Machaka and a W9 bless

[licker]

The marginal utility of 20->24 is very small compared with 13->17 (even though the defense can degrade, but there are AP/AN...), the %gain in damage reduction is tiny going E9. I've also not seen the fatigue being an issue at all, but I've also not had too many huge battles.

Swarming the spiders is harder than you think if you mass them (8+) its unlikely for them to get attacked more than 3 times unless they are completely surrounded, but in a battle where the army sizes are that big you should have some other units to take off some of the pressure anyway.

Realize that money is the easiest commodity to come by, and to hoard. Most other size6 units are production or gem (summons) limited, which makes them alot more difficult to mass (talking early game remember).

I would like the E9 bless alot more if the mages benefited from it, but they don't, and the additional attacks from water is much easier to synergize than the additional protection (also realize that quickness adds more fatigue, and I still don't see it as a problem).

Now I'm not saying E9 is a bad bless for them, indeed my early efforts used it (because for some weird reason I thought they had holy mages...) with N and F, but I didn't like the killing speed, and the longer they stood around getting hit the more afflictions piled up. Water decreases the amount of attacks they face, both due to the higher defense, and due to the fact that they kill things faster.

I tried a sleeping sphinx the other day with W9F4S6 and liked the results there as well, though I normally shy away from immobile pretenders.

[llamabeast]

You may well be entirely correct about W9 being better than E9 (you've obviously thought about it harder than me), however this bit

The marginal utility of 20->24 is very small compared with 13->17 (even though the defense can degrade, but there are AP/AN...), the %gain in damage reduction is tiny going E9.

I don't agree with. That last extra bit of protection greatly reduces the probability of any damaging hits getting through. Adding bonuses to already high values is an effective thing to do (for defensive values that is) - it's the same reason giving a water bless to a mounted van is a good idea, because it takes their already excellent defense and makes them almost unhurtable. Similarly, I'd argue that a prot 20 spider will suffer occasional hits and get worn down, whereas against conventional troops a prot 24 spider will almost never be injured.

[licker]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

You may well be entirely correct about W9 being better than E9 (you've obviously thought about it harder than me), however this bit

I don't agree with. That last extra bit of protection greatly reduces the probability of any damaging hits getting through. Adding bonuses to already high values is an effective thing to do (for defensive values that is) - it's the same reason giving a water bless to a mounted van is a good idea, because it takes their already excellent defense and makes them almost unhurtable. Similarly, I'd argue that a prot 20 spider will suffer occasional hits and get worn down, whereas against conventional troops a prot 24 spider will almost never be injured.

Well its a question of what the nominal damage they are going to face is, and then whether its better to have an extra few %protection in the case of E (20-24) than extra attacks/defense from water. If you look at the % for making a roll where you have to beat 10 vs. 14 you see that the odds don't change by a huge amount. But on the defense side, the odds to beat 4 vs 8 are a very large change.

If you figure to have them running into big mobs and getting alot of arrows then E is probably going to serve you better, but if you try not to use them that way (or if you take an air bless, which isn't completely impractical in some designs) you don't need the extra protection as much.

Again, I'm focusing mostly on early game where the forces they will face are not going to have all the counters available. I really don't have a feel for the late game options though, and it may well be that these kinds of Machaka builds are not particularly effective late game, however, the idea is to leverage the rush and growth early game into enough of an advantage such that you have either hindered the true late game powers to where you can compete, or given yourself enough space to allow for some catchup with your assumed ability to leverage death mages into something.

If someone could enlighten me as to the effectiveness of these Machaka rush strategies vs. other MA rushers I would appreciate it.

[chrispedersen]

Oracles and FOBs are always the best chasis for full double + blesses, with occassional exceptions for national only gods.

Even so, the return on investment for machacka simply isn't there.
The spiders cost too much (especially in resources) to work well with the scales necessary to produce the bless.

I think machaka strengths are: (and I'm doing this from memory)

1. Low encumbrance spell casters, etc.
2. High mobility.. map move three archers...?
3. Good magic versatility.
4. Some free points due to heat preference.

Generally, I'd say your better approach is sloth, heat, and boost your income as much as possible. crank out castles and mages. Get into summons.

[licker]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Oracles and FOBs are always the best chasis for full double + blesses, with occassional exceptions for national only gods.

Even so, the return on investment for machacka simply isn't there.
The spiders cost too much (especially in resources) to work well with the scales necessary to produce the bless.

I think machaka strengths are: (and I'm doing this from memory)

1. Low encumbrance spell casters, etc.
2. High mobility.. map move three archers...?
3. Good magic versatility.
4. Some free points due to heat preference.

Generally, I'd say your better approach is sloth, heat, and boost your income as much as possible. crank out castles and mages. Get into summons.

I disagree that the spiders are resource intensive, other than the first 2 turns you are not resource limited compared to your income (assuming you also want to recruit mages...), and eventually its the holy which limits you anyway.

What scales does machaka need to be effective anyway? Order3 obviously, and they get Heat3 for free, so you can easilly take Mis2(3) and Drain2, hell you can even throw in some sloth and still not have a resource issue since the spiders are the only unit you need resources for and your early spider armies clean out indies very quickly with zero casualties (this is all before turn 10).

Now I grant that I don't know the MP game very well, so maybe this early expansion/rush power doesn't translate into anything, but that would seem to imply that all bless based rushing doesn't translate into much of anything, not just for Machaka.

How much research/mages do you have to effectively neutralize 20 spiders on turn 10? What else have you sacrificed to do this?

Again I don't know the answer to those questions, so I'm posing them. The best thing for me to do would be to try it in MP obviously, but I don't really have the time for that right now

[Rytek]

With anything but the best research nations or niche nations like ULM, going with drain 2 leaves you too far behind in the research department.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by licker

I disagree that the spiders are resource intensive, other than the first 2 turns you are not resource limited compared to your income (assuming you also want to recruit mages...), and eventually its the holy which limits you anyway.

What scales does machaka need to be effective anyway? Order3 obviously, and they get Heat3 for free, so you can easilly take Mis2(3) and Drain2, hell you can even throw in some sloth and still not have a resource issue since the spiders are the only unit you need resources for and your early spider armies clean out indies very quickly with zero casualties (this is all before turn 10).

Now I grant that I don't know the MP game very well, so maybe this early expansion/rush power doesn't translate into anything, but that would seem to imply that all bless based rushing doesn't translate into much of anything, not just for Machaka.

How much research/mages do you have to effectively neutralize 20 spiders on turn 10? What else have you sacrificed to do this?

Again I don't know the answer to those questions, so I'm posing them. The best thing for me to do would be to try it in MP obviously, but I don't really have the time for that right now

Compare Machaka to the good bless races:
Mictlan, Lanka, Vanheim, Tien Chi,Tir (I forget). Heck, you can even compare to Pythium (ME), Ermor's Shadow vestals,

Machaka's spiders are WAY more expensive than mictlans, jaguar or eagle warriors, WAY more expensive than Tien's sacred warrior.. Way less effective than Lanka's Tiger, Donkey heads or Kamas.

Is what I meant when I said they cost too much.

With Lanka, Tien, Mictlan - I can afford to go , Heat-3 Drain X, Misfortune X,, just like machaka - however I can also afford to go sloth-3 (Donkey heads work just fine for lanka).

Regarding being holy limited - the question will be - are your holy troops built at any castle, or are they capital only. This question is one of the main reasons why Pythium is not really a bless nation - Capitol only bless recruits.

But for most of these other nations, you are going to be popping up another castle and temple and doubling your sacred output asap.

One last problem aspect about the spider riders being two capital/resource intensive.

Building a few high value units at the start is excessively risky. There are indies that will trash even respectable numbers of your spiders.. tthe ancient prescense, the 3 air mages, probably bogus, the hydro mancers.

Additionally, hi value units are especially susceptible to open ended die rolls. If you have 100 units - you don't care much if you lose 20. If you have 4 units - you care a lot if you lose 1
(if no other reason than the morale checks you face every round).

I've played probably 20 games trying to make a machaka bless work. Its fun, and its fine in SP - just not what I would call competitive in MP play.

[llamabeast]

Hmm, they do have severe MR problems though... they're very difficult. I kind of feel like an E9/W9, N6S9 bless is required, which is a bit ridiculous. Without an astral bless, though, they'll become irrelevant as soon as you meet a human player because he'll just paralyze them all instantly.

[llamabeast]

Hmm, I just did a test with E9S9N4. Surprisingly affordable with an Oracle. They were very effective. Still, I think it's questionably worthwhile being as they're the only sacred unit. If only the mages were sacred too, it would probably be a good plan.

[thejeff]

The MR weakness is compounded by the lack of native Astral, so there's no easy access to AntiMagic. Eventually they'll be able to do Army of Lead, but that's a long time after other players have been slaughtering the poor spiders with magic.

It's also hard to balance what they need before the riders die and after. E9 doesn't do much for the spiders. It's great for the riders, though. W9 or F9 help both. The lesser MR bless makes the riders really hard to affect and brings the spiders up to almost tolerable.

Though the mages aren't sacred, the spiders that the Black Sorcerers turn into are. It's worth considering if you plan on using them as thugs. It is really hard to arrange to have them blessed though, since you can't control when they shift. I've never been able to pull it off with any consistency.