[Windreaper]

Magma Eruption is my favourite with Machaka, too. Blindness is another spell you should learn to rely on, too (no better way to stop hordes of rampaging Niefel giants).

As for units I wouldn't rely on Black Hunters too much. They're too costly for what they do. Ok, they're nice with nature 9 but the spiders' mr5 let them down later in the game. Hoplites with some cheap shortbow archers and maybe some spider knights (I actually find these guys quite good for the cost, web spit is rather nice) make up the majority of my armies.

Alex's strategy of using black sorcerers with invulnerability and fire shield as mini-supercombatants seems rather nice, too. Got to try that one out. In any case, alteration should be your field of research in the early game (gets you those nice protection spells, especially mass protection (!), and probably the best fire combat spell - incineration). Getting construction to high levels early is a good idea, too (actually, I'd consider rushing for const 4 right away). Your mages should be mostly researching for the first 10-20 turns anyway so I'd invest in evocation later.

Example research path:
Construction 4 (critical items)
Alteration 6 (Mass protection)
Enchantment 6 (Relief) or Conjuration 6 (Trolls, Lamias) or Evocation 6 (Magma Eruption)

This is of course a general guideline but that's what I'd go for with Machaka. Depends on the situation, of course.

As for pretender. Since Machaka is so versatile magically it's hard to decide on a good design. Some sort of support mage would probably fit the bill quite nicely. A Prince of Death would be a rather cheap option and would compliment your existing magic quite well (your guys got 1 magic pick and can get more through randoms but you really want to have 4 levels for early sitesearching) and would also allow you to have decent scales. I'd probably go magic 3 and do some heavy research with the witch doctors.

Example pretender:

Prince of Death:

Magic: 4 Death

Scales:

Order: +3
Productivity: +3 (you'll want the resources for the hoplites)
Heat: +2 (preferred)
Growth: +0/+1
Luck: +0/+1 (either this or Growth or additionally 2 extra levels of death magic)
Magic: +3 (you got 90gp research 5 guy but since you're going to buy many witch doctors anyway why not boost your research by nearly 50%).

40admin castle (80pts).

0 points left over

[ January 22, 2004, 07:04: Message edited by: Windreaper ]