[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Boron:
may i ask how you cope with the bad pd ?
do you take a watchtower and castle all the area which i probably would do ?

I've never wallpapered castles, but I used to play Machaka a fair amount. One way to boost the horrible PD is to add some of Machaka's very cheap archers to each non-fortified province.

Another thing is to stud your territory with forts, to allow only one non-fortified province between each fort, a la :

oXoX
ooXo
XoXo

Each X being a fortified province, each O non-fortified. My 'diagram' is iffy - forts border one another, but then, most maps don't have too many provinces with 8 neighbors.

Point is, if you build those forts, you can channel the enemies, as they only have so many ways they can go, if they don't want to besiege you. ( It works better with the semi-expensive fortifications that give at least 100 defense, because the walls aren't as easily crushed the same turn as an attack. Extra admin doesn't hurt either.)

You build your temples in the provinces with the forts, obviously. Later game you may need more temples, but Machaka isn't dominion driven unless you have an immortal pretender.

Put a reasonable garrison in each fort, with both a combat combatant and, if you can afford it, a spellcaster. (The question in affording the spellcaster is the loss of research / casting, unless you build a lab in each as well.) The garrisons allow you to move to block the 'channels' you've left between your fortifications, to surround the invader.

One thing that helps to afford the reasonable garrisons with Machaka : Vine Men. Build some Ivy Crowns, thus allowing 3 Vine Men (or Vine Ogres, if your caster is N3) for every 1 nature gem. Upkeep free, and non-routable as long as there is a mage on the field. And of course, forging Thistle Maces helps your N2 mages reach N3, allowing the Vine Ogres which provide much better bang per Nature Gem. (Get to N4, and higher construction, and there's a staff you can forge that gives a bonus of 2 to nature magic, and an additional bonus to each casting of Vine Men / Vine Ogres.)

Nearly ever mage Machaka produces has at least N1, so it's easy to produce the Vines, and again - they don't suffer morale loss, so won't rout, making them great for wearing down most invaders until they run out of fatigue.