Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

OK thanks, will take a look. I played them and liked them a lot when I first got the demo....

PirateIAm: When you send out 8 equipped assassins in front of your army, and they only succeed say 50% of the time, isnt that like 400 gold + all that time down the drain? Is it worth it for you? Well it may be fun, so that's ok.
I have the worst of luck with Bane Spiders. I hate it when they die to measly little commanders, and they do so quite a bit when I use them. Sure the measly little commander may also die, but he wasnt a 150 gold capital-only unit which took me ages to get out there. Argh I wish I could use them B-Spiders better. Do you all have success with them? I tried the trick of having him take out indies; tried giving him a ring of breathing and going for neihboring water provs, but he gets licked by Tritons and only takes out about 70% of "normal" commanders at most. It seems he only has a great success rate against those 50g priest-types. Or am I doing something wrong?

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I completely agree... by the time you are able to afford buying 3 or more Hunters its late into the game.

Also would be nice if the machaka militia could be blessed... then the province defense could actually do something.

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

Bless tactic is not a way to go with Machaka, at least not for beginners. Black spiders are powerful but are too expensive and you wont have enough of them to make blessing worthwhile.

Best way to go is good scales and pretender with single magic path that your mages don’t cover (like Air). Virtue, for example, is a good choice.

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is sacrificing anything more than flavor text?

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you equip with just a luck pend and anti magic pend - 15 astral your succes rate will significantly increase. Also do not use this tactic against any province (that is to risky) Only when your main army hits his main army. Even if you only take out 5 commanders it can push the balance to your side so when the main battle is fought you wipe out the rest. You can only use this as an ambush - maybe once or twice against a human opponent since most get smart and start adding bodyguards but it can make the difference. I had a Arco opponent that was mass communioning me to death but I used this technique just before I attacked and he lost all his communion slaves and I wiped his army out to the Last man. It saved my ***.

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is sacrificing anything more than flavor text? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought so, but I just checked and no, actually they can't do blood sacrifices.

PvK

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

WIthout going into details, I think the Hunters and the Bane Spiders, and at least light bless effects, can all be worth it and used effectively, but also require investment, so it's a matter of style and preference. Don't try to do everything all at once, or it's likely you won't do anything well enough. However I have had success even fairly early on with some Hunters. They don't need blesses, but blesses (and magic items) just make them more deadly and tough to kill.

Bane Spiders are good assassins, but of course they aren't 100% effective, are expensive and don't make sense to try to use all the time. Their armor makes their defense rather low. Adding luck, etherealness, or Defense improving items will help them beat tougher opponents.

PvK

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

Well to each their own...

It is extremely rare for me not to have 10 hunter spiders by turn 10, unless I lost some in conquests. On top of that I normally would have a solid mass of hoplites, and whatever extra archers I might need...

Sure I may wind up skimping on the mages early, but hunters with earth9 are just too nasty, give them fire4 or nature4 on top of that and... well if I can figure out how to do it I'd imagine most of you can too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Its all about the scales people, oh and using your nice patroling priests to crank your income to insane levels http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I find it much easier to get lots of income, rather than production, which is usually the bottleneck for 'knight' production. I never even bother to try and make more than 1 knight a turn with marignon (yeah you can do it... so what), with Machaka I often find myself able to pump out 3 hunters a turn, income willing... And turn 20 isn't late game is it? Well I guess it depends on the game and the players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

I like the Machaka casters a lot, I usually send 2-3 with every army of 30-50 men. That's something you definitely can't do with Tien Ch'i.

Re: Advice on Machaka appreciated
 

Thanks much!!
One more question:
I think part of my failures is that I do not understand the magic paths very well -- nature and fire and death combos I mean...
What spells do you like to research when-ish?
What schools are generally good bets (besides construction and evocation)?
I am a big thaumaturgy fan, but since Machaka has NO astral, I don't really know what to do.
How do you guys dispel? How do you get those neato ++path boosting items (rings of sorc, staffs of elemental mastery) without air or astral? I like the idea of a Virtue for air, but cant see me getting an Air and Astral pretender (which one??)....

Uh, sorry, main question here: Magic. Which spells, which paths?
Thanks much!