Quote:
Originally Posted by Amorphous
You are paying far too much for too little gain. With the scales you have there, you should be able to hit 15+ provinces, as well as a couple of castles, the first year without any bless whatsoever.
I think Black Hunters are generally underestimated here on the boards - probably because past incarnations of CBM made the price discrepancy between them and ordinary spiders so large - but their strength lies mainly in the opening game. Machaka really has no problem there, so investing in a N9 bless that gives you little afterwards is not the best idea.
About 6 Black Hunters without any bless can take practically any indy, pretty much the same as your 3-4 N9 expansion parties. Add in a minor N4 and possibly E4 (the latter helps against largish numbers and might be something you want anyway) and you can shave off a couple of hunters.
Do not get me wrong, you will of course get a better expansion rate with N9 than without, but once the indies are gone, the benefit of the bless will be greatly reduced. Human oponents really do not find it much harder to deal with N9 hunters than unblessed ones.
Also, Machakan troops are certainly not resource intensive. Apart from the hoplite, the regular troops are all very resource cheap. The combination of very cheap archers and good ability to cast Flame Arrows is excellent. Since Machaka has access to both the nature and earth protection spells as well as Iron Bane, cheap troops without armour has an occasional use. Combine with Curse of Stones for more fun.
Lastly Sorceresses have f1e1d1 + 10%fedn and cost 110gp, so 110 for 5rp is more accurate.
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I couldn't really disagree with you more. I'd really have to say.. *try it*.
I don't get the n9 blessing for the 14 regen. I don't get it for the additional protection.
I get it for the 99 morale. Machakan morale is not great. Berserk spiders will take, about 1 time in 4 provinces that non berserk units will not.
With small units ... losing even one unit will put you in the circumstance where you are taking morale checks or quit the field.
I get it - so you can expand with groups of 2-4 spiders - instead of 4-8. Which lets you send out an expansion party a turn instead of 2 in the first 4 turns.
So I view the N9 as critical especially if you wish to expand with units of 2-3 spiders.
The N9 bless is not what the opponent will have a problem dealing with. The issue is that you are sending out one expansion party a turn, *and not taking any losses*.
Whereas most non giant races will take attrition losses. This will mean on average that you will have about 25% more troops than an average nation, more experience as well as more provinces when you finally meet.
As for the resource intensive: I was thinking spiders and too lazy to fix the error.
As for sorceresses: Not with the specific scales I specified. Magic 3 = +2 rp.
I like earth - an minor earth bless works great, and I like it with the fetish (or other gods). I was just suggesting an alternate to the fetish.