[Twan]

Erf have you already seen how Man do in MP ?

Start is usually very good (but against indies only, even with longbowmen and an awake god, Man isn't an as good rush nation as any nation with decent mapmove 2+ sacreds or tramplers) then arrives midgame and a war with another nation...

Man can score victories in the beginning and destroy some unprepared or newby ennemies with a classic longbowmen + wind guide based tactic. Then the ennemy realizes this tactic is easily countered by expandable archers decoys -to neutralize fire : closest-, and/or a mix of targetable troops and big heavy infantry squads -to neutralize fire : something else-).

Man then have basically two options in midgame :

- a long attrition war, using bards spreading unrest -> only works if the ennemy don't have access to mind hunt or good patrolers, and even if it works the effects are too long to come to save Man against any nation with good magic ; the longer the war is the weaker Man will be due to very limited magical diversity and crones dying from old age

- using air magic with a lot of crones on the battlefield spaming thunder strikes -> to cast more than 2 per fight they need a storm for summon storm power, and a storm make longbowmen quasi useless, it's the worst ever "synergy" in the game ; also crones being mapmove 1 you'll have to move slowly, or use gems to cloud trapeze them where they are needed

Finally no matter how good was the start, most other nations just destroys Man (before or after its few good spells are reached).

Other elements are better than air for first/second tier magic (up to level 6), larger ae for smaller fatigue in evocations, and spells often castable by non capitol mages.

In beginning of third tier (level 7 for fog warriors) air become better than fire and water for battle magic (especially as some crones have access to the excellent air+earth combo for rain of stones), but is still not as good as other paths. And in levels 8-9, there is simply nothing worthing to be researched (except air queens, if Caelum was cute enough to let some) when astral and death magic rules (and even fire/water become more dangerous, with the army destroying spells).

Personnally I would :

Keeping the same paths
- give free flying to crones, or at least mapmove 2
- and/or make half of them start before old age (make so the ones with +1 or more nature picks aren't old)
- and/or make daughters recruitable in all forts
- and/or add a cost effective national thug summon crones can cast (I mean a real thug, not the vine thing with 8 in attack or the big human leader nature already have)

...Or add a limited access to one of the powerful path to the nation, or a medium access to one weaker path, or more magical diversity out of capitol (ie : a random for non capitol mages, or another recruitable having say water and earth).