Thoughts on balancing MA Man

[Xietor]

We have seen radical changes to Mictlan and Ulm, both who needed help more than MA Man. But MA Man imho, while not a broken race, does have more shortcomings than any other MA land nation, especially on large maps.

MA Man does have strengths. And it begins with the Crone's magical diversity, and strong air power which translates into good quick powerful evoc spells.

Man also boasts longbowmen, and the Knights of Avalon, who get a magical attack and recuperation.

But each of the strengths has drawbacks, which we can examine. My suggestions:


I. The Crone. Remove its Old Age.

Is it thematically possible that Crones, who have no fire magic, and who have abundant n magic, live long lives, but do not suffer old age? The Crone's evoc skill is Man's best hope to stave off an early attack, but they end up with 7 hps, and severe old age with no way of stopping it.

Pythium can take take 4n on its pretender, and slap a shroud on their capital only mages, as can Ermor. Abysia has boots of youth. Shinuyama has death magic, which lowers the chance of afflictions, and high hps.

I have seen a crone die within a few turns of being bought.
Of course, if possible, you can try to only buy them in the spring.

But it would help balance Man, make a race most new players tend to play 1st more enjoyable by eliminating the micromanagement of extreme old age, and be thematically sound as well.

In no way would giving Man crones that that started a a few years below max old age thrust Man into a MP power nation.They would still be close to the bottom, but would be more fun to play.

II. Knight of Avalon Commander

Makes sense to have a commander that has map move 3 and forest survival 3 to lead the knights of avalon. That would also give man a decent thug commander. (warden... Pleaseeeeee).

III. Reduce the gcost and resource cost of the KOA.

Man does not get any scale points to work with. And the KOA's are resource hogs, and also cost 75 gold each and are not sacred.

That is a double whammy. First it is hard to accumulate KOA's because of the high resource cost, and when you compare them to LA Arcos.' Agema's 31 resource cost it is just hard to justify. And if you do take a high production scale and buy a few, you will soon find it is hard to pay the upkeep cost on the KOA's.

KOA's are Avalon's magical knights. They come from the Forest of Avalon. Give them the same gcost and rcost as a normal knight. That is still quite high, but it is a reduction.

IV. Pretender Selection

Man's pretender selection seems a bit thin. To take advantage of the longbows, flaming arrows is nice. Maybe another pretender or two that starts with fire, like the Forge Lord?

Man does, however, get a couple of unique pretenders, the Lord of the Forest being one. And while more is always better, I would like to see the Lord of the Forest made more appealing. There are numerous ways to do that. Some very easy ones:

We can start with his spear. A spear is nice I guess, as he can hunt Boar with it, but could it not be a magical spear?
I mean even those dead gods with shattered souls have magical spears.

And since he is the Lord of the Forest, one would assume he hunts. A really cool magical bow would be thematic. Longbow of Avalon! Graphic does not have to show the bow, as it is likely slung when not in use.

Finally, great hunters typically have birds that help them hunt. A Lord of the Forest no doubt would command a pretty impressive hunting bird. One who would put a serious hurt on anyone foolish enough to incur his wrath.

[MaxWilson]

Good idea. In response to this, I added the following to my HouseRules.dm.

-- MA Man's Crones not old. Gives age 110 (125).
#selectmonster 153
#startage 100
#end

That's still plenty old in human terms IMO, but the nature magic offsets enough that they're not penalized.

-Max

[Zeldor]

Copy of my post in conceptual balance thread:

What they need would be probably:
- make wardens non-sacred, but recruitable everywhere
- lord warden recruitable everywhere [he may stay sacred]
- maybe add stealthy shortbow units
- add water picks on crones and mothers of avalon
- replace daughter of avalon with something useful or take it out, really stupid and useless capitol-only cheap mage
- considerably lower age of crones [to around 100 years] so they do not die like flies
- make a 2nd random on Crone 50 or 100%, not 10% [so they have some better chance for A4]
- make summonable stealthy beasts

That way MA Man would have an alternative way to make a stealthy army with good backup from mothers and monks. Now that strategy with capitol only wardens is not available.

[Xietor]

Crones do get a "chance" at a water pick.

Daughter could be useful if they could be recruited everywhere. Since Man gets cheap castles, that could give Man a research boost. 4 research for 80 gold and sacred to boot. Very cost effective.

I actually buy them during the winter months when you do not want to buy a crone.

[Renojustin]

TOO cost effective.

[Zeldor]

Xietor:

I was thinking about adding them W1 at start + randoms. So they could have W2 quite often and sometimes W3.

[B0rsuk]

Zeldor said:
- make summonable stealthy beasts

Black Dog and Barghest cost death gems, Cu Sidhe is Nature. B's have Stealth +20, Cu Sidhe +0. Note that Black Dog has Dark Power +3, Barghest +2.

[cleveland]

How to balance MA Man?

Make KO play as them in the megagame

[Xietor]

He refused. He really wanted Yomi for balance reasons as well.

Ko is smart enough to see the issues that man has. Whether he thinks they warrant an investment of his time is another matter.

Ulm was so bad they were actively hunted like a doorprize at the start of mp games, with the winner being the race closest to ma ulm's capital and the prize being a 2nd capital before the start of the 2nd year.

So Ulm was very bad, and yes, broke. Man is not broke since they can do ok in the early game.

[Agema]

I've played MA man on MP.

Xietor is right that Man has a lot of deficiencies. Crones aren't quite good enough air mages normally, and the storm-storm power wrecks the longbowmen. They've no great thug tactic - Lord Wardens fall short. They've poor bless tactics, as Wardens are really expensive for what you get - mediocre HP, snail speed movement, unexceptional stats. KOA are horrendously expensive, and still die like dogs when mid-level battle magics fly. Magic paths are limited. Nature can eventually get Death via lamia queens, but it's too little too late.

Your pretender points need to go on good scales, and rainbow magic picks to cover weak magic paths. You might also want your pretender ready for combat ASAP in case you get rushed.

Man makes quick work of independents, and are reasonable in the early game where the longbowmen are awesome. After that, things go rapidly downhill.

Most of his suggestions are fairly sound. I would dispute the need a mapmove 3 leader though. It'd be funky, sure, but Man is an air nation that can make flying boots.