[Demantiae]

I really love Machaka, they're one of my fav nations of Dominions and it's a shame they look like an afterthought. Vanilla Machaka really does need some summons and those suggested above would work great). I need to check out that EA Machaka mod that's flying around and see how that pays out but I'm concerned by that hugely expensive king unit the modder puts so much emphasis on. It seems that king unit is the whole focus of the mod and makes him the central theme of the nation. In MA the kings are merely figureheads as the priesthood as complete control of society, os maybe in the past (EA) the kings had too much control or they became corrupt and had to be reigned in but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a hugely powerful king unit that is pretty afr removed from any other king unit in the game. I'll check it out and see if it can be improved any.

As for LA though I like the idea of hving Machaka on of the few uncorrupted nations and I love the idea of basing around the Malian empire. They were massively wealthy and for a time some of the most educated people on the planet. Introducing Astral magic into their makeup would fit perfectly. I like the idea of bringing driders into the nation but I'd recomend limiting them to LA and having them sacred. The sorcerers of Black Mountain could have been purged by the priesthood for corruption and those few who weren't tainted by foul magics chose to show their devotion to the god by mergin with the spiders to become the first driders. Now they are few in number and sacred, hiding in the God Mountain waiting to be called into action. Drider commanders could be the last of the Black Sorcerers and they could be decent mages (maybe not as good as the original sorcerers because these were the uncorrupted ones so probably the more novice sorcerers), call them Drider or Spider Elders or something. The drider troops could be their chidren and they lack the magical training, call them Drider or Spider Children or something.

For LA Machaka's military I'd focus primarily on the hoplites. If their society survives the rigours of the middle age and a possible corruption then the empire that comes out of that would be strong and organized. An African hoplite army would be cool, throw in some Zulu military elements based off their bull-horn strategies (or whatever they called it) and you have the army worked out. Basicly you'd have regular hoplites supported by older and more experienced second line troops (like the triarius of Ermor) and have younger, faster and more lightly equiped flank troops with shorter spears. I'd not use the spider cavalry of the MA, perhaps they had issues controling all those spiders (maybe the spiders influenced by their god began the purge of the wicked form their ranks - thousands of giant spiders decending from the forrest to cleanse are gonna leave a lasting impression on a culture!), instead they'd rely on their driders for cavalry support (though they'd be cap only sacreds andin short supply). Leave them their archers, perhaps upgrade them to composite bows (outside influences in their military) which would be balanced by their lesser access to Flaming Arrows. There's also one thing that's been forgotten thus far about Machaka - the Bandar. Their history (in the form of heroes) mentions the intelligent apes living deep in the jungles nearby. Maybe in the late age Machaka has subjugated the ape kings and they use their warriors as levy troops or auxilliaries? Well armoured and trained hoplites supported by the stronger ape warriors would make for a nice mix (similar to how Arco has their own ape warriors). Throw in an Ape King commander to go alongside an obvious hoplite commander and you have your military leaders sorted.

Only thing left to decide would be how the priesthood is represented. If God Mountain was purged then some sort of inquisition would be in order. I'd keep the settup of the priests (Eyes, Ears and Mouth of the Lord) to some extent. Give the Eyes and Ears the Inquisitor bonus as they're out actively looking for corruption and threats to the faith. The Mouth of the Lord can instead have access to astral magic as they spend a lot of time communing with their god and interpreting his/her/it's commands. Maybe the king is now a priest-king and the vessel of the god? His person is chosen from amongst the ranks of the Voices and his priest abilities match theirs but he is a more powerful astral mage. Machaka could be a relatively good astral nation but a choice would need to be made about using their expensive astral priests as communion slaves or not.

The more I think about this the more I like the idea of LA Machaka. I need to learn how to mod this game so I can put all these idea's into practice!