Machaka and a W9 bless

[licker]

Just how viable is this thing?

I've been playing around with them since they were my faves in Dom2, but saddly what I saw from the strat discussion is that they are not particularly competitive in MP.

Oh well, I play mostly SP anyway, but it can be difficult to tell how effective the strats are there.

So, since Machaka has no native Pretender with W (using CBM, but I think this is true generally) you're going to have to shell out a bunch of points to get to W9, and basically forget it if you want dual 9s without being imprisoned (which may not be that terrible, but I'm not looking at imprisoned for the time being).

You can take Heat3, Mis2, and Drain2 pretty easily, taking Order3 for the cash (since spiders and mages are expensive). You can also take sloth1 as once you start to open up the provinces around your cap you will still be holy limited rather than production limited to get out the sacred spiders. Taking more than sloth1 really kills your early spider army though, so I don't do it (basically one a turn, and if you are unlucky with adjacent provinces you could be prod limited rather than holy limited). Growth is nice to be able to bump to 1 as you have elderly mages. Dominion can be an issue though, and since you want to be able to pump out spiders you can't take the low dom gamble, and have to go at least 5 (which still might be low for some folks).

Now if you go just W9 you have some room to add more dominion, or take slightly better scales, but since your pretender is going to have some other paths anyway, why not leverage them for a cheap 4 or 5 bless? Here we have really one useful option, fire, and fire is easy to come by on Machaka pretenders. Air is also of some benefit, and while it seems that Earth should be with the additional attacks of your quickened spiders it doesn't seem to make a huge difference (would be different if your mages were sacred, but they aren't).

The two chassis I've used so far are the sleeping Solar disk (F4A5W9) and the awake Arch mage (F4A3W9?1). Going the archmage route lets you get a better jump on research and site searching (though machaka already searches F well, and can't leverage early air income since they don't get it as a random anywhere easilly). Going the sleeping Disk gives the usual slower research pace, but the additional air bless helps your spiders when your archers start firing into the melee.

Using either set up means that you are easilly able to set up 2 indie clearing armies by turn 4 or 5 (depending somewhat on province layout), and can often have a 3rd army of 1 blesser and 1 spider lord with ~10 spiders, which has shown the ability to eat up pretty much anything the indies can throw at you even without archers or any kind of distraction fodder.

The blessed spiders already have high protection (20) and upping their attack to 15 makes their 6! attacks (at least I assume that's what they get quickened) get through that much more frequently. Tac speed of 30 is enough for them to plow into most indie archer positions on the 1st turn. Also the strat speed is 2 with forest terrain passable, all the Machaka leaders can move 2+ and the archers can move 3 if you need them.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there and solicit some opinions/suggestions. I'm curious to hear how well this could rush in MP, and how to counter it, as I don't have any experience in that area, but in SP (and yeah... its SP...) this set up easilly takes down the 1st AI I meet with very limited casualties (usually hit their capitol around turn 10 with one army, and send reinforcements as possible).

[Rytek]

The problem with the spiders in MP is their high cost and low MR. A rush is doable I guess. But your sacreds are out matched by alot of other troops of that era, even with the bless. And then you need to watch out for the ever popular awake Cyclops who will stop your rush cold. And finally, without a large S bless any astral nation will eventually just make your spiders his. But before that Paralyze and Soul slay will give trouble.

[llamabeast]

I don't really think you want W9. E9 would be preferable, and a weak nature blessing handy as well.

[JimMorrison]

I haven't tried this build (fooled around with Machaka a few times, I think my last attempt had W9 actually, which was fun in SP for sure!), but it has some shiny points.

Imprisoned Master Lich
4E/4S/9D/2B
5Dom 3O/H3/G3/Mis2/M1

If you drop 1 scale, you can bump that to 7Dom, which I would probably do, just make it G2 and 7Dom. You can get the same effect if you drop the Blood. However I thought the Blood was interesting, as he can not only forge Dwarven Hammers, but Blood Stones as well. Plus if you are the sort that is inclined to try to build a blood economy nearly from scratch, that can open up a lot of options altogether. Plus the Astral is enough to kick spider MR to more acceptable levels, AND is easily leverage-able
to anything Astral you could want (if you can find enough Pearls).

I know you don't seem to like imprisoning, but in MP it's usually not worth the cost of 2.5 scales if you're already shelling out for major blesses.

If you've never tried D bless with a unit like the spider, you should give it a whirl. AN damage is <3

[licker]

I started with E9, because it is much cheaper, but it really didn't seem to help much, as the issue was killing things quickly (which is why I tried water). Nature4 is 1HP and then 3HP when the rider dies... Useless unless I'm missing something.

I've run several tests with E9F4N4 and the W9F4A5 and find that the spiders actually survive better with the W9 than the E9. I think its the quickness which really makes the difference.

[licker]

Interesting comment on the high death bless, I had not considered it. It would add that AN attack to each spider attack correct? I'm not sure that taking Growth 3 is worth it, nor Magic 1, I get back 200 design points comparatively, half of which go to sleeping...

I'm also not sure Machaka can leverage a blood economy that well (especially having to wait 24 turns?), though I have read the MA Ulm blood guide, so I suppose it would work about the same, however, it seems that you are spreading yourself kinda thin doing high bless, therefore requireing max spiders per turn, and setting up a blood economy at the same time. I understand you are looking to transition to blood mid to late game, but I figure you are going to be pretty far behind the real blood nations by then anyway, and if the only goodie you are getting is blood stones (which aren't to be overlooked) I find that its trivial for Machaka to have 4+ mages set to Gnome Lore/Ausperx/Hausperx/AP/... by turn 10. You do have to alchemize some to either death or astral if you don't get lucky with your early searchers. Lets say my gem income is never an issue, though clearly you can never have enough

[rdonj]

The thing with blood stones is that in multiplayer, people will try to win by out gem-economying you, and since earth gems are so useful having lots of blood stones around would really help out in that area. If you did nothing with blood other than make the stones it would probably be worth it.

I think a Divine Glyph wouldn't be too bad of a choice. You can make an imprisoned 9w/4f/4s divine glyph with pretty good scales and 8 dominion, go dormant with 6 and a bit lower scales, or improve your magic a bit and get a slightly stronger bless.

And for the record, I don't know that an awake cyclops is going to have that much luck against quickened black hunters. Not only are lances incredibly useful against the cyclops, but they also spit webs lowering defense to 0 and have death poison, which will work on the cyclops no matter how much armor he has.

[Rytek]

Some chaff in front of the Cyclops takes care of the lances. A ring of poison resistance, easily made or traded for negates the poison. The Cyclops may not kill a bunch due to not getting to go due to the webs. But those spiders do pathetic damage and wont hurt the Cyclops either. Add in a few troops with the Cyclops and yeah, its going to stop the rush.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by rdonj

The thing with blood stones is that in multiplayer, people will try to win by out gem-economying you, and since earth gems are so useful having lots of blood stones around would really help out in that area. If you did nothing with blood other than make the stones it would probably be worth it.

That's sort of where I was going with it. You could take the Blood as far as you wanted, but the main purpose would be pumping out Stones - the rest is luck and determination.


Regarding the Cyclops..... I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the spiders have nice defense skill, no? They'll be hard to hit, and 3 AN attacks per round should devour the Cyclops if you have a dozen or so of them on him. Obviously he'll want to outmaneuver you with chaff, but you can bring some as well, indies if nothing else, since you can actually recruit a few - lacking Sloth and all.


Personally I love Growth. One MP game I'm in right now, I captured a capital with 45k people, it's making ~750g/month right now, which is hot. Having the money to just pour Hoplites at your enemies, greatly increases the late game value of your mages, providing them a strong screen that can become incredibly tough once buffed up. But I also love Magic. We obviously have different playstyles.

[licker]

Thanks for the input from the MP front. I guess I look at it in terms of time investment to make the stones, and empower mages (since you do not have blood naturally anywhere). Taking a drain scale (since D2 just seems like 80 free points to me...) means that your only decent researcher is your pretender, and if you go astral he's also the only one able to forge anything interesting there, so where do you make the stones from? And how long does it take to set that up? One stone a turn for 20 turns gets you to some nice numbers, but the up front cost seems to be a hindrance in actually raiding/killing your neighbors.

I see this Machaka build as being highly mobile, and very good at engaging in skirmishes, however, it can also pull its elements together quite quickly for a concentrated effect (unless the terrain is mountainous). Essentially if you are forcing your opponent to react to you in the early/mid game you are not allowing them the opportunity to set up their mid/late game engine effectively. I can see that you may have issues late game as spider spam (sounds yummy...) isn't going to cut it, but I've really not explored late game options for Machaka since I've been too busy tweeking the opening phase.

However, Machaka has little problem going into death, and if you take an S5 or higher pretender it seems you will have some entry into Astral, other than lacking communion potential. In a big fight spreading 25+ spiders and having them attack rear means you are going to penetrate the enemy somewhere, and the quickened spiders are going to get to the rear and wreak at least some havoc though. Well in theory You also will have access to all the nature and earth buffs.

As to dealing with an early SC... well again we can play at hypotheticals all we want, but if the end result is that you force your neighbor to go on the defensive then you have the advantage. An Indie5 setting allows for a single blessor and 8+ spiders (which is 1.5 turns of recruitment, and by turn 10 you can pump out two of these every 3 turns) to basically eat everything in their path, so you can easilly have a couple of these armies adding to your empire while your main host ties down the enemy, and their strat speed means that given anything other than completely unfavorable terrain, you can reinforce your front rather quickly.

What suffers is research, and it probably suffers greatly compared to research nations.