that's a good point, even though i haven't gotten the game yet, getting it tomorrow. 22 seconds is a long time for 25 dancers, idn. a last push unit fo deff, once your army is paid for. great way to top off an army, i suppose, or in dm games. but yes, that is kind of 'expensive' for one unit, even if it is a dog soldier.

Since this can't be done til Industrial, I put a 1 resource/sec gather rate on a villager, assuming upgrades. So a Dog Soldier is 550 resources (25 villagers * 22 secs).

I don't think it's worth it. I'd rather be dancing for faster unit spawning, or unit damage bonus, or SIEGE bonus to blow up buildings fast.

An upgraded Dog Soldier is nice. It's a super-Lancer.

Thanks for the replies guys,

Yeah I think it's quite a shame about the dogsoldier, there really is no point of training them, in a non very competitive game it would be nice to make them, but in a competitive game then these dogsoldiers don't really give you the edge.

They're good but certainly not worth 550. You're much better making 2 axe riders for lbows for example or rifle riders for heavy infantry.

I was really looking forward to dog soldiers as a main part of the Sioux military, but oh well. I hope they improve it in a patch.

I agree with the straight math--the Dog is not worth it. However, spawning them from the fire pit does have advantages:

1) You don't have to "manage" the resources. Once configured they keep on coming, on autopilot. That's worth a bit of an investment because you can now spend you time thinking about other things in the game.

2) Having a heavily populated fire pit allows you to quickly make fire pit assignments that have big impacts. For example, you can switch from Dog production to boosting seige damage or increasing unit production.

I look forward to recorded expert games. If the fire pit gets usage, then I'll learn a thing or two.

[This message has been edited by SwiftAero (edited 10-21-2006 @ 07:49 AM).]

^ You're right, but if you get them late game anyway most of your vills will be on farms/plantations.

With the firepit you only train 1 every 22seconds, while if you could train them from a stable, you could train up to 5. I can't think of an instant where I'd rather have dog soldiers dance over the others, in attacks, siege, more attack. In defence, you could be making those warrior archers. In neither you could be getting XP, or making healers, reviving your warchief. If you're booming, faster unit production. If you needn't do ANY of those things (which is a very small portion of the game) then why not squease in a dogsoldier which will probably get made in the time it takes to move the vills to another resource But they're kind of a soldier of last resort.

And I don't see why they're all that great, they have a very high attack but IMO cuirs with their splash damage are better and cost significantly less in terms of VS. Yet they can be trained normally. I would really like it for dogsoldiers to be trained normally (though I don't think that will happen anytime soon or ever for that fact, either that or reduce the seconds it takes to make them (which I somehow doubt ES will do with people going around saying Sioux is OP!)

The problem is Sioux MAY be balanced as they, but the "balance" needs to be shifted. They may be balanced with worthless dog soldiers, but I'd rather have them balanced with useful dog soldiers.

Seriously guys, is there any reason to make these?

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They have a funny name, other than that not really.

Am I correct in say if you switch to another dance at 20second mark and then switch back you have to start all over again? just like heavy cannon production?

that just sucks. as if u sed 25 vils to make 20 seconds of food, then switch them to something else, your 500VS food is still there.

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Nope.

At leats not with Warriors, so I suppose its the same for Dog Soldiers.

well, theres probably somepoint where say 18 vills would make the dog soldeir cost less than 500 or so food, slightly less time (since by the end it barely mvoes up, right???) and than youd have 7 others gathering.

I think they need to make the dog soldier spawn quicker, but I think they should nerf the cetan bow and rifle rider.

Depends what your enemy is making. I personally think there are better raiding cav, but for main army, only build them if your enemy is going heavy infantry.

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Uh, no, build Rifle Riders or Cetan Bows for heavy infantry. True, Dog Soldiers with the shippable damage multiple makes them much better vs. Heavy Infantry, I still wouldn't like that match-up.

Dog Soldiers obliberate light infantry.

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First off, Light infantry is classified only as 3 "LI" like units in which the natives have. All old "LI" is now just "infantry". When I said "heavy infantry", I meant when they go heavy on infantry, as in build lots of it. Since infantry used to be LI, with just a name change, units that used to counter LI still counter LI, it's just that they are now named infantry. Which is why I said they own large amounts of infantry.

Next, Rifle Riders suck against infantry and light infantry because they both have bigger ranges and have multipliers and high attack against the rifle riders. Rifle riders can be used in hitting and running against heavy infantry though.

We seem to both be guilty of misunderstanding the other's use of terms. I see you mean heavy as in "lots", and I meant light as in the old light infantry.

I still wouldn't send Dog Soldiers into a mess of halberds or Musketeers if I could help it.

The sioux were supposed to have a good early raiding game and a crappy late game. I dont think nerfing one unit and then boosting their late game power will not solve anything but add another boring civ to the game.

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Either would I, unless I had 6-9 from the lakota tech with some heavy HC/falc and/or LI backup.

But anyways, I'd never send any kind of melee cav into a group of heavy infantry, but I would into a group of light infantry or normal infantry

Sorry for the bump, but I was playing Aztecs today and I noticed it only takes 9.8s to make a Skull knight!

And they are pretty awesome with area damage and massive siege. I would take the skull knight over the dogsoldier any day. The dog soldier is a glorified husser. It's siege isn't all that great, it's just a lancer with the stats of a husser but with the bonus and the extra HP, no area damage, but the skull knight does and in comparison costs 245f when everythings upgraded compared to 550f. Thats a MASSIVE difference. The skull knight really good for the Aztecs, when I reached my pop cap I sent my army to war, some died, some survived, I looked back and saw 6 skull knights waiting. They have huge siege and are really good. btw 6 knights is basically just a minute. Whereas with Sioux, you've sent your troops to battle and you do the dog dance you look back and you only have 2 made (in a min) with a third one soon to be made. I prefer the way the Sioux works compared to the aztecs, it's just this is really annoying me. I would of really liked to be able to make a significant amount of dog soldiers, not send 3 into battle. The only time they're useful is when you get 10 from the big button.

I thought Dog Soldiers did get area damage. I see in the unit chart that they do not, but I was watching a rec I downloaded and saw the number "6" in its stats next to some kind of circle-thingy.

http://agesanctuary.com/index.php?portal=AOE3&fview=2&showtopic=73180

Either way, this is a good rec to watch for this discussion because it shows Ourk using them a lot. He has most if not all the DS cards and towards the end he has 25 vils on the firepit making DS. Not only that, but when the battle moved further from his town, he deleted his firepit and marched 25 vils forward to make a new one! Personally I think that was a bad decision due to all that walking time but the DS did kick some ass in that game.

One more cool fact to consider: dog soldiers auto-upgrade. In industrial they have something like 1000hp. Not bad.

Thanks a lot! Will watch and discuss when I get the time.

That 6 with a circle is the range of their Siege damage, same as most units.

DS do not do splash damage unless you put them in Trample mode.

With the Caballeros-like upgrade, DS absolutely slaughter infantry. I think in Industrial you can hit something like 900 hits (2 +15% upgrade cards, Farm upgrade, Breastplate (have to ship card)), have them move near speed 8 (messenger shipment), they do around 50ish damage x2.5 against infantry, x2 on Artillery.

And that Caballeros-like upgrade is resendable in Imperial for a 3.5x infantry multiplier.

And of course, we all know the hotkeys to send the pit into attack mode, right?

I'm 99.99% sure all upgrade cards are not resendable. That would be OP, especially late game

And Cabelleros doesn't effect DS does it?

Yeah, they're not resendable. And yes it does I think. Either way there's a shipment with a DS drawn on it that increases bonus vs infantry so I'm sure that would

Jaafit, I watched the game, Ourk is awesome. I loved the way especially how he completely destroyed the attack in fortress age with nearly nothing. All these cavs popped out of everywhere and with a bit of magic micro, he just killed them all, the falcs n everything. I think he sort of wasted his DSs a little bit though. He used them against lancers and rods. Rods counter DS, as DS counter rods. But against lancers you might as well use an axe rider.

After he brought the FP forward, he forgot to change the dance to DS lol.

I just lost a game caz of these things!

Ack!

Fine I suppose they are good. But wouldn't you have suffered even more if he had 2 upgraded Axe riders to every DS he had?

Dog Soldiers have an upgrade that's like Caballeros for Lancers - that's what I meant. It gives them an extra +1 to their damage multiplier vs. all infantry.

Currently, the card is sendable in Age 2, and if you have sent it, will recycle in Age 5.