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-   -   Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92? (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=48571)

legowarrior March 22nd, 2012 07:32 PM

Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Now that Wardens can be hired everywhere, does that make them a bless nation?

If not, what kind of nation are they in CBM 1.92

Also, is production a requirement for this nation?

Shardphoenix March 22nd, 2012 07:36 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Tried them with E9/n4 bless and decent scales. They hold the line very nicely and deal some serious damage with their high str. and greatswords.
Hydras still eat them for breakfast, though.

bbz March 22nd, 2012 07:42 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
for the cost of 28 resources I guess you can be safe with getting production 1 and clever caslte placement. You could try prod 0 but I wouldnt take sloth since you still need more unts(longbowmans) while these guys hold the line.

Shardphoenix March 22nd, 2012 07:57 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Armored sacreds have one problem: destruction/rust mist/other anti-armor totally screws them.

Corinthian March 22nd, 2012 09:45 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
They *can* be played as a bless nation now. But Man also needs other thins like diversity so I would rather use knights as the mainstay forces and only take a light rainbow bless for the wardens. The wardens can then be used as stealthy raiders. The knights are a bargain now. The same stats as bogarus heavy cavalry, but 10g cheaper.

Nightfall March 24th, 2012 06:10 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by legowarrior (Post 799328)
Now that Wardens can be hired everywhere, does that make them a bless nation?

Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

Shardphoenix March 24th, 2012 06:24 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

quadrupal buffed
UFF... What bless do you suggest for them? And on what chassis?

Nightfall March 24th, 2012 07:52 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix (Post 799530)
Quote:

quadrupal buffed
UFF... What bless do you suggest for them? And on what chassis?

The quadrupal buff thing wasn't was referring to the bless but to the fact that CBM also -
1. Increases their combat stats
2. Increases their magic resistance
3. Increases their movement
4. Reduces their encumbrance

In addition to making them cheaper.

Shangrila00 March 24th, 2012 11:37 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799529)
Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

Wait, the nation with access to only 4 paths, and needs a pretender to forge boosters for all of those, no way even to get holy 2, much less 3 besides the prophet, and also can't take dump scales thanks to old mages plus resource intensive regulars and sacreds...is the best bless nation in MA?

BewareTheBarnacleGoose March 24th, 2012 11:58 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799552)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799529)
Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

Wait, the nation with access to only 4 paths, and needs a pretender to forge boosters for all of those, no way even to get holy 2, much less 3 besides the prophet, and also can't take dump scales thanks to old mages plus resource intensive regulars and sacreds...is the best bless nation in MA?

The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 12:13 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by BewareTheBarnacleGoose (Post 799555)
The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

You'd think so, but then there's his second post on the matter. If that's sarcasm, it's at a level far beyond my ken.

Valerius March 25th, 2012 02:33 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
I don't know about being the best MA bless nation but I will say that wardens are tough customers. Add in even a light EN bless and they can make for some strong, cheap raiding parties. Adding in something like a frost brand on a lord warden or mage support from a mother of avalon and you can do even more damage (I speak from the experience of having had them used against me ;)).

I view them somewhat like TNN's tuatha warriors in terms of small numbers being surprisingly strong - the difference being that rather than avoid damage though high defense they can take a lot of hits.

They're not high profile like Mictlan's sacreds but I think they're a solid unit. I don't think going for a major bless would be wise but I also don't think they need it in order to be effective.

Actually, I haven't heard much discussion about MA Man under CBM 1.92. They got some significant boosts - the one that really stood out to me as being powerful is hex.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 04:00 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by BewareTheBarnacleGoose (Post 799555)
The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

Not at all...

Let me put it this way...

The closest recruit anywhere sacred comparison unit I can think of in terms of how they fight (high damage attack and soak incoming damage) is the Arssartut; lets say you put an E9/S8 bless on them to increase the survivability and magic resistance.

That is pretty much your base warden with just E4 bless.

Priest options are similar, the extra 2 morale points on wardens makes up for the lack of easy sermon of courage.

Man has slightly stronger, cheaper and more efficient Mages...

LA Atlantis just swaps in D for N, they are both good paths.
LA Atlantis has stronger W compared to Ma Man's stronger A, A is a much stronger path.

Mightypeon March 25th, 2012 09:47 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.
I am not convinced that this is neccessarily a stronger choice than something like E4/N4 with extra paths (and without the horrible misfortune scales I felt compelled to take to pay for Prod 3), especially since Mans mages are really "Meh", even in comparison to someone like MA Ulm (Mage Smiths can blow up stuff by themselfs, while Mothers need a Crone that casts storm to get Thunderstrike, which of course means that you dont get anything out of your quite decent archers.
If they had native A4 (which they dont, the chance of that is really low on their cap only stuff), you could use a storm staff or forge boosters to get things going.
Mind you, in Forbidden friendship or Over People Mod games, Man eventually get Tarrasques which deal with the lack of magic diveristy a bit, but those happen quite late.

Shardphoenix March 25th, 2012 10:49 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

LA Atlantis just swaps in D for N, they are both good paths.
Seriously? Death has skellyspam, magic diversity (spectres), thugs (banes&banelords), great anti-chaff spell (shadow blast) and best SC chassis ever (tartarians). Nature has... What? Charm and tarrasques? And couple buffs, that aren`t really useful for your sacreds, because they`re already regenerating, reinvigorating, have high protection (I assume E9N4 bless) and are unlikely to rout. And you can`t even forge penetration boosters for your charmers, because you don`t have any reliable S access.

Quote:

LA Atlantis has stronger W compared to Ma Man's stronger A, A is a much stronger path.
First, stop comparing MA to LA. LA has generally weaker mages. Second, air magic is strong, but only when you have reliable access to A3, where thunderstrike and guided arrows happen. Man only has A3 on 25% of its cap-only mages, who are also old and map-move 1. Well, you can cast Storm to boost your A2 Mothers to A3 - but this means they`ve just lost 50% of their precision and your archers are now next to useless. Oh, and you still need a highly vulneurable crone to cast it.
Also, thunderstrike by itself isn`t going to win the game for you - you NEED A4 to get to real air magic (boosters, globals, high-end summons), while with water you can successfully climb a ladder starting from w2. And Man needs over 200 turns to reliably get 1 crone with A4.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 01:48 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799574)
Priest options are similar, the extra 2 morale points on wardens makes up for the lack of easy sermon of courage.

Wrong. Having H2 priest mages (that aren't mounted, damned Eriu) means a crystal shield from a pretender, lucky indy, merc, or trade boosts it up to H3. And barring that, H2s, which Atlantis can recruit anywhere once it gets underwater, are hugely more than just for sermon of courage. Any large number of sacreds take an insane number of H1s to bless, with huge wastage. Man doesn't even have priest mages, and in order to take advantage of the Warden's stealth special ability, would have to use fort turns to recruit H1s. Which you have to, or surely you wouldn't seriously compare Arssurtuts without mentioning amphibian, or the magic weapon that destroys SCs with strength drain.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 01:52 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mightypeon (Post 799588)
I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.

That's a bad choice of bless. In fact pretty easy access to relief means I wouldn't bother with any E on them unless I wanted it for other reasons.

Mightypeon March 25th, 2012 02:00 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
In MA Mans defense, Sleepers are comparable to Banes although a fair bit more expensive.
It also has a 2 decent evocations (Sleep Cloud and Storm of Thorns) of which one is quite early. It also has some ok Battlefield buffs, although your already spiffy troops do not need those as much.
If you wish to expend some gems, Nature has the very usefull Swarm and Howl Spells. Summoning Sprites also has significant niche uses. Last but not least it also gets Faeri Queens.
It is also a nice forging path. With regen gear, reinvig gear, and one highly usefull anti thug weapon (Axe of hate).

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.

Mightypeon March 25th, 2012 02:08 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
My bless works out quite well so far. F9 would be sub par as Wardens have scant issues with dealing damage. Water 9 is interesting but gives serious fatigue issues. D9 is more of a point, as it opens up D, but I would prefer that one sacreds with multiple attacsk to be honest. S9 does not help much, Mans sacreds are usually tough enough to take a hit.
A9 and N9 are obviously sub par.
E9 gives them Ulmish prot while being fatigue neutral, and allows them to wade through a lot of even good stuff without taking a scratch. In that goongame, lack of attrition allowed me to through about 300 Wardens on Machaka on turn 30, after previously winning an early limited war against Shinuyama.
I would have prefered E9N4, but simply couldnt find the points.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 02:27 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mightypeon (Post 799620)
I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.

Please note that I haven't said that...

I do think wardens are too good currently to be recruit anywhere, when compared to other sacreds, but that is a much bigger assessment.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 02:36 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix (Post 799592)
Man only has A3 on 25% of its cap-only mages, who are also old and map-move 1.

Your not seriously saying that any A3 mage has deployment issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix (Post 799592)
Also, thunderstrike by itself isn`t going to win the game for you - you NEED A4 to get to real air magic (boosters, globals, high-end summons), while with water you can successfully climb a ladder starting from w2. And Man needs over 200 turns to reliably get 1 crone with A4.

Rubbish, CBM crones have been buffed to a little over 1.5% each of having A4, that's not an unplayable gamble, if you want to go that way. Taking risks or playing it safe is what makes pretender design interesting.

Playing a big bless almost always involves taking a risk.

tratorix March 25th, 2012 02:45 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Rubbish, CBM crones have been buffed to a little over 1.5% each of having A4, that's not an unplayable gamble, if you want to go that way. Taking risks or playing it safe is what makes pretender design interesting.


1.5% is a real longshot, especially on a cap only mage. Not having reliable access to boosters for one of the only two magic paths you get really good access to is an issue. It's not a risk, it's "do you want your mages not to suck, y/n?"

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 02:56 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by tratorix (Post 799629)
1.5% is a real longshot, especially on a cap only mage. Not having reliable access to boosters for one of the only two magic paths you get really good access to is an issue. It's not a risk, it's "do you want your mages not to suck, y/n?"

Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 60 air gems to empower, hardly disastrous considering the boosters cost 25 each anyway.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 03:03 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799635)
Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 45 air gems to empower, hardly disastrous considering the boosters cost 25 each anyway.

Wrong again, it's 60 gems to empower from A3 to A4. With a 1.5% chance per recruitment, you still have a 50% chance of not having an A4 after 45 turns of crone recruitment. Crones aren't even that cheap, so it's unlikely you could have recruited 1 per turn from the very beginning.

And what does this have to do with Man being the best bless nation in the MA anyway? Have you presented an actual argument including bless and strategy for that yet?

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 03:09 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799636)
Wrong again, it's 60 gems to empower from A3 to A4.

Lol, and yet my point is still entirely valid, at worst the gamble has cost me just 35 air gems...

And I'm guaranteed to be able to afford that from capital income by turn 30 if necessary.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 03:22 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799637)
Lol, and yet my point is still entirely valid, at worst the gamble has cost me just 35 air gems...

And I'm guaranteed to be able to afford that from capital income by turn 30 if necessary.

No, it just cost you 60. What, with if you empower so you can forge boosters, you still need to forge the boosters. If you take turn 30 as the latest you can wait before empowering, and you manage to recruit one crone per turn from turn 1 be damned to expansion or fort building, that'll happen in 2 out of 3 games.

legowarrior March 25th, 2012 03:37 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
What about the pretender make the first air booster? That would save you some money. An Air bless isn't best, but 75% shock resistant on the Wardens might be a good thing.

Titan, Imprisoned, 9 Air/9 Earth, 2 Production, 1 Growth, 2 Drain, 1 Heat Domain 6 can be done. Air Boosters can be made. End game would suck, but you summon cyclops and Aesir I think.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 03:37 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799643)
If you take turn 30 as the latest you can wait before empowering.

Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

Shardphoenix March 25th, 2012 03:48 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mightypeon (Post 799620)
In MA Mans defense, Sleepers are comparable to Banes although a fair bit more expensive.

No, they are not. They lack Bane`s 0 enc., prophetizing them doesn`t give you reanimation abilities and they are vulneurable to numbness/frozen heart.

Quote:

It also has a 2 decent evocations (Sleep Cloud and Storm of Thorns) of which one is quite early.
And the second one comes when everyone else is already entering endgame. :)
Quote:

If you wish to expend some gems, Nature has the very useful Swarm and Howl Spells. Summoning Sprites also has significant niche uses.
Sure, nature magic is nice to have - but saying that it is comparable to death...
Quote:

Last but not least it also gets Faeri Queens.
Roughly, a copy of your cap-only mage... For a ton of gems. I think, I`ll pass.

Quote:

It is also a nice forging path. With regen gear, reinvig gear, and one highly usefull anti thug weapon (Axe of hate).
But you still lack astral for luck and AMA.

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.[/quote]
Quote:

Your not seriously saying that any A3 mage has deployment issues.
More like "quantity and mortality issues". They die like flies outside of Growth-3 dominion, and you don`t have enough of them to easily replace.
Quote:

Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 45 air gems to empower...
Rubbish, you aren`t going to have that many spare air gems as Man. And air boosters are the most expensive ones.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 04:01 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799647)
Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

So did you have a point to make here? I've already pointed out how you aren't getting better than 50% odds until turn 45. You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9. I assume it at least includes D9 or F9 since with neither battle magic nor magic weapons, ethereality and/or mistform would wreck unlimited number of Wardens.

Shardphoenix March 25th, 2012 04:05 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
legowarrior, then why not getting a rainbow pretender instead? You`ll get better magic diversity with roughly the same combat effectiveness.
Quote:

at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.
What exact bless are we talking about? Becayuse counters against E9 wardens are available earlier.

legowarrior March 25th, 2012 04:44 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799653)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799647)
Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

So did you have a point to make here? I've already pointed out how you aren't getting better than 50% odds until turn 45. You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9. I assume it at least includes D9 or F9 since with neither battle magic nor magic weapons, ethereality and/or mistform would wreck unlimited number of Wardens.

Technically, since each crone is independent of the crone before her, your chance at any one time of getting A4 is always going to be 1.5%. On the other hand, using binomial distribution of getting at least 1 a4 in the first 25 turns is 31%, which is still pretty low.

But again, I'm just curious if you can base a strategy around wardens, since they can be hired everywhere now (which I'm not a huge fan, but it does buff Man).

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

Which bless would work best with Man is a secondary question to this. If we can find a Bless that will get us the Air Booster we desire, wouldn't we be one step closer to an effective bless strategy for man? Than we have to find a Chassis that will do that for us.

Shangrila00 March 25th, 2012 04:56 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by legowarrior (Post 799662)
Technically, since each crone is independent of the crone before her, your chance at any one time of getting A4 is always going to be 1.5%. On the other hand, using binomial distribution of getting at least 1 a4 in the first 25 turns is 31%, which is still pretty low.

Yes, that is how I calculated it.

Quote:

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

Which bless would work best with Man is a secondary question to this. If we can find a Bless that will get us the Air Booster we desire, wouldn't we be one step closer to an effective bless strategy for man? Than we have to find a Chassis that will do that for us.
I do rather like F4W4 myself, as a part of a general minor bless. You can take a sleeping Archdruid with F4W4E4N4 with a bonus D2 and A2 for dom6 and plus 2 scales.

Wardens are kind of hard to heavy bless for. The only thing obvious is E9 for neutral fatigue and super heavy armor. None of the others are obviously beneficial, since they are very tough for a human, but not nearly as tough as giants, pretty high encumbrance, and very hard hitting with only a single attack.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 05:06 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799653)
You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9.

Is it possible for you to make any statement at all without misrepresenting me. Limited support means you deploy battle magic when you need to, but you shouldn't need much.

As for what bless is best, that depends a lot on how you intend to play, the best 2 for them, in my opinion, would be W9 or D9, they both have pros and cons, but that's the case with all bless strategies.

And I think your vastly overestimating the effectiveness of mistform and etherial against a base of 23 damage and 17 protection, can it work, sure, but it has to be on something pretty damn tough to begin with.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 05:30 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by legowarrior (Post 799662)
So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

This is slightly off topic, but frankly spending points on your pretender for A4 just for boosters is worse than just empowering a crone. In game reality is that unless your doing poorly, you will easily have the income to afford it.

Taking S4-S6, and making it a priority to take over a lizzie province, is a different story, and gives you a far more usefull expenditure of pretender points; it is worth considering.

legowarrior March 25th, 2012 06:04 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it. I like Air 4 gives me the Staff of storms, and the flying ship. Still, a Fire/Water bless will also help you boost your crones to 4.

Shardphoenix March 25th, 2012 07:00 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
BTW, fire/water also works for Cu Sidhe.
Quote:

the best 2 for them, in my opinion, would be W9
Mother if Rivers is dirt cheap, but I`ve tried it, and, frankly speaking, wasn`t really impressed with W9 wardens. Their base defence is not that high, and fatigue can be a problem. OTOH, it also works for Cu Sidhe...
Quote:

or D9
BUT WHY?
Quote:

frankly spending points on your pretender for A4 just for boosters is worse than just empowering a crone
Only if you have a gem factory stached somewhere. Or play with like 70 sites. You can never have enough air gems when you play as Man.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799663)
Wardens are kind of hard to heavy bless for. The only thing obvious is E9 for neutral fatigue and super heavy armor. None of the others are obviously beneficial

In fact, N4 is very nice with super-heavy armor, since when you get hit through it, it`s usually only a couple poibnts of damage, unless you are getting hit by a giant.

Nightfall March 25th, 2012 10:01 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by legowarrior (Post 799670)
Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it.

Haven't tested it myself, but I've read that the A bless shock resistance does not stack with spells, which makes it pretty useless for anything.

bbz March 25th, 2012 10:07 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightfall (Post 799688)
Quote:

Originally Posted by legowarrior (Post 799670)
Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it.

Haven't tested it myself, but I've read that the A bless shock resistance does not stack with spells, which makes it pretty useless for anything.

I've tested it and it does stack.

Torgon March 27th, 2012 02:58 AM

I've enjoyed playing man with a W9N4 bless.

The fatigue is actually rarely an issue. The wardens simply kill things fast enough that they never rack any significant amounts up, and there's always a nice leap frog effect where the guys behind jump in front of those who were on the lines. And once you get in really big battles you always have relief up. An N3 daughter with a mace can cast it and you should have those coming out of your ears.

True they don't have super high base defense, but they rack up stars like crazy. Once they have a couple you're talking about a defense of 17 which makes them very hard to hit, and the little bit of regen makes them very hard to kill. I went with an imprisoned lady of springs, O3C3G3Mis1M1.

Empowering a crone to A4 is really not that much of an issue. True Air gems are very valuable, but as Nightfall has pointed out, an Air booster already costs 25 gems. Just view the empowerment as a double priced booster that you cant switch to a different mage and it seems a lot more reasonable.

You basically have 3 options for guaranteed A4 as man:
1. Empowerment
2. A4 on pretender
3. S4 on pretender

As someone else has correctly pointed out, 1 and 3 are really the only viable options. Taking A4 on a pretender for a nation that otherwise has no use for it is a whole lot more expensive than 60 Air gems (really only 35 if you view it as just forging an extra booster to get another crone to A4).

This build expands FAST. A lord warden and 5 wardens can take pretty much any indi, including barbarians and knights, with minimal loses.

The biggest problem is obviously the lack of magic diversity, and you are hurting in this regard. The key however is to just expand fast, win early wars with your wardens and keep expanding. Man is not a late game powerhouse, trying to cram a little death onto your pretender is not going to make them a late game powerhouse. I say its better to leverage your strength as an early game powerhouse and roll with it. Expand fast and try to find some good indy mages to cover you for diversity. True its a gamble, but even with the buffed wardens man is not a nation you win with without gambling.

And nature is actually not that bad especially when combined with air. One obvious option is false horror and panic spam in conjunction with a few raiding bands of wardens. Or just panic spam in conjunction with kithriotic lion spam (they now have fear, and have been buffed along with the other animals) and are conveniently size four to go along with your size 2 wardens. Air also gives you confusion very early which when spammed by your A2 mothers can create some fun results.

You also have all the big buffs at the end. Fog warriors + relief + mass regeneration + blessing of gaia + a couple weapons of sharpness from the E mothers with boots you've scraped together or foul vapors + serpents blessing + everything else.

Shardphoenix March 27th, 2012 10:30 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

You also have all the big buffs at the end.
What about Antimagic?

Shangrila00 March 27th, 2012 01:45 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Presumably Army of Lead cast by the "earth mothers."

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.

Which is the main problem with the proposed strategy. It assumes you'll have enough gems to throw on super expensive empowerments and summons, and still have enough to do what you were actually after in the first place. There are plenty of games where a 60 gem empowerment sets you back 10 turns.

There is no understanding of the importance of timeliness. Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical. Man has no native astral access, and it can take most of the game to scrounge up the 75 pearls for starshine cap+ring of wizardry. F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

Shardphoenix March 27th, 2012 04:45 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Man has no native astral access
I was super-lucky to get Brangwen The Blind One (S3 hero) both times I was trying to make high-bless Man work. It still didn`t save me from massed Iron Angels first time and communioned Pythian magic second time. Well, the second time i probably was just not agressive enough.

Shardphoenix March 27th, 2012 04:47 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.
What paths does Ancient Kraken summon have in CBM? Maybe, it can help with diversity? Mother of Rivers even provides you with gems for it.

Nightfall March 27th, 2012 08:28 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799873)
Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical.

As I have already pointed out, but you ignored, lizardman shaman are a reliable get in MA for a bless nation that can fast expand, and they are worth fighting an early war for.

If you always build your pretender for the worst case, your going to be losing a lot of long boring games.

Also it's almost always better to take S5 than S4 if your taking S, for a lot of reasons.

Torgon March 27th, 2012 11:59 PM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799873)
Presumably Army of Lead cast by the "earth mothers."

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.

Which is the main problem with the proposed strategy. It assumes you'll have enough gems to throw on super expensive empowerments and summons, and still have enough to do what you were actually after in the first place. There are plenty of games where a 60 gem empowerment sets you back 10 turns.

There is no understanding of the importance of timeliness. Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical. Man has no native astral access, and it can take most of the game to scrounge up the 75 pearls for starshine cap+ring of wizardry. F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still not arguing that man is a strong nation by any stretch of the imagination. It still has glaring holes.

However, what we're arguing is about the relative strength of various strategies for this weak nation. Basically there are two primary ones we're discussing.

1. A high bless strategy to leverage wardens. Either a water bless or earth bless seem to be the best options both with a little nature thrown in.

2. Some sort of rainbow strategy for magic diversity. With air or astral to get you A4, earth and water to bootstrap you up those paths, death to get that covered, etc.

The standard opinion for man prior to the buffs and recruit anywhere status for wardens was #2. At MM 1 and cap only a bless strat for wardens never made any sense. Now it might. I've tried building both and you end up with about the same scales as long as you're really gearing your pretender to magic diversity.

So what do you really give up going for a bless strat rather than a rainbow?

Not mitigated by indi's
60 Gem Empowerment for Air mother - assuming you don't get an A4 random

Potentially mitigated by indi's
30 Gem Empowerment for an E mother to get earth rolling. Once again assuming you don't get an E2 random.
Guaranteed Astral Access
Guaranteed Death Access
Guaranteed Fire Access

The bottom line is that you're going to find at least a couple of the last category on indi's, especially if you expand fast. So the question really comes down to whether or not you think a strong bless on the wardens is worth 60 air gems and missing a couple of the 2nd category. It's true that if you don't find any indi mages then you're somewhat screwed. But if you do happen on some wizards, or metal orders, or moon mages, or even just some lizard men and some raptors you'll be much better off.

Basically i'll put it this way. The bless strat is high risk, high reward. If you happen on some indies who round out your diversity your going to do very well. If you don't you're going to loose. The rainbow strat is a bit less variance.

Nightfall March 28th, 2012 12:05 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shangrila00 (Post 799873)
F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

That is a decent option, as long as you plan to leverage it in other ways; and there are a few good ones.

Torgon March 28th, 2012 12:07 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix (Post 799896)
Quote:

Man has no native astral access
I was super-lucky to get Brangwen The Blind One (S3 hero) both times I was trying to make high-bless Man work. It still didn`t save me from massed Iron Angels first time and communioned Pythian magic second time. Well, the second time i probably was just not agressive enough.

But would have a rainbow pretender really have saved you from these either? The bottom line is that Pythium is still pythium and ulm in 1.92 is super powerful. Traditional man with a rainbow would have lost to these guys as well unless you were off to a spectacular lead.

Nightfall March 28th, 2012 12:21 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix (Post 799677)
Quote:

or D9
BUT WHY?

Because most people massively underestimate the D9 bless, it is very cheap to get on a master lich, and usefull in a variety of ways.

And a D9 master lich with a couple of extra paths is a great battle caster in it's own right.

Nightfall March 28th, 2012 12:41 AM

Re: Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Torgon (Post 799927)
However, what we're arguing is about the relative strength of various strategies for this weak nation.

To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.


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