MA Marignon

[djo]

Don't forget the stealth--Marignon has spies, assassins, and stealthy preachers.

Also, if you're going to use a flagellant bless strategy, you have recruitable H3's with high leadership, which makes it a lot easier.

[Warhammer]

That was one of the reasons for thinking about the bless strategy, Marignon seems ripe for it.

[llamabeast]

I'm playing Marignon at the moment (turn 70 odd) and took an Air-4 Earth-3 Water-3 Nature-3 dormant frost father. For magical diversity it's been amazing. He can make a Winged Helmet and Earth boots, which you can give to your mages with randoms (which you end up with loads of) to get all your territory earth and air searched. You can make a thistle mace or two and give them to some indy shamen. And eventually you can summon a Naiad or a Sea Troll for more water access (I was lucky enough to find a magic site that allowed me to recruit water mages). The only magic I didn't have was death, for thematic reasons. Although recently I've found a Necromancer site and have ditched my morals.

So I went for a low-army high-magic strategy. In the early game I concentrated on Evo, and built hordes of mages (about 3 a turn quite early on). Fireball and Falling Fires are devastating, all you need to do with your army is distract them for long enough that your mages can incinerate them.

On the other hand I think I haven't played brilliant, and making better use of the troops would probably be an excellent idea.

Later on in the game the angels are amazing. I had one angel that almost single handedly captured about ten enemy provinces and killed army after army.

Marignon probably isn't as strong as Pythium - but then almost no-one is. Pythium's very strong indeed I think (good troops, very good magic, hydras, angels). But I don't know why anyone would think Marignon's mages are no good. I reckon they're fantastic.

[Warhammer]

This is actually paralleling my latest idea on a pretender. My problem is figuring out whether I go for a dormant or imprisoned pretender.

I am of the belief that maybe they don't need to go with the Knights of the Chalice and can instead rely upon the Royal Guard which will free up quite a bit of resources. The side benefit of this is you might be able to get away with a lower dominion which can be used to pay for the scales.

I was thinking about an Air-4/5, Earth-4, Water-4, Nature-4, and Fire-4 or Astral-4/5 pretender. Scales will be Order-3, Production-3, Drain-2, and Misfortune-3. Dominion will be dependant upon a variety of factors, pretender form, whether I take growth scales, etc.

Why the low dominion? A big bonus that Marignon gets is their inquisitors. They operate very well in "negative" dominion. So why focus on having high dominion? I can save those points and put those towards the pretender. Now, if I prefer, I can take higher dominion and go with an imprisoned pretender.

I think order is important for Marignon for the money. The good troops and leaders all require a good chunk of change. You are looking at 270 gold for your best mages and 210 for your best priest. The rest of the troops are a 2.5 resource to gold cost ratio. Therefore, if you want a large army, you need good production values. So production is a must. To pay for this, I go with drain and misfortune.

Now, this setup gives me the ability to cast The Wrath of God, Gift of Health, Purgatory, Arcane Nexus, etc. Purgatory and Wrath of God are very thematic for the nation. Plus, they eradicate undead and enemy armies nicely. The only problem with this is that I would need an imprisoned pretender to make it work with dominion costs. Or, I could skimp on the Nature and Water paths.

Early game research targets are Ench 4, for the Flaming arrows, and then Evo up to about lvl 4. Then const to lvl 4, evo to lvl 6, and then check to see what we need from there.

[HoneyBadger]

If it were me and I wanted to bless flagellants, I'd go with a W9 bless and get that quickness going-4 attacks a round is better than 2-the Def bonus won't hurt, and Air bless, because a huge army of flagellants in middle era is going to be hurt a lot more by crossbows than melee attacks-and, anyway, a melee attack commits an enemy unit, which is good for you when you've got knights.

[Taqwus]

...whereas, if I were planning to be the most -annoying- flag user, I'd go for death/blood blessing so that these mass-produced fast-attack clowns have a decent chance of causing afflictions, curses and horror marks to any poor SC who feels the urge to massacre them. They hit, ouch. They die, ouch.

Not every efficient, mind you. But perhaps handy if you're playing somebody who frowns upon having his units abused like that.

[llamabeast]

I would say dormant rather than imprisoned is quite important in a rainbow pretender. When he first wakes up you will want him to wander around site searching. It takes quite a while to cover ground site searching, and then bootstrap your way into the different magic paths, and being imprisoned is basically a 24-turn setback to that.

I went for level three in a number of paths because that's all that's needed for most things - for earth, water and nature, level 4 will only rarely be necessary, and level three is definitely enough to get going. Obviously level 4 gives you a minor bless, and is better if you can afford it. Air 4 is a good idea though, because the air boosters are level 4.

I haven't particularly missed having fire and astral on my pretender, with the odd exception (he can't make moonvine bracelets). Your mages can do most useful fire/astral stuff, such as forging fire/astral items, fire/earth items, and just high level fire and astral spells (I've had a couple of S4 guys, although that's very lucky, and of course F4 is very common).

For Evo, levels 3 and 5 are the major milestones in my opinion - fireball and falling fires respectively. Fireball is enough to make your mages very useful. If you have 10 or 20 fireballs flying towards your opponents every turn they won't last long. Phoenix power (Conj 3) is very important to make your mages more efficient though.

[Warhammer]

(casts reanimation)

There, I think I have it. Yeah, I'm bringing this thread back to life.

I recently got my tail kicked in a MP game using Marignon. There were a few items that I noticed in using them that I think need to be explored further.

1) The lack of any early summons was very damaging. I think it is necessary to get some early access to death magic if for nothing else than chaff for your crossbowmen.

2) Starting next to a nation that has large units that can trample is damaging to your health. An early possibility to counter this is paralyze. However, that is Thau-4 which means that you need to divert your attention from Ench-4 or Evo-4.

3) Which is a better research path, Evo-4 or something else early on in the game? Spamming Holy Pyre is nice, but is there something else my mages should be doing?

4) The Evo path makes the most sense so that my Astral mages can start casting Mind Hunt at Evo-6. Is this a good mid-game strat?

5) What is the best mix of troops? Crossbowmen make plenty of sense, but how many Men at Arms, Swordsmen, and Pikeneers should I be using?

6) Bless troops and a bless strategy, are they worth it with Marignon? Knights of the Chalice are nice and they can recuperate. With the right bless they can be very capable troops. What would the best bless be for them? How would that work with your flagellants? My guess is that a W9 bless or a F9 bless would be best. I could take an imprisoned pretender and go for a W9E4D4B4 bless and hope for the best. That would give a +4 defense, additional attacks, added strength, reinvigoration, and increased chance of affliction (great for flagellants). The blood would give additional summons, but how powerful would this be with only your pretender able to blood hunt and the like?

7) What scales work best for Marignon? You need cash for your mages, priests, and Paladins/Knights. Your other units, are high resource units. Death is definitely a no, no with your old mages.

Any thoughts about any of this? I know some of it has been mentioned before, but I am trying to take a fresh look at this.