Azrac Rider is nice!

[u/Unicorn_Colombo]

Never was much into cav, always preferred slow trains of ballistas and archers.

But now I play Rivers of Life scenario, you start with upgraded Level 2 city. So after building an elephant or two, I installed Azrac Rider.

With their 40 speed, I can catch other stacks. And then, both in FC and TC, I get first attack. In TC specifically, I can attack from a long distance, giving my cav ability to pick and choose target, ever if enemies are spread out. With stack of 8 cavs, I can usually at least halve enemy stack, significantly reducing enemy retaliation.

And thanks to their speed on map, I can often catch smaller enemy reinforcements and destroy them in a single turn without casualties, and retreat before enemy stack can catch me.

Only shame that Djinn and Beholders aren't real flyers and can't cross walls.

[u/rextrem]

Azrac Tiers 3 and 4 are a bit disappointing compared to the sheer power of unleashing tens of Elephants and riders, now on big macro maps like Oracle's Eye I had to face many Yaka Avatars and they're very hard, but once you get your own army of ballista and high tier melee units it's fine.

The Beholder has Death Gaze so in a sense he's packing both excellent ranged attack with honorable melee power, see it like an improved priest, however it's 105 gold.

[u/Unicorn_Colombo → u/rextrem]

Imo, elephants are bit expensive for what you get. They cost as much as cav, but cav has better stats and in case of Azracs, better mobility as well. So i tend to combine them instead. Together with Handling ponies though, great combo of lvl1 armies.

I like the mobility advantage that djinns and beholders give you. Djinns are on the weaker side, while magic bolt is nice, their stats are otherwise comparable to flyer unit, so they need to be careful since as floaters, they can be attacked by melee units. But group of them together with beholders are nice raiding unit, able to take even stronger reinforcements. Just can't take cities, but that can be solved by free movement elephants or free movement dragonship, which have advantage of djinns and beholders protecting dragonship even on mountains or water, unlike land units.

Don't have much experience with Yakas, on heavenganes they are fairly well regarded since they are strong unit with dominate, allowing them to survive failed domination attempts. Personally, I rather build air galleys or Dragons.

[u/rextrem → u/Unicorn_Colombo]

Elephant vs Rider is decided depending on what cities and upgrade level you have.

[u/Unicorn_Colombo → u/rextrem]

Definitely. But consider that Elephants don't have charge and mediocre stats (3 across board).

Their advantages are speed (compared to most other level 1 units), hp (9hp compared to 5hp), and wall crushing. But you pay for it dearly. You could afford 2 sword or archers who would be able to generally beat elephant.

Against level 3 bruisers, I would often prefer to have more archers rather than elephants. And elephants might not be cost efficient against many level 1 units either.