Re: Balance Machaka
 

After trying out some of the armor and weapon changes, I'm more or less content with Machaka's baseline troops.

2 mapmove Hoplites(with lighter armor and correspondingly nicer defense) are good all-around troops that have minimal losses in standard fights. They're incidentally a bit easier to mass with a slightly lower resource cost, too.

Your standard armorless troops can take a better beating--they do their job much better with parry 6 shields. They can even tie up knights for a bit with their 15 defense, too.

With the Great Hide Shields on your Warriors, I can justify giving Militia javelins--they need them to stay competitive, and this will make your PD not suck quite so bad.

Spider Knights methinks should have spear and lance instead of just a light lance. It makes them a decent amount more dangerous, too.

As a question, which do you think should come first on Great Spiders and Hunter Spiders? Web or Bite? Right now they have Bite first, which seems somewhat nonsensical. I'll have to do a bunch of testing to see which is more effective overall, too.

My overarching thoughts are that there are some little things to do for Machaka still that can make all the difference. Better recruitable troops(and correspondingly better province defense) help a lot.

Another idea is to give Ears of the Lord a small (~25%) chance to have 1S. The rough idea is that this saves you having to burn death gems on Spectres and gives you general Mindhunt resistance(especially since the buggers are stealthy!). It even makes sense that the stealthy guys might get some Astral in their travels.

Try it out--between these changes and CBM's 80 gold Black Hunters, I think most of Machaka's pure troop worries are resolved. I'd still like some cool stuff like a national Arrow Fend-type spell and a late-game summon, but it's a start.

Funny enough, i was trying changes for Machaka the same time. Through with some differences.
Made spider armor -3def 2 enc. Light spider armor 11 prot -1def 1enc. Replaced plate armors with either spider or light spider ones. Tried to replace most spears with assegais. Tried to gave javelins/poison javelins to most troops.
It seems balanced variant might be something in between of those 2.
Another trought (not put into mod): maybe spider riding units could use poison bows/javelins/lances (dipped in poison of their mount)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Ooh, very nice. Initial thoughts are that the Spider Knights and Black Hunters are disserviced by getting Spider Armor--they don't benefit from the lower encumbrance and want to use the heaviest armor they can find.

I really like the Poison Javelin. It gives you something to do against crazy raiding thugs that aren't poison-immune.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Only reason for replacing iron/steel armor is thematical. Just hard to imagine iron-plated warriors in jungle climate. They could use bronze one through.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Bronze is a good idea, but actually weighs more than iron. It's generally superior to iron or steel as armour, and not just because it doesn't corrode, but the weight factor, and the fact that it's metal at all, should be considered. Plus, it's technically both harder and more expensive to make bronze than iron, and it's theorized that Africa is one of the places where iron was spontaneously invented.

Plus, having bronze armour increases their weird "Romanesque" vibe they've got going. Not bad (kind of cool, actually), just a little strange...

Elephant and rhino hide both make excellent heavy armour, and are thematic.

I might just try my own version of "balancing" Machaka, since you've got some good ideas going, that nevertheless don't quite mesh with my own vision for them. Considering that I've got 2 nearly complete African-themed Nations in the works, and others in the wings, having a Machaka that works the way I want it to work seems like a good idea.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Hmm, if they can get enough iron for full plate, then i can just pretend they somehow protect it from rust.
About javelins - what if only lighter(short-spear) troops carry poisoned ones and heavyer use basic javelins(or not use them at all)? About riders - maybe they can use machaka spears instead of generic ones (they need to reach an anemy from atop spiders).

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Huh, didn't think of that one. Poisoned bows on the spider riders sorta makes you want to keep them around. Feel free to just reuse the Androphag Archer poisoned bow, too, as I hear armor and weapon slots are getting tight these days.

Machaka spears instead of normal spears would be fine on the spider guys, though Machaka spears would have to not suck so much to make that one worth it.

Poisoned javelins on the 'wussy' troops seems like overkill. The jump up of militia even having javelins is I think already a large one, and I'm hesitant to do anything more with them.

Hey, I figured out what was wrong with Hunter Spiders. For some reason they only have 11 strength, when they should have 16 or so to even out the damage their fangs do while their rider is on top. Of course that's why they didn't do any damage.

I've had some luck putting a Witch doctor as the first commander for province defense, and then a Voice of the Lord for the second one. That gives a bit of magical support(mostly Frighten and Fire Flies, but it's better than nothing) and someone to Sermon of Courage for the masses of militia you would get.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Poison missles have a very nasty unbalancing bug associated with them.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Your point about poison missiles seems right. Then only warriors (that are javelinmen in vanilla) should have them. Basic ones are enough for militias, and heavyer troops (machaka-spear ones) should not have javelins at all. Spider riders with poison bows, on other side, are not too massable and even buggy poison seems ok for them.

As an another question - is there a mythological base to create astral-using spider (maybe to replace those ape heroes of Machaka)?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Anansi the spider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi