Man MA temple cost raised to full?

[Xietor]

I am playing Man MA, just to try something new. Their temples were half cost in dom ii, and i was curious as to why that perk was removed? Maybe I am missing something, but their troops outside their capital are below average, their unique pretender, the forest lord, has nothing special about him, their best mages start the game old, they get no advantage on the scale points, the knight of Avalon, by far man's best unit, is 80 gold and a whopping 61 resources. Compare that to Pangaea's regular armored calvary unit, which has 2 more protection and comes in at 40 gold!

Their national summons are weak, and some use gems they have no access to, and their mages can't hunt for. So I was
wondering why someone felt it was overpowering Man to continue to give them half cost temples.

[Foodstamp]

Temples will cost 200 gold again next patch. It's a bug.

P.S. Man is a pretty powerful nation in MA. Longbow archers, unrest causing bards, its pretty top notch.

[Ewierl]

Yeah, it's going to be fixed.

But don't sell Man too short. You have a lot of fun with those cheap little mages... Daughters of Avalon make fantastically cost-effective researchers. They also make great summoning-factory chassis once you get a few Thistle Maces going around.

[Xietor]

Yeah,

man is not bad. I am doing pretty good with them, Forest lord 4 e 6 n, 1 turmoil, 2 prod, 2 cold, 3 growth, 3 luck, sleeping pretender. I am in 2nd game playing them, I got 3 heroes the 1st game, and have 2 early mid game in 2nd. I research straight to 5 alt and cast mother oak, then 5 ench. for gift of health.

Once those are up-all is good.

[Sorlakind]

Other posters have already answered that temple cost is going to be fixed in the next patch.

Man is a strong nation. Though a forest nation like Pangaea, and with some points in contact with them (nature magics, stealth in the mix, etc.) they play differently. For once they have strong air magics and their longbows are roughly 3 times cheaper than the Pangea archer - and you know what this means: massive squads of longbows backed by wind guide. In later stages of the game, you can unleash a powerful barrage of air magics. Air/Nature has some cross-path rits/items that are very interesting: rainbow armour, amphiptere, etc. Their bards are great, with insane stealth and able to instill uprisings. A mass of them can bring down an economy to its knees. Crones are brittle, prone to old-age afflictions and relatively expensive, but get in the habit of buying one per turn and be sure they can wreak havoc in the battlefield - air magics is very powerful. Even Mothers (recruitable everywhere and only 130g) can pull out some nifty tricks. Man's songs are more effective than Pangaea's - but prolly not much more - and though Pangaea's sacreds are stronger, IMHO, the wardens are nothing to sneer at.

The dom wizards around here, can tell you more tricks to pull with Man, but it's a pretty decent nation.

Note: Mother of Tuathas is another unique pretender for Man although I do not think it is cost effective - a shame really, as I happen to like her a lot.

[Xietor]

Thanks Sork for the tips.

I did use the rainbow armor and orb lightning to decent effect the 1st game. Theme wise, I have no clue why the death magic summons are there, as there is nothing dark about man.

None of their mages use death or blood magic. Shrug.

With such low ranking priests, I tend to use knights of Avalon more than the sacred units, though with 6n, i have a decent bless on the wardens when i do use them early in the game. I keep a few wardens with my prophet.

Despite their cost, I would take the centaur longbows over man's any day. After the centaurs get protection cast on them, and run out of ammo, they are pretty good at killing stuff and chasing downs runners. I typically take 3 growth, 3 order with Pangaea so i can buy tons of those centaur longbows.

[Xietor]

It would be nice to see the death summons replaced with a theme-based summon or 2 that uses nature and air.

Storm Elves! 10 air 10 nature conj 4

High precision bowmen, that .....

[Endoperez]

There are no "elves" per se in Dominions... but EA Man, a nation still in the works, will be a nation of Tuatha. DomII incarnation of the Tuatha had them be Air/Nature mages (instead of Nature/Air of regular Man) with glamour and stealth, but inferior bronze weapons.

[Xietor]

Maybe they could summon tuathian warriors. There has to be a more theme based summon than death summons.

[Gandalf Parker]

The nation of Tir na n'Og has a reserved slot in the game (nation 13) which can be seen in some units and in game logs. Using Tuatha to pad Man is probably only something to consider as a mod we cold play around with until Kristoffer finishes that nation.

So what would be your concepts of generic Man? If you take out Ulm, and Marignon, and Amazons, and Barbarians... what is generic Man?

I rather like the Avalon theme it has.
Can we come up with an Avalon boost?