Trolls need some love

Blight
1

Maybe I don’t fully understand how to play them. But they seem to be a sad race of swampy muck dwellers.

I’m currently in an Iron Crown game where I joined last (which means I get to be Trolls.)

Sure the unit to teleport to a nearby mana pool is great, and can even win the game in some cases…

but outside of that, they make me cry.

They are slow like Dwarves… but they don’t have the pluses that Dwarves have. Dwarves have awesome gold production! those guys are rich! Dwarves also have some of the most powerful range units in the game. Ka-Boom!

Trolls have crummy gold production… low populations… they’re slow… they live in swamps which makes 'em even slower.

At least if the serpent charmer didn’t slow the settlement timers by 6 hours (for already low gold pay outs) they might be worth it.

The Ironshell Sergeant’s are great… but only in swamps, the moment you have to step away from the safety of your swamp, it’s a slow slow race against blight, and usually other players will have to come riding up and clear all the graves around you.

The spike crafters are kinda cool, and since Trolls are not good at marching, you do end up doing a lot of sitting in settlements.

And don’t get me started on hydra… I can’t make them part of my armies so they march together, so it becomes smaller groups of 2000, here and there moving on their own. :frowning:

Tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’m rubbish with Trolls. Someone help me out.

If I had to stack rank the races right now, it would probably be like this:

Elves (Best mana producers in the game. Elder Mages are gods! Elves are fast, lots of range options and good leaders)
Orcs (Great fast units (Chariots), well wounded default melee unit and good range unit (dragon brigade), Green Skin unit creation through slavedriver)
Humans (Wellrounded race, good default melee unit, good magic options, and gnostic mage double shots.)
Goblins ( Fast, default range unit, decent specialty heroes and abilities to get gold quickly)
Dwarves (Siege cannons and blunderbusses, wall builder… super slow, but can sit on top of a mountain and shoot at the blight below.)
Trolls (Teleport to mana pool seems to be the only thing going for them…)

Someone help me out. :smile:

2

I love trolls. But they excel in forcing the fight to be on their own terms, so you shouldn’t plan on always running them all over the map. Make the enemy fight in the swamps.

I like how cheap their towns are to incorporate, valor-wise, and the low cost of their basic troops.
I love being able to bring in lots of strong Marsh Hunters for a mere 150 gold.
I love keeping my troops fortified and decimating the immortals with Marsh Wardens.
I love using the Witch to pull immortals into the swamps to die.
I love having a couple of Kahuna’s on a pool and getting a new Hydra every six hours.
I love using the Crone to fight zombies on their home terrain without giving them their terrain bonus. Especially orcs and dwarves.

That’s what I liked about trolls before the TangleMage showed up, which just makes them even better.

That being said, I always skip Snake Charmers and go with the Goblin Noble that can turn mana to gold, and I always add some units of another race that can do my quick pyre burning runs for me.

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Thanks for getting behind the Trolls Bismark!

I agree, after the update we gave them a few months ago I think they are pretty cool. Different, but cool anyhow!

I think the serpent charmers power is kind of lame. Would love to make her cooler. There are a few other that could be a little better as well.

I was trying to convince @IHG-BlightedPea that we need to give you some gold when you recall the Marsh Prince to make him better value as well.

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Honestly, I think the Trolls work pretty well. Snake Charmer was actually one of those cards that turned my around on them. I would consider them essential in most cases. Recently used the Snake Charmers in a game and was pleasantly surprised; what I thought was going to be a lame card turned out pretty cool. I parked this guy in the middle of 9 towns and just fired their ability every 12 hours or so. It’s 50 gold per town and in most cases troll towns don’t pay out more than 50 gold anyway. So I can fire this ability and add 6 hours to the gold production, but it pays out as if the town had payed out its 24 hour rate; pretty cool.

Honestly, I think Trolls are probably one of the tougher races to run, but I don’t think they lag behind significantly anywhere. Cheap unit training cost is one of the pluses. But as other have pointed out; trolls are slow, and they don’t have a good way to overcome that. Best bet is to build armies in swamps and pull everything in towards you.

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I think we will probably remove the extra time the Serpent Charmer adds to the gold production timer. It has potential for griefing. I do think it is a useful Troll card otherwise. I’m not convinced on getting your money back on the Marsh Prince. In that case, he is basically teleporting.

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Honestly, I would keep the extra time the snake charmer adds. It makes him more valuable earlier in the game when most towns are not populated, and slightly less valuable as time goes on. As far as grieving, it not terribly bad.

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I’ve become a fan of Trolls as well. When I first played the game, I shared a lot of the same problems SpySat1 brings up. Their epically slow speed and ties to marshes were big negatives. (an when you are a new player – gold and speed are what you value)

I’ve changed my mind about the Trolls. They are now my favorite race. I discovered that while they aren’t sexy like Elves or Dwarves, they are absolutely rock hard. In the hands of a knowledgeable player, their deficiences can be mitigated quite well. On the Iron Crown map they, in alliance with the Dwarves, are critical to victory.

Trolls are situationally very fast. If played well, they are easily the fastest in the game (especially at the strategic [vice tactical] level). Tangle Mages are boss and on Hard or above, are the single most important unit type in the game. Trolls need mana more than they need gold. Guess who is great at securing safe mana pools? Yup, the Tangle Mage. The Tangle Mage is not only super fast and versatile, it is the answer to the the Troll’s biggest resource dilemma – mana.

Seriously, the combo of a Tangle Mage with a Hydra Gonfalon/Banner is Massive! It’s game winning. Add in a Crone or a Kahuna and it’s a blast. On Iron Crown, a good Troll player can control Ducks Lair pretty comfortably within 72 hours… thereby securing the middle of the map, and still have the resources to pump out Dragons. A combo of two Tangle Mages, mana, and a Gonfalon means you can go anywhere and reinforce anywhere.

The Marsh Prince is also super important and useful for spot defenses - on spread out maps, one or two princes can, for relatively small gold (and a minuscule amount of mana) go anywhere immediately. This is a huge benefit, allowing a savvy player to maximize their use of gold to put power in the right settlements.

…and then there is The Crone. Unassuming as she is, proper use of the Crone is huge in tough games (Jester King, anyone?). Again, like the Tangle Mage, there is no unit like her in the other armies and her proper use is crazy important.

In a similar way regarding how deceptively fast Trolls can be, they are surprisingly money efficient as well. No, they don’t generate a lot of gold, but they don’t need much to be kick butt either. Their units are generally very efficient on a hold per power ratio… even outside of swamps (check out how awe some Turtle Warriors are). Inside of swamps the bang you get per gold spent is unmatched.

The key for Trolls isn’t gold, it’s Mana (as noted above).

All on all, playing Trolls is a good choice for finesse players. Players that like being great in key situations, and for players where the collective victory is way more important than individual stats.

(The one thing I want changed? Please, please, please make it so the Hydra can move to places away from marshes/swamps? Slow is fine)

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