct advice, but it applies to every race. Gold is the primary resource, and thus the most valuable the most important to try to aquire first. Everyone.

Quote :

2. Forget about doing normal battles. Fight on easy until your units are level 2, and then try the waters on normal.

Partially true, but again pretty much for everyone. With a hero you can however go Normals as well.

Quote :

3. Until they get rid of the nasty durability stuff, forget equipment entirely. You wont be able to afford it anyway. Sell the shard, keep any better ones for later.

I would advice the same maybe. Now that items have their value of Army Points, keeping low may be better. However I do like and I do use items.

Quote :

4. Take some courses on patience, learn mefitative techniques. Play on easy for a long time.

Normal is your bread and butter not Easy. Equip heroes to units, go normals and when you unlock archers go some hards as well. Since I can do it, it can be done. Even if you suffer losses, you still get resources and experience. Hard pays back.
Tip: try to keep a unit alive at least with one troop. Flee it if you must, cause if it dies it loses experience.

Use terrain, use flanking, rearing, archer cover. It a strategy game, use you imagination for new tactics.

And a last tip to all players: Don't be afraid of Coop even PvP. You lose a unit so what? You will do 1 normal, you will get the experience back. The point to enjoy the game. Keeping a passive role will not make you better. Play all the aspects of the game, you will enjoy it more.

p.s. And read Mort's guide, it rocks

Dreiko21 wrote:

As an Undead player since Beta, I've seen the complete evolution of the race to what it is now. I think I can have an opinion on this, no matter if it is correct or not.

But let me take it from the beginning:

Quote :

They start off very, very weak. You will lose to everything 1 on 1, no matter what it is. 2 on 1 flanking on easy, you will still take heavy losses even if you win. Undead starting units are very, very weak.

That exactly is the case. Undead starting unit (Light Infantry, as everyone) is really weak. Skeleton Warriors have, by far, the worst stats of all Light Infantries in the game. BUT (I can't make it any more obvious) they are 25.
Being the UNIQUE unit of 25 troops, when all others are 20, gives you an advantage which takes me to the next:

Quote :

They do, however, have more skellies per unit. This was intended as a bonus, but it isnt. As each individual skelly is weaker, you will take heavier losses (even proportionally) versus other races, and it will be costly in gold and time to repair them. Yo will be forced to play easy battles far longer to level up your units, not even able to win the normal questing battles in your first day of play. Again, because of the increased time and gold in healing.

That would be a fair and precise description of the Skeleton Warriors, in a game that none of the following existed:

1. Undead as a race have a special racial bonus of 5% faster unit and hero healing rate, so they healing equally (and maybe faster) than others.

math e.g. Say a troop needs 1 minute to recover (which is almost true, it's about there accoring to my calculation) that means that a 20troop unit needs 20 minutes to fully heal, if it died during last fight. The same Undead unit is 25troops so it needs 25 minutes to recover. With the 5% heal bonus the 25minutes become .............. 23mins and 45 seconds. That's without any research. Since research is also %, imagine that bonuses that apply to 20 are less than bonuses that apply to 25. 50% of 20 is 10, 50% of 25 is 12,5.

To conclude, mathematically and adding the racial bonus: The 25troop unit heals almost equally than 20troop unit since the % research bonuses are more effective to it. Thus, calling that being 25 is disadvantage due to heal time is off.

2. Undead are THE cheaper unit to buy (and thus to heal, since the healing cost in gold is at worst case equal to the gold you pay to recruit -1 e.g. Undead Light Inf. costs 60w / 50s / 40i / 57gold to recruit, so the maximum cost to heal would be 56gold.).
So it's by default the most cheap to heal even if you sustain great losses.

3. At level 3 (2 stars) all units receive a special ability. The Skeleton Warriors receive Raise Dead, which is:

Raise Dead: The Unit has a probability to soak damage and therefore avoid damage. 20% / 25% / 30%

It's 20% chance that a troop WILL NOT DIE. The fact that a troop will not die, gives you the next advantages:

a. You do not lose Morale (not the stat, the yellow bar under your units health bar) thus you are less likely to flee, or receive the -melee effect (the icon with - and a sword that appears next to a unit's flag)

b. The enemy does not receive morale for killing. Thus again you no flee, or losing melee.

c. The troop is still there fighting (duh!)

d. It's 20% chance, so if you are neither lucky, nor unlucky let's say it will get in effect 20% of the times that a unit would be killed. That means that 25 troops, need 25 SUCCESSFUL hits to die (will talk about that right after) and you block the 20% of 25 hits which is 5. You blocked 5 hits! 5 hits that would kill a troop, did not kill it. Which in fact it practically and effectively gives you 5 MORE UNITS! Yes your Light Infantry level 3 is actually a 30troop unit, that everyone treats it like 25troop unit.
You Light Infantry level 6 (with 25% chance to avoid damage) is effectively a 31-32 troop unit and a level 9 is effectively a 32-33 troop unit that is treated as 25 troop.
I hope you see the advantage.

Now about what I said of Successful hits. This special ability is the LAST step in a hit. The steps, are pretty much these:

Step 1: Chance to hit (see melee skill)

Step 2: If a hit strikes, then chance to be avoided by enemy's armor (see strength and armor skills)

Step 3: If a hit passes armor, maybe it will be soaked by enemy's endurance (see strength and endurance skills)

That's the normal procedure. Then comes the undead racial (Raise dead) as:

Step 4: If a hit is becoming a killing blow, there is a 20 / 25 / 30% chance that it will be negated.

See the advantage now?

Quote :

My advice, having played them high enough to get over the hump: Dont play them. They have no real advantages later as they still suffer the above problems, and at early stages it is crippling. reroll, play something else. But if you are forced to play them, or you have some inherent personality defect where you like aabuse, here is my advice...

If you read all the above, you can see this is a not so good advice, no offence

With all respect, you have only tried the first of 5 units. You can't judge a race by the very first Unit and only. Or you can if you want, but you better give new players the advice by saying that you have not fully experienced the race, but as it seems you dislike it. That's to avoid misleading them.

Quote :

1. Level your gold production building. Alot. You will need more gold early than other races.

Very correct advice, but it applies to every race. Gold is the primary resource, and thus the most valuable the most important to try to aquire first. Everyone.

Quote :

2. Forget about doing normal battles. Fight on easy until your units are level 2, and then try the waters on normal.

Partially true, but again pretty much for everyone. With a hero you can however go Normals as well.

Quote :

3. Until they get rid of the nasty durability stuff, forget equipment entirely. You wont be able to afford it anyway. Sell the shard, keep any better ones for later.

I would advice the same maybe. Now that items have their value of Army Points, keeping low may be better. However I do like and I do use items.

Quote :

4. Take some courses on patience, learn mefitative techniques. Play on easy for a long time.

Normal is your bread and butter not Easy. Equip heroes to units, go normals and when you unlock archers go some hards as well. Since I can do it, it can be done. Even if you suffer losses, you still get resources and experience. Hard pays back.
Tip: try to keep a unit alive at least with one troop. Flee it if you must, cause if it dies it loses experience.

Use terrain, use flanking, rearing, archer cover. It a strategy game, use you imagination for new tactics.

And a last tip to all players: Don't be afraid of Coop even PvP. You lose a unit so what? You will do 1 normal, you will get the experience back. The point to enjoy the game. Keeping a passive role will not make you better. Play all the aspects of the game, you will enjoy it more.

p.s. And read Mort's guide, it rocks

Great post Dreiko! Very thorough and accurate analysis.

The other thing I noticed about Undead LI is that they have the fastest attack time of all LI. As far as I can tell, heroes inherit their unit's attack speed. Which means fast attacking units scale heroes better than most.

Also, I've seen that because undead have such a high morale, using retreat tactically can be very effective. They bounce back quickly and they can use the tactic to "share" the damage evenly among many LI units. Just watch that yellow morale bar.

Dreiko21 wrote:

The steps, are pretty much these:

Step 1: Chance to hit (see melee skill)

Step 2: If a hit strikes, then chance to be avoided by enemy's armor (see strength and armor skills)

Step 3: If a hit passes armor, maybe it will be soaked by enemy's endurance (see strength and endurance skills)

That's the normal procedure. Then comes the undead racial (Raise dead) as:

Step 4: If a hit is becoming a killing blow, there is a 20 / 25 / 30% chance that it will be negated.

Yes, Great post. From what I've gleaned, the Melee Skill compares vs Armor skill for chance to hit. This made me think that your step1 and step2 are combined? Are you saying that they are two completely separate rolls?

Yes, I think it's 3 different rolls

1 is to hit

2 is to be damaging hit for the hits that passed the 1st roll

3 is damaging hits to be soaked by endurance (thus passed the 2nd roll)

So yes it 3 rolls, imo.

Dreiko21 wrote:

Yes, I think it's 3 different rolls

1 is to hit

2 is to be damaging hit for the hits that passed the 1st roll

3 is damaging hits to be soaked by endurance (thus passed the 2nd roll)

So yes it 3 rolls, imo.

Wouldn't 2 numbers be needed to compare against each other for each step? Your step 1 uses Melee/Missile for the attacker, but what does it compare against? From what I've read, it seems like Melee compares vs Armor for the chance to hit.

For the roll/check to be damaging, it is strength vs endurance.

Something like:

Step1 - Roll/Check to be hit:
(Attacker's Melee/Missile Skill) + (Some modifier based on Morale) + (Random d?? roll) >= (Defender's Armor)

Step2 - Roll to Absorb damage:
(Attacker's Strength Skill) + (Random d?? roll) >= (Defender's Endurance)

Step3 - Repeat Steps1/2 per unit of damage you deal (units with Dark Gift would repeat twice)

Obviously these are very simplistic guesses only. The real formula could be more complicated and it would be a pretty long process to test and figure them out.

Hegorn wrote:

Dreiko21 wrote:

Yes, I think it's 3 different rolls

1 is to hit

2 is to be damaging hit for the hits that passed the 1st roll

3 is damaging hits to be soaked by endurance (thus passed the 2nd roll)

So yes it 3 rolls, imo.

Wouldn't 2 numbers be needed to compare against each other for each step? Your step 1 uses Melee/Missile for the attacker, but what does it compare against? From what I've read, it seems like Melee compares vs Armor for the chance to hit.

For the roll/check to be damaging, it is strength vs endurance.

Something like:

Step1 - Roll/Check to be hit:
(Attacker's Melee/Missile Skill) + (Some modifier based on Morale) + (Random d?? roll) >= (Defender's Armor)

Step2 - Roll to Absorb damage:
(Attacker's Strength Skill) + (Random d?? roll) >= (Defender's Endurance)

Step3 - Repeat Steps1/2 per unit of damage you deal (units with Dark Gift would repeat twice)

Obviously these are very simplistic guesses only. The real formula could be more complicated and it would be a pretty long process to test and figure them out.

Let me help you here.

1) Check to Hit Attacker's Melee Vs Defender's Melee

2) Check to Damage Attacker's Strength Vs Defender's Resilience

3) Armor Save Armor Value taking into consideration attacker's Strength

(Yes, there exist some more extras, but that is the "basic" formula. )

Thanks! Very helpful to know.

How does Step1 - work for Missile attacks? I imagine its not Missile vs Melee.

Hegorn wrote:

Thanks! Very helpful to know.

How does Step1 - work for Missile attacks? I imagine its not Missile vs Melee.

That would be silly, wouldn't it?

1. Missile skill determines the hit probability. Distance to target is a factor.

2. Hidden Missile Strength Vs Target's Resilience

3. Armor Save Missile's Strength is a factor.

1. Missile skill determines the hit probability. Distance to target is a factor.

I'm glad you mentioned this. I had been noticing this, but I couldnt tell if it was due to RNG or not. Is the friendly fire chance also affected by distance / missile skill? I seem to notice much less FF when I shoot at large units that are engaged with my troops.



2. Hidden Missile Strength Vs Target's Resilience

I noticed Melee Strength is capped at 40 for archers. Is the hidden Missile Strength also capped at 40? Any chance of showing this stat in future updates?

About the skellies:

Alexander the Great said that the infanty's role isn't to win battles, but to fix the enemy in place so you can kill him.
I assume we don't question a m8 with 100% win ratio while having 1/3 of the enemy's AP every fight.

NO light melee does that better than Undead infantry.

So they do perfectly the thing I want them to. The fact that they do nothing more is what keeps them balanced.
If they had Demon stats they'd be walking on Heavy infantry territory.

Dreiko21 wrote:

As an Undead player since Beta, I've seen the complete evolution of the race to what it is now. I think I can have an opinion on this, no matter if it is correct or not.

But let me take it from the beginning:

Quote :

They start off very, very weak. You will lose to everything 1 on 1, no matter what it is. 2 on 1 flanking on easy, you will still take heavy losses even if you win. Undead starting units are very, very weak.

That exactly is the case. Undead starting unit (Light Infantry, as everyone) is really weak. Skeleton Warriors have, by far, the worst stats of all Light Infantries in the game. BUT (I can't make it any more obvious) they are 25.
Being the UNIQUE unit of 25 troops, when all others are 20, gives you an advantage which takes me to the next:

Quote :

They do, however, have more skellies per unit. This was intended as a bonus, but it isnt. As each individual skelly is weaker, you will take heavier losses (even proportionally) versus other races, and it will be costly in gold and time to repair them. Yo will be forced to play easy battles far longer to level up your units, not even able to win the normal questing battles in your first day of play. Again, because of the increased time and gold in healing.

That would be a fair and precise description of the Skeleton Warriors, in a game that none of the following existed:

1. Undead as a race have a special racial bonus of 5% faster unit and hero healing rate, so they healing equally (and maybe faster) than others.

Imath e.g. Say a troop needs 1 minute to recover (which is almost true, it's about there accoring to my calculation) that means that a 20troop unit needs 20 minutes to fully heal, if it died during last fight. The same Undead unit is 25troops so it needs 25 minutes to recover. With the 5% heal bonus the 25minutes become .............. 23mins and 45 seconds. That's without any research. Since research is also %, imagine that bonuses that apply to 20 are less than bonuses that apply to 25. 50% of 20 is 10, 50% of 25 is 12,5.

To conclude, mathematically and adding the racial bonus: The 25troop unit heals almost equally than 20troop unit since the % research bonuses are more effective to it. Thus, calling that being 25 is disadvantage due to heal time is off.

2. Undead are THE cheaper unit to buy (and thus to heal, since the healing cost in gold is at worst case equal to the gold you pay to recruit -1 e.g. Undead Light Inf. costs 60w / 50s / 40i / 57gold to recruit, so the maximum cost to heal would be 56gold.).
So it's by default the most cheap to heal even if you sustain great losses.

3. At level 3 (2 stars) all units receive a special ability. The Skeleton Warriors receive Raise Dead, which is:

Raise Dead: The Unit has a probability to soak damage and therefore avoid damage. 20% / 25% / 30%

It's 20% chance that a troop WILL NOT DIE. The fact that a troop will not die, gives you the next advantages:

a. You do not lose Morale (not the stat, the yellow bar under your units health bar) thus you are less likely to flee, or receive the -melee effect (the icon with - and a sword that appears next to a unit's flag)

b. The enemy does not receive morale for killing. Thus again you no flee, or losing melee.

c. The troop is still there fighting (duh!)

d. It's 20% chance, so if you are neither lucky, nor unlucky let's say it will get in effect 20% of the times that a unit would be killed. That means that 25 troops, need 25 SUCCESSFUL hits to die (will talk about that right after) and you block the 20% of 25 hits which is 5. You blocked 5 hits! 5 hits that would kill a troop, did not kill it. Which in fact it practically and effectively gives you 5 MORE UNITS! Yes your Light Infantry level 3 is actually a 30troop unit, that everyone treats it like 25troop unit.
You Light Infantry level 6 (with 25% chance to avoid damage) is effectively a 31-32 troop unit and a level 9 is effectively a 32-33 troop unit that is treated as 25 troop.
I hope you see the advantage.

Now about what I said of Successful hits. This special ability is the LAST step in a hit. The steps, are pretty much these:

Step 1: Chance to hit (see melee skill)

Step 2: If a hit strikes, then chance to be avoided by enemy's armor (see strength and armor skills)

Step 3: If a hit passes armor, maybe it will be soaked by enemy's endurance (see strength and endurance skills)

That's the normal procedure. Then comes the undead racial (Raise dead) as:

Step 4: If a hit is becoming a killing blow, there is a 20 / 25 / 30% chance that it will be negated.

See the advantage now?

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My advice, having played them high enough to get over the hump: Dont play them. They have no real advantages later as they still suffer the above problems, and at early stages it is crippling. reroll, play something else. But if you are forced to play them, or you have some inherent personality defect where you like aabuse, here is my advice...

If you read all the above, you can see this is a not so good advice, no offence

With all respect, you have only tried the first of 5 units. You can't judge a race by the very first Unit and only. Or you can if you want, but you better give new players the advice by saying that you have not fully experienced the race, but as it seems you dislike it. That's to avoid misleading them.

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1. Level your gold production building. Alot. You will need more gold early than other races.

Very correct advice, but it applies to every race. Gold is the primary resource, and thus the most valuable the most important to try to aquire first. Everyone.

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2. Forget about doing normal battles. Fight on easy until your units are level 2, and then try the waters on normal.

Partially true, but again pretty much for everyone. With a hero you can however go Normals as well.

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3. Until they get rid of the nasty durability stuff, forget equipment entirely. You wont be able to afford it anyway. Sell the shard, keep any better ones for later.

I would advice the same maybe. Now that items have their value of Army Points, keeping low may be better. However I do like and I do use items.

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4. Take some courses on patience, learn mefitative techniques. Play on easy for a long time.

Normal is your bread and butter not Easy. Equip heroes to units, go normals and when you unlock archers go some hards as well. Since I can do it, it can be done. Even if you suffer losses, you still get resources and experience. Hard pays back.
Tip: try to keep a unit alive at least with one troop. Flee it if you must, cause if it dies it loses experience.

Use terrain, use flanking, rearing, archer cover. It a strategy game, use you imagination for new tactics.

And a last tip to all players: Don't be afraid of Coop even PvP. You lose a unit so what? You will do 1 normal, you will get the experience back. The point to enjoy the game. Keeping a passive role will not make you better. Play all the aspects of the game, you will enjoy it more.

p.s. And read Mort's guide, it rocks

I guess you didnt actually read my posts, even though you quoted it line per line.

5% faster rate of healing is great, yes. But they are 25% weaker in melee stats than their orc counterparts. So yes, they heal faster, but they die MUCH more often than 5%, meaning this is a losing battle until research is done. By the time that research is done, you will have passed the hump. My entire post I mentioned multiple times that the problem is playing on easy far longer (until level 2 or 3 troops.)

Also, as far as being a cheaper unit to buy, this savings is lost in 1 or 2 battles, no matter what difficulty you are playing.

You mention that at level 3, they get the raise dead ability. I agree, when your units hit level 3, they are FINALLY as good as the other races. Congrats, I mentioned that in my first post. Getting there is the problem, but being there.

Anyway, I get it. You like the undead. Your name is Mort. You like them even though logical arguments are made against them, and argue points that we agree on with a fanboy attitude, skipping their inherent starting difficulties and screaming their paltry starting bonuses from the mountaintops. OK.

Woe be those early players that come to this thread for help. Once they get units to level 3, they wont need it, but I doubt many will.

-Ug

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Anyway, I get it. You like the undead. Your name is Mort.

No, my name is not Mort, if you still can read names. It's in the upper left corner, outside the post area.
I indeed do like the Undead, however.

That doesn't mean that I cannot be objective and fair when talking about other races too.

You need to read my reply that I quoted line by line again. I already said that they have by far the worst stats in the Light Infantry category. That is balanced by being 25 (which is not a disadvantage as I already explained on my reply) and + they have a speed factor of 7 which is the fastest hitting light infantry. That is before you get to level 3 (2 stars).

If you would pay a little more time to actually read and not assume what I'm talking about, you could have found those in my original post.

Anyway, I was not - and I still am not - in mood to change your mind. That reply was meant to help new players decide. They read my post, they read yours, they can choose.

I have no hard feeling on you, I dont even know you, and I don't care to make you a believer of what I believe.

Just be more a reader, as a friendly advice.

Dreiko21 wrote:

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Anyway, I get it. You like the undead. Your name is Mort.

No, my name is not Mort, if you still can read names. It's in the upper left corner, outside the post area.
I indeed do like the Undead, however.

That doesn't mean that I cannot be objective and fair when talking about other races too.

You need to read my reply that I quoted line by line again. I already said that they have by far the worst stats in the Light Infantry category. That is balanced by being 25 (which is not a disadvantage as I already explained on my reply) and + they have a speed factor of 7 which is the fastest hitting light infantry. That is before you get to level 3 (2 stars).

If you would pay a little more time to actually read and not assume what I'm talking about, you could have found those in my original post.

Anyway, I was not - and I still am not - in mood to change your mind. That reply was meant to help new players decide. They read my post, they read yours, they can choose.

I have no hard feeling on you, I dont even know you, and I don't care to make you a believer of what I believe.

Just be more a reader, as a friendly advice.

Healing is also cheaper, as they have the lowest cost.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Dreiko21 wrote:

Quote :

Anyway, I get it. You like the undead. Your name is Mort.

No, my name is not Mort, if you still can read names. It's in the upper left corner, outside the post area.
I indeed do like the Undead, however.

That doesn't mean that I cannot be objective and fair when talking about other races too.

You need to read my reply that I quoted line by line again. I already said that they have by far the worst stats in the Light Infantry category. That is balanced by being 25 (which is not a disadvantage as I already explained on my reply) and + they have a speed factor of 7 which is the fastest hitting light infantry. That is before you get to level 3 (2 stars).

If you would pay a little more time to actually read and not assume what I'm talking about, you could have found those in my original post.

Anyway, I was not - and I still am not - in mood to change your mind. That reply was meant to help new players decide. They read my post, they read yours, they can choose.

I have no hard feeling on you, I dont even know you, and I don't care to make you a believer of what I believe.

Just be more a reader, as a friendly advice.

Healing is also cheaper, as they have the lowest cost.

That as well. +1

Not so much of a new player tip, but as far as flanking Cavalry goes -- Undead have hard hitting cav. Dark Gift is a big boost to damage.

When i said cheap, i meant in AP (army points for the new players, the number next to the bat thingie).

The gold you'll save is minimal.

If you accept the fact that skellies will NEVER solo a heavy infantry and don't bother with strength, you can skip the weapon and just gear them with armor/banner with endurance/melee/armor or not gear them up at all and keep them even cheaper (in AP).

The nick Mort isn't from Mortis etc, it is short for Mortalbane (that I thought was cool when i was 13) that my friends abused into Mortadellas, as in the salami thingie. I don't use Mortalbane or Mortadellas in the forums cause it is kind of lame, isn't it?

As for undead being weak in the first lvls? Hell yeah! That is the reason I wrote this thing. They really do get better. A lot better.