Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

You'd think so, but then there's his second post on the matter. If that's sarcasm, it's at a level far beyond my ken.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

I don't know about being the best MA bless nation but I will say that wardens are tough customers. Add in even a light EN bless and they can make for some strong, cheap raiding parties. Adding in something like a frost brand on a lord warden or mage support from a mother of avalon and you can do even more damage (I speak from the experience of having had them used against me ;)).

I view them somewhat like TNN's tuatha warriors in terms of small numbers being surprisingly strong - the difference being that rather than avoid damage though high defense they can take a lot of hits.

They're not high profile like Mictlan's sacreds but I think they're a solid unit. I don't think going for a major bless would be wise but I also don't think they need it in order to be effective.

Actually, I haven't heard much discussion about MA Man under CBM 1.92. They got some significant boosts - the one that really stood out to me as being powerful is hex.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Not at all...

Let me put it this way...

The closest recruit anywhere sacred comparison unit I can think of in terms of how they fight (high damage attack and soak incoming damage) is the Arssartut; lets say you put an E9/S8 bless on them to increase the survivability and magic resistance.

That is pretty much your base warden with just E4 bless.

Priest options are similar, the extra 2 morale points on wardens makes up for the lack of easy sermon of courage.

Man has slightly stronger, cheaper and more efficient Mages...

LA Atlantis just swaps in D for N, they are both good paths.
LA Atlantis has stronger W compared to Ma Man's stronger A, A is a much stronger path.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.
I am not convinced that this is neccessarily a stronger choice than something like E4/N4 with extra paths (and without the horrible misfortune scales I felt compelled to take to pay for Prod 3), especially since Mans mages are really "Meh", even in comparison to someone like MA Ulm (Mage Smiths can blow up stuff by themselfs, while Mothers need a Crone that casts storm to get Thunderstrike, which of course means that you dont get anything out of your quite decent archers.
If they had native A4 (which they dont, the chance of that is really low on their cap only stuff), you could use a storm staff or forge boosters to get things going.
Mind you, in Forbidden friendship or Over People Mod games, Man eventually get Tarrasques which deal with the lack of magic diveristy a bit, but those happen quite late.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Seriously? Death has skellyspam, magic diversity (spectres), thugs (banes&banelords), great anti-chaff spell (shadow blast) and best SC chassis ever (tartarians). Nature has... What? Charm and tarrasques? And couple buffs, that aren`t really useful for your sacreds, because they`re already regenerating, reinvigorating, have high protection (I assume E9N4 bless) and are unlikely to rout. And you can`t even forge penetration boosters for your charmers, because you don`t have any reliable S access.

First, stop comparing MA to LA. LA has generally weaker mages. Second, air magic is strong, but only when you have reliable access to A3, where thunderstrike and guided arrows happen. Man only has A3 on 25% of its cap-only mages, who are also old and map-move 1. Well, you can cast Storm to boost your A2 Mothers to A3 - but this means they`ve just lost 50% of their precision and your archers are now next to useless. Oh, and you still need a highly vulneurable crone to cast it.
Also, thunderstrike by itself isn`t going to win the game for you - you NEED A4 to get to real air magic (boosters, globals, high-end summons), while with water you can successfully climb a ladder starting from w2. And Man needs over 200 turns to reliably get 1 crone with A4.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Wrong. Having H2 priest mages (that aren't mounted, damned Eriu) means a crystal shield from a pretender, lucky indy, merc, or trade boosts it up to H3. And barring that, H2s, which Atlantis can recruit anywhere once it gets underwater, are hugely more than just for sermon of courage. Any large number of sacreds take an insane number of H1s to bless, with huge wastage. Man doesn't even have priest mages, and in order to take advantage of the Warden's stealth special ability, would have to use fort turns to recruit H1s. Which you have to, or surely you wouldn't seriously compare Arssurtuts without mentioning amphibian, or the magic weapon that destroys SCs with strength drain.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

That's a bad choice of bless. In fact pretty easy access to relief means I wouldn't bother with any E on them unless I wanted it for other reasons.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

In MA Mans defense, Sleepers are comparable to Banes although a fair bit more expensive.
It also has a 2 decent evocations (Sleep Cloud and Storm of Thorns) of which one is quite early. It also has some ok Battlefield buffs, although your already spiffy troops do not need those as much.
If you wish to expend some gems, Nature has the very usefull Swarm and Howl Spells. Summoning Sprites also has significant niche uses. Last but not least it also gets Faeri Queens.
It is also a nice forging path. With regen gear, reinvig gear, and one highly usefull anti thug weapon (Axe of hate).

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

My bless works out quite well so far. F9 would be sub par as Wardens have scant issues with dealing damage. Water 9 is interesting but gives serious fatigue issues. D9 is more of a point, as it opens up D, but I would prefer that one sacreds with multiple attacsk to be honest. S9 does not help much, Mans sacreds are usually tough enough to take a hit.
A9 and N9 are obviously sub par.
E9 gives them Ulmish prot while being fatigue neutral, and allows them to wade through a lot of even good stuff without taking a scratch. In that goongame, lack of attrition allowed me to through about 300 Wardens on Machaka on turn 30, after previously winning an early limited war against Shinuyama.
I would have prefered E9N4, but simply couldnt find the points.

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 

Please note that I haven't said that...

I do think wardens are too good currently to be recruit anywhere, when compared to other sacreds, but that is a much bigger assessment.