Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

Seriously tired of victory with all my standard races (Man, Ulm, Jotun(Niefel)) and looking for a challenge. Booted up as Vanheim, but they were also relatively simple to grasp. Since I'm usually very bad at finding spells to research towards, I decided to check out a theme without one strong path in magic (Machaka). Since I don't know too much about this nation, here are my impressions from a quick game where I lost just about everything to Vanheim and indies:

1. Machaka has really good cavalry.
2. Machaka has very interesting priests.
3. The infantry seems more or less average or below-average.

Once again, these are initial impressions. I could really use some help from Machaka players regarding:

1. Pretender design (pretenders that work well with Machaka, scales, and magic holes to fill with my pretender).
2. Early spells to research towards.
3. A quick rundown of units to build.

Generally when testing, I'll set a unit to Order3/Misfortune2. With Machaka's range of magics, I also shifted Magic to +1 for a slight boost on research. I also always set the temperature scales to national defaults.

My general early play style is to research whichever path my nation has a lot of entries in, defaulting to Alteration, and splashing Construction. With Holy-3 Priests, I'll prophetize one of them; otherwise, I'll do it to a spy or a strong commander.

Regardless, my Machakan game didn't go over very well, as a result of two horrible pieces of luck (coastal flooding and hurricane), a nearby aggressive neighbor, and a poor showing versus independents.

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

Re: Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

I seem to recall another post where it was suggested you buff up your commanders that change shape when damaged, and then allow them to be damamged so you have a fireshielded/whatnot'ed giant spider causing havok.

Also spiders are good, even the cheap ones, give them orders to fire their webs and let them incapacitate and string out the enemy.

A search for machaka would probably yield a more comprehensive list of strategies, but thats what i remember from the top of my head from other Posts, never having played machaka myself.

Re: Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm still learning Machaka, and I'm pretty new to the game as well. Nonetheless, here is what has been successful for me so far.

1. Pretender: A rainbow pretender can be very helpful for site-searching, as you will want to use lots and lots of nature, earth, fire, and death gems. I'm beginning to believe that it's a good idea to have at least Air 3 on the pretender, as Air (especially Wind Guide) meshes well with Machaka. I usually forego Water, Astral, and Blood entirely.

2. Scales: You want some productivity, as Machaka's best troops use a fair amount of resources. Magic is good, too, as it makes sorcereresses and witch doctors much more effective researchers.

3. Troops: The hoplites are very good. About 15 hoplites, with some archer support, can take most indies on strength 6 with very few casualties. The black hunters are extremely durable, but they are also extremely expensive. I also find their offense a little weak, so an offensive blessing like nature or fire will help out quite a bit. The spider knights are also very good. Just a single knight can immobilize three human-sized units with each web spit, for your hoplites to kill. When the knight gets into melee, it's strong there, too.

4. Fighting indies: Build a force of hoplites and archers, backed up by two or three spider knights. Use the cheap infantry you start with as a screen to soak up lances from indy knights and cavalry. With a Voice of the Lord casting Sermon of Courage, the enemies will route long before you.

5. Research: I usually focus on Construction, Summoning, and Enchantment. I use Thaumaturgy to get the site-searching spells, but that's about it. Evocation up to 3 is very good for Magma Bolts. Blade Wind is also easily within reach for black sorcerers. Once you get Evocation 6, Magma Eruption is superb.

I try to supplement my armies with a lot of summons, especially vine men and vine ogres. Summoning also gives you access to Astral through Couatl's. In Enchantment, Fire Arrows is excellent with Machaka's cheap archers. If you get a sorcerer or black sorcerer capable of casting Reanimate Archers, go for it. Banefire archers with Fire Arrows are awesome. Construction 6 is crucial for Skulls of Fire and Lightless Lanterns.

Your SC's will most likely be fully equipped Black Hunter Lords, Bane Lords, or Firbolgs.

One of the drawbacks with Machaka is that some of the most interesting troops (Black Hunter and Hunter Lord, Black Sorcerer, Sorceress, Banespider) are capitol only. Because of this, you will need to decide early on if you want a heavy commitment to any of them, and then consistently recruit them from the start. I usually recruit a Sorceress or Black Sorcerer in 8 out of the first 10 turns, adding in one turn for a Voice of the Lord and one turn for a Sorcerer. So far, I haven't been able to justify recruiting Banespiders in place of a sorceress or black sorcerer.

One strategy is fun is to recruit Ears of the Lord consistently in a secondary fortress. Once you have 6-10 of them, you can pretty much cripple an opponent's economy, and they will have a very hard time dealing with them.

Your primary combat-support mages will probably be Witch Doctors. Between Blindness, Fire Darts, and Protection, they are fairly effective for their cost. They can also cast Swarm with a gem.

Hope this helps. I find Machaka to be incredibly versatile and incredibly fun, even if I'm still not any good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

Pretty good, I'd say. The Black Hunters look to be a tremendously good sacred unit- if their offense were higher, they'd be almost as good as the Wardens of Man (my favorite commando squad). I tend not to think of the summons, but I'd assume that with an offensive blessing I'd be liable to bring in a group of Fire Drakes early on, and potentially Vine Ogres (a Fire/Nature 4 pretender would be a viable blessing, and if I could spare the points I might even bring Fire up to 6). My natural fear of micromanagement usually leads me to make sitesearcher pretenders that can just follow my early expansion armies and check for sites, usually with enough of a guard to keep me from dying and allowing me to take small provinces when my main forces are waiting for reinforcements.

I'd completely neglected to notice that the Spider Riders (cheap) are essentially cavalry archers, I'd been using them as light cav instead. Probably my first fatal error.

Re: Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

Don't forget that Machaka has good access to fever fetishes (which go very well on disease-immune mound kings http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).
And yeah, the Spider Knights are strong cavalry archers that can be produced at any fortress, unlike the Black Hunters.

If you care about other paths of magic, don't forget that death magic lets you access spectres (D1, ?1, ?1) and nature lets you get lamia queens (random sorcery picks).

Re: Learning New Race (Machaka)
 

The Black Hunters are one of the best units in the game because when the rider dies you still have a sacred huge spider under your command. This spider has lots of life, can win most types of knights and has a nasty poison.

I wouldn't summon any fire drakes... at all... it's better to alchemize the 11 gems into gold. 5 fire drakes... the gems can be used to provide 825 gold.

The worst part of Machaka is the province defense... 0 protection thus they die from anything. I even had them get killed from tennis balls.