Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

I am playing Man MA, just to try something new. Their temples were half cost in dom ii, and i was curious as to why that perk was removed? Maybe I am missing something, but their troops outside their capital are below average, their unique pretender, the forest lord, has nothing special about him, their best mages start the game old, they get no advantage on the scale points, the knight of Avalon, by far man's best unit, is 80 gold and a whopping 61 resources. Compare that to Pangaea's regular armored calvary unit, which has 2 more protection and comes in at 40 gold!

Their national summons are weak, and some use gems they have no access to, and their mages can't hunt for. So I was
wondering why someone felt it was overpowering Man to continue to give them half cost temples.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Temples will cost 200 gold again next patch. It's a bug.

P.S. Man is a pretty powerful nation in MA. Longbow archers, unrest causing bards, its pretty top notch.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Yeah, it's going to be fixed.

But don't sell Man too short. You have a lot of fun with those cheap little mages... Daughters of Avalon make fantastically cost-effective researchers. They also make great summoning-factory chassis once you get a few Thistle Maces going around.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Yeah,

man is not bad. I am doing pretty good with them, Forest lord 4 e 6 n, 1 turmoil, 2 prod, 2 cold, 3 growth, 3 luck, sleeping pretender. I am in 2nd game playing them, I got 3 heroes the 1st game, and have 2 early mid game in 2nd. I research straight to 5 alt and cast mother oak, then 5 ench. for gift of health.

Once those are up-all is good.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Other posters have already answered that temple cost is going to be fixed in the next patch.

Man is a strong nation. Though a forest nation like Pangaea, and with some points in contact with them (nature magics, stealth in the mix, etc.) they play differently. For once they have strong air magics and their longbows are roughly 3 times cheaper than the Pangea archer - and you know what this means: massive squads of longbows backed by wind guide. In later stages of the game, you can unleash a powerful barrage of air magics. Air/Nature has some cross-path rits/items that are very interesting: rainbow armour, amphiptere, etc. Their bards are great, with insane stealth and able to instill uprisings. A mass of them can bring down an economy to its knees. Crones are brittle, prone to old-age afflictions and relatively expensive, but get in the habit of buying one per turn and be sure they can wreak havoc in the battlefield - air magics is very powerful. Even Mothers (recruitable everywhere and only 130g) can pull out some nifty tricks. Man's songs are more effective than Pangaea's - but prolly not much more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif - and though Pangaea's sacreds are stronger, IMHO, the wardens are nothing to sneer at.

The dom wizards around here, can tell you more tricks to pull with Man, but it's a pretty decent nation.

Note: Mother of Tuathas is another unique pretender for Man although I do not think it is cost effective - a shame really, as I happen to like her a lot.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Thanks Sork for the tips.

I did use the rainbow armor and orb lightning to decent effect the 1st game. Theme wise, I have no clue why the death magic summons are there, as there is nothing dark about man.

None of their mages use death or blood magic. Shrug.

With such low ranking priests, I tend to use knights of Avalon more than the sacred units, though with 6n, i have a decent bless on the wardens when i do use them early in the game. I keep a few wardens with my prophet.

Despite their cost, I would take the centaur longbows over man's any day. After the centaurs get protection cast on them, and run out of ammo, they are pretty good at killing stuff and chasing downs runners. I typically take 3 growth, 3 order with Pangaea so i can buy tons of those centaur longbows.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

It would be nice to see the death summons replaced with a theme-based summon or 2 that uses nature and air.

Storm Elves! 10 air 10 nature conj 4

High precision bowmen, that .....

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

There are no "elves" per se in Dominions... but EA Man, a nation still in the works, will be a nation of Tuatha. DomII incarnation of the Tuatha had them be Air/Nature mages (instead of Nature/Air of regular Man) with glamour and stealth, but inferior bronze weapons.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Maybe they could summon tuathian warriors. There has to be a more theme based summon than death summons.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

The nation of Tir na n'Og has a reserved slot in the game (nation 13) which can be seen in some units and in game logs. Using Tuatha to pad Man is probably only something to consider as a mod we cold play around with until Kristoffer finishes that nation.

So what would be your concepts of generic Man? If you take out Ulm, and Marignon, and Amazons, and Barbarians... what is generic Man?

I rather like the Avalon theme it has.
Can we come up with an Avalon boost?

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Fomoria and Tir na n'Og were the two nations that lived in the land before the age of men. The lore of the Tuatha had much more influence on Man than the Fomorians, but some of the magic of the giants can still be found in the realm.

The death summons are just residual knowledge from the Fomorian lore. The Fomorians used death magic before men came to the land. ME Man rarely use it, but some judges of LE Man might.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Can't wait for the new nations

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

i like the Avalon theme, as that has a strong base in lore, but the death magic national summons seem misplaced for them for the reasons stated.

As for balance, Man is fine. Especially if the temples are fixed.

I would like to see the Lord of the Forest get something unique. Maybe a longbow of accuracy, a thunder bow, or an ability where animals will not attack him.

There should be a hero named Merlin, however!

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Actually a cool ability that would not be overpowered would be animal charm as an innate ability for the lord of the forest. Since he is the Lord of the Forest, some sort of animal mastery would be cool. Since few nations rely a lot on animals, it would not be overpowered in any way.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Personally, I think their unique Pretenders could be a bit spruced up.

Mother of Tuathas is a good concept, and provides for lots of neat stealth-attack tricks, but is probably too expensive to be particularly useful; since her magic paths are generally what you need least as MA man, she's a one-trick pony.

Lord of the Forest compares unfavorably to the ubiquitous Great Mother: for 50 more base points, you get +1 to Nature magic, and save 30 points on new paths. (You also get more combat stats but lose trample and HP, probably a wash there.) Given that the base cost vs. +1N only balances out at N8, it takes a very specific build to make that chassis worthwhile.

(Divine Serpent is OK; I don't know anyone who uses it, but it's certainly good at what it does, stack up nature-only.)

My ideas:
1) Animal awe on the Lord of the Forest, as suggested above, or perhaps dominion-based Wolf summoning or the like.
2) A N/D pretender with residual Fomorian stuff, to match the new summons.
3) A lower-hp, physically smaller entity that is conceptually similar to the Mother of Tuathas. (Could be the same entity as #2)

I feel like there many possibilities for "an Avalon boost", but I want to hold my suggestions until I see what the new nations contain, both to find inspiration and avoid duplication.

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

Okay, on the topic of Man...

I just tried to set up a SP game using the Mother of Tuathas in LA, since her paths actually add a lot of diversity to Man in that era. And I came across a deeply annoying fact about Man, which I can't believe I didn't notice before:

Stealth sacreds but no stealth priests.

This seems like a deeply self-destructive and stupid (lack of) pairing. Am I being one of those whiny people who complains that their favorite nation isn't awesome enough, or is this a conceptual flaw?

(Mind you, I think removing the stealth from the Wardens is a perfectly reasonable solution, though then they might need something new to differentiate them from Defenders. But a return of monks might just be called for. I know you can prophetize a Lord Warden, but that gives you exactly one stealth army, insufficient for any stealth-using strategy.)

Re: Man MA temple cost raised to full?
 

That's a conceptual bug or oversight, much like LA Caelum having stealthy troops (Raven Guard) but no stealthy commanders (bar scout, which has 0 ldr). I'll add that to the list.