Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

We have seen radical changes to Mictlan and Ulm, both who needed help more than MA Man. But MA Man imho, while not a broken race, does have more shortcomings than any other MA land nation, especially on large maps.

MA Man does have strengths. And it begins with the Crone's magical diversity, and strong air power which translates into good quick powerful evoc spells.

Man also boasts longbowmen, and the Knights of Avalon, who get a magical attack and recuperation.

But each of the strengths has drawbacks, which we can examine. My suggestions:


I. The Crone. Remove its Old Age.

Is it thematically possible that Crones, who have no fire magic, and who have abundant n magic, live long lives, but do not suffer old age? The Crone's evoc skill is Man's best hope to stave off an early attack, but they end up with 7 hps, and severe old age with no way of stopping it.

Pythium can take take 4n on its pretender, and slap a shroud on their capital only mages, as can Ermor. Abysia has boots of youth. Shinuyama has death magic, which lowers the chance of afflictions, and high hps.

I have seen a crone die within a few turns of being bought.
Of course, if possible, you can try to only buy them in the spring.

But it would help balance Man, make a race most new players tend to play 1st more enjoyable by eliminating the micromanagement of extreme old age, and be thematically sound as well.

In no way would giving Man crones that that started a a few years below max old age thrust Man into a MP power nation.They would still be close to the bottom, but would be more fun to play.

II. Knight of Avalon Commander

Makes sense to have a commander that has map move 3 and forest survival 3 to lead the knights of avalon. That would also give man a decent thug commander. (warden... Pleaseeeeee).

III. Reduce the gcost and resource cost of the KOA.

Man does not get any scale points to work with. And the KOA's are resource hogs, and also cost 75 gold each and are not sacred.

That is a double whammy. First it is hard to accumulate KOA's because of the high resource cost, and when you compare them to LA Arcos.' Agema's 31 resource cost it is just hard to justify. And if you do take a high production scale and buy a few, you will soon find it is hard to pay the upkeep cost on the KOA's.

KOA's are Avalon's magical knights. They come from the Forest of Avalon. Give them the same gcost and rcost as a normal knight. That is still quite high, but it is a reduction.

IV. Pretender Selection

Man's pretender selection seems a bit thin. To take advantage of the longbows, flaming arrows is nice. Maybe another pretender or two that starts with fire, like the Forge Lord?

Man does, however, get a couple of unique pretenders, the Lord of the Forest being one. And while more is always better, I would like to see the Lord of the Forest made more appealing. There are numerous ways to do that. Some very easy ones:

We can start with his spear. A spear is nice I guess, as he can hunt Boar with it, but could it not be a magical spear?
I mean even those dead gods with shattered souls have magical spears.

And since he is the Lord of the Forest, one would assume he hunts. A really cool magical bow would be thematic. Longbow of Avalon! Graphic does not have to show the bow, as it is likely slung when not in use.

Finally, great hunters typically have birds that help them hunt. A Lord of the Forest no doubt would command a pretty impressive hunting bird. One who would put a serious hurt on anyone foolish enough to incur his wrath.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Good idea. In response to this, I added the following to my HouseRules.dm.

-- MA Man's Crones not old. Gives age 110 (125).
#selectmonster 153
#startage 100
#end

That's still plenty old in human terms IMO, but the nature magic offsets enough that they're not penalized.

-Max

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Copy of my post in conceptual balance thread:

What they need would be probably:
- make wardens non-sacred, but recruitable everywhere
- lord warden recruitable everywhere [he may stay sacred]
- maybe add stealthy shortbow units
- add water picks on crones and mothers of avalon
- replace daughter of avalon with something useful or take it out, really stupid and useless capitol-only cheap mage
- considerably lower age of crones [to around 100 years] so they do not die like flies
- make a 2nd random on Crone 50 or 100%, not 10% [so they have some better chance for A4]
- make summonable stealthy beasts

That way MA Man would have an alternative way to make a stealthy army with good backup from mothers and monks. Now that strategy with capitol only wardens is not available.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Crones do get a "chance" at a water pick.

Daughter could be useful if they could be recruited everywhere. Since Man gets cheap castles, that could give Man a research boost. 4 research for 80 gold and sacred to boot. Very cost effective.

I actually buy them during the winter months when you do not want to buy a crone.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

TOO cost effective.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Xietor:

I was thinking about adding them W1 at start + randoms. So they could have W2 quite often and sometimes W3.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I especially like your ideas about the Lord of the Forest. He needs to be beefed up.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Every nation could do with a few tweaks, but I really have to disagree with you that MA Man is inherently weaker than other MA nations. MA Man has a synergy that is mostly lacking in other nations of any age. Powerful archers combined with powerful air magic is quite a nice combination right up to mid-midgame, (not counting the terrific infantry blockers, albeit mapmove 1, but what unit with that kind of protection isn't except cavalry?) and as we know a strong early and midgame translates to a strong endgame. If anything, MA Man is in the top half of MA nations.

I have to admit I've also found Knights of Avalon to be a strange unit. Capital only, 75gp, non-sacred... just stop right there. Vans are only 90? Laughable. It could go a long way to make them sacred, increase the price, decrease the resources, and add a commander unit for at least a somewhat-thug. Not that you'd really want to be recruiting any commander other than Crones at your capital after turn 3ish.

Still it's pretty ironic that you're trying to take old age away from Crones. LOOK AT THE NAME!! If anything, add powers, don't take away the extremely thematic and appropriate old age. Anyway, age is merely a product of race + magic.

I could see adding stealth to Man's longbow unit for those amazing bards to lead around, though... call them Merry Men.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Erf have you already seen how Man do in MP ?

Start is usually very good (but against indies only, even with longbowmen and an awake god, Man isn't an as good rush nation as any nation with decent mapmove 2+ sacreds or tramplers) then arrives midgame and a war with another nation...

Man can score victories in the beginning and destroy some unprepared or newby ennemies with a classic longbowmen + wind guide based tactic. Then the ennemy realizes this tactic is easily countered by expandable archers decoys -to neutralize fire : closest-, and/or a mix of targetable troops and big heavy infantry squads -to neutralize fire : something else-).

Man then have basically two options in midgame :

- a long attrition war, using bards spreading unrest -> only works if the ennemy don't have access to mind hunt or good patrolers, and even if it works the effects are too long to come to save Man against any nation with good magic ; the longer the war is the weaker Man will be due to very limited magical diversity and crones dying from old age

- using air magic with a lot of crones on the battlefield spaming thunder strikes -> to cast more than 2 per fight they need a storm for summon storm power, and a storm make longbowmen quasi useless, it's the worst ever "synergy" in the game ; also crones being mapmove 1 you'll have to move slowly, or use gems to cloud trapeze them where they are needed

Finally no matter how good was the start, most other nations just destroys Man (before or after its few good spells are reached).

Other elements are better than air for first/second tier magic (up to level 6), larger ae for smaller fatigue in evocations, and spells often castable by non capitol mages.

In beginning of third tier (level 7 for fog warriors) air become better than fire and water for battle magic (especially as some crones have access to the excellent air+earth combo for rain of stones), but is still not as good as other paths. And in levels 8-9, there is simply nothing worthing to be researched (except air queens, if Caelum was cute enough to let some) when astral and death magic rules (and even fire/water become more dangerous, with the army destroying spells).

Personnally I would :

Keeping the same paths
- give free flying to crones, or at least mapmove 2
- and/or make half of them start before old age (make so the ones with +1 or more nature picks aren't old)
- and/or make daughters recruitable in all forts
- and/or add a cost effective national thug summon crones can cast (I mean a real thug, not the vine thing with 8 in attack or the big human leader nature already have)

...Or add a limited access to one of the powerful path to the nation, or a medium access to one weaker path, or more magical diversity out of capitol (ie : a random for non capitol mages, or another recruitable having say water and earth).

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I don't think MA man is much worse than many other nations and I don't think they need a real boost http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I agree, Aezeal. Man is pretty strong. Blessing the Sacred Wardens (or whatever) with F9W9, they are killing machines.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

A double 9 bless for a nation without temperature preference (nor drain tolerance nor young good mages to take death nor bonus for turmoil, etc) and mapmove 1 capitol only ressources intensive sacred !? Out of blitzes do you really recommand that ?

Now it's true that whatever sacreds are good with a F9/W9 bless, but there are better nations to take that.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

First, we are talking about man as a viable MP race. Man may be good in sp. But I think there is a consensus among veteran players in mp games that Man is among the weakest. That was not always the case, as Ulm used to occupy that lofty perch.

Now if Man is boosted, one could argue, it becomes a never ending circle, with the "consensus" weak nation needing a boost. As I stated at the start, Man is not a broken race.

It is a weak race, likely the weakest of the ma land races now. Having no s or d mages, it will never be among the top races, but it could be more fun to play, and more competitive. with a few tweaks.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Summon Air Power is unfortunate in that you need a storm to cast it. Not only does that mess with Longbowmen, it hurts precision on mages too.

-Max

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

thematic suggestion:

Allow the Forest wardens to use Fairy Trod (or similar).
Allowing them to transport an army to a forest location.

Solves a bunch of issues: aka movement- and stays thematic.

Secondly, regarding Forest Lord.
It has long been a beef of mine that you can do nothing fundamentally to change terrain.

I would like a forest lord to be able to spend a turn (or more) like building a castle - to be able to 'Grow Forest'.

Along the same idea, the lady of springs should be able to convert wasteland to barren, or barren to plains.

A being of Fire - the Moloch - maybe should be able to despoil the land - making it wasteland.

To be truly thematic - you could have sprites,ents, and other forest creatures, contribute to the greening of a territory - and do it like seiging - the territory changes once a sufficient number of points are generated.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

It would mean immense work to have a different map layer for every change imaginable to a map. And it would be kind of lackluster to just change the terrain type without changing the actual map.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

That would also require reallocating the magic sites, because they're restricted based on terrain type.

-Max

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

While I largely agree with your assessment, I will add that the 1/4 of your crones with 3 Air will spam Thunderbolt indefinitely, they just need a bunch of Bards playing Soothing Songs. 10 or so will cancel out fatigue from a Thunderbolt. Worth it in any large battle.

It's also worth noting that not only does Storm make bows useless, Crones can only cast it with boosters or gems, nor can they make Air boosters. You need to design your pretender to forge Air boosters.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

so, just make a nationnal Summon Air Power that doesn't need Storm is perhaps an idea ?

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Nah, no need to change magic sites. Publish the event, let it be known that the FLord increased the power of the growing forest (sic).. and it explains why you have atypical magic.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Let's keep it simple

1. If man is not broken (your words and I agree)

2. Then do not try to fix it

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...k/blackdog.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...k/barghest.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...uk/cusidhe.jpg

Black Dog and Barghest cost death gems, Cu Sidhe is Nature. B's have Stealth +20, Cu Sidhe +0. Note that Black Dog has Dark Power +3, Barghest +2.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Just because they are not broke, does not mean they should not be improved. There is a reason no one has won a mp game as ma man. Horst F Jens won a newbie game with them, but he was also in a mp game with me, lolomo, tuijdy, dr.p and several other experienced players and played Man there too. and fared much worse.

Man has severe limitations that appear in the midgame, and blossom in the late game. So while I stand by my assertion they are not broken, I also think they need help if they are ever to compete in bigger mp games. And man is still free
in Kingmaker, if you want to trade in EA Vanheim and play Man.

Nothing better to prove your point about Man needing no changes then leading them to a glorious victory in Kingmaker over 60 other players! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Plus, no one has refuted the logic of having a 3 move commander with forest survival to lead the koas.

And i would really like to see Man have a signature pretender, like the Gorgon is for Pangaea, where players are
sorely tempted to play Man just to play the Pretender. May
he/she could have a weapon that charms, like the tartarian chains enslaves. who knows. the possibilities are endless.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

How to balance MA Man?

Make KO play as them in the megagame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

He refused. He really wanted Yomi for balance reasons as well.

Ko is smart enough to see the issues that man has. Whether he thinks they warrant an investment of his time is another matter.

Ulm was so bad they were actively hunted like a doorprize at the start of mp games, with the winner being the race closest to ma ulm's capital and the prize being a 2nd capital before the start of the 2nd year.

So Ulm was very bad, and yes, broke. Man is not broke since they can do ok in the early game.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I've played MA man on MP.

Xietor is right that Man has a lot of deficiencies. Crones aren't quite good enough air mages normally, and the storm-storm power wrecks the longbowmen. They've no great thug tactic - Lord Wardens fall short. They've poor bless tactics, as Wardens are really expensive for what you get - mediocre HP, snail speed movement, unexceptional stats. KOA are horrendously expensive, and still die like dogs when mid-level battle magics fly. Magic paths are limited. Nature can eventually get Death via lamia queens, but it's too little too late.

Your pretender points need to go on good scales, and rainbow magic picks to cover weak magic paths. You might also want your pretender ready for combat ASAP in case you get rushed.

Man makes quick work of independents, and are reasonable in the early game where the longbowmen are awesome. After that, things go rapidly downhill.

Most of his suggestions are fairly sound. I would dispute the need a mapmove 3 leader though. It'd be funky, sure, but Man is an air nation that can make flying boots.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

My mapmove 3 forest survival commander is thematic in nature as well. Why not a KOA commander? Of course you then have to choose between a crone, a KOA commander, and a daughter of Avalon, but I am sure most players would recruit a few.

They could give Man a decent thug as well as giving them a thematic leader for a group of koas that could strike 3 provinces away.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Those are essentially my conclusions as well.

Except to nit-pick that you can't get to Death through Lamia Queens without already having some.

I never tried make Lord Warden thugs, without a bless they didn't seem at all up to it.
I did use some KoA and they did well, especially fog warriored and regenerating, but never had many of them.
A KoA thuggable commander would be nice. More survivable than the Lord Warden. The 3 move is just icing on the cake.

I hadn't thought of using the dogs as stealth raiders. Possible, especially since Mothers are stealthy. Still, they're expensive for what you get, unless you get a bless for them.

I'd disagree with the comments about the Crone's diversity. A chance at 1E or 1W is diverse magic? Water can at least get to 2 for site searching, but 1 Earth is largely useless.
The high Nature is good, but they don't have enough Air for boosters or Air Queens, so the pretender has to cover that.
I'd really like to see a little more magic on the Crones. They really need a decent chance at Air 4. Maybe bump up the 10% random, or have separate 10% chances at Air, Earth and Water.
Or some national mage summons?

I think you can get away with a sleeping pretender, longbows and lightning spam will keep most nations from rushing you right away. That's good because you need the points. Death access, Air boosters, maybe Astral (RoW instead of Air boosters), Earth for hammers and boots would be nice.

Most of the discussion has been about Man as an Air nation, but they've actually got better Nature magic. Is there any way to capitalize on that? I wasn't able to find one. There doesn't seem much synergy between the two. (Though Fog Warriors and Mass Regen makes for long battles)

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Use Nature magic to charm away mages from other nations and increase diversity?

-Max

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Charm is way down the wrong tree for man though.

Though I likely will not host a game anytime soon, I think the next one I do host will add a KOA commander for man, and remove the crones old age. Not that those changes will in any way put Man on an equal playing field with Pythium, ermor etc., it will help a bit. In fact, they likely will still reside in the bottom 10 percent.

Are there any other n mages, who get no f, d or s magic, that start with extreme old age? Crones or hags are commonly understood as having long life spans(old), but with a mastery of nature magic perhaps that does not necessarily mean they suffer the effects of old age as a normal human does.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

And Charm is hard to use. It has a range of 20, which makes it almost useless against regular mages, who'll have a wall of troops in front of them. Even if you got in range, I don't think it'll target mages, specifically.

It can be really nice against thugs, if you can spam it to get by the MR. Or if you can get Wind Ride to work.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Charm is useless against mages. Most of them have lower hitpoints than normal troops. Spells like charm ,paralyze, soul slave, etc all target high hitpoint troops in effect doing the most "damage" based on the number of hitpoints "killed" when the unit is stolen.

They're great against thugs and SCs since they always tend to have 30+ hitpoints which is far and above even normal high hitpoint chaff.

Jazzepi

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Is man so much weaker than say oceania?

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

yes.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Well,

Evilhomer has a very low opinion of Oceania as well, but he is spoiled by playing the ryleh all the time. I never play water races, so it is hard for me to compare a water race to a land race, except to say it is much safer typically to start in the water than on land.

But if you read my 1st post, i am careful to say, of the ma land races.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

but does oceania have much MP wins?

the start of man isn't the problem either you said.. but I think oceania has a very hard time mid and end game.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

you and evilhomer may have to start a thread named, "Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania" then. don't hijack mine! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I would agree that it makes sense to raise the age limit on crones. There is a definitive difference between old age, and degradation. In many mythologies, the old wizards, witches, crones, what have you are old - or even ancient. However, through the use of their magics, they are incredibly hearty and deceptively strong, with bodies that may seem shriveled and dying, but are still more capable than yours or mine.

It would seem that the point of the whole thing is that in this specific case especially, the nature magic was keeping their bodies from withering and decaying. It seems a bit silly in fact, to have a mostly nature based nation where the entire idea behind their mages is that they are very long lived because of their connection to nature, but still, they are on their last legs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif I'm not saying it can't make sense either way, simply that since it CAN make sense either way, it's a viable area to remove one of the numerous weaknesses that plague the nation.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

But they lived for 150-170 years! And they suddenly start dieing every 12 months when you recruit them. Massive extinction of them! And it really doesn't matter if they get N1 or N4. With N4 old age starts at 150 and the youngest one you will get will be 155 years old.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Possibly if crones could get to W2 or E2 with a reasonable possibility (say 10-25%+) they could branch into lower-mid W and E via boosters. And they should still lose the old age.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

That's what I said, either make 2nd random 50-100% or make 1st random Power 2, so they get +2 to what they roll.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I don't think the number of MP wins is relevant for most nations (I answer here but it's also an answer for some posts in new nations threads).

Many recorded games are newby games, and some of the best nations are only that good with heavy microgestion and fine knowledge of some game mechanics. An example of that are communions, national summons or magical economy based nations. Arco/Pythium without communions or correct management of them, Hinnom without a good microgestion of blood hunting to be able to pull the endgame summons, Oceania without a clam hoarding strategy, Utgard without a werewolves+shrouds based strategy, are all only average (under average for Oceania). Now with proper use of their strengths they are in the very powerful category IMO (perhaps not Oceania, but it is at least in the good half for long games).

The real umbalance is when a nation correctly played and with average start position always beat most others even if they are also correctly played and had same opportunities from start (or is beaten by most others like Man). And it's rare to have any MP with both equal skill players and equal start positions to be sure...

The things to search are : do one nation best strategy just make it as good as other nation using under average strategies or really gives it chances to win even against well played opposition ? is there any counter against one nation best strategy ? do nation A tend to win against nation B but is balanced because there is nation C in same age, and C usually beats A but can easily be beaten by B ? ...etc...

A little more work than saying "this nation is weak because it had no victory" (or the reverse).

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

That is true to a degree, Twan, but many of the MP games had skilled players. And most of the games are not noobie games, so I think the Hall of fame is indicative as a guide of a nation's ability to win a mp game.

Though you are correct, it is not conclusive.

A better guide is the opinions of veteran players who have a thorough understanding of all the nations of the era, and who have competed in mp games against quality players of various nations.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Well that is what was said.. so why I returned it.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I have to disagree strongly with those who say MA Man does not need help. They often make a go of it in the early game, but nearly always suffer a sudden and thorough crushing later in the game. I have seen this over and over again. I honestly believe that one reason for their frequent early success is that sharks leave them for later because they know that they wipe them out easily in the late game. Their collapse usually happens when they have the misfortune to face a foe with a couple of air mages and mid game research.

They can put forth a pretty formidable force with mass longbows and a ton of mages spewing lightning and soothed by song. But longbows are simple to counter, and lightning is single target- it takes many many mages to kill a full size army with lightning.

Lots of nations are in this situation- they have a powerful tactical combo that eventually becomes obsolete as other player develop counters, but Man's problem is that they have great difficulty coming up with a plan B. Their non-cap mages are very limited and Crones are overpriced, narrow,underpowered, slow, fragile and old. What it comes down to is that they basically have only one type of magic- nature- and no good battlefield mages. Nature magic is fine, but it really kinda lacks lethality. Crones are fine lab mages, but not so good in the field. Two air, which is what they get outside of Crones, gives you lightning and some forging. It's barely possible that you can get 4A on 1% lucky Crone and build some power ups, but failing that and absent astral you need to put air on your pretender to even have a shot at the powerful advanced air spells. Given how narrow your magic is to begin with, this is a painful necessity.

What about the army? Well, there's nothing really wrong with it, but there are many with better, and given it's similarity to knights and longbow indies anyone who can't beat it needs more practice before they play MP.

Many nations have both excellent casters and excellent armies. Most nations have one or the other. Some nations have spiffy national spells. Man has Song of Soothing and excellent spies. Neither of these is a basis for world domination.

Here are three pretty conservative suggestions for improving Man

-upgrade crones by one of the following methods listed in order of power:

1) Give them a second random of the same spec they have now with no cost increase. (weakest upgrade) or

2) Replace +1 100% A/N/W/E with +2 of the same. (This will let them make air power up items and Earth Boots.) or

3) Give them an additional +1 A/S/E/W (this will let them make power ups and do communions with $300 slaves or make Crystals)

I'd like to say limit the age problem as well, but Reno has a good point, it's thematic as can be. They'll just have to Transform.

- Why aren't Knights of Avalon sacred? There is no thematic or balance reason. Man is an old DomII race and DomII nations seldom had two kinds of sacred unit, that's why. Make them sacred.

- Upgrade either the Bard's leadership or the Lord Warden's stealth. As it is now their stealth troops are not stealthy enough to sneak into the kitchen for a midnight snack.

I reiterate that i believe Man's real problem is excessively narrow magic and what they truly need is an upgrade in air and/or a third magic type at high enough level that they can build it up and get something other than Nature going in the late game.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Between the Middle and Late Ages, Man has come under some kind of Curse, that's led its mages to learn how to work under Drain. And apparently to abandon Nature magic, despite still having a Nature income. The Curse is mentioned in the descriptions, but left very unspecified. It could be related to Ermor's Fall or Ulm's Malediction, or not.

It would be thematic to give Man some high path summons or spells that tied into this. Something Nature based, but nasty and destructive. Is it possible to mod creatures that affect scales (increase drain)?

My creativity ran out before actually coming up with an appropriate creature.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Crones aren't the only old creatures that survive only thanks to their magic. Bogarus has those cursed crone summons with age 110/200 or similar, the Crone pretender is always advised to take magic, etc etc.

IMO, having Nature magic bring Crones to the safe or almost-always-safe age category would be fine, so that if they are ever Muted or Feeble-minded, they'll probably catch a disease next winter.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

I know Pangaea kind of went the "dark druid" route, but they did so in a blood sacrifice direction..... What if man went nature+death? A couple of new vine creature summons early on, and then for late game, some sort of vengeful forest being? Perhaps they would be a good fit for Llama's Dark Treant from the endgame summons thread?

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Actually, LA Pangaea has least Blood of all Pangaea themes, and is the first one with reliable Death and reliable access to the national Nature/Death summons and the national undead reanimators. I don't see what's "blood sacrifice" about that...

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Man
 

Well yes that's true, LA they do shift towards death, I wasn't thinking about that, since we're looking at MA, and Pan is blood in EA/MA.

Anyway, was looking for a way to tie into the "corruption" theme, with new summons.

Looking at them again, since they only have solid access to N and A, it's going to take some thought to add something that their national mages could hope to cast. Though, if a N+D theme was a good concept for them, they could be given a summons that only needs N, and gives a unit with some D on it. Of course, with the point that this unit, a Tainted Nymph or some such thing, would have a couple of N/D summons that would give the nation something new to work with.

Perhaps a new take on some sort of woodland vampire. These Tainted Nymphs would suck the magical essence from people, perhaps represented in combat by Mind Blast or Paralyze attacks. Their summons could be vampiric forest creatures of enhanced strength, dire wolves and bears and mooseseses.