[Chazar]

I also tend to agree with Ironhawk & Boron. However, I like to play Machaka already as it is. They are fine, (especially with the ConceptBalanceMod)!

Nevertheless I think it is foolish to try a bless strategy with Machaka in MP. I recall that in one of the lost elder threads (aka the posts that were written before the great forum update happened, which lost them forever in history) discussing machaka strategies, everyone agreed that a bless strategy would not work, simply because it costs so much and pays off so late. The advice was to go with good scales to build lots of Spider Knights (& some Archers, Chaff and Black Sorcerors every turn that I could afford one - of course). This worked pretty well for me in MP thus far. Without ever building more than five Black Hunter, of course.

So what scales can you drop for a bless? Order & Productivity are required to build your sacred troops and death costs money too. Without money and resource, the number of sacred troops becomes to small to pay off the disadvantges...but then again I cannot see any bless strategy really working with most other nations either.