Please Help Me Tune My Man

[Teleolurian]

After playing around with a bunch of nations/themes (though nowhere near half of them), I've actually done really well with Man. Surprising, since I used to get my head handed to me quite readily in DomI with the same nation. Either they're stronger or I'm better (than I was).

I'm not too keen on a lot of aspects of pretender creation (like building a pretender using complementary schools; so far I just ape my nation's magic so that my pretender is more along the lines of a pre-empowered mage). I'm looking for advice on tuning my game/play style with this nation.

Pretender: Druid (erm, the extra-vine-summons guy) 6 Nature, 4 Earth.
Wizard's Tower
1 Growth, 2 Order, -1 Luck; leftover points into Dominion.

Minuses:
Longbowmen never hit anything.
Weak priests means my prophet is usually my starting scout.
Infantry kind of suck.
Knights of Avalon are incredibly good. Too bad they're also incredibly expensive.
Mage production sucks, since it's capital-centric.

Plusses:
Huge armies of Wardens, commanders decked out with dual Serpent Kryss and berserker pelts. Crude, but doesn't require me to focus heavily on construction, leaving me more time to research Conjuration. Can't wait to try this with nature-9.
The best researcher-for-cost is the Daughter of Avalon, which is easily affordable. I'd buy one of these and my holy-unit allowance of Wardens.

Playing against the easy Ulm on Britain (man, is that map a pain for anyone playing against Vanheim), I started in Ireland and quickly took control of the western island before venturing east. Ulm was sort of in the Scotland area; the AI did a poor job of defending their poor (isolated) Freak Lord when I finally breached the castle walls with a horde of Vine Ogres and Wardens. His masses of Blade Winds did cut down several ogres, but a Heroically Speedy Lord Warden quickly cut him down to size. All in all, this is the most effective game I've ever played.

So, how do I tighten it? My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows. I largely ignored the rest (with the exception of a wandering troop of flanking Avalon Knights which gladly lent support to several other armies). I've essentially ignored all of Man's other troops, since they tend not to be alive very long.

[Teraswaerto]

Use Wind Guide and have fire magic on you pretender, casting Fire Arrows with massed longbows ---> massacre.

Lamias are a good choice for nature magic summoned troops later on, better than vine creatures maybe, though you get less of 'em. Maybe take the Naga with 9 nature for the blessed wardens and strong lamia summoning.

Just ideas...

[Teleolurian]

No complaints. I'm inexperienced enough with the spell list to not know which schools to research; by the time I'd hit Ulm's capital, my research tree looked like: Conj-9 Const-4 Thaum-2. I had a Tarrasque and hadn't even cast Haruspex in all the provinces I owned yet.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Teleolurian:
I'm looking for advice on tuning my game/play style with this nation.

Pretender: Druid (erm, the extra-vine-summons guy) 6 Nature, 4 Earth.

Eek. Picking an human mage to pump only 2 magic paths isn't very effective cost-wise. If you want only earth+nature Bigtits is the way to go. She'll cost you less than a Druid once you buy some dominion candles, and she'll do much much more for you than a few extra Vine men or ogres. Forget building strong bless effects with a human mage.

Wizard's Tower

For Man admin matters much more than fast and cheap building. The Fortified City will give you what you really need, for 40 less design points.

1 Growth, 2 Order, -1 Luck; leftover points into Dominion.

That's 4 dominion if I count right. With the same scales and castle, a Mother would give you 6.

Order 2/Luck -1 is dangerous. Order 3/Luck -3 is cheaper, safer, and grant you a better income.

Minuses:
Longbowmen never hit anything.

With Wind Guide they're truly great.

Weak priests means my prophet is usually my starting scout.

Suicide him as soon as you can recruit an independent holy-3 priest. Look for amazon tribes.

Mage production sucks, since it's capital-centric.

That shoul be an incentive to pick the highest admin castle, and a prod+3 scale.

So, how do I tighten it? My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows.

Sounds good. Don't forget Wind Guide if you use Wardens and LBs in the same army. I think the Virtue with lots of air magic is a good choice for Man, as Wardens are costly, yet very vulnerable to crossbows and LB friendly fire.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Teleolurian:
My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows.

...

I've never thought of backing with a frontline, but whatever works!

As an aside - can you make mercs into prophets? That would be interesting to do with Terminus.

And Lastly~

Were you summoning vines with your pretender? That seems like a waste, when Man has a ready supply of cheap mages that, with ivy crowns, can give you all the vine creatures you want, and free up your pretender to do useful things at which pretenders excel (forge, research, search, fight).

[Gandalf Parker]

Generally I would use the ability to select the magics on my pretender to choose magics I CANNOT get with that nations mages. Spread out the spells you can do and items you can build.

Considering the bless benefits is something to consider also. 4 in any magic gets you something and 9 gets you something else.

Definetly choose castles with towers. Man puts archers in them (longbows?), and they can be very handy.

Keep in mind that the advantage of longbows is damage and range. They can be set farther back than shortbow archers. Setting them to the sides (flanks) seems to lower the chance of friendly fire hitting your own men