[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I don't believe there is any difference on the scales. Check my scales settings.. do you really want to buy luck with order?

I do not understand your answer at all. As far as I can tell your scales involved production 1, so going two steps further would be production 3.

Now even apart from that, 160 points is 160 points however you spend it. Luck and order is not a bad combination when you have a sizeable empire, which Machaka should achieve rather quickly. Going from imprisoned to sleeping is just 100 points and nets you about 2 more years of active pretender. Sleeping to awake is 150 points.

160 points is a lot and any such investment should give you a lot, otherwise it is just a bad investment.

with an imprisoned N3 pretender, n9 = 6 picks, 21*7 = 147 points.
n4 = 7 points. Difference is 140.

However, if you are taking a rainbow crone (another favorite of mine), n4= 42 points. Difference = 105, plus the cost of the lord of fertility.

The base cost of magic pics is 8, not 7. You are probably confusing it with the base cost of dominion. 160 points is the minimum difference possible with Machaka. And that requires you to take the Lord of Fertility. Any other pretender and the difference get larger.

As for .. tricks. You absolutely do have to choose provinces differently. Small numbers of cavalry, are easy spider prey.
anything with small damage out put... wolf warriors. Are good choices. Provinces with three types of troops.


with a non human blesser (ie spider) you don't care about most archers.

Well, this does not differ significantly from how I do it, so my opinion remains the same.

What I will add is that you have incomplete intelligence during the expansion phase. This is bad for small numbers of spiders, because lots of troops, more or less regardless of which kind, present a very much increased risk of losing spiders.

If you send out parties of 4- Black Hunters, you will lose some of them, even if you keep away from what seems to be the harder indies.

Anyway, we agree on most details. After thats its play style...

Well, especially in CBM I prefer sloth 3. Spider Riders are good enough to quickly expand into most indies and groups of Black Hunters handle the rest. This gives me 15-20 provinces and a couple of castles the first year as well as giving me a lot more points to play with for the pretender.



Ink:
Evaluating Black Hunters through Spider Knights is not a good idea - they are very different. Just compare the performance of equally large groups of both of them to see what I mean.

I happen to agree that Black Hunters do not warrant any big bless. They manage quite well without any bless during expansion and they are very good deterrents against some rushes. Later in the game there are too many counters to them for them to be anything other than specialty units.