Balance Machaka
 

I was working on giving Machaka some love in my balance series - but a lot of the changes I wanted to do are not working out well.

Here were the changes I had for the drawing board

I wanted Machaka spiders to be very effective vs. SC's. To this end I wanted a paralyzation effect ala petrify on the spit nets and stingers.

I loved the carcator effect in combat, yet I wanted to give a research bonus greater than +2. I wanted the cost to be 5F/5N - fire and nature to dry the heads and yet retain sentience. But the carcator curse spitting ... didn't fit.

I wanted to add some kind of gate ability, as well as a reaper ability to the assassins.

Unfortunately, I'm only a middling modder at best. When I teleport the assassin - he fights the province - he doesn't stealth there.

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Giving machaka sauromatia's poison arrows makes a great deal of thematic sense. You already have jungles, poison all over the place, and a familiarity with death and nature magic.

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Barring any of these, perhaps just giving machaka a national version of flaming arrows at one level lower in the research tree? But this really feels like a kludge

Comments?
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I also like the idea of working in ai totemic spirits

The spelled caleld something like Spirit Guide.

Mechanic - the wizard casts the spell is replaced with a form of himself with slightly different attributes.

For example: Raven totem - +4rp (wisdom)
Bear totem: double hp, berserk +2
Spider totem: Gains spit weapon, web, brachiationi
Frog totm: Gains ampibious, poison spit
Bat totam: Gains stealthy, domsummon bat

And or it would be nice if there were an onebattle spell for him ...

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On an unrelated note:
Anyway to give light lances the ability for the wielder to counter darkness?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Can you mod spears with paralyzing poison (adding fatique on hit)? I'd say, thematically that would fit quite well, and that might be a good step towards countering SCs.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

You may be able to do the stealthed reaper idea with a modification of the "Monster Boar" spell. If it takes a unit number as the damage type, you could copy the spell and change the damage to the unit you are trying to use. You wouldn't have control over the unit, but he should sit there and plague the place up if we are able to mod the spell in that manner.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

While it would make sense, I don't think that would be too thematic (at least in my opinion). To me Machaka is something about Sorcerers and spiders, and without them the rest is crap.

If there would a spell like flaming arrows which would make regular arrows poison arrows, then yes, that I would love to see.

I agree with that. Unless it had some limited area (like AoE 20 for example) too, but I don't know if it is possible to make such a spell.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

The minor flaming arrows spell itself seems possible, at least the following lines seem to work (school and paths are to test easyly):
#newspell
#copyspell "Flaming Arrows"
#fatiguecost 10
#aoe 20
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#end

Still maybe the other possible change is to add a gemproducing(fire) national summon,
and add a set of drawbacks to that unit: no item slots, immobile, reaper(througn will not disease units but at least"plague" the local population), and with a considerable gold cost(to limit usable numbers). Something like this:
#newmonster 2900
#copysprite 1952
#name "Fever Fetish"
#descr "Gem generator"
#mapmove 0
#ap 2
#immobile
#gemprod 0 1
#gcost 1500
#older 50
#leper 50
#end

#newspell
#name "Place Fevers"
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 1
#effect 10021
#damage 2900
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#descr "The caster gathers magical essence of fevers in the province and places it into a statue. Gathered power brings a statue to life and causes it to spread deadly diseases. Every month a fire gem is created by gathering power from fevers caused."
#end

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Great idea on the limited effect flaming arrows.

Good coding!
I have used the gemproduing nationals to good effect for abysia, agartha. I'm in favor of it for machaka as well so long as the other changes don't get to strong. I'll probably borrow your concept whole stock.

Do you have any suggestions for the other items in the opening post?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

There was a thread a few months back on how to improve Machaka thematically.

Personally I think Machaka needs a set of national summons. Given that the medieval kingdoms of west africa practiced a mix of animist and Islamic beliefs, I could see the addition of a hierarchy of lesser gods that could be summoned to fight on behalf of the pretender. It could work something like this.

God of the Rivers

A god of the rivers would be a potential nature thug. It would be about the size of a troll, and have a hippo's head. It would cost nature gems to summon, have full slots minus the head, be amphibious and have magic 2W 100% (W,N)

God of the Forests

A god of the forests would be a potential nature thug, but realistically it would be better suited as a nature mage/forger. It would be about the size of a troll, and have an elephants head. It would cost nature gems to summon, have full slots minus the head, be sacred and have magic 2N 200% (N,E,F)

God of the Jungle

A god of the jungle would be an upper tier nature thug, and a capable caster. It would be about the size of a troll king, and have a gorilla's head. It would be the last nature summon, and have full slots, be sacred and have magic 1N 1E 310% (N,E,D)

God of the mountain

A god of the mountain would be a high level mage, and a potential means to bootstrap into astral. It would be a spider, albeit one with the head of a man, which ironically would give it just a head slot, and three miscellaneous slots. It would be an earth summon, sacred, stealthy and have magic 2E 2D 1F 210% (E,D,F,S)

God of the Savannah

A God of the Savannah would be Machaka's national super combatant. It would pretty much be the lion headed titan, the lord of the desert sun. It would be a fire/nature summon cost fire gems, be sacred, have the pretenders other additional abilities and have magic 2F 2N 300% (F,N,E)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

@Lurker:
You're absolutely right about the islamist component, and its not really represented. Maybe a 'heretical priest' mage unit with different paths from their other magic users? (Ok, fire is sadly appropriate, but maybe F + S?)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Heretical priests with a astral/holy national variant of ermor's apostasy which with a booster and a little research could be on the front lines belching gouts of astral fire? Said priests could actually be halfway decent researchers if they just didn't want banish your pretender's existence...

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Well, I like the idea but these are way stronger casters than I would be comfortable adding.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I personally don't see why Machaka needs national summons.
They have perfectly viable thugs via Death (Bane, Banelord, Spectres) and great forging.

Imo their biggest in game problem that their PD (and many of their line troops) fall to the lightest raiding without significant mage/spider/summons to back them up.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Hmm.. I think I like the idea of a village witch doctor aiding province defense.

I also like the idea of zombie dust....


Oooh: a lot:

A reasonably low level, AoE spell that turns troops to soulless.
Follow up with a control undead.....

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I would love a racial "summon spiders" spell for Machaka, giving Great Spiders and Black Hunters(both without riders)

Making spiders mapmove 3 (and fast enough in combat to actually *work* as flankers, for that matter) would also be pretty crazy.

What I really want to see is a Fetish summon--sort of like a Telestic Animate, only with witch doctor paths and a bonus Fever Curse like the Lord of Summer Plague. Make it so that people can take out your province defense...but half their troops'll get diseased in the process.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Something like AoE 10 life after death on enemy with decay as secondeffect?

Tried to test - maybe it is wicked enough even without magic(especially as a pd 10 commander)?
#newweapon 900
#name "Fever Needle"
#ammo 20
#att 5
#bonus
#dt_cap
#flyspr 403
#magic
#range 40
#nratt 2
#secondaryeffect 143
#end

#newweapon 901
#name "Poison Needle"
#ammo 20
#att 5
#bonus
#dt_cap
#flyspr 403
#magic
#range 40
#nratt 2
#secondaryeffect 50
#end

#newweapon 902
#name "Weakening Needle"
#ammo 20
#att 5
#bonus
#dt_cap
#flyspr 403
#magic
#range 40
#nratt 2
#secondaryeffect 306
#end

#newmonster 2901
#copystats 473
#copyspr 473
#clearmagic
#name "Fear Ward"
#descr "Frightens and weakens enemy"
#fear 0
#hp 1
#immobile
#weapon 900
#weapon 901
#weapon 902
#end

#newspell
#name "Place Ward"
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 1
#effect 10001
#damage 2901
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#descr "The caster makes essence of fears in the province to form a statue. Gathered power brings a statue to life and causes it frighten and plague enemies."
#end

#newspell
#name "Send Wards"
#fatiguecost 100
#nreff 5
#effect 10037
#damage 2901
#school 3
#researchlevel 0
#path 0 0
#path 1 6
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 1
#restricted 35
#descr "The caster makes essence of fears in a distant province to form a statue. Gathered power brings a statue to life and causes it frighten and plague enemies."
#end

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I was thinking more of a AoE polymorph effect., but your idea is intrigueing as well...I generally find decay is too slow to be effective on the battle field - but otherwise I love the idea of the horror of gradually ... dieing. I think it merits testing.

I am very impressed with the speed you are actually writing these thing R...

would you like to join me as a contributing author on the Balance series?

As for mapmove 3 spiders, I would like to see a few changes:

I am all in favor of map move 3.

I don't agree with the high resource cost *at all*. I think its a poor game balance mechanic. I would like to see the cost of spiders reduced. To do that, however, I think we do have to chance the spiders, somewhat.

here are some ideas for comment:

1. I like the idea that spiders can strike from ambush. Either give them
a). A howl equivalent onbattle spell that summons spiders from the periphery.
b). Rebuild them on the eagle warriors template; allow them to selfbless, which would allow them to 'fly'.
c). Give the spiders an on battle 'blink'. However, since this would make them generally *very* easily mauled you would have to give them an area effect entangle arround them...something like an area effect web cast,or an area effect entangle - perhaps equip them with vineshields.

2. I think spiders should be fearsome weapons - with glass jaws - so I really don't like the second shape. Could be a good way to balance costs.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Far moving spiders seem a little strange to me, at least if combined with ambushing.

a) Maybe summon of lesser variation of spiders then (with poison, but no webs)?

Sombre did mentioned the idea of regroving rider back in cbm thread - why not do that way, for hunter spiders since they seem to more sacred, then people now? And make an ordinary spider riders no second shape then (as spiders just run away).

Re: Balance Machaka
 

At the .. risk of throwing out too many ideas..
what if the spider sorcerers and spider assassins actually *were* spiders.. (with second shapes) making the kingdom a whole nation food/pawns of the spiders?

Lets reaving on the assassins make more sense....unrest on spider mounts... due to the unexplained vanishing of children...and the general ich factor...

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Tried to place some ideas into a mod attached. Only useful for test right now.
What included:
- 1 disease causing "Ward" per 10 pd and 1 poisoning per 10 pd after 20.
- a national summon "Place fevers" - 1 f gem/month but reaper and upkeep 33gp.
- an aoe 20 flaming aroows national.
- a spell "Spider Turn" - turns caster into spider, cast in combat but permanent.

Some trash spell for easyer test: "Send Wards" - farsummons 10 wards; "Attack" - farsummons 5 neutral militia (to test pd more easyly)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

First thoughts: Spider Turn is waaaay too good: you don't pay upkeep anymore!

Also the PD totem seems just about right: you're still a pushover, but anyone attacking's gonna regret it.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

About Spider Turn - you don't pay upkeep, but you also lose most slots, and have to cast it in combat. It might need to cost at least 1n gem through, to avoid unecesary ai casting.
Does not this ward's damage of 1 is too much? Maybe it should turned to fatigue damage - not sure about it.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Just in case Chris would like to keep the spell gem-less..

It's pretty easy to mod a spell to be only casted in when scripted, especially this type "only affects self" spell. I did a similiar thing in my "Alugra, City of Wonders" mod, which has a spell that heals 100 fatique damage but blinks you around the battlefield (meant to be used to clear thug buffing fatigue). You can likely see what this spell would do if the AI casted it all the time (it's not pretty).

So here is what you do:

You just mod the mainspell into a mr-negates-easily, only targets self spell that gives haste + twist fate and have the all that spider turning as nextspell. In the eyes of the AI (which cannot 'see' nextspell effects), that spell blows and it just will simply refuse to cast it unscripted. There are 'downsides' thought.

1) If the caster has haste and twist fate already, the AI won't cast the spell. (for the same reason it won't cast 'fire shield' if you have one already.)

2) If you cast this spell in a communion, it will affect the slaves too. (since, technically, it's a buffing spell)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Oooooooh!

Interesting concept in conjunction with a communion Burn!

By the way - I have national spell for EA-rlyeh called blink bolt - essentially I chain a blink onto a cold bolt. Breaks up formations awesomely.

Burn, but here's a thing I was trying to do- an earthwalk spell.
I wanted everyone to be able to one time move throught the earth (as a group).

First thought: Flight. Downside: Can't get rid of it.
Second thought: Blink. Problem: units don't move together - they scatter. Any possible ideas, Burn?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

See, I'd be fine with transforming ~60% of my casters. Remember, each transformation of a sorcerer saves you what, 13 gold/turn? That adds up. This is nice, because it's a backwards way of ensuring that machaka has top-tier research mid/late game--because you'll have castles with 30 spiders in them. Since your troops still suck ***(except for upkeepless spiders, of course!), most of your upkeep is taken up by casters. Take out half your caster upkeep...you start to blossom.

At least for me, the Place Fevers spell idea is a way to try and keep the Machaka of old. It doesn't seem...right, when all the other gem generators are gone. I'd rather go in a new direction.

Maybe something like "Spider Climb"--maybe AOE 5, magic resists easily Flight, meant to be cast on those fun little spiders for some flanking action. N3, probably.

Other than that(which would be pretty awesome and scary) I'm pretty content with Machaka--except that the PD really needs a Voice of the Lord instead of a Machaka Commander at 20.

I'd also be okay with the needles from the totems being stun damage--as is, the needles *do* incur some friendly fire onto your militia, and that just makes them route all the faster. With stun damage, it just racks up the fatigue--and in a serious fight, you were putting down Relief anyways.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Yeah, I know. It was purely accidental too, noticed the 'mechanic' while playtesting. I was pretty amazed, "Where did my slaves go!". You could a lot of intresting stuff with that mechanic, like a spell that summoned something centered on each slave, or a battlefield wide buffing spell (mr-negates-easily) that'd be casted once for each slave. However, the fact is that communions are already quite powerful, so there really isn't any reason to make any better.

I don't think that there is any perfect solution. The best I can come up with is to chain blink and range 0 summoning spell to make the caster appear at a new point in the battlefield (with friends).

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Tried to make some changes and additions:
- fever fetish should cost 100 gp/turn now (that should make them not too powerful in case of cbm1.6).
- sorcerer can summon 1 disease ward/turn (not autosummon, they were supposed to be makers of these).
- place poisonous and weakening ward spells - to see if these fit tematically.
- ward's needles changed to stun damage - seems to much fatigue from them.
- spider nest2 - just summons some spiders nearby.
- spider nest - launches aoe5 slime and summons spiders at hit location (just seemed tematically fitting like spider ambush).


An another idea - do "risky" spell fit tematically to machaka? Examples: cheap power of the spheres effect with a nextspell of mr negates feeblemind/disease/death or aoe berserking/strentgh of giants followed by mrnegating disease/poison/kill.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Got some spare time and decided to tweak this into a more usable form.
What it does include now:
- 3 types of immobile constructs (for enhansing defensive options, all look as machaka bowmen with recolored bows(not too good at drawing)). First type causes fear and disease, created by sorcerers. Second caused poison and decay, const 1. Third causes curse and weakness, const 5;
- wards 1 and 2 included into PD as before.
- Great spiders are not kept after rider's death (and are slightly cheaper)
- Hunter Spider finds another rider after previuous die (returns to first shape, and costs little more)
- Firegem generating summon at ench5 50f, unique, immobile (instead of previuous multiple gem generators)
- Great spider generating summon at const6 30e, unique, immobile
(as a twisted way summoning spiders)
- Low damage evo3 spell which battlesummons spiders
- Turning into spider at alt3
- 2f2n aoe25 version of flaming arrows at ench4

It still seems overpovered, through, and gemgen might not be fitting in case of cbm1.6 (through it is limited to 1 summon this time)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

wow =)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

For National summons, how about some demonic lions?
They might come in pairs... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_of_Tsavo

Or, if you want to stick to West African lore, you could add the following:

Obia, a monstrous animal summoned to serve witches, also the name of the witches, themselves,
Sasabonsam, a vampire with iron teeth and iron hooks in place of hands, and on their feet,
Zin, water spirits that live in the Niger river.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Sadly i don't know enough of african lore, so only tried to implement "spiders and sorcerors" theme. Haven't found enough of mentioned creatures by search. Obia - doesn't it sound to similar to Shinuyama's uba, it is used already then? About the others 2 know too litle to start from.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I think learning more about African lore could be a big help here--or not. More about that in just a moment.

I know it doesn't have anything really concrete to do with the mechanics or the balancing, but I still think it's really important to understand the nature and purpose of a given Nation, and to therefore be able to extrapolate somewhat the manner in which that Nation (prefers to) achieve it's goals.

Balanced strengths and weaknesses are crucial, but I think having the appropriate mix of strengths balanced against the appropriate weaknesses is just as important.

However, I'm not convinced that even knowing everything about the lore would really help here, as Machaka seems to lack both a defined nature, and a real purpose.

You could balance Machaka like a Swiss watch, but until someone makes the theme come alive in some way, I just don't think it will ever be interesting enough to be really fun to play repeatedly.

The biggest problem I have with Machaka is that the Devs don't seem to have used any actual African basis. The closest correlation I can find (believe me, I looked hard) is the Ashanti, but even that is extremely diluted. There's just not a whole lot of reality to be inspired from, or to draw from, which I think makes it difficult to expand upon the central idea, and really hard to find a lasting thematic desire to want to replay them.

We've got a generic, vaguely Maasai (by way of Rome, oddly enough) looking African people.
We've got giant spiders, a royal death-cult, and a dead-but sadly undefined-god.
We've got a forbidden magical mountain where devineish/decadent sorcerors, priests, spiders, and priest-sorceror-spiders live and rule, in a theocracy seemingly reminiscent in it's paranoia, of Stalinist Russia.

There's little present, though, to tie any of these aspects together.

Frankly, these guys are just begging for Conan to get chased onto their scene, despoil their women, steal their treasures, and slay their Pretender, before moving on to the next conquest, and rightly so.
There's not much more development here than one would expect from a 1930's pulp magazine. Infact, the very flavour of the Nation seems to me far more pulpish than epic, let alone mythic.

As an example, this is their most memorable hero (the only one I can remember, anyway):
"Abasi is a strong man. At the age of ten, he strangled a lion. At the age of twelve, he strangled his father, which was harder by far. At the age of fifteen, he was discovered by the Eyes of the Lord and given an army to lead. He immediately attacked a small kingdom and was almost killed. His army was dispersed and Abasi himself had to flee. When he crossed a river, he was attacked by a crocodile. The beast was difficult to strangle, so he grabbed a log and bashed in its skull. He quickly flayed the animal and used the skin to swim unseen past the enemies. When he had passed the guards, he found himself in the camp of the enemy king. He took his log and thrashed the camp before the enemies could react. Now Abasi has returned with his log to bash the enemies of the Lord"
A normal human who hits things with a club, in other words.

Some Nations act well as springboards to the imagination, and even teach us something about cultures, and what/why they believed, that we didn't know before. Others (Agartha) invent sweeping new myths and cultures that seem to tempt the imagination with a world of speculation. Machaka seems to badly fail at that, and I think, apart from mechanics, that it's genericness is a big reason why this Nation is generally considered to be weak and unbalanced, if not plain broken.

There exist plenty of fantasy versions of Africa to borrow from. Everything from King Solomon's Mines to Charles R Saunders' 'Imaro' trilogy, to something like Michael Crichton's 'Congo'.

There's a gigantic body of lore and historical material to be drawn from real world Africa too, enough for a dozen Nations, and yes I think it would be extremely useful and rewarding to anyone interested in the real world mythological aspects of Dom3 to familiarize themselves with it. Sadly, the one really African-themed (as opposed to Egyptian-themed) Nation in the game, Machaka, seems pretty obviously to have been added as an afterthought.

It's not based on anything in the real world, and it's not a fully realized vision of a "fantasy Africa", and I think that hurts it as much or more than any lack of balancing ever could.

In reply:
Obia, AKA Obeah, is a religion/folk magic/mysticism movement that originated in Central and Western Africa, and has since spread to the Caribbean (to the West, rather than East). There's actually quite a lot to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obeah so the Obia mentioned is just a very brief aspect of a whole magical and spiritual tradition.

Shinuyama = Japanese. The two words aren't spelled the same, and probably differ in pronunciation. Most likely it's just a coincidence.

As far as the others, I couldn't find much about the Zin, except that they're of Songhai origin, but here's the result of about 15 minutes research on Google of the Sasanbonsam.

The Sasanbonsam:
AKA the Asanbosam
Please Note: None of the following material is original to me, I'm just using it as an example of what can be easily found on the web.

http://hellhorror.com/imgs/demons/asanbosam.jpg

http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Sasabonsam :
The sasabonsam is a forest vampire which originates from the Ashanti people of Southern Ghana but is also found in Togo and the Ivory Coast.
Little is know about this creature outside of native folklore, which is prone to exaggeration and contradiction. The creature is described as about man sized with short, stubby arms, but has been reputed to have a wingspan of up to 20 feet. It is also often given iron teeth. Sasabonsams are rarely seen nowadays, but they were known to sit on treetops and catch unsuspecting passers-by to suck their blood.
Much like the kongamato, the sasabonsam may be a conflation of representatives from multiple baramins, combined with some Ashanti imagination. More research is definitely needed.


http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/s...asabonsam.html
Africa certainly has its share of mysterious and fantastic animals, and the sasabonsam is no exception. The creature was depicted in an Ashanti(natives of Ghana) carving seen by J.B. Danquah. The sculpture showed the Sasabonsam as a man-faced creature with a beard and small horns. It had two short, stubby arms which were raised to display bat-like wings under them, an emaciated body, and short, twisted legs with toed feet. Although the creature is most likely a creation of mythmakers, some have wondered if it could have been some type of gigantic bat.
A young man present in the crowd observing the sculpture told Danquah that once he had actually seen a Sasabonsam, which had been killed by a man named Agya Wuo. He gave Danquah several details of his sighting. The creature had been a little over 5 feet tall, with a wingspan of almost 20 feet. Its teeth and arms were quite long, it was spotted black and white, and it had scaly ridges over the eyes. Agya Wuo said he had found it sleeping in a tree, and that it made a somewhat bat-like cry. The body had been taken to the home

of the District Commissioner, L.W. Wood, who on February 22, 1928, photographed the carcass.

Danquah contacted Wood later, but Wood was not sure if he had, indeed, taken the photograph He said that he was in Ashanti in February, 1918, but not 1928.
In his discussion of Danquah's story, Bernard Heuvelmans states his belief, backed up in his seminal 1986 checklist, that the Sasabonsam is merely a local name for the kongamato, olitiau, and the other bat-like creatures of eastern and central Africa.
However, the form of the Sasabonsam portrayed in the folklore of the area is quite different than Danquah's bat-like monster. In mythology, it is usually portrayed as an archetypical ogre: according to A Dictionary of World Mythology,

...the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter.

Matthew Bunson further states that there are three types of Sasabonsam (asanbosam in the text): male, female, and small. Also, he notes it is credited with iron teeth, a common attribute of folkloric ogres and vampires
The mystery of the Sasabonsam shall probably never be completely solved, at least until another body or Wood's photograph surfaces.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sasabonsam
According to the Ashanti, the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter. Belief in this forest monster is on the wane, but its curious mythical relation might have been the Sciapod of medieval Europe. A Sciapod was a man with one foot so large that he could lie on his back and use it as a sunshade.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I think learning more about African lore could be a big help here--or not. More about that in just a moment.

I know it doesn't have anything really concrete to do with the mechanics or the balancing, but I still think it's really important to understand the nature and purpose of a given Nation, and to therefore be able to extrapolate somewhat the manner in which that Nation (prefers to) achieve it's goals.

Balanced strengths and weaknesses are crucial, but I think having the appropriate mix of strengths balanced against the appropriate weaknesses is just as important.

However, I'm not convinced that even knowing everything about the lore would really help here, as Machaka seems to lack both a defined nature, and a real purpose.

You could balance Machaka like a Swiss watch, but until someone makes the theme come alive in some way, I just don't think it will ever be interesting enough to be really fun to play repeatedly.

The biggest problem I have with Machaka is that the Devs don't seem to have used any actual African basis. The closest correlation I can find (believe me, I looked hard) is the Ashanti, but even that is extremely diluted. There's just not a whole lot of reality to be inspired from, or to draw from, which I think makes it difficult to expand upon the central idea, and really hard to find a lasting thematic desire to want to replay them.

We've got a generic, vaguely Maasai (by way of Rome, oddly enough) looking African people.
We've got giant spiders, a royal death-cult, and a dead-but sadly undefined-god.
We've got a forbidden magical mountain where devineish/decadent sorcerors, priests, spiders, and priest-sorceror-spiders live and rule, in a theocracy seemingly reminiscent in it's paranoia, of Stalinist Russia.

There's little present, though, to tie any of these aspects together.

Frankly, these guys are just begging for Conan to get chased onto their scene, despoil their women, steal their treasures, and slay their Pretender, before moving on to the next conquest, and rightly so.
There's not much more development here than one would expect from a 1930's pulp magazine. Infact, the very flavour of the Nation seems to me far more pulpish than epic, let alone mythic.

As an example, this is their most memorable hero (the only one I can remember, anyway):
"Abasi is a strong man. At the age of ten, he strangled a lion. At the age of twelve, he strangled his father, which was harder by far. At the age of fifteen, he was discovered by the Eyes of the Lord and given an army to lead. He immediately attacked a small kingdom and was almost killed. His army was dispersed and Abasi himself had to flee. When he crossed a river, he was attacked by a crocodile. The beast was difficult to strangle, so he grabbed a log and bashed in its skull. He quickly flayed the animal and used the skin to swim unseen past the enemies. When he had passed the guards, he found himself in the camp of the enemy king. He took his log and thrashed the camp before the enemies could react. Now Abasi has returned with his log to bash the enemies of the Lord"
A normal human who hits things with a club, in other words.

Some Nations act well as springboards to the imagination, and even teach us something about cultures, and what/why they believed, that we didn't know before. Others (Agartha) invent sweeping new myths and cultures that seem to tempt the imagination with a world of speculation. Machaka seems to badly fail at that, and I think, apart from mechanics, that it's genericness is a big reason why this Nation is generally considered to be weak and unbalanced, if not plain broken.

There exist plenty of fantasy versions of Africa to borrow from. Everything from King Solomon's Mines to Charles R Saunders' 'Imaro' trilogy, to something like Michael Crichton's 'Congo'.

There's a gigantic body of lore and historical material to be drawn from real world Africa too, enough for a dozen Nations, and yes I think it would be extremely useful and rewarding to anyone interested in the real world mythological aspects of Dom3 to familiarize themselves with it. Sadly, the one really African-themed (as opposed to Egyptian-themed) Nation in the game, Machaka, seems pretty obviously to have been added as an afterthought.

It's not based on anything in the real world, and it's not a fully realized vision of a "fantasy Africa", and I think that hurts it as much or more than any lack of balancing ever could.

In reply:
Obia, AKA Obeah, is a religion/folk magic/mysticism movement that originated in Central and Western Africa, and has since spread to the Caribbean (to the West, rather than East). There's actually quite a lot to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obeah so the Obia mentioned is just a very brief aspect of a whole magical and spiritual tradition.

Shinuyama = Japanese. The two words aren't spelled the same, and probably differ in pronunciation. Most likely it's just a coincidence.

As far as the others, I couldn't find much about the Zin, except that they're of Songhai origin, but here's the result of about 15 minutes research on Google of the Sasanbonsam.

The Sasanbonsam:
AKA the Asanbosam
Please Note: None of the following material is original to me, I'm just using it as an example of what can be easily found on the web.

http://hellhorror.com/imgs/demons/asanbosam.jpg

http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Sasabonsam :
The sasabonsam is a forest vampire which originates from the Ashanti people of Southern Ghana but is also found in Togo and the Ivory Coast.
Little is know about this creature outside of native folklore, which is prone to exaggeration and contradiction. The creature is described as about man sized with short, stubby arms, but has been reputed to have a wingspan of up to 20 feet. It is also often given iron teeth. Sasabonsams are rarely seen nowadays, but they were known to sit on treetops and catch unsuspecting passers-by to suck their blood.
Much like the kongamato, the sasabonsam may be a conflation of representatives from multiple baramins, combined with some Ashanti imagination. More research is definitely needed.


http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/s...asabonsam.html
Africa certainly has its share of mysterious and fantastic animals, and the sasabonsam is no exception. The creature was depicted in an Ashanti(natives of Ghana) carving seen by J.B. Danquah. The sculpture showed the Sasabonsam as a man-faced creature with a beard and small horns. It had two short, stubby arms which were raised to display bat-like wings under them, an emaciated body, and short, twisted legs with toed feet. Although the creature is most likely a creation of mythmakers, some have wondered if it could have been some type of gigantic bat.
A young man present in the crowd observing the sculpture told Danquah that once he had actually seen a Sasabonsam, which had been killed by a man named Agya Wuo. He gave Danquah several details of his sighting. The creature had been a little over 5 feet tall, with a wingspan of almost 20 feet. Its teeth and arms were quite long, it was spotted black and white, and it had scaly ridges over the eyes. Agya Wuo said he had found it sleeping in a tree, and that it made a somewhat bat-like cry. The body had been taken to the home

of the District Commissioner, L.W. Wood, who on February 22, 1928, photographed the carcass.

Danquah contacted Wood later, but Wood was not sure if he had, indeed, taken the photograph He said that he was in Ashanti in February, 1918, but not 1928.
In his discussion of Danquah's story, Bernard Heuvelmans states his belief, backed up in his seminal 1986 checklist, that the Sasabonsam is merely a local name for the kongamato, olitiau, and the other bat-like creatures of eastern and central Africa.
However, the form of the Sasabonsam portrayed in the folklore of the area is quite different than Danquah's bat-like monster. In mythology, it is usually portrayed as an archetypical ogre: according to A Dictionary of World Mythology,

...the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter.

Matthew Bunson further states that there are three types of Sasabonsam (asanbosam in the text): male, female, and small. Also, he notes it is credited with iron teeth, a common attribute of folkloric ogres and vampires
The mystery of the Sasabonsam shall probably never be completely solved, at least until another body or Wood's photograph surfaces.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sasabonsam
According to the Ashanti, the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter. Belief in this forest monster is on the wane, but its curious mythical relation might have been the Sciapod of medieval Europe. A Sciapod was a man with one foot so large that he could lie on his back and use it as a sunshade.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Considering what you have said , it creating a nation from scratch seems more efficient then driving Machaka into a likeness of any real nation.
Some throughts about the present state of Machaka - maybe it can be made more logical by shifting it to one of its present themes.
Now about a possible direction of that shift - won't spider/sorceror as leaders/enslavers/masterminds theme fit? Considering a spider theme not just by spiders themselves, but by tendention to use poison/murder/weakening as a means of gaining power. That way special spells, which enhance their warriors, but mr negating wounding them might fit. Their light spiders are then just tools for war, as well as their riders. While black spiders become sacred themselves then (and its rider is only sacred because he rides sacred creature). The tactics of luring enemy into a trap seems quite fitting then, for which those wards are.
- Their basic human troops don't seem useful currently, and this would serve as a background for that.
- If Machaka would be looked upon as a nation with someway enslaved population that poses a logical description to their low morale and skills (slaves are not good warriors after all) - even some weakening/cheapening would fit them then?
- All of their population seems to have forest survival. Which makes rainfores/jungle zone to fit as their home so any of the plain/desert portion lore seems unfit then, so that Abasi hero's story seems strange then (where did he find a lion if he is a jungle dweller)?
- Their heavy human troops (hoplites) seem unfitting for a theme of jungle people (because of their iron armor in a rainy climate) - they need to be changed into a leather(or spiderweb)-armored variant then?
- They have 2 of 3 priestly as spies or law enforcers and a 3-rd order as a propaganders, which seem to fit well.
- Their spider warriors/bane spiders - again their heavy armor seems strange, othervise, stealthtroops/assasins seem fitting to the theme (maybe changing their dagger to paralysing poison would fit for spidery ways).

Re: Balance Machaka
 

I think that just switching their Hoplites over to Plate Cuirasses instead of Hauberks and making Machaka Spears more like pikes (+1 to attack instead of -1 would go a really long way) would do so much. It'd give them 2 mapmove(so people might actually use them), 15 defense, a decent repel, and only 5 encumbrance.

Amusingly enough, the Spider Armor which is already in game is...sucky. It's 18 prot -4 def 4 enc, where full plate is 20 prot -3 def 5 enc. I'd rather take the full plate anyday. Maybe make Spider Armor not so bad?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Well, lions are known as the "king of the jungle", despite being dry plains predators, so while it's still an error, it's pretty forgiveable, and might even have been intentional for thematic reasons.

I think Machaka as a theme is still salvageable. It's a jungle/rainforest Nation, obviously, but one very different from Mictlan. Not only is this Africa, Machaka also has much more modern army, albeit one that doesn't currently stand out in any way.

Thoughts: I think you've got good points about the hoplites, Kianduatha. They could stand to be brought up into competitiveness. I was thinking thought, instead of giving them mapmove 2, they might be given a single (weak) poison javelin, along with the plate hauberks and improved Machaka spears. That would make them very effective, more thematic, defensive units, while not unbalancing them due to the poison bug, since they only have a single shot.

Machaka militia could also stand to carry a single javelin into battle. This is a Nation of hunters who live in the jungle, and even the poorest peasant classes would probably carry atleast wooden javelins for self defense. That'd give them a strong militia, which wouldn't hurt their PD. Not a bad thing, I think.

The spider riders could also stand to have one of those poison javelins. That would do a lot to up their damage potential when they're closing to attack, and hopefully synergise with their shortbows enough that they become somewhat more effective when used at range.

I'd also add a stealthy (0) unit to their army. This is where I'd put the mapmove 2: It would be equivalent to a Machaka militia in stats, but instead be armed with a spear and a single (weak) poison net, with an Area 1 poison effect. Basically, a net full of tiny poisonous spiders. They wouldn't be poison resistant, so they'd damage themselves, but those nets in combination with stealth should find some uses.

As opposed to summoning spells (although I still think the Sasanbonsam unit could be a good one-more about that in a moment), I agree that I'd like to see Machaka get more National combat spells. Here's one that seems pretty obvious.

Spell Name: Arachnophobia. Alt 2/Nature 1.
There's every reason in the world to give them a spell that summons a large group of tarantulas in combat. They could have 2 hp, a 1 poison damage tiny bite att, complete poison resistance, 14 action points, and a relatively low Att. (7-9) for balancing reasons. Castable at Alt 2 with Nature 1, 1 Nature gem, and 10+ effects. The spiders could be used to defend the sorcerors, to reinforce the mediochre warriors, and ofcourse to stretch battles out.

As far as summon spells, I've come up with 3.

The first would be an improved version of Mandragora, but instead be based on the gigantic tarantulas the Black Hunters ride.

Spell Name: Instill Effigy. Const 5. Nature 2/Death 2

The spell would give you 3 Black Hunter spiders (called "Obiah"), with Sacred, Undead, MagB, Mapmove 3 and Sleepvines x2. Considering that this is a jungle Nation with a spider theme, the spell makes a lot of thematic sense, and gives you a little more reason to have a decent Bless.

You could then have an undead hero riding one of these beasts.

The second would be a spell I came up with for my Cimmeria Nation.

Spell Name: Construct Skull Totem. Const 0/1 Death. 1 Death gem.

Skull Totem
Hp. 4 Size 2 Str. 2 Att. 2 Def. 10. Prot. 3 (3) Mor. 12 MR. 12 Mv. Immobile/No Teleport. Prec. 8 Weapons: None
Fear (0), Patrol bonus (1) Demon. Self Healing.

Not the most impressive unit, but cheap and massable, which makes it effective with the Fear, and useful enough simply as a PD helper, with the Patrol bonus. It should also help a lot against early Rushes, in combination with some improved Hoplites, since it's immediately available. It remains thematic, with the Hunter theme, and the sprite is even done for it already.

Finally, the Sasanbonsam:
Spell Name: Heart of Darkness. Blood 5. Requires Blood 3/Nature 3
This spell would give you a flying, undead, stealthy (10) vampire (more or less) assassin, with 2 (strong) poison iron hook attacks, a Lifedrain bite, Immortality, and Regeneration 10.

Thematically, harpies occasionally nest on the Black Mountain, and the bravest Machaka heroes occasionally will capture one alive. They cut off it's legs, feed it a drop of the dead god's blood, sacrifice it to the dead god by putting it in a sack with dozens of tiny spiders who take weeks to kill it and fully dessicate the corpse, then the Machaka replace it's feet with several big iron hooks they've dipped in spider venom, and the Sorcerors and Voices of the Lord cast spells and perform rituals over it's corpse. It reanimates as a hideous vampire thing that serves Machaka in unlife.

It wouldn't have any magic paths, and no hand or feet slots, so it's continuing usefulness would be limited, but as an assassin it should be quite effective.


One would think armour made from spider silk and chitin would be lightweight.
Spider armour, it seems to me, should be no more than 2 Enc, tops. Maybe -2 Def, also.


What does everyone think of giving the Black Hunters/Hunter Spiders a spider claw attack? That would make them significantly more effective at dealing damage, especially as Sacreds. I'm also in favor of having the Sacredness carry over to the hunter spiders, themselves. You could additionally give them one of the mentioned poison javelins. It won't go over the maximum 4 attacks allowed, and I think it would serve to make them a top Sacred in the game, dangerous in both melee and at range.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Hmm, an intresting collection of ideas to mod.
About that spider armor - i agree, that it should be lighter, and, maybe, less sturdy how about 2 variations:
- spider armor: prot 15, def -2, enc 2, rcost 26 (as light as ring mail, as protective as scale mail, but costly) -- made for bane spiders/spider warriors (raising their defence and allowing to give them mapmove 2) -- which, in turn makes them that mentioned stealth unit, as they are already stealthy.
- light spider armor: prot 11, def -1, enc 1, rcost 16 (as light as leather mail, as protective as ring mail, still costly) -- made for hoplites (as lighter armor would allow them fast move and, again iron plate armor in a rainy climate...)
- giving a javelin/poison javelin seems a viable idea as well, maybe plain javelin to most non-bowmen and a poison javelin to hoplites and heavy spider riders? But not to light spiders, as they already have web spit attack and a total of 4 weapons.
- About small spider battlesummon - i already did a spell of throving spiders into anemy ranks, not sure they need small spiders as an addition (since spell numbers are limited).
- About skull totem - i've tried to make simulat idea (immobile lifeless wards, shooting needles with nasty effects), but lacked skill to do sprites.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Well, the lighter spider armor isn't really necessary; Plate Cuirasses are 15 prot -1 def 2 enc, which is a good all-around for a Hoplite.

I'm afraid that coming down to 15 prot would erase every semblance of the Spider Warrior's survivability. They don't have shields, and going up to 8 defense won't really save them. Heavier armor is better for them, almost. Spider Armor would be fine changed to just -3 def 3 enc. A much better thing to do for Spider Warriors and Bane Spiders is increase their magic resist. At least the Bane Spiders. It's just criminal to have them be 10 MR.

Militia having javelins would be awesome and fix a lot with the nation as a whole. Their PD wouldn't even suck as much with so many javelins (and the militia not running in so fast to die).

I would think that one of the most important things to get Machaka is a bit of magic diversity--a bit of air access(from a summon?) would give them Arrow Fend and Wind Guide, among other things.

A sacred summon(ghost spiders? shards of the dead god implanted into a squad of Spider Warriors?) would help a bunch too. I'm hoping that it's somewhat justifiable to take a production scale(or at least neutral), what with better Hoplites and soforth. That in turn would make it easier to use Black Hunters.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Yeah, as far as the limited number of spells, units, etc., it's really becoming a serious limiting factor on mods. One that's going to eventually cut into the enjoyment of the game, atleast for me.

But, I wouldn't worry about it too much, in this particular case. Machaka is one of the vanilla Nations, and I think it deserves a certain priority, when it comes to something like spells, especially combat spells, which are already underrepresented, in comparison to summoning spells. Besides, you're not adding an entire new Nation to the game, you're just fixing one that's already taking up a lot of space.

If the smaller spider riders already have 4 weapons, then they're fine. The shortbow still seems kind of superfluous, though, but admittedly not completely out of place.

You're welcome to use my sprite for the Totems:
Normal
Attachment 9073
Attack
Attachment 9074

Machaka sorceresses already have air magic,

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Sorceress

and they're a pretty diverse Nation already, for that matter, with recruitable access to fire, death, nature, air, astral, and earth. If you want additional magic diversity beyond that, maybe they could get a capital only lizard shaman? That would give them access to Astral/Nature, and it wouldn't really break the theme, or unbalance them, since it's a pretty common unit anyway, and making it Cap would keep it small scale. Curse seems like it would be both useful and thematic to Machaka, and having early access to it should serve as an additional rush deterrant. It would also make Machaka slighly more formidable against Miasma C'tis, not a bad thing considering both Nations are likely to take Heat scales. As a bonus, no need to add another unit to the game.


As an aside, considering how blah Machaka's basic human warriors tend to be, it would be great to dress them up with some varied African weaponry.

I'm already familiar with a few of these, having borrowed some for my Aksum mod, but there's a ton more to choose from, including a wide variety of throwing weapons, and even many fantastic weapons that were intended to be used as currency.

Here's a few image galleries for use as references:

http://www.hamillgallery.com/SITE/Weapons.html

http://www.rrtraders.com/weapons.htm

http://www.joelcooner.com/African/Af...f-weapons.html

http://www.antiqueswords.com/Topic%2...%20Weapons.htm African, as well as some Asian weapons.

http://www.africanarmsonline.com/ the Designs link on the left hand side of the page is particularly useful.

http://eriksedge.com/category.php?ca...rican%20Swords


I have another idea for a low level summon, by the way:

Spell Name: Summon Wolf Spider
Requires Conjuration 1, Nature 2. Cost 1 Nature gem.
# of effects: 2
This spell summons 2 Giant Spiders (again, no need to add a unit or draw a sprite).

Giant Spiders are weaker than the spiders Machaka can already recruit, and don't have webs, but they're still pretty decent, and ofcourse much better than your human warriors.
At 2 spiders per gem, the spell is pretty cost effective, but you'd only get 2 spiders per cast, which I think should balance it out pretty well, considering the requirements to cast it, and that it would be competing with Summon Animals. Basically, it would be there to give you the option to use your sorcerors to quickly raise a fighting force, should the need arise, and you should be able to get it early enough in the game to make it effective, even considering the time spent away from researching for several sorcerors to cast the spell.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

This seems to be mistake in the wiki.
Machakan sorceresses are actually FED +10%FEDN not A2S2 + 20%AWSD. Thus Machaka only has reliable access to 3F,3E,2D or 3N on recruitables.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

There are just two different Sorceress units. The A2S2 one is an indy. Heck, if Machaka had those as sorceresses there wouldn't even be a point to the mod--they'd be the most magically diverse nation around and no longer subject to mindhunt beatdowns.

If you wanted to really make Machakan baseline troops a bit better, just replace the normal hide shields on their infantry with Great Hide Shields. Combine that with making Machaka Spears at least 0 to attack instead of -1, and you have decent troops. They'll still take a beating, but parry 6 instead of 4 does make a difference.

It'd be fun to see at least.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Not a bad idea about the great hide shields. You could also give any of their troops that don't have the Machaka spears, assegai instead of spears. Assegai could have -1 to length from standard spears, but +1 to damage and +1 to attack. That would give you more strategic depth, when combining forces.

You could also give some of their warriors knopkerrie, instead of spears. Knopkerrie would be identical to maces.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

After trying out some of the armor and weapon changes, I'm more or less content with Machaka's baseline troops.

2 mapmove Hoplites(with lighter armor and correspondingly nicer defense) are good all-around troops that have minimal losses in standard fights. They're incidentally a bit easier to mass with a slightly lower resource cost, too.

Your standard armorless troops can take a better beating--they do their job much better with parry 6 shields. They can even tie up knights for a bit with their 15 defense, too.

With the Great Hide Shields on your Warriors, I can justify giving Militia javelins--they need them to stay competitive, and this will make your PD not suck quite so bad.

Spider Knights methinks should have spear and lance instead of just a light lance. It makes them a decent amount more dangerous, too.

As a question, which do you think should come first on Great Spiders and Hunter Spiders? Web or Bite? Right now they have Bite first, which seems somewhat nonsensical. I'll have to do a bunch of testing to see which is more effective overall, too.

My overarching thoughts are that there are some little things to do for Machaka still that can make all the difference. Better recruitable troops(and correspondingly better province defense) help a lot.

Another idea is to give Ears of the Lord a small (~25%) chance to have 1S. The rough idea is that this saves you having to burn death gems on Spectres and gives you general Mindhunt resistance(especially since the buggers are stealthy!). It even makes sense that the stealthy guys might get some Astral in their travels.

Try it out--between these changes and CBM's 80 gold Black Hunters, I think most of Machaka's pure troop worries are resolved. I'd still like some cool stuff like a national Arrow Fend-type spell and a late-game summon, but it's a start.

Funny enough, i was trying changes for Machaka the same time. Through with some differences.
Made spider armor -3def 2 enc. Light spider armor 11 prot -1def 1enc. Replaced plate armors with either spider or light spider ones. Tried to replace most spears with assegais. Tried to gave javelins/poison javelins to most troops.
It seems balanced variant might be something in between of those 2.
Another trought (not put into mod): maybe spider riding units could use poison bows/javelins/lances (dipped in poison of their mount)

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Ooh, very nice. Initial thoughts are that the Spider Knights and Black Hunters are disserviced by getting Spider Armor--they don't benefit from the lower encumbrance and want to use the heaviest armor they can find.

I really like the Poison Javelin. It gives you something to do against crazy raiding thugs that aren't poison-immune.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Only reason for replacing iron/steel armor is thematical. Just hard to imagine iron-plated warriors in jungle climate. They could use bronze one through.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Bronze is a good idea, but actually weighs more than iron. It's generally superior to iron or steel as armour, and not just because it doesn't corrode, but the weight factor, and the fact that it's metal at all, should be considered. Plus, it's technically both harder and more expensive to make bronze than iron, and it's theorized that Africa is one of the places where iron was spontaneously invented.

Plus, having bronze armour increases their weird "Romanesque" vibe they've got going. Not bad (kind of cool, actually), just a little strange...

Elephant and rhino hide both make excellent heavy armour, and are thematic.

I might just try my own version of "balancing" Machaka, since you've got some good ideas going, that nevertheless don't quite mesh with my own vision for them. Considering that I've got 2 nearly complete African-themed Nations in the works, and others in the wings, having a Machaka that works the way I want it to work seems like a good idea.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Hmm, if they can get enough iron for full plate, then i can just pretend they somehow protect it from rust.
About javelins - what if only lighter(short-spear) troops carry poisoned ones and heavyer use basic javelins(or not use them at all)? About riders - maybe they can use machaka spears instead of generic ones (they need to reach an anemy from atop spiders).

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Huh, didn't think of that one. Poisoned bows on the spider riders sorta makes you want to keep them around. Feel free to just reuse the Androphag Archer poisoned bow, too, as I hear armor and weapon slots are getting tight these days.

Machaka spears instead of normal spears would be fine on the spider guys, though Machaka spears would have to not suck so much to make that one worth it.

Poisoned javelins on the 'wussy' troops seems like overkill. The jump up of militia even having javelins is I think already a large one, and I'm hesitant to do anything more with them.

Hey, I figured out what was wrong with Hunter Spiders. For some reason they only have 11 strength, when they should have 16 or so to even out the damage their fangs do while their rider is on top. Of course that's why they didn't do any damage.

I've had some luck putting a Witch doctor as the first commander for province defense, and then a Voice of the Lord for the second one. That gives a bit of magical support(mostly Frighten and Fire Flies, but it's better than nothing) and someone to Sermon of Courage for the masses of militia you would get.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Poison missles have a very nasty unbalancing bug associated with them.

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Your point about poison missiles seems right. Then only warriors (that are javelinmen in vanilla) should have them. Basic ones are enough for militias, and heavyer troops (machaka-spear ones) should not have javelins at all. Spider riders with poison bows, on other side, are not too massable and even buggy poison seems ok for them.

As an another question - is there a mythological base to create astral-using spider (maybe to replace those ape heroes of Machaka)?

Re: Balance Machaka
 

Anansi the spider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi