Machaka

[Saxon]

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions on Arco, I had a great deal of fun. I did not have a great deal of success with human commanders with magic items, with a couple of exceptions. The powering up of mages was a huge success, no surprise there. Putting ranged weapons or spells in the hands of generals was worthwhile, over time. Aside from a few routs caused by a bow of accuracy killing a commander, they rarely turned battles. However, the kill rate eventually pushed them into the hall of fame, suggesting that they added a bit to each battle. Finally, when I stated summoning some of the high level units and then dumped tons of magic items on them, the game was over.

Now, for the next project! Machaka. I have never played them before, even though I do live in Africa. What do you all suggest? I see the witch doctors have poor research and there are several kinds of priests? Should I take a bless/dominion strategy? Is finding a library critical? Can the spiders make credible knights for a more military strategy? Please, let me know your ideas!

[Wish]

the females are better for cheap researchers. I always found machaka was best for making early black servents into something between an SC and a thug, at least until they lose life drain in the next CB mod.

[Saxon]

I tried out a N9E4 bless strategy last night and my, oh my! Those hunters are dangerous, aren’t they! I had them out with a lot of archer support, but that led to supply issues and getting everyone diseased. The thing is, I did not really need the archers…

If one wants to make a Hunter Lord the prophet, be sure to provide good armor. The strength of this strategy seems to be the high hit points available to the spiders themselves, rather than the riders. As I found out the hard way, once the prophet rider dies, you are limited to two misc. magic slots…

The only real problems I ran into were large groups of heavy cav, as they can stand up to the spiders for some time. Once their infantry flanked me, I started to take a lot of hits and one casualty. Of course it was the prophet... Independents were on nine, and I was running six spiders. At lower levels of independents, this is a very strong starting force, thank you for the suggestions.

I did manage to equip a basic BS, but he went east and Ermor came west, so the life stealing was not that impressive… However, the potential is clear and I will play with it on the restart. After all, my best troops were diseased, my prophet was dead, my thug was dissolved and Ermor was walking over the east. Lessons learned…

[NTJedi]

Yes Machaka was my favorite for a long time... yet I play very large maps and grew to hate the very weak province defense.

[Saber Cherry]

Spiders are size 6, so be sure to saddle up with wine bags I guess a little chaff might be useful versus heavy cavalry, to absorb the lances.

As for black servants, I suggest a dragon helm over BS helm (fire protection) and something that gives strength (e.g. girdle of might) too boost their life drain. By default, it is pretty weak.

Personally, I don't use them, though - too fragile with their low HP. By the time they have 20+ protection they are no longer cheap.

[Endoperez]

Machaka is quite well balanced nation. It has no weaknesses, but its strengths aren't very visible either.

The Hunter Spiders, which are sacred, stay even after their rider dies. Their magic resistance drops into "too low", but AI doesn't know how to use that, so you can try a bless strategy. Fire 9 will make the spiders deadly, and that should be enough for a first try.

Machaka Archers can be massed in insane numbers. Flaming Arrows at Enchantment 4 is deadly. Enchantment also has: Fire Shield, Reanimation, Raise Dead/Skeletons, etc. You might want to try how to make a Fire 9 Moloch into an early-game combatant, OR how to make him early-game magic killer (hint: you get more Fire Darts if you are more powerful caster), and reanimation battle tactics. I'm not sure if your Black Sorcerers are sacred or not. If they are, you might want to try to get Earth 4 into the bless somehow. Earth Power would also give them reinvigoration, so that they can cast Raise Dead a bit longer. The idea is to have many of them and let them raise enough undead that the enemy army routs. When you get Relief, this becomes even more powerful.

As for infantry, Machaka Hoplites are good, but the LI is even worse than usually.

Spider Archers and Knights are a bit hard to use, but they can fire webs, and can be useful in many ways even if they are more expensive than normal cavalry.

[Oversway]

I would not recommend a bless strat with Machaka. The hunter spiders are good, but expensive and capitol only.

I tend to make an SC pretender with air magic (as well as other paths) -- air a path that machaka lacks, it works well for SCs (mistform, mirror image, air shield), and you can cast wind guide along with flaming arrows for even more fun.

[thejeff]

The other fun thing to do with with the Black sorcerers is to have them cast fire shield and invulnerability and attack. When they turn into Spiders they make respectable thugs. Throw a ring of regeneration and luck pendant on them. I sent them out in pairs and they could handle most Indies and fairly large swarms of AI troops. Worked better if one had an Astral random and cast Body Ethereal.

The Black sorcerors are not sacred, but their spider forms are. I was never able to time the change and the blessing well enough to take advantage of this.

[Endoperez]

thejeff said:
The Black sorcerors are not sacred, but their spider forms are. I was never able to time the change and the blessing well enough to take advantage of this.

One of the strangest sentenences about Dominions I have read in a long time, and one that fits the gameplay perfectly. Even if you caught my mistake.

[Ironhawk]

thejeff said:
The other fun thing to do with with the Black sorcerers is to have them cast fire shield and invulnerability and attack. When they turn into Spiders they make respectable thugs. Throw a ring of regeneration and luck pendant on them. I sent them out in pairs and they could handle most Indies and fairly large swarms of AI troops. Worked better if one had an Astral random and cast Body Ethereal.

Sending out two commanders together is a really bad morale setup. If one commander dies or routs, the other commander will immediately rout regardless of damage. If you are sending out commander-only forces, the safest morale bet is to send only one. In that case it either fights to the death, or routs, but it wont impede any other units.