I dont know how many posts like this I have commented on, but I will repeat again. The demons that split from the death shard (you should cast corrupt on all shards you get), are FANTASTIC. When they have split to 9 units and gotten a touch of levelling they have 240 hitpoints. This could be early game (you can split them more than once pr battle). Just babysit them for their first kill (bandits are good for this). They will not do as end game units, but then you should have had plenty of time to have produced new units.

They are the perfect units for extra fast expansion and killing the first AI you meet. Just try them and dont let them die before they split. Having 4-5 of those in an army will make you able to take dragons and almost anything.

When I play Resoln, all I need is Ceresa and the death demons, they steamroll through everything. That said, I would like some love given to the other shard demons - part of the reason they are weak is symptomatic of the hp leveling system - if they fixed this and gave the other shard demons more base hps too then I might have a reason not to corrupt every shard I find.

yeah but thats not a unique feature

you can do the same with any trained units

just build a bunch of cannon fodder while you nuke from distance is the same

anyway like others said it just make sense the demons scale with something, is that lvl of shard or something else

also as ceresa you already have shadow worg and eventually ice elemental, you are not really in need of some more weak summon

so instead of 4 weak elementals and 3 weak spiders just give her 2 units but that covers both early and end game

I totally agree with the OP here.

I tried making them competent from the start with some interesting results. Resoln just can't make a competent army beyond summons. By adding 30Hp or so to most of their monsters and then increasing the various strengths and abilities, Resoln becomes a power equal to the number of shards they have. Of course this starts to weaken during the midgame still. Other factions are much more competitive at that point. I would say a more progressive increase in monster spawns is probably better for balance. Maybe they should even get a special high level temple that makes some truly epic creatures?

Chnagelog .952:

Resoln (or custom factions with the Binding faction trait) summon higher level versions of Crow Demons, Grave Elementals, Burning Wraiths, Cyndrum Demons and Mirror Elementals with higher tier of the shard altars/shrines and temples

I certainly understand the desire, but I'm not completely convinced of this.  Or rather, I should say if the Binding creatures are good enough to do the job of trained troops, then they need to have commensurate cost in terms of tech investment, resource cost, and production time.

The game is supposed to be balanced around the idea of having to invest deeply in tech, production buildings,  production time, and resources to be able to produce troops that are competitive with the threat of the game world. Hopefully it will be by launch.

Right now those binding creatures provide them with a great early game advantage, in terms of fairly powerful free early troops that will help level champions, guard outpost against minor threats (when I lose a resource, it's almost always due to some stupid wolf or mite mob I've failed  to clean off the map), and...this is easily underestimated....free disposable scouts to reveal the map, locate the AI, and serve as early warning radar.  I don't think they're intended to replace trained units.  And I've found them useful even in the late game, by just giving me a steady stream of bodies to shuffle around for various purposes, if not in direct combat.

So I understand the desire conceptually to make the faction capable of building viable armies of magical creatures, and I think that would be cool.  But that needs to be a path requiring as much investment, cost, and sacrifice as having to invest in the same amount of military production tech and infrastructure as the units they would be replacing. In the current  build, the second tier of shard buildings is available immediately in the Magic tree, and the entire magic tree up to the third tier of shard shrines is highly desirable for all sorts of reasons.  Getting the entire first third of the Magic tree isnt much of a sacrifice, because it's great, and Id' want it regardless of any military production tech.

Well, I just think they should each be a distinctive option with strengths and weaknesses that differentiates the faction, and allows for army variety. But the game doesn't need any more reasons not to use trained armies. It's becoming a running joke , all the way back to EWOM development. That's what it's supposed to be balanced around. If every faction lets you bypass the need for trained armies, with a better or more interesting option, without a commensurate cost in investment and production, why even have these armies, and all the associated mechanics, at all?

How about this.

They get the same free early game units from shards, with all their benefits as they do now, but upgraded versions of the creatures capable of replacing mid and late game combat troops have to be built through the production queues like the spiders, and are therefore subject to the system of checks and balances that is supposed to be in place to limit military power (they cost upkeep, they take more time to produce the more powerful they are, they require resources, they require production tech and infrastructure).  Give them bonuses to HP per level and maybe attack or def based on the number of relevant elemental shards.

That way you have your magical monsters with unique abilities than can supplement or replace traditional armies, but they don't invalidate so much tech, and break so many measures that are supposed to limit military power.

Keep in mind this is the way most games of this type do it. Factions get unique units with special abilities for flavor, but there's one production system in the game that serves as a limiter on how many/how powerful units you can have, and forces strategic choices about infrastructure in how to get those units built. Staying inside that system, it's a much easier process to balance the abilities and costs of the units in regard to other units.

Stepping completely outside that system makes for an entirely new system that then has to then be balanced against the other system. I think doing so is just making more work for yourself as a designer.

The latest patch idea is a step in the right direction, not sure it's enough of a step though.  Will need more testing.

I think the max level shards should give some scary demons- maybe with an extra tech needed.

Some of them are alright, ignoring for now the cyndrum demon powerhouse (3k hp army — hello).

Ancient grave elementals
Too slow to travel with my armies, but they performed admirably as garrison supplements, defending against wondering wildland mobs and an occasional hero-less army that managed to slip past the front lines. They have something like 80hp to start, and regen + harbinger, so they are really quite good on defense, even alone.

Ancient burning wraiths
With 60% fire attack, these were actually quite good against well-armored units, dealing decent damage where my best trained armies could only clink. They are very much glass cannons though, so tactical micro is not optional (isolate single enemy unit and focus to kill, avoid a hit at all costs). Could use a small attack buff (increase the fire component, not piercing, maybe 10->12, 14->16, 20->24?). Not so useful if you are fighting Altar

Ancient mirror elementals
These guys are useless. Damage reflection is nice as a concept, but it is lost on a unit that dies in one hit (low hp and fire vulnerability to boot, in a world where every bandit and his dog have a flaming weapon). They could literally be glass cannons, except that I think to be classified as a cannon you need to at least deal some damage, and 12 blunt is pretty pathetic for mid-game. I used a few of them as suicide bombers to soften up enemy front lines. An expendable caster might be an interesting role to focus on. Throw in a handful of cool abilities like shatter [damage adjacent units when killed] and mirror world [spell akin to death ward but resurrect with 1 hp after the battle; maybe also dink max hp in the process — only mirror elementals can return from the mirror world unscathed — to prevent spamming on regular troops], and all of a sudden we have some unique strategies to play with. Also, these guys are missing slow ability from their ice elemental cousins, it would fit quite nicely with the above mix.

Ancient crow demons
Haven't used them (corrupted all my air shards due to lack of air caster). With thunderstrike, high init, and high moves, they seem well suited to pick off back line archers and escape unscathed, but I don't know if that works well in practice.

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Speaking of cyndrum demons, these seem to be designed as swarm units, so perhaps something can be done to prevent them from becoming super-tanks as they level? Starting hp is already pretty low, throw in -2 hp per level and vulnerability to cold and fire in addition to lightning, and I think we'd be good.

The Ancient Crow I found to be fairly useless...without a lot of Air Shards they don't do a lot of damage with thunderstrike, and they don't do a ton of damage on their own. Burning Wraths just have too few hit points, although the Mirror Elemental takes the rank of king with that issue.