Need help with Man strategy
 

Hello all. I've signed up for an MP game with Man and I've never played them before (in fact, I've only played Dom2 a few times at all). So I'm looking for a basic strategy and/or general pointers for playing Man and also advice for a decent pretender build.

I've read the Man guide on the freewebs site and it's been helpful but I'd like more opinions.

TIA

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

The longbows are great. If you play standard man, warden with level 9 air blessing for air shield are great if you combine those two

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Air 9 Air Shield gives 70% protection from what? Damage?

TIA

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Missiles. All arrows, sling bullets etc have 70% of just not hitting anything when they usually would have. Couple that with a high-prot shielded unit, like the marignon knights, and a huge horde of your own crossbowmen, you can have a horde where a few of the knights stop the enemy and the crossbowmen do the damage on point blank (that is, place them right behind the knights very close to the frontline. This way, they very rarely miss, and dont daamge your own units.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Wardens and those green guys make a fairly powerful sneak-army. Add a sneak priest. And a bard for magic.

You will notice in the standard Man theme that the magic and the gem income almost screams for using "Call of the Wild" and "Call of the Wind". So you move your army to a decent province, use CotW to air-drop troops on top of the province to soften it up, then have the army hit it. I could go alot deeper into the use of sneak armies with Man but if you arent the type to play in that mode then it wouldnt do much good. Let me know if you want more tips in that area.

The other notes here are good but let me add something on slingers. They are cheap, make decent patrollers, and in large numbers can often cause rout. Ive seen many a nasty combat god, super-combatant troop, or just big thing like elephants or hydras run away when a large army of slingers have fired at them. I guess it doesnt have to hurt much to be scarey.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

I'm curious about this. I've often wondered, why use slingers at all as man when you have longbows? Sure, slingers are 7 gold apiece and longbows are 12 gold, but IMHO the difference in combat power more than makes up for it. Their range also gives them far better survivability (a def of 11 versus 8 helps too). Also, IIRC, longbows have strategic move 2 while slingers have strategic move 1.

It seems to me that the only use for them is as patrollers since they are the cheapest unit, both in gold and resources, that man can recruit.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

It might be just my sloppy impressions. Someone can download the tiny-map and setup a simulation to test it a hundred times or so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But my impression is that against things like elephants, 20 longbows just didnt have the same effect as 30 slingers. I dont mean in damage total but the enemy seemed to rout more often. Of like most things in the game its not an absolute but it is a good "plus" to figure in. Ive found that a unit with a "fear" ability or spell does very well when backed up by slingers.

Im known for experimenting with the "worthless" parts (pretenders, castles, units, spells, nations) of the game and Ive found that most of them have SOMETHING they can be used for.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

I think what Gandalf is observing is the employment of tactics designed to take advantage of the game's routing mechanism. As far as winning a battle, it's more efficient to try to force a rout than to attempt to outright destroy the bulk of the enemy. 20 archers may do more damage to a target unit than 30 slingers, but the 30 slingers can inflict more morale checks, thereby playing on the odds that sooner or later the unit's morale will break if you force enough morale checks. Especially since the unit's morale goes down the more hits it takes, even if the hits are otherwise ignorable scratches. Those scratches have a greater impact for routing purposes than they do for the unit's health.

It's not the death of a thousand cuts that should worry you, it's the fear of a thousand cuts. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Dagger.gif[/img]

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Nice breakdown of the likely answer. Sounds reasonable to me.

And EXCELLENT final line. Very Sun Tzu

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Thanks!

You should see me when I'm Machiavellian. Or perhaps not. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon02.gif[/img]

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

I agree that this sounds like the most reasonable answer. As I understand it, the mechanics of morale checks is relatively poorly known. I wonder if the amount of damage dealt makes morale checks more severe, or does all damage generate the same "quality" of morale check.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

IIRC, this was answered by a dev, or perhaps Zen, a while ago but I'm too busy watching Jeff Foxworthy DVDs at the moment to bother searching for the thread. hehe http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Gandalf, yes, I do like using stealth tactics and fully intend to do so in the upcoming game so please share your knowledge! In fact, I've decided to use the Tuatha theme to take advantage of the Glamour of those Sidhe infantry units which, I'm told, makes them even stealthier.

My plan thus far (for early game at least) is get Wind Guide and Flaming Arrow ASAP and use a combination of the Sidhe infantry with Longbows as the bulk of my armies, along with a Bard and Sidhe Champion for leadership support. I'll also send some raiding parties deep into enemy territory to disrupt things a bit.

Thanks for the info.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Forester cheap sneak --- great patroller
monk cheap sneak --- can preach while hidden in enemy territory and can lead 10
bard cheap sneak --- can instill uprisings in enemy territory and can lead 10

have you chosen a pretender yet? Scales? Man/Sidhe is a good choice for blessings.
sidhe champion sneak mage&priest --- can lead 50
cu sidhe sneak fast sacred
doaine sidhe sneak sacred

Do we see a pattern yet? I cant believe how many people play this race without using the sneaks. This just wasnt created for "my army meets your army" type of play. Its made for "bring your army. my army is already past yours and headed to your inlands"

"Call of the Wild" can be used to take nearby provinces that appear weakly protected. Or bolster your troops in the field by casting it on yop of you. They can be good flankers set to attack archers. The wolves can be assigned to other commanders and the werewolf leader left there set to "summon allies" creating more of them every turn. Or you can use them as yet another sneak army wandering around.

"Call of the Wind" is easier for you to use but they dont sneak. They can fly so they have some range for jumping around the map. The birds can be assigned to a local commander and the leader reused. As a delivery for equip, gems, slaves. Or give them an Amulet of Vengeance with orders to attack rearmost

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

I can believe it, primarily because I've only played Man in a conventional, non-sneaky way, and been quite successful. Is the sneaking strategy competitive? Do you win with it? I ask, because I've never been in a game where that's been demonstrated (possibly because I've lead a sheltered life, but still...)

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

To invest in armies doing sneak tactics generally requires a long game on a large map. And truthfully Im not the one to answer the "can it win" question since thats rarely my goal. I rarely play MP and when I do its usually in one of two modes. Either to be the best ally I can be (which man/tuatha can do well) or in rattlesnake mode. Rattlesnake means I sit quietly building up until someone pisses me off, then Im all flood in his direction. I might not win those games but I have been instrumental in making sure that certain others didnt win.

By being spread wide on the map in hidden armies when other major players weakened themselves on each other I have been in position to suddenly move into first position but Im not aggressive enough to have made the best use of such luck

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Yeah, the Longbowmen rock. I'd also encourage you to use the "Song of Rejuvenation" or whatever it's called frequently--your lower-level spellcasters can restore Fatigue from your higher-level guys. Think of them as the "Energizer bunnies" of spellcasting!!

For myself, I sure do love the "Swarm" spell, but there's no need to grab for it until the early middle-game. Alteration in general isn't bad for Nature mages. I've only played Man a couple times, but I enjoyed them. Bards are also very handy ways to make your enemy concentrate Unrest-reducing armies one province further away from your borders than he might otherwise. Once an army is clustered there to police, it's often easier to move it towards some other enemy, although that depends a lot on the layout of the map...

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

I've been trying a Golden Naga in my tests. Fire 4, Water 4 give decent bless bonuses for my Daoine Sidhe. The Defense +2 is especially nice since they have a base Def 15 to begin with. With Glamour and high Def they should make nice tanks.

I've been going with Dominion 6, Luck+1 and Magic+2 for Tuatha theme and Heat +1. SHould I go with Luck+2 instead of Magic+2? I like have "good" events but the extra Research seems helpful since I have to rely mostly on Bards w/Research 3 until I find a Library.

Which pretender build do you like?

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Ok, I've done some more testing and I'm starting to like the standard Man. I'm going with Air9 pretender for the auto Air Shield 70% on my Wardens so I can stick em right in the middle of the bad guys and not worry about my Longbows tearing them up.

Re: Need help with Man strategy
 

Flanking helps even more. Set the archers far to the sides of the battlefield and slightly back from where the front-line troops are standing (so they dont get targeted by troops set on "attack closest"). Shooting from the sides gets alot of arrows fired without having to try and shoot over your troops. Only when the two Groups are in major melee will friendly fire become a consideration.

Try to find a druid province. Those sneaking archers make a great addition to a warden force. March everything forward until you are too banged up to go further, then let the warden group continue forward (on sneak) watching for opportunity