Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

For the same cost you can get sleeping E9N4S2 Lord of the Forest. You loose 1D, but get lots of chaff and titan-sized chassis, vulneurable to Mind Duel - but still able to do some thrashing against non-astral nations.

I like them both a lot. The LotF's chaff is really useful to protect forts and act as decoys on the battlefield and he's certainly capable of acting in an SC role.

But the archdruid has virtues as well. Map move 3, stealthy and recuperation. So with this build you can get some early mind hunt protection (without the risk of magic duel), a couple extra paths, and later if you can get an elixir of life and cast ritual of returning you can use them in battle and they'll heal any afflictions if they are "killed" (admittedly, this last point is a lot more appealing to Eriu, which doesn't have national healers like Man does).

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

15%, IIRC.

I was getting 10% in my tests, with each casting increasing it by another 10%.

[Mightypeon]

Some random ramblings from me here:
-Currently still playing E9 MA Man (with some fairly positive scales and an imprisoned lord of the forest). I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well
-Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.
-Man can do the "position in the back on guard commander and attack in turn 5" things perhaps better than imho any other nation. This is due to Song of Quickness, and the ability to summon targetting friendly chaff. Your longbows can also hit people from really far away.
-Wrath of Avalon gives you a slightly more cost efficient way to get High HP chaff, and the Moose help a ton too.
-I had Magic one scales, and otherwise money scales. At the moment I am leading in research, although MA Ulm just put up the Forge.
-If you ever get access to the Wizard Mercs, get them! In the absence of true A4, Crystal Shields improve everything by a loving ton.

While MA Man is a competitive nation, the following issues are significant:
-I have around 8ish castles, only about 2 of them can actually recruit 9 wardens a turn, at Prod 3 Scales. Mictlan can fairly easily outproduce me in Sacreds, and I dont have a lot of ways to get fire resistance against them.
-I was fighting Shinu and Machaka early, while there may have been some value in handing out some frost brands to warden commanders in general, this clearly seemed like a poor choice against Skellie Spam.
-E9 Wardens have counters, but Skelli Spam is not among that. Heavy evocations are something else, but wardens are usually tough enough to survive one direct hit.
-Blessing stuff is a major problem. I could partly mitigate it by buying lots and lots of indie priests (and finally getting Zon Priests who are H2 and can get H3 via a Crystal Shield).

My Wardens are a nice asset, as is High E on my pretender (which helps a ton into getting E, and the pretender can forge boot+Ring which allows certain crones to get Gargoyles), I also liked having a highish dominion.
I would believe however that a rainbow may be better longterm, as the f.e. total lack of Death hurts.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

No, the only thing that is mandatory for MA man is production scales.

If your using wardens rather than knights, neutral is enough, barely enough, but enough.

Production 3 is certainly worthwhile currently though.

[Shardphoenix]

I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well

Now add Gift of Health to the mix - works really well with Wardens. And Crones. And everything, in fact. You`ll also pick some nice spells on the way there.

[Mightypeon]

Some random ramblings from me here:
-Currently still playing E9 MA Man (with some fairly positive scales and an imprisoned lord of the forest). I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well
-Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.
-Man can do the "position in the back on guard commander and attack in turn 5" things perhaps better than imho any other nation. This is due to Song of Quickness, and the ability to summon targetting friendly chaff. Your longbows can also hit people from really far away.
-Wrath of Avalon gives you a slightly more cost efficient way to get High HP chaff, and the Moose help a ton too.
-I had Magic one scales, and otherwise money scales. At the moment I am leading in research, although MA Ulm just put up the Forge.
-If you ever get access to the Wizard Mercs, get them! In the absence of true A4, Crystal Shields improve everything by a loving ton.

While MA Man is a competitive nation, the following issues are significant:
-I have around 8ish castles, only about 2 of them can actually recruit 9 wardens a turn, at Prod 3 Scales. Mictlan can fairly easily outproduce me in Sacreds, and I dont have a lot of ways to get fire resistance against them.
-I was fighting Shinu and Machaka early, while there may have been some value in handing out some frost brands to warden commanders in general, this clearly seemed like a poor choice against Skellie Spam.
-E9 Wardens have counters, but Skelli Spam is not among that. Heavy evocations are something else, but wardens are usually tough enough to survive one direct hit.
-Blessing stuff is a major problem. I could partly mitigate it by buying lots and lots of indie priests (and finally getting Zon Priests who are H2 and can get H3 via a Crystal Shield).

My Wardens are a nice asset, as is High E on my pretender (which helps a ton into getting E, and the pretender can forge boot+Ring which allows certain crones to get Gargoyles), I also liked having a highish dominion.
I would believe however that a rainbow may be better longterm, as the f.e. total lack of Death hurts.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Mightypeon

Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.

Did you find sleepers more effective than lord wardens? Sleepers have 3 more HP but otherwise they seem very similar.

[Mightypeon]

I have some kind of inbuilt thing against using recruitable human thugs somehow. Propably a blowback from a lot of failed attempts at thugging with Ulmish Black lords

[Shardphoenix]

I think, blessed Warden Lords should be more effective than Sleepers.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Some?!? Think you left out an 'a' and two 'l's there Soy.


But it's funny to see newbs and patzers playing theory Dominions. They make me laugh. If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gki8DgcWCs0

Care to elaborate? Not everyone has a chance to get on the IRC channel. Wouldn't mind hearing some other opinions especially if they come from vets.

I'm personally of the opinion that you're not allowed to insult people for ignorance if your also not willing to try to do anything about it.

It would also be nice if everyone turned down the heat a little bit in this conversation. We are talking about a game with little men who cast magic spells after all (a very fun one but still a game). Lets try to have fun.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Optimal: Here you are trying to minimize luck as a factor. You're looking for a build that will build on your nation's strengths and cover for their weaknesses.

Viable: This approach can emphasize a certain aspect of the nation, trying to build on that strength at the cost of leaving yourself vulnerable in other areas (especially over the long term). While this approach isn't optimal it can certainly still be a competitive approach. It can also be very fun, allowing you to try something different.

Uncompetitive: This would be going against the grain of the nation, trying to them into something they're not. As an example, at one point I decided I wanted Eriu to become a blood nation - not dabble in blood mind you, but have it as an endgame strategy (note that SDRs were available - even I wouldn't have tried it without them ). Uncompetitive approaches can be fun as well but you're going to need a lot of luck in order to have a chance.

I view playing Man with a level 9 bless as falling into the viable category. It may not be optimal but I certainly don't think it falls into the they can NEVER win category.

But does minimizing luck really = optimal? Just because you're minimizing luck doesn't mean you're maximizing the number of times you win.

Seems like this would be accurate with a relatively strong nation. Sure if you minimize the luck involved you'll end up in a good position every time. However, with a weaker nation you may actually want to play to the high risk strategies. Your downside is always limited: the worst that can happen is that you loose, and I'd rather loose fast than loose slow.