Re: A quick question about Man
 

So it's the same in Dom II - ok. But could you tell us why Man has so many units only recruitable in their capital? And is that fact open to re-consideration?

I think the main problem (for Man & perhaps C'Tis) is that if you want to use your home province troops you are forced into taking a high administration castle. That's the cost here. Your pretender's abilities and dominion are limited because of what seems to me to be a somewhat random decision to make not one, but two of your best troop types in your home province, not to mention mages for Man.

I think it's totally reasonable to have a high-end unit type and or an elite mage built only in your capital - just like Abysia, Pythium, Ulm, Arco, Pangaea, Vanheim, Jotunheim, and Marignon. All of these have maybe one unit type and or one or two elite mages limited to their home province. C'Tis seems excessive, having 2 elite troop types, and Man seems even more excessive, having 2 elite troop types and all their mages.

So is there a reason for this? Is there a corresponding advantage to the disadvantage of having to take an (expensive in design points) high admin. castle in order to field your best army? If so, what is it? And finally, is there a chance this will change?

p.s. BTW I agree that Knights are more cost effective than Knights of Avalon, which makes large-scale production of the latter redundant. In that case, could Wardens be produced outside of the capital? There's no redundancy with an existing unit there - Man's Infantry (aside from Wardens) isn't very good.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I heard of the legend, just wondering what kinds of maps when that happened? Large vs small? Crowded vs spacious? Magically and economically rich vs poor?

The reason is no matter what parameters I tried, Ermor always lagged behind except for a large number of useless undeads.

The only *possible* exception that it has a chance is when the map is large enough and people leave Ermor alone for a long enough time.

Ermor's pretender would be a very good mage but they have slow research. Consequently, it takes a longer time than usual for them to create your usual Uber-combatants. There are cheap way to crank out budget super-combatant, e.g. Gargoyle, but you might not have the right gems. The only fail-safe cheap combatant is the Ice-Devil but you'll need to depend on blood hunt.

With more experienced players in a MP game, people would be happily crave you up for your gem income way before you can defense yourself (e.g. turn 20 to 25). Your undeads are not enough to be a deterent. You could in theory avoid that by not finding out the gem sites, but then half of the advantages of your pretender would be gone.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There isn't allways an easy explanation for all features, sometimes forgotten features are rediscoverd, in the case of Man the reasons the troops that are recruitable only in Man is so is probably because it seemed to fit the descriptions. That said I do not think that Man is as disadvantaged as you seem to think. Their tower Guuards are decent heavy infantry, if you test them in the dom 1 battle simulator they will hold their own fairly effectively costeffective wise, they just aren't as spectacular as some other troops. The cost of their mages are ok, and they are fairly powerful, they have access to arguably the best heavy infantry in the game, they have spies´, they have extra good longbows that are a boon in the early game. I agree though that Man isn't the strongest nation in the game, but I think they are strong enough to still be competetive.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

Ermor sucks in multi. It's very easy to annihilate them with the right tactics, since they are a unique nation.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Man's tower guards have 13 protection, lower than your usual heavy infantries. However, I don't think they're as handicapped as they look.

The problem is if you have a bard among them, they'll usually cast "Protection" (Alteration 3). The spell has low fatique and give Bark Skin to a few of your units, raising their protection by 7 (to 20). Or they might cast "Tangle Vine" and lower the defense of their opponents to 3. They can also cast spell songs to remove fatique, restore some hitpoints.

Of course, it would be nice if the protection of Tower Guards is increased to 15, corresponding to Man-at-Arm of Marignon. But then, Man-at-Arm does not have a defense bonus. And Marignon can't easily boost the protection of their as easily ("Body Ethereal" has a shorter range, and Bard is a very cheap unit). I don't really know where the balance lies.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep, I met him twice, and yep, I admit he's a good player. And nope, I won't change my mind ;-).

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There isn't allways an easy explanation for all features, sometimes forgotten features are rediscoverd, in the case of Man the reasons the troops that are recruitable only in Man is so is probably because it seemed to fit the descriptions. That said I do not think that Man is as disadvantaged as you seem to think. Their tower Guuards are decent heavy infantry, if you test them in the dom 1 battle simulator they will hold their own fairly effectively costeffective wise, they just aren't as spectacular as some other troops. The cost of their mages are ok, and they are fairly powerful, they have access to arguably the best heavy infantry in the game, they have spies´, they have extra good longbows that are a boon in the early game. I agree though that Man isn't the strongest nation in the game, but I think they are strong enough to still be competetive.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Johan, thanks for the reply. I don't think that Man are disadvantaged in general - that's not what I was trying to say. Cost/effectiveness I think Man do ok - for sure they are competitive. What I was trying to say is that in design points they have a disadvantage, if they want to be able to field the best army their nation would allow, because of the need to take a high admin castle.

Maybe you think that the armies of Man would be stronger than most other nations, were it not for the fact that their elite troops were only recruitable in their home province (and so come in small numbers). In which case, that would be a (cumulative) advantage to balance out the disadvantage of having to take a high-admin castle. I'm not sure that I think that is the case however, and so I think Man has something of an unequalled disadvantage (except by C'Tis, which has much the same problem).

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On this cold/heat balance issue I agree completely.

Anyway, unless you're really unlucky with death sites, C'tis can build up an impressive undead army in just a couple turns or 2 (See what a dozen sauromancers can do when you hold them on Carrion Reanimation).

Oh, BTW, Cloud of Death costs only 10 fatigue if I remember well. Quite handy when fighting in the snow, and the good news is Sauromancers like to cast it as their 6th spell too ;-).

About the Relief/Howl issue, one Last tip: when fighting one of the "cold" races, send Sauromancers with astral magic as their random pick. With a handful of Shamen, of course. The communion masters won't suffer from fatigue, and one Relief every other round is all you need to prevent your slaves to pass out. If you script at least 2 Shamen to cast 'Relief' in rounds 3-5, your casters and slaves should be fine in round 8.

About the "I can't have Shamen in every army" complaint: small battles are often decided (even if not finished) before this 8th round begins. Therefore keep your "communion teams" in your big armies, where they're really useful. And if you have 3 big lizard armies engaged in cold provinces at the same time, you'd better pause and rethink your strategy ;-)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">At the risk of looking sarcastic, I'd say I'm glad to pay 70 extra to get rid of that annoying fire-1 magic ;-) I bet you don't often use inquisitors to summon Will-o-Wispes, and I bet you like them better when they stick to priestly spells rather than cast those annoying Fire Flies, right? Indeed, I prefer Lizard Kings to High Inquisitors.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I usually recruit one to build my first temple in a province that let me recruit regular priests, then I have her hatch eggs until the game's over ;-)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The leaders are OK. About troops, I could say the same about almost every other nation. How many flier types do you use when you play Caelum? Arco has 3 IIRC cavalry types, did you ever see one of them? What about all these Ulmish infantry variants?

At least C'tis has 2 different mages they can recruit everywhere, and both are cheap and useful.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Duel? If you mean Magic Duel, you've lost already ;-)

Re: A quick question about Man
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I heard of the legend, just wondering what kinds of maps when that happened? Large vs small? Crowded vs spacious? Magically and economically rich vs poor?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">First time I met Pepe was on Urgaia (the tiniest map of all), average site frequency (40-50), standard richness, 6 players, none underwater. Pepe started with a disadvantage as underwater expansion was forbidden. He would have destroyed his closest neighbor (Pythium) as soon as turn ~15, but at this point Pythium received heavy help from Caelum and survived for another 20-25 turns. Because of that Pepe's expansion stalled, but he was one of the 2 surviving players in the end.

Second time was on a modified Hiperia, with some seas split in two, 9 players, site frequency was average, normal richness. Pepe started in a crowded area, made deals with most of his neighbors, and stayed relatively quiet for ~30 turns. At this point he managed to destroy Pythium (again!) in a few turns, with Arco's help. Then he attacked Ulm and conquered about half his provinces. Eventually he ran short of troops to fuel his expansion, as he mainly reanimated ghouls for defense, so he couldn't hold all his conquests. At this point the game was stopped because of RL reasons.

Re: A quick question about Man
 

From my experience C'tis doesn't seem to be overly weak nation at all.

Poison Slingers mixed with Shade Beasts, Manikins and Behemots is pain.

Shamans can make your big units ethereal.

Empoisoner is one **** of an assasin.

My friend plays C'tis more than me, in fact he hardly plays any other nation than C'tis, but he usualy completely neglets Sacred Serpent, wich are IMO quite good units.

[ October 02, 2003, 12:35: Message edited by: Nerfix ]