Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I love the colossal fetish pretender, but I have a lot of trouble getting him or machak rolling in a way that makes me feel protected.

For instance, if I'm playing blood, all I need is a bunch of summons and a little research, 40 spine devils (I think spine devils are often overlooked), for instance, to feel secure in the first 20 turns or so.

With Machaka, all they seem to have is the big black spider that survives and can even lead units after its rider dies... which helps a lot with upkeep...

Actually, the fetish seems to work OK, being like an mobile immobile defender.

How do I set this nation up for greatness with a pretender, and what is an early roadmark I might shoot for?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Step 1: Don't use the fetish pretender! Seriously, its really bad.

You either want an awake SC or a decent bless for your spiders, possibly both. The Scorpion King makes a great SC and isn't commonly available, but there are certainly other more standard options.

Blesses don't have to be big, and what you're looking to bless is the spider after the rider gets killed, so E9 is no help. A rainbow bless may be the best, although certainly W9 would be cool, and F9 isn't bad. Consider minor blesses in blood, air, and nature.

If not ponying up for a bless, your heavily armored stealthy guys are pretty cool and really tough.

Note that your recruit anywhere troops are pretty bad, so you're going to have to switch over to magery and summons pretty early.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Forget a bless. The black spiders are expensive and cap only. Spam the regular spider riders, get an SC if you think you need it. If you simply must use the fetish, try forging some boots of the behemoth for him on turn 2 or 3. This helps you get around his craptastic att skill, though his aps are also pretty bad.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Well... I think E9 is really a blessing for sacred mages (which machaka has), and I really like it with MA Pythium, because they use communions and don't have earth magic.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

E9 is stupid for mages. If thats what you want get E8

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Jeez, sorry. But, you're right, I ussually just get 4 on a rainbow pretender, unless I'm using the cyclops, in which case, I'm not sure how much I'd spend on Earth magic.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

well, first machaka sucks.
That said, the usual advice is to fever fetish spam. I seem to remember the shape change ability made them immune to death - but ... I'd have to look at that again to be sure.

Now, in vanilla, your sacred spider commander is strong enough to take most indies... be careful in the order that you give him items. Give him a shield first, and he loses and attack. Give him the weapon first.

Since you and your troops are all poison resistant - I like the snake bladder sticks.. a lot. As long as you are not in CBM
Midget mashers work great against enemy SCs.

Since you will die (a lot) send someone with him to pick up the pieces.

Personally I play them much like LA man. Maximize income - build forts asap.. I usually start the second on turn 3 or 4.

Flame arrows should be an early target.

As an alternate to the fetish, I also like the lord of plenty (n3) since it makes an n9 bless cheap. Berserk (n9) will add a little protection - but more importantly it keeps your spiders on the field berserk when they would otherwise route. Also iirc the hunter spiders have no upkeep.

The lord of rebirth would be perfect - but unfortunately I don't think he's available to machaka.

Anyway you slice it - you're going to be a target, in an mp game. With your lords that have a patrol bonus; take a growth three and patrol with these sacred lords..

Anyway - I think you see why you need forts - everywhere. Three items I would get to know: bows of botuff, banevenom charms, and evening stars.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I once played Machaka SP, focused hard on the sacred great spider knights. Their magic resistance sucks, and Ermors holy apostacy-spell made my own holy army of lethal spiders turn on me. Expensive.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Chris, those black hunter lords sound nice in theory, but without being able to self-bless they're kind of useless as thugs. And for expansion it'd be a pain to buy BHLs and priests alternately since you wouldn't be buying mages and would only be kicking out an expansion party every other turn.

Sacred commanders without holy levels make me sad, especially when they want to be used solo.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

To be fair, chrispedersen never said he was actually blessing the Hunter Lords.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Machaka's all about the Spiders. Not the big Hunter spiders but hordes of Spider Riders and then upkeep free Spiders when the Spiders die.
Later, Fever Fetishes in vanilla and drakes & cheap death summons in CBM.
Sorcerors & Black Sorcerors are both good for battle magic.

Maybe a minor bless in paths you need for diversity, but that's incidental.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

This is the reason I said "like LA-Man"

The trick is forts... Lots and lots of forts. Look:

1. Your expansion forces are going to cost between 80 and 350, depending on whether you are going to solo, or send a group of spideys.

2, you start with a priest, and you prophetize another: two expansions groups on turn two.

3. once you get going, if you stick a ring of regen, and a lycan amulet, with the bless, in spidey form you're regenerating 14 hp a turn. and you've got what 4 attacks a round, inc web spit? handles most indies just fine.

4. I don't have a problem hitting the magic number 15 in SP play with machaka, with this strategy.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Rings of regen and "lots and lots of forts" are not a good expansion strategy.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I don't think spiders would make me feel safe. For instance, if I was playing Abysia, like I said in the first post, and I came across him at turn 20, he could have 40 spine devils or more, and I don't think I could protect myself. I think those big spiders, especially the skinny ones, would fall like so much chaff to a reaper.

If I was in two player, I'd want one of Machaka's forts right up his butt... and then he'd probably quit.

Those spiders might be good enough on turn 12, but one turn 18, on turn 20... 25... I'm scared if I only have spiders and skelly spam.

Someone said I should get drakes. I always thought of drakes as something the enemy beats on while I hit them with spells.

What spells should I be casting ?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

So, how about some drakes and a sea of longdead + legions of steal?

Versus some spine devils, lots of summoned imps, and some minor fire evos... Abysia seems like a particularly tough enemy for Machaka.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Honestly I have never seen someone use spine devils. Also, are you talking CBM or Vanilla?

I would advice you to prophetise a Black hunter lord. If you have a small nature bless, you'll have a regen already there (give him a few normal spiders as body-guards, script Holy Avenger Attack rear). In fact, I would go as far as to try to get the rider killed... In friendly dominion the auto-blessed spider will have north of 100 HP and regenerates with a minor N bless (though just 5 HP per turn, but still good enough to prevent afflictions) and you still have two misc slots (for a ring of regen, or lucky amulet, or whatever you fancy).

With Machaka you can push out an expansion party each turn (indy leader (if you just get some indy leader who can shoot something, so much better) moves to capital to pick up 10 spiders, then goes hunting; 10 spiders will rip apart most infantry (avoid barbarians though)) or if you need to take something heavier (barbarians, knights, heavy cavalry) recruit spiders for a couple turns (30 spiders can take out most likely anything, just form them into three squads with orders Fire closest; when your riders start to die (to enemy arrows) the riderless spiders charge forwards and spit web, disrupting the enemy lines totally).

If you face elephants (or other tramplers) or giants (or Hydras for that matter), you need to recruit the black spiders. The black spiders are not really worth it IMO, but they laugh themselves silly at elephants and giants, who get webbed up and poisoned to death by these humongous spiders.

After the initial expansion frenzy you should have a boatload of riderless spiders. They are upkeep free and excellent flankers.

If you play with CBM you should by now have Dragon Master (Ench 3, which also gives you skelly spam) and Summon Fire Drakes (Conj 3) researched, then go for evocations. Fire Drakes in center (they are tough as nails and the breath fire), riderless spiders on flanks, sorcerors bombarding evocations (keep a sizeable body guard of the heavy Machakan infantry around the mages, they repel any fliers easily). The ever loved skelly-spam is also an option, especially against nations who do not fear fire (Abysia for example; let your skellies exhaust the abysian infantry with their high fatigue, and rip them apart).

If you are playing vanilla Dominions, then you should go for Fire Fetishes as fast as possible, and then go for Flaming Arrows instead (while not forgetting skelly-spam, it is even more important in vanilla), and BURN everything in sight with your basic cheap archers, while your heavy infantry and skellies holds the center and the spiders attack on the flanks. Flaming arrows really is too powerful in vanilla (and totally useless in CBM, but that is just my personal opinion, others claim they still see it used under CBM; personally I hope so very much Flaming arrows would see some slight change in CBM to at least make it an option to consider), so take full advantage of that. While your Flaming Arrowed armies hold your neighbours in terror, take maximum advantage of the fire gems the fetishes bring; craft items, summon stuff, even alchemise them to bring in money for more castles etc. Fetishes are really the thing Machaka desperately needs.

However, Machaka is a one trick pony. When your opponent notices you are all about fire fire fire and some more fire wether it is CBM or vanilla, you are doomed (there are so many ways to make even full armies fire resistant); in CBM this happens quite a bit sooner though, in vanilla you might have a chance to stick around slightly longer. Machaka has no proper tools for endgame, sadly. You have to rush the map when you are at your strongest, in middle game, and hope the others fold over. Also, a lot depends on your pretender, as you have to choose your pretender to either boost your strengths (but you already are so very strong in fire, so it is hard to come up with something that would make it even more stronger) or to compensate your weaknesses (but there are so many weaknesses Machaka has, that it will be very difficult).

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

CBM because you get 3 at a time, for spine debils. It lets you switch to a different path. I just use them for defense, not attacking, but in a pinch I'm sured they'd perform just fine.


Spine devils plus blood mage imp spam will kill armies stupid enough not to respect lvl 1 blood in the early-mid game.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Spine devils on defence works fine as long as your PD is at least half decent. Spine devils (and imps to take the banishment barrage) works wonders when you plan your PD to hold the center while the spine devils get to rip anything and everything on the flanks.

However, Machakan PD just sucks. You'll see your PD spearmen rush forwards, get shot by your own PD archers, and your spearmen rout, which sees your archers being next in line to take the brunt of the assault, and your army routs before the spine devils had a chance to deliver a single hit...


EDIT: Machaka is an all out offensive nation. You have about zero defensive options, so just press on like mad when you can, and hope your opponents croak before they notice you are the glass cannon who delivers pain just fine but can't take anything in return without shattering totally.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

You seem a bit hung up about the spine devils.

Please consider that 40 of them represent a major investment at the stage of the game you are talking about. Since they cost 3 slaves and a blood 2 mage turn per unit in addition to the requirement of a researched level of blood they are at least the equivalent of 120 blood slaves and 200 research points. You need to make a commensurate investment as Machaka to get the sort of result you want.

Machaka is primarily a mage nation, and this is where you should look for power. You do not summon a wave of cheap troops, that is what low resource troops and spiders are for. You blight your enemy's capital, spread disease among his troops and poisons his land. To battle you bring your mighty sorcerers that frighten, curse and burn the rabble that your enemy managed bring against you. Then you feed upon the corpses and dance upon a dead god's grave.

Sure, a lot of spiders and men will die against tough oponents, but who cares? Machakan spears are the blades of the singing grass of the savannah and the layers of crawling spiders in the Machakan forests are countless. Let lesser nations worry about troops dying - Machaka always has more.


To put the raving aside, you have top notch mages - use them. Most of your mages can self-buff with Eagle Eyes, which makes them deadly accurate. You can get far with the usual fire evocations, but where that is not effective - say against Abysian troops - you have things like Magma Bolts as well as poison and stun damage. And frighten is always fun.

With your very resource cheap archers, Flame Arrows is ridiculously good against practically anything not fire immune.

There are plenty of battlefield spells that goes very well with your cheap and fast troops. Look at spells like Iron Bane and Curse of Stones to get an idea of what you can do.


Finally, do not underestimate spiders. Poison is rather effective in a lot of situations and those wonderful webs makes everyone very easy to hit. While all varieties of spiders have their place, the vast majority of those you buy should be the resource cheap ones, so you should have a lot of them.

Edit:
CBM changes things around a bit, but not that much really. Flame Arrows is harder to cast and Fever Fetishes are not available, which makes fire gems less plentyfull, but at this early stage it does not matter that much. Dragon Master does make greater utilization of Fire Drakes economical, though. And that helps against Abysia.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Machaka works like the Air Force. It is weak in hand-to-hand combat but has great artillery power.

Its strength is:

Recruitable-anywhere mages with potential for F2, D2, and N3
Cheap researchers who become very efficient with Magic 1 scale (in a recruitable-anywhere and cap-only flavor), but whose absolute research level is low (so you need a lot from different forts)

If you fear a rush, either get a SC pretender or rush to magic research your mages can spam (I have actually had luck with hoplites in front of mages casting Sleep Cloud--the hoplites force the enemy to stand in the cloud, and often don't die until the enemy fatigues out). Once the rush danger period is over, spam forts and build enough sorcerers to get several of each useful random, then start summoning your armies. If you're not in CBM, fire fetish-->fire drakes is a good way to go.

You also have good access to remote-attack spells. Empower a couple F2 sorcerers, or take a F4 pretender and build fire helmets, to add Flames from Afar to your arsenal to even the score for the big battles. You also have Blight, Locust Swarms, Iron Walls, and a few good Death spells.

With your powerful research, nature, and death magic, you're good in the late game with Tarts too.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Who are your cheap researchers?

In CBM, Dragon Master gives you easy cheap Fire and Cave drakes. Banes with cheap gear make good heavy front line thugs. Your spiders and undead are poison immune. Webs slow the enemy down. Nature, earth & Fire also have good tangling spells.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Well, you have access to bane fire, magma erruption and the various death spells, which are all not subject to fire resistance. I don't know how good your death is atm but there are much worse nations when it comes to magic.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Yeah, I'm not sure why Machaka would be all about Fire. Fire's easy to rely on early on, but Machaka's got strong Nature, Death and Earth as well. Some of that's capital only, but that's not uncommon.

The late game weakness is mobility. No native teleporters. Tartarians will help, but abundant mobile thugs will be missed.
Machaka does seem to cry out for national spells. Lots of flavor and a unique culture. It should have magic the more European oriented nations don't.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Bane Fire (excellent against giant type targets, sadly the AI likes to target the spell on things like Dragonflies, Imps and such) and Magma Eruption (nice against massed low- or un-armoured targets, and thus excellent against those very feared human wave militia attacks, but totally useless against heavy armoured troops or Fog Warriors) are mid-game spells. I still believe midgame is where Machaka is strong, in the end-game it has very few options.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Combination
Pretender with FWSN - +2 pen rods - Eye of the void - (+4 pen)

N3 mage + thristle mace + moonvine bracelet (N5)
or replace with N2 E1 + Strength of gaea casting. (N5)

Charm with +5 penetration / 12 fatigue cost

7F7W18N3S gems with hammer.

Not cheap but...
SC and Thugs costs as much gems if not more.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Magma Eruption is useless against Fog Warriors? Doesn't it break the mistform at least? So the second cast does damage?
Sure those examples are midgame spells, though still useful.

Lategame, they'll have Army of Gold/Lead, Petrify, Relief, Mass Regen/Protection, Charm, Earthquake, Tartarians and all the Death magic/summons.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Black Sorcerer F3

+2 pen rod+flaming helm+eyeof the void+spell focus

Phoenix power + Blindness ( pen + 7)

This looks better and research lower.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Not automatically. Sometimes it breaks, sometimes not. Just ran a ten tests with an Ulm smith scripted Hold, Magma Bolt, Retreat (as I think Magma bolts are basically same things as Magma eruption just on a smaller scale; if I am wrong I am certain somebody will correct me) on a titan (as I wanted to repeat the test a few times, I guess it basic HP does not make any difference to mistform breaking or not) who was defending and did cast mistform (hard to tell with magma bolts though, not sure if one or more bolts do hit) Hold x 4, and in five tests mistform didn't break. I guess the magma bolt (and magma eruption) damage is not magical damage?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Torin, excuse me, but looks better for what? As far as I know just Rage and Hydrophobia are the only fire spell requiring a MR check, so I think you are not refering to them. I must be missing something obvious here but I don't understand what :confused:

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I'd guess Magma Bolts were missing. Did they do any damage? The 1 pt that you see hitting mistform?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I think Magma Bolts (and other bolts) can be parried by a Shield. So a Titan may not be the best test subject.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Both Magma Bolts and Eruption are magical damage. See DrP's spreadsheet:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=36617

Magma Bolts are not AoE, so they are probably blockable by a shield, and may be treated as a missile for the purposes of whether they hit the target (even when they land in the square the target is in).

I'd be surprised if Magma Eruption does not break the mistform every time, if the AoE effect hits the square the titan is in.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Fail your DRN Jarkko? :D

p.s. were you confusing Magma Eruption with Blade Wind before?

Also, OP: The colossal fetish is awesome. Don't let these guys tell you otherwise. Go Dom9, A4E3, use your native E gems to give him some Behemoth Boots, and watch that size-6 zero-encumbrance 25-protection block of lumber roll over everyone in sight. Give him Mistform & he's good through mid-game. Cloud Trapeze and your raiding problems are mitigated. Use your consequentially awesome scales to fort-spam your way to Evocation Annihilation. Skellispam + Poison Cloud + Spiders. Spider Warrior raiders everywhere. Magma Eruption + Militia blockers for the tough guys. Your Black Sorcerers are semi-immortal, abuse that. Bring plenty of lantern shields to every party. Ears of the Lord with bane charm venoms uncatchable thanks to their unrest incitement. Could there be a cooler nation???

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

In his defense, that is quite a penalty.

Also:
I was trying him with astral, because he's mindless... but only used him is SP so I'm still not sure. It seems a sure thing with Evo though.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

That was my exact build from some MP game a while back (still have the god file). If I recall correctly it was an all MA nations game and I was top 3 in provinces the whole game. Came to a sudden end due to some weird victory conditions and the Admiral's brilliant exploit of some quirky start locations.

But I was pulling off a double invasion quite nicely at the time. I think my long term goal was to have him forge the Air boosters and be my Fog Warrioring/Mass Flighting teleporter supporting my swarms of spiders and berserking, SoG'd, WoS'd, dirt-cheap militia.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

You do realize the colossal fetish has like 4AP, and so tramples 2 squares per round. At that rate you have to be counting on surviving until auto-route. Better hope you aren't the attacker.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

2 aoe attacks per round? I'll take that on turn 3 any day.

Auto-rout? Berserker pelt. Also a trinket. Stymphalian wings sure are nice later on. Particularly with dual evening stars, just in case someone gets clever.

What else?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

So you want to die on turn 100 instead of running away, check.

Stymphalian wings won't let you trample any more, though it will get you to the enemy faster.

I'll note the one time i've seen a colossal fetish it died in a few turns of melee to blessed woodsmen, so... I wasn't notably impressed by its survivability.

Pretty sure quickness and a heroes blade puts an end to your trampler decisively.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Yes, but won't heroes blade and quickness kill a cyclops too? I don't see... I don't see how that makes him so weak.

Really, he died to blessed woodsmen? I wonder why, maybe he was out of his dominion?

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

The fetish is mindless and will die on turn 50, he won't run away. I don't think a berserker pelt will do anything at all (except replace his steel plate armor)

For expansion against indies, you could give him 5D for fear. But Machaka does not need an awake god to expand, it's got spiders. So A is probably good, especially since it gives you Rain of Stones, always nice to have.

I think a frost brand (if you can get your hands on one somehow) or snake bladder, plus a charcoal shield, will work better than trampling, if you want to trapeze around and fight stuff.

It's like a cheaper EA cyclops, that can't be mind hunted.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I decided to reply to this thread.

No I can't tell you about Machaka. I don't know anything about them.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

IIRC units that are berserk will fight on until round 75 instead of the normal 50 rounds before fleeing. So it would buy you more time.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Hey rdonj
Stop chasing my trolling posts you silly noob!

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

No wai!

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

You are probably right, thank you for pointing this out :)

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

I certainly did :)

However, I definitively need more coffee to understand the why this would be a good thing anyway. Would you really put expensive items (requiring paths Machaka does not have) on a squishy black sorceror to be able to cast a Range 15 spell which is usable against single SC's only? And if it is a trampling SC or a SC with some damaging aura, you got pretty much nothing for the effort.

If I had all those items available, I'd use Shadow Bolts to paralyze the SC. Long range, and even if the bolts don't kill the target, a paralyzed target is a dead target. Sure, will end up with lower +Penetration ("just" +5), but on the other hand you can use the spell even when the SC is still buffing up.

But as I said, I definitively need more coffee to get my brains awoke.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Woodsman are pretty strong, so punch through protection regularly and for big damage. And, not that that particular colossal fetish was trampling, but at size 4 they're quite resistant to trampling - i doubt you'd lose a single woodsman to the fetish before it died.

IMO cyclops is kind of a crap SC once you're fighting real players. I've killed many of them with ease.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Yes, I suppose. I've killed many early and mid-game SCs with Emerald Guard squads. Their skills are good and they pack better than serpent cataphracts, but I think it's their morale that really does the trick.

Re: Can someone tell me about Machaka?
 

Says who?