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-   -   Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA? (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40761)

OmikronWarrior October 5th, 2008 04:04 AM

Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Yes, I'm being somewhat of an exaggerator here, but still I'm surprised with how many disadvantages LA Man seems to have. The troops are fine, or would be if they A) weren't so resource intensive and B) overwhelmingly map move 1. Still the combination of crossbowmen and heavy infantry is a very deadly one, especially with easy access to air magic for Wind Guide. Then you set your defenders to fire closests. When the opposition closes those in the front move to engage in melee while those in the back continue to fire with remarkable accuracies AP bolts.

Yet, as Dom3 veterans know, you have to win midgame battles with magic, preferrably damage spells until you move further up the research tree and have more options open up. And Man has only one battle mage, the Magister Arcane (A2E1S1 +50% ASEF). You could use the A3 Arcane's to cast storm and everyone power up to Air-3 for a thunderstrike spam, but that halves your archer fire power creating a terrible synergy. Anything else, you only have a 1/8 chance of getting. Theoretically, any arcane master could form a communion, but Man doesn't have any easy access to cheap, low level astral mages that make communions work on a reliable basis.

Yet here's the real kicker. The Magister Arcane costs a whopping 250 gold. I scoured the late age for any commander that was a worst value for that gold. There are none. The same amount of gold gets you a Jotun Skratti (Capable of SC duty) or Staret of Bogarus (Comes with a lot more paths and does a lot better in research even in Drain-3 dominion). Magister Arcanes have 1 map move, pretty bad old age with no chance of nature or death to mitigate it, minimal hp, and no protection. They don't have any priest levels or even sacred status. So, you recruit a lot, pay a lot of upkeep, and then watch a whole bunch get diseased come winter even with Growth-3.

Then, just to add insult to injury, half of your starting gem income is nature gems, but you have no nature mages.

So, has anyone found a way to rock with Man? Sure, there's always the expand fast with an awake SC, but you really need both excellent scales (including production-3 and growth-3) and a Pretender who bring Magic Diversity. Its sort of like choose two out of the three you need.

Meglobob October 5th, 2008 04:26 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Yes, I agree La Man is a bit on the weak side. I think as Dominions has developed, some nations have been left behind, Man both Ma/La is one of those nations.

Ulm both Ma and La got a boost, indeed La Ulm is now a very good nation. Man could do with a similar boost.

Having said that, you never mentioned La Mans one great strength which is stealth, a decent strategy around wardens/lord wardens and magister can be put together. But, you will still struggle mid - late game.

I would like to see:-

1) Magister of theology given stealth.
2) Increase the stealth of Lord Wardens/Magister/Wardens to 20.
3) Magister Arcane paths increased to 3A 1E 1S 1N with 1 100% random of AESN.
4) Judge inceased to 50% chance of 1F and 50% chance of 1D.
5) Some additional unique summons.

Sombre October 5th, 2008 05:55 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
I don't know too much about MA Man, but I believe it has a /lot/ of problems (such as old age on their best casters), problems that LA Man doesn't really have. Chelms is actually a very interesting nation and while it isn't great I don't think it's in the same situation as MA Ulm.

Meglobob October 5th, 2008 07:51 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre (Post 643060)
I don't know too much about MA Man, but I believe it has a /lot/ of problems (such as old age on their best casters), problems that LA Man doesn't really have.

There best mage does have the exact old age problems that the Ma Man Crone has, except its worse, because there best mage has F magic vs N magic.

zzcat October 6th, 2008 12:27 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
IMO Man is the weakest nation of LA. Their army is ok but very resource intensive. As a battle mage, most magister arcane are even weaker than a harab seraph but cost 80% more.(while Harab seraph can sommon valkyries in battle, A2E1S1 do not bring any dual-path spells like acid bolt)

OmikronWarrior October 6th, 2008 04:08 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
The Magister Arcane's might be fine if: 1) they got a price cut to 190-210 and 2) had easier access to cheap slave to communion with. Also, a 10% cut accross the board in resource costs would be nice.

Sombre October 6th, 2008 04:40 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Perhaps Man should be given a lesser version of the Ulmish Castle Production Bonus. I think MA Ulm is at 20% or something. Don't know about LA Ulm.

AreaOfEffect October 6th, 2008 10:50 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
I was going to save this discussion for my guide to the nation. Yet, if your going to bring up a sore subject, I might as well chime in.

I believe the reason the Magister Arcana is priced that way is because he has drain tolerance. It's the only explanation I can develop. That said I feel that it's unfair for the player to pay for that ability in gold cost as it has already been paid at nation selection. Each nation has advantages and disadvantages. When you choose a nation you, in theory, pay for any advantages with some disadvantages. The advantage of drain tolerant units was paid for with a lack of recruitable thugs, the lack of any national unit template, the lack of high magic skills, and severely hindered site searching ability just to name a few.

Drain tolerance should be a national advantage tagged to all casters of Man at no cost. It should be a given as it is a national advantage that is suppose to make up for the laundry list of things they don't have.

OmikronWarrior October 6th, 2008 11:00 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
And honestly, the drain tolerance thing only goes so far to explain the heavy price tag. For example, the Bogarus Staret (sp?) will usually have 12 RP, but 10 RP in 3-drain dominion. The Magister Arcane will only average 6.5 RP in drain dominion, but costs exactly the same. Furthermore, RP is the only thing you buy mages for and thus not the only thing to blance with price considerations.

The normal Magister is by far the best researcher Man's got, and does have the advantage of not requiring a lab to be build. But, you can't use him in battle.

Agema October 6th, 2008 12:28 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Maybe don't think about Air so much, and think of your mages more for unit buffing than damage spamming.

Okay, A2E1S1 (+1 AESF).

Early, you can easily access Wind Guide for your already awesome longbowmen. With a simple communion, you can add flame arrows with F. And you get arrow fend if your opponent has archers. That will make you very unpleasant in the early game, and your national troops are pretty decent anyway.

For damage spam, don't Storm-Storm Power-Thunderstrike and cripple your archers. Just 2 communioned guys will give A3 for caster and slaves. Use 4 and you'll have A4 casting half-price thunderstrikes, which means a lot of thunderstrike spam. Also note that Earthpower on a master will also reinvigorate your communion slaves. Mostly Use your earth magic. You get E2 mages. That means earth boots for +1E. You've got Summon Earthpower. That's easy access to blade wind. For E1F1 mages, earth boots + summon earthpower to get magma eruption.

You have access to earth's vast array of unit buffs and debuffs. Legions of Steel, Destruction, later on Army of Gold or Lead, and so on. All are in easy reach. You can set up Fog Warriors as well with communion via air. Finally, with E/A, you've got the massive combo of Army of Gold and/or Fog Warriors, followed by Rain of Stones/Earthquake.

Also bear in mind your E/S combo. With E2 mage make earth boots, give to an E1S2 mage, and you've access to all the crystal stuff: coins for +1S, slave/master matrices, shield (E2S3?) and so on. That gives you more leverage as well.

You've got 120 points from Drain. Maybe invest in a rainbow pretender for site searching to get income going. Your troops are hard enough to make you an unattractive rush target, so SC not required. Maybe invest to make you pretender high in a good late-game magic, like Death or Astral.

Amorphous October 6th, 2008 03:09 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
As I am rather new to Dominions, there are probably lots of things I am missing, but still I think the judgement on LA Man in general and the Arcane Magister in particular is a bit harsh here.

First off, a nation should reasonably be compared to another as a whole and not just on a unit-basis. Straight off comparing the Magister Arcane to the Staret is perhaps not entirely appropriate as the latter is an extraordinary and capital only mage.

The Magister Arcanes as is offer quite a lot. With A2E1S1 + 50%FAES they can craft Earth Boots, Starshine Skullcap and then Dwarven Hammers and Crystal Coins. 1 in 8 Magister Arcanes have A3, which means that if you provide one with an air booster, he can continue crafting boosters on his own. If you also provide a Ring of Wizardry later in the game, Magister Arcanes can craft elemental staffs, which together with the fact that 1 in 16 Judges have F1D1 and can craft Fire Skulls, mean that they can craft Flame Helmets as well.

Agema covered most about combat casting, but I think it important to reiterate that you have a lot of options even when using small communions. Since your Magister Arcanes all have similar paths they suffer very little fatigue in communions, so even small communions have no problems casting a couple of major buffs and then continue with things like Astral Fires, Gifts from Heaven etc.

A couple of squads of Magister Arcanes can be a major problem for your enemies and you can build them in every castle you have.


In line with Agemas thinking I think an SC something of a waste with LA Man. The troops are good enough to conquer territory at a steady pace while still providing a serious deterrent for anyone considering invasion in the early game. Consider that A4 gives your mages early access to air boosters, at least S3 makes Rings of Wizardry attainable and W3 and N2 lets you use some nature magic early and with conjuration 5 you can summon a Naiad to cover water and nature magic for you. A dormant Lady of Springs, Mother of Tuathas or any of the usual rainbow mages can do this while still having a decent dominion and quite healthy scales.

AreaOfEffect October 6th, 2008 04:59 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
The question has never been about the usefulness of the Magister Arcana in my opinion. They are indeed a solid mage. Their is plenty to do with each variant.

However...

That does not justify their cost. I can just as easily rant off a couple dozen uses for any mage with 4 magic skills in total. The ultimate problem here is that Man is magically hindered, both in the reliability of their research curve, and in their gem income.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Magister Arcana. His lack of mobility is easily countered by his ability to cloud trapeze. The fact that he has air magic more then anything else is synergistic with their troops, spite what others might say. When an opponent sees you deploying that much missile fire the natural solution is to cast storm. In turn Man should counter by casting storm power and evocation spells. Have your enemy waste the gems on a spell that helps you just as much as it helps them. Also, aim plus gift of the heavens can be devastating. The best part of the commander, you can make him anywhere.

None of this changes that fact that Late-Age Man can't close the deal in a competitive game. In the end, the upkeep they pay for the effective battle power they get hinders their opportunity for victory. Sadly the Magister Arcana is just one piece in the puzzle as to why Man has yet to achieve a MP victory. To blame the Magister Arcana exclusively would be crime.

Amorphous, as for comparing units on a one-to-one basis, you are correct. It is not reason enough to make a judgment. Improve the Magister Arcana and you will always find another "worse mage ever". My personal feeling is that, as a whole, Man is magically weaker then most, if not all, it's contemporaries. The lack of magic ability translates to a weak late game. The usual balancing factor would be a strong early game, but Man doesn't have this either in my opinion. Man has just too many needs by the end of the day, and the 120 "free" points just aren't enough.

Agema October 7th, 2008 05:45 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
I think what you've overlooked are the ordinary magisters. They look bad as no paths are guaranteed. However:

You've got 50% E, 50%A, 25%S. That means 6% have 3 paths, 31% 2 paths, 44% 1 path, and 19% 0. In research terms that means (0.06*5 + 0.31*4 + 0.44*3 + 0.19*0) = 2.86 each on average. That's not bad for 70gp, certainly much more efficient that Magister Arcana, and a similar research:gold cost many other nations will be paying. Magisters aren't going to die of old age, 25% can be communion slaves, and if you can't think of anything better to do with the 19% that have no picks, you could always save yourself the upkeep by suiciding them into indies or someone's PD.

Your magic and troops are capable enough for the early and mid game. Fairly obviously, you want to think about making your pretender capable of accessing late game power. You only need D2 to be able to eventually forge and summon your way to D6. As you can make astral caps and crystal coins already, Just S3 can get rings of sorcery then rings of wizardry, to S6 (and D8).

You won't be needing many of your S and D gems as your battle mages won't need them, so you can afford to splash lots on summoning and forging.

Aezeal October 7th, 2008 06:57 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Agema raises some good points, nice posts I must say..

I say the only way to settle this is through a duel :D Agema with man against a midclass nation of AoE's choice.. or a small MP game with the same setup and 2-3 other players.

Let the fight BEGIN!!!

thejeff October 7th, 2008 07:32 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
And the 19% that have no picks are spies and engineers. Hardly useless.
They also don't need labs or temples to build, which can cut total costs even further

Amorphous October 7th, 2008 08:32 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
The research pace of LA Man may not be stellar, but neither is it particularly bad. And it is certainly reliable as shifts in magic scales does not influence it. If you really want to have higher research output you can always craft early Owl Quills and later Lightless Lanterns could be an option depending on gem access.

As Agema mentioned Magisters are indeed a reasonably cost effective researchers and the few you get without any magic paths are still spies and useable as such.

As for being behind in gem income, I do not really understand why that would be. Magister Arcanes can search for air, astral and earth sites without much problem and there are no particularly pressing research needs that prevents Man to pursue thaumaturgy 2 reasonably early. A Magister Arcane prophet running around searching for sites should be enough to get the initial income needed.

The initial income of 2 air and 2 nature gems seems to be about the standard amount for LA and though the national mages cannot use the nature gems, those same games make it very easy to get a larger nature economy going as long as the pretender has at least N2. At construction 4 a Thistle Mace and any of the frequent independents with a nature pick gets the job done.

The Judges can be used to start a small death economy and even without access to rings of sorcery or wizardry they can propel Man into death through the Bean Sidhe (I do not recommend it as it might take a few summons to get one with D2, but the option is there). Once construction 6 is attained Judges can also provide a fire booster making it possible for the Magister Arcanes to search for fire gems with magic.

Water is something Man does not have access to easily, though the Bean Sidhe does have a water pick as an option if I remember correctly. As I said in my earlier post, water and nature are reasonable picks for a pretender and Naiads can then cover that end.

Blood is something I have not tried out with Man, but I suppose the patrol bonus of the Judge may be of help.



Overall the Magister Arcane is expensive, but it still fits well within the budget as I see it. There really is not much else to spend the money on, but Magister Arcanes and castles. The units of man are not expensive gold-wise and there is always the possibility of using higher taxes in combination with Judges.

AreaOfEffect October 7th, 2008 11:52 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
I've already chosen my nation to play, it's Man. Trust me, I like Man for most of what you have said, and for a lot of reasons that you all have missed. Late-Age Man is an interesting faction. It's strength lies in the flexibility of their commanders and foot knights. A magister can fulfill a array of roles, as does also the judge. Their H2 priest is one of the cheapest in the game and that matters when Ermor is on the boarder. You can have your best infantry hold any line you want them to by setting them to fire. When you want punch, send in your cost effective mounted Knights. There is so much to love.

However...

I still maintain that Man underpreforms people's expectations. First of all, lets, for a moment, forget what your god can bring to the table. I prefer to first examine what a faction is capable of on it's own.

Without the aid of a god, the usefulness of half your gem income is generally limited to what a nature 1 indy mage can do with it. This of course assumes you can find one in the late age. As for site searching, thuamaturgy 2 is indeed not that far away. The magister arcana can reliably site search air. You might be able to search for earth if your lucky, but you still need earth gems after that. Going up a different tree, evocation, let's you now site search astral... with no astral gems. In order to site search death via spells, you now need to recruit a completely different commander, who isn't reliable at all. Manual site searching is limited to fire 1, air 3, earth 2, astral 2, and death 1. That's not impressive, especially since that spans all your mages with all of their unreliable randoms. Aside from air, none of this promises the really good sites, which you need for solid gem income and indy mages for diversity.

Your solution to research is apparently quill pens and a 70 cost mage that averages below 3 research. Less then three means that, on average, you lose the magic race because you can't simply match you opponents researchers one-for-one. Quill pens simply take the one useful gem income you have and wastes it on something that money is suppose to do. If we were to listen to all the advise above, those air gems are needed to site search air, make air boosters, and cloud trapeze your map move 1 mages. You need those gems for so many other tasks, making quill pens all the less viable.

Remember that everything has an opportunity cost. Simply ranting off all the things a unit can do or all the ways to compensate research doesn't outline a strategy. If your magister arcanas are site searching then they are not researching. If your making magister arcanas then your not recruiting your cheap researchers and you are inceasing your upkeep, which limits your castle building, which limits your troops. If your making quills then your not making boosters. Heck, you can't even make boosters without your god, so lets talk about that.

Let's talk about the needs of your god. So far we know you need nature. You should consider order scales, as you need money for magister arcanas and castles. You need growth to limit the death rate of your battle mages. Production might be considered a no brainier for this faction. I've already seen the suggestion for a rainbow god. Those aren't cheap at all. This makes sense though as you need better site searching, better research, and more magical diversity in my opinion. Yet, how confident do you feel about being able to turn away an early sacred rush? How about armored elephants? Making a pretender for Man is, in my opinion, one of the hardest gods to make in the game. You could take a great enchantress with nature, skip on growth, and use her gems to make shrouds for your mages. But to keep her awake or dormant you need to sack a lot of dominion and/or scales. Both are very important. Dominion because of Ermor and Ry'leh, and scales because of the nation itself. Taking the 120 from drain helps, but it isn't entirely free as it limits the research of your god and makes indy mages useless for anything but magic diversity. Other nations will have more points to work with as their free points are actually free.

I've got some solutions to the problem, but I don't really want to piecemeal my guide bit-by-bit in somebody else's thread. My point is that Man is at a great disadvantage against other factions in a fair fight. Bleeding their income dry with magister arcanas isn't helping. The mage ought to be revised.

OmikronWarrior October 7th, 2008 01:10 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Some posters have made some pretty good arguments as to how to use Man effectively. They seem to depend, however, on the assumption Man can expand with out the use of an awake SC. I don't think thats the case. Remember, the assumption is an SC can grab one province per turn, so if you forgo the use of one you'll need to use your national troops to get 12 provinces by turn 12. Not an exact science as some players will insist you need 20 by turn 12, but thats the general idea. In my experiments in single player I was never able to hit that number with troops alone no matter how positive my income and production scales. If you need an awake SC, you're either sacrificing scales or magical diversity, both of which are tough for Man to and survive the long haul.

Agema October 7th, 2008 05:14 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
I agree that Man's pretender design is not obvious - I've done MA Man MP, where you're in a moderately similar position except your mages are far worse. However, many of the problems you raise here are experienced by many nations, such as awake SC vs. non-awake non-SC. It's a tradeoff of early for late power many have to decide on. Similarly, site searching strategy, how to dedicate mage time, is common to absolutely everyone. I don't think Man is unique or unusually bad in these sorts of way.

I think you're underselling magisters. 2.86 res per 70gp is not bad. Check out other late era nations: it's more gold efficient than a lot of others can manage (Atlantis for instance gets 4research mages at 140 gold.) The ones without magic will work as scouts and spies, so even the non-magical ones are not a waste of money. Also, 210gp for a magister is not bad. Go check out other nations - about 200gp for a 4-path old-age mage is Tien Chi's situation. Offhand, I could tell you MA Pythium's theurgs are 180gp, 4-path and old age.

I agree you have an issue with unreliable magic path access, particularly death. The fact you get N gems without a natural N mage is also bizarre, and pretty much demands some N magic on the pretender. A lot will revolve on how you make your pretender. But I'm not convinced their situation is as bad as you're making out.

AreaOfEffect October 7th, 2008 06:21 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Magister Arcana is 250 gold in vanilla, not 210. 210 Would be much better.

Edit: The ~200 gold mages you referenced are also sacred, that cuts their upkeep in half. Not exactly comparable.

Edit: Be advised that my personal opinion is that Man isn't broke, just that it underpreforms people expectations and lacks competitive edge. Man only needs small tweaks in my opinion, and a compatible strategy of course.

Sombre October 7th, 2008 06:50 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Wow. Don't even compare magisters arcane with Theurgs. Totally different leagues.

chrispedersen October 7th, 2008 10:42 PM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
Just as a note...

I think the old age tag was too liberally applied. There are a LOT of casters I believe that tag inappropriate, and could be used to rebalance (slightly).

I also believe that armageddon needs to be reworked. It isn't Armageddon for the giants, for ryalla, for SC's - its armageddon for the little people.

How about instead a straight 10% chance (+/-1% for each flavor of luck) that a unit or commander is claimed by the fates.

Chris

Amorphous October 8th, 2008 08:15 AM

Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
 
It is all well and good to consider what a nation can and cannot do without a pretender as long as you do not forget that it actually has a pretender. Shoring up weaknesses of the nation is one of the things pretenders are good for.

That said, site searching works rather well for Man as long as you realize that you have to use spells to do it. Manual site searching is good for getting the needed income to start using the spells. And the spells do find the better sites.
Calling the randoms used for site searching unreliable is something I find a bit of a stretch. Now, of course, if you demand absolute forehand knowledge, that is a problem, but that is then something Man shares with a lot of nations. 1 in 4 Magister Arcanes have either E2 or S2 and the first such is usually what I utilize for initial manual site searching. My initial income will be better in one area than the other and I do not know beforehand which, but it can hardly be called unreliable. Apart from death, everything is found on the same type of mage, which also happens to be the only commander you buy in your starting castle at least during the first year. Again, when an initial income has been secured, magic is the preferred way of searching.

Sure, there are nations that search for gems faster, but as a general rule these are also the nations that need those gems earlier.

As for the astral searching spell being in a different school, you want evocation 2 reasonably early anyway, so it really does not strain your research.

Regarding research I was evidently unclear and I apologize. Owl Quills is not my recommended solution, but only something I mentioned in case you are insistent upon getting as much as possible out of your researchers. What I do if I fall behind in research, is build more castles in order to produce more Magisters. They do not require a lab to build and with map move 2, they can be built within easy reach of a castle with a lab. As a general rule you want a lot of castles with Man anyway, as that cuts the need for high production scales and you are also very good at defending them.

The Magisters also do a bit better in research than some think, in my opinion. It is true that the average research for the Magisters you buy are less than 3, however, the average research of the magisters you actually research with is a bit above 3.5. The rest of the Magisters you use to lessen the income of your opponents.


Now, regarding pretender I think it is not as hard as all that. I made a small test game in SP (Silent Seas, normal parameters) in order to make sure that my memories did not deceive me regarding conquering pace and used a pretender that I think pretty representative for the type of play I prefer when using Man.

Dormant Lady of Springs dom6 A4W4S3N2 Order 3, Production 1, Growth 1, Drain 3

Planning on building lots of castles, I do not find higher production necessary and in my view you do not need higher growth, but if someone is adamant about it, I would recommend paying for it with misfortune.

A Partholonian Sorceress could have provided slightly better magic skills for the same price, I think, but the water income of the Lady is very helpful for the odd early clam and ease of summoning the first Naiad.

For me the result was pretty average, but I am not very good at this game yet, so please take it for what it is worth.

Late winter the first year I had taken 11 provinces, so that would fall somewhat short of the 12 line, however, if it helps I had 13 the month after that and in the following months my third army would be conquering territories, too.

Last month the first year, my first army was still quite healthy (18 longbowmen, 9 defenders, 3 tower guards), the second had only lost a defender and the third army was approaching the front. My initial castle could now produce a solid army every 3 months, a second castle was on the way (I was a bit sloppy there, so it had not been finished yet) and I had found a standing stone giving me one extra air and earth gem respectively.

As I said, this is about what is to be expected. The first turn is spent patrolling, buying some longbowmen and a defender and the next turn you send your army to conquer a province. The first army is going to need backup eventually and including the first turn it will require about 4 turns of production. The second army will need 3 - 4 turns of production and then you can reliably churn out a decent army every third turn. Ideally your first army can take 10 provinces the first year, but mostly there will be a holdup for one turn, caused by the placement of your original province or possibly extra tough independents. A combination of both can reasonably set you back another province, so average is about 9 provinces. Your second army should be able to take somewhere between 1 and 3 provinces the first year and the third army will probably not reach the front till the second year.

Reasonably speaking a better player could use somewhat smaller armies and possibly be further ahead.


As for armoured elephants and heavily blessed sacreds, those can always be a problem, but I am not any more worried about that than I would be with another pretender or nation. Defenders are high precision and morale crossbowmen, so small squads of them scattered around the battlefield do present a serious problem for armoured elephants. The defenders also happen to be good hp, decent protection and defense heavy infantry, so they are not pushovers for most sacreds either.

Thing is, a SC could obviously help with elephants through sheer size, if nothing else, but sacreds is something else. Going from memory, the SC choices for Man would be Wyrm, Cyclops or Prince of Death, or am I missing something obvious?
None of them are that powerful out of the box and need magic and/or equipment to really be able to deal with everything. It might be because I am really bad with SCs, but I usually have problems taking one province each turn with SCs that cannot fly the first year. And mostly I do not manage it with flying SCs either. I simply need some equipment or magic to make it work reliably, or I risk losing the SC or at least acquire a really debilitating affliction. And if I do that I just paid dearly for an SC and got nothing in return.

Of course, the initial expansion will still be faster with a SC, but the price is, I think, to great.



Regarding Drain for Man, I do agree that it is not exactly free, but in the same vein, neither are most of the scale preferences. A non-standard temperature preference is only free as long as you are not exposed to temperature scales in the other direction and there are magics that manipulate this.


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