List top 3 MA MP races
 

I am not an expert, and i think small map v. lap map is very different. So for this thread, you can assume the map is Aran with 9 players. Yes, that means blitz is possible, or even likely. So defending yourself early from some f9 w9 vans needs to be in your thinking.

1. Arcosphale

I think having level 3-4 astral mages, that can get mind burn very early, coupled with tough infantry, healing priests, and elephants(combined with hyperists), can make early expansion easy, as well as the ability to hold off a zerging army. Late game, you have astral magic.

2. Vanaheim

Air magic is tough, glamor troops, and the ability to pummel most races early on. Vans being able to be recruited at all castles is also insane. Also gets a free scale pick with the plus 1 cold.

3. Ryleh

Many advantages to an underwater start. You can pick your fights. Astral magic, mind blasts, decent priests, summons.
Many spells that can target on land capitals cannot be used to target underwater provinces. Seeking arrow, fires from afar, etc. Stealth troops typically cannot attack you underwater. You get pd on land and sea.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

I think you listed some of the best for sure, I would replace arco with caelum (very strong air, mobile, mammoth) but that might just be my personal preferance.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Caleum's pd is so bad though, that i think that one point takes them out of top 3. Who would they replace?

Air, mammoths, and 120 free design points are huge though.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

flying (high mobility) makes up for the lack of low pd with ease. I stated that it was arco I would replace.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Those are reasonable though badly spelled choices. Caelum, Pythium, Jotunheim and Ermor would be the other contenders IMO.

1. Caelum- Crappy flying troops, but excellent build anywhere mages give Caelum matchless strategic mobility and crazed firepower. They also get 120 points free on nation design because of the temperature preference and a fistfull of little advantages such as water item forge bonuses and magic weapons on most of their troops. Late game is not first rate, but they can overcome that by kicking butt in the early and mid games.

2. Jot- Giants smash! Wide magic, bonus for the cold, blood for the late game, thugs.

3. Ermor- Sturdy line troops that will give the excellent casters time to destroy the enemy, useful cheap sacreds, free undead, death and astral magic (two great tastes that go great together) and top notch PD. They got game all the way from start to finish.

3.5. Pythium (Ermor's cute but *****y little sister) Pretty much the same army as Ermor, communion from hell, and Hydras.

Nearly all the MA nations are viable. I think Ulm and Argatha are the two duds in the bunch

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

MA is easily the most balanced era i think, so yes most nations can do well.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Spelling fantasy names has never been my strong point(:

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

I had actually included Ermor in my original 3, but realized the R'lyeh could not be left out.

Caelum and the Giants, both have their strong points, but I just cannot tolerate races whose pd is totally useless.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Rlyeh and shinuyama are both pretty good due to their strong magical powers and good ranged armies(mind blasters and cheap flaming arrows respectively) and i would rate them among the top. My third choice is a little harder but i would probably go with Ctis.

Ctis has good death and nature access aswell as some water and astral(or good astral with couatl). They have fairly good general purpose troops(heavy infantry and elite warriors), great skele spam capability, poison slingers who work great with skele spam, good national summons, strong priests, great assasins and a very good dominion(40 free points from heat, income bonus for themselves, income penalty for others, disease for living, non cold-blooded troops).

For a miamasa pretender a Dom9(10 is too expensive) Prince of death works great. His death magic fits in with the national magic, the national mages can forge a variety of useful items, the PoD is a great early game expander, raider and late game SC and is also immune to the disease dominion(which spreads quickly with dom9).

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Ctis is not in my top 3 for a couple of reasons.

They have no ranged troops, and cannot effectively augment their troops with independents(because they are not immune to disease). Mercenaries can be used, but they also get diseased, which s not too bad since you use them for 3 turns.

If you play a map with lots of water squares, Ctis cannot defend those against water races too well. Its dominion kills off the indies you purchase.

Ctis sacred is weak, and their best infantry is just sufficient. Poison slingers have short range, and many times you poison your own troops.

They do have awesome priests. When I play Ctis i use a dom 10 awake Wyrm for early expansion. He can solo provinces, sea or land, on turn 2. Cash never seems to be a problem for ctis, marsh masters mages do not have old age, are good researchers, and ctis has access to many magics.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

A dom10 wyrm costs the same as a dom9 5 death PoD who is more viable late game due to slots yet still a very capable expander. The poison slingers are fairly good ranged troops and should be used with undead to avoid friendly casualties, the undead can also be used for underwater expansion and defence. Their sacreds may be weak but their national summons are tough and i wouldnt say their national troops are just sufficient; they have high prot infantry with shields, poison slingers who can work with undead and, of course they also have the elite warriors and runners who are very dangerous.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

I agree Ctis is tough.

Just not in my top 3. You said they were your 3rd pick as well, so we may not be disagreeing that much.

I cannot see Ctis>Ermor, but that is just me. Can take POD with ermor as well, better sacreds, infantry that is tougher, does not rout often(problem with ctis), better battle mages, good priests, plenty of death and astral abilities.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

No-one mentions Machaka?

You have no national spells (because they are a source of weakness and indolence), you have only hatred, malice and violence.

You have no astral magic, which is unfortunate, but otherwise your magic is extremely strong and versatile, especially when it comes to delivering your message of the aforementioned hatred and malice.

You get spider riders! They pwn u!

Your biggest weakness is that you don't get water pretenders but you really want W9.

My suggestion:
try an imprisoned great sage with 3A,3S,9W and 4N. Dom 5, 3 Order, 3 Heat, 2 Misfortune, 1 Magic.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Until you get up to nether darts i personally would say ctis has the advantage in battle magic due to skeleton raising.

Ctisian troops do more damage than those of ermor and ermors only high prot troops(17, a number which is matched by the generally superior swamp guard) suffer from old age and so are slow, weak and quick to tire. Ctis has superior ranged firepower imo(both nations has javelins, ctis has poison slingers), both nations have standards.

Ermor suffers from its best mages being capitol only which is a big deal in larger games and ermor only has regular assasins.

Imo ermor only has 3 real advantages:
1)Tower shields, these make their troops difficult to harm with missile fire but a screen of swampguards can do the same job unless the enemy is firing into combat.
2)Reanimation. If i have a castle i'll be making mages rather than cultists and generally have better things to do with my mages than make a few skeletons per turn(and ctis can also raise alot in battle)
3)Astral magic. While ctis can get the same levels in astral as ermor due to couatls(meaning they have the same astral summoning/forging abilities) they cant get it in anywhere near the numbers ermor can. They also dont have access to nether darts but have skele spam and various other death and nature spells.

edit:I was considering machaka but they are either very lacking early game or quite weakened later due to scales. They almost require an awake pretender to survive on smaller/crowded maps(yes you can have a big bless but those spiders are expensive) and take a while to start up.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

What does PD have to do with anything in MP? All that matters is your mages and a couple of core national units.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

I will add that my personal favorite is Pangaea. They have several features i like.

1. Recuperation_This is a very good trait, all the more some in that it does not require management like the priestesses of arcos. or pretenders, fairy queen, chalice etc.

It shines in fights against Ctis, where disease does not ravage them. It allows troops to get 3 stars exp routinely, since they shake off injuries and disease.

2. They have 4 nice heroes with no mod needed. I like heroes.


3. Their troops have a lot of hps, and many very capable troops at low resource cost. The centaur longbow, 30 gold 4 resources. While Pangaea's troops are quite expensive, they do not die a lot.

4. Wide variety of troops. Tough low cost infantry(high resource however), armored calvary(high resource), centaur longbows, berserk infantry, calvary, and tramplers.

5. With a double 9 bless, tough sacred, but it is capital only(:

6. decent priests.

7. no old age problems.

8 access to blood.

9 king of nature magic, with access to earth and death, though no death mages.

10 Stealth troops of wide variety, so you could assault an enemy capital. Stealth preaching.

11. 3 great thematic pretenders, all with recuperation.

Disadvantages:

1. castles only get 30 admin., worst in game. makes it tough to get the armored troops when take sloth.

2. Expensive troops.

3. Expensive mages for research(350 gold), only 1 mage, the pan. Poor variety of magic.

4. nature is not the best combat spell line.

5. National summons limited to a death theme. reanimating
manikins kills population, carrion woods kills population.

6. no assassins or spies.

7. pd=average

8. mages cast touch of madness on ranged troops, other mages, basically anyone in range. And they seem to like that spell!

9. only sacred is capital only. Sacred not worth cost without huge bless.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

PD matters a lot if you are fighing *against* Caelum.

He'll send out flying scouts, and if he knows how many Caelumites it takes to beat PD X, he'll split his forces accordingly and go wild. He'll lose, say, three of these armies, which are made up of worthless caelumite scum anyway so who cares?

Having good province defense drastically reduces the number of provinces you lose this way.

Vanheim does the same thing - if I can take twenty of your provinces with 5 van each, rest assured that I will do so.

And, of course, even opponents who don't like to micromanage will sometimes spam call of the winds / arouse hunger at your entire empire.

Against a clever opponent it's a real weakness.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

PD matters!

Pangaea is pretty good at taking provinces that you have temples in. At 400 gold a pop, and dominion being important, not being able to guard your far flung provinces with pd sucks.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

three other things i like about Pangaea, flying scouts with stealth 20, which also patrol well, and all of its troops have above average mr, nice when fighting astral races and R'lyeh.

Gift of health is a great nature global, and one of the best globals to have overall.

But Pangaea is not in my top 3, because it lacks good battle mages, powerful magics, and good summons that typically control the endgame.

Re: List top 3 MA MP races
 

Marignon's amazing PD has almost won me a game (it's still going, but I think I'm gonna win it at this point). I dropped 55 points into my cap at one point because I had a lot of gold from expanding into the sea but very few land provinces/resources, and what I had was tied down fighting on another front. I think underestimating the strategic value of being able to drop down 100+ troops instantly is a mistake. Granted it's not much of a concern late-game, but it's a very solid advantage before then.