Are Vallorian Guards replaceable by Paladins in battle?

[Moho]

I was really excited when I placed the Vallorian Valor building in my city long time ago. I think I had not researched the Paladin at that time, and those early Vallorian Guards turned out to be useful on occasion. But I haven't used them much recently because my Paladins seem to handle the encounters satisfactorily, in my opinion.

I'm in Chapter 4. I have already replaced the level III Orc Strategist building with a level IV building from the Magic Academy and I wonder whether I should bother to do the same with the Vallorian Valor. Since the Paladins are equally efficient in battle and my upgraded Barracks in conjunction with the four upgraded Armories seem to do a great job of producing sufficient units, shouldn't I abandon the idea of using Vallorian Guards altogether? In this way I could take advantage of the space that the Vallorian Valor occupies.

What is your opinion?

 

[Deleted User - 849192770]

i like to train mostly priests and a small amount of paladins in my barracks since preists are amazing and i rely on the valorian vallor to fill out my heavy melee. i also train light ranged in my training grounds and get heavy ranged with my witch hut and GoToS. this strategy works well for me and the culture is also half-way decent.

 

[Fayeanne]

Personally, I find Paladins to be better early on, because you get their star promotions far earlier. So for a long time the Paladins will be more durable and also will have a debuff and the Vallorian Guards won't. This might change once you are able to research 3-star Vallorian Guards (I'm not there yet to try it out personally), but even if it does, by then you will be able to just straight-up train them, so you won't need the Vallorian Valor.

Now if you were Elven, I'd totally say keep the building, but for Humans, it's kind of meh.

 

[Henroo]

I think Vallorian Guards are better than a Paladin unit of equal rank. 1 star Guards are way better than 1 star Paladins. This issue is that you get the promotions for Paladins early in the game and the promotions for Vallorian Guards does not come till late in the game. There is going to be roughly a year or more of gameplay where you have 3 star Paladins and only 1 star Guards.

Furthermore, the human heavy ranged unit is Mortar and it is not that great. 1 star Orc Strategists will perform better in many encounters than 3 star Mortars. I run multiple copies of Grounds of the Orc Strategists in my human cities. If there is an easy encounter that needs heavy ranged, I will use Mortars. I save the Orc Strats for difficult encounters that need heavy ranged. You might consider ditching the Vallorian Vallor and getting a 2nd Grounds.

 

[StarLoad]

Or you could just load up on the Vallorian Valors and take the free guards that for Elves do well and give a nice culture boost. Grounds of the Orc Strategists are also great for the same reasons

Also please note you being in chapter 4 means many choices you make now will likely need to be changed in 2 or 3 chapters. Are you having space issues that you need 9 squares back? if not just keep and collect

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

what ed said

 

[SoggyShorts]

Perhaps it's not so much a choice between paladins OR Vallorians it's a question of whether you can fit both.
Personally I really like Vallorians not because they are better than pallys, but because it frees up my barracks.
Orc strats too because mortars are kinda lame, but mostly to keep that barracks free.

I may have gone overboard with my cities as they come from a time when you had to choose between producing units in the barracks MC or TG, but until I unlocked high-level frogs I got 100% of my Heavy melee and heavy ranged from Vallors and Grounds.
I still never train a heavy melee in barracks, Merc camp, or training grounds.

 

[Henroo]

I may have gone overboard with my cities as they come from a time when you had to choose between producing units in the barracks MC or TG, but until I unlocked high-level frogs I got 100% of my Heavy melee and heavy ranged from Vallors and Grounds.
I still never train a heavy melee in barracks, Merc camp, or training grounds.

I could not have done that. I think there is enough of a difference between a 3 star Paladin and a 1 star guard that I think it was worth training Paladin as I advanced. I am in Elementals and recently got the 2 star Guard promotion. It seems to me a 2 star Guard is roughly equal to a 3 star Paladin and I am starting to use Guards more. But as you say, you can now run all 3 military buildings at the same time and that makes a huge difference. I think I would have balanced my cities differently and would have used more Valor & Grounds had the old system of only being able to run 1 military facility at the same time continued. I think both Grounds and Valor were more important then than they are now.

 

[Moho]

Thank you for your opinions, everyone.

I was considering getting rid of the Vallorian Valor because I want to find ways to improve the Cultural situation in the city and it seemed to me that the building might have become superfluous.

My city has been growing fairly steadily and the situation is quite balanced, I think. I can make my own decisions, of course, but from time to time I feel like asking questions to other people who can share their own opinions (and I especially appreciate the opinions of those who have been playing this game for a long time) and, on the other hand, I also enjoy being reasonably active on the forum as well.

The arguments for keeping the building are that 1) it offers some cultural points anyway, 2) it provides free units whose accumulation can only be beneficial, and 3) getting rid of it is not a wise decision unless there is some crisis my city is going through. Okay, my city is going through no crisis, and the other arguments make perfect sense. Plus, they come from the kind of people whose opinion I respect.

Thank you for educating me, guys.

 

[Moho]

I want to add that I have managed to add some Culture, although the situation is not "perfect". I know, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I have replaced the level 3 Vallorian Valor with a 4 level one crafted in the Magic Academy. There aren't a lot of great Cultural offers in the Magic Academy (which I watch like a hawk), but I took advantage of every offer that has shown up so far.

And I've just noticed that one of the first researches in Chapter 5 is a super road, which I'm sure will add enough culture to my city.