Re: MA Marignon
The problem I have seen with Marignon in MP is their vulnerability to an early rush (I have been on both ends of this stick).
Many good long-term Marignon strategies call for rainbow pretenders and/or good scales. Their sacreds are not that strong as to make them a real bless / rush nation. Taking a strong bless may get them to survive the early game, but then takes its toll later on since you didn't spend points on scales and magic diversity. So then you're stuck in mid-game with (at best) average scales / magic diversity, old mages, and blessed but still average sacreds.
Their problems are magnified in hard research games as some of their more obvious strenghts lie in the higher evocation/conjuration paths.
I have given up on finding a coherent optimal strategy that helps them through all stages of the game - it's impossible. The best thing seems to be taking a gamble for the early game and bet on a lucky starting position with no rush-neighbours, allowing you to research your way safely into midgame. Once you get there with your good scales/magic, things change and you could quickly become very strong indeed, but its a gamble as you can easily be killed in the early phase.
Taking an awake SC pretender or a strong bless for your sacreds may or may not save you against an aggresive early rush. But then you will most likely die in midgame because of the lack of magic/scales.
Thougher choices then faced by many other nations. Have made me turn away from Marignon for a while now.
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