Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?

[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.

[Shardphoenix]

Costs 2 gems and gives you 10% insanity.

15%, IIRC.

[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%.

[Corinthian]

You could also use transformation to deal with old age. But what old age really? Crones start with N3 and will get N4 like 31% of the time. For the ones with N3, transformation is always an option. Probably better than the forest of the ever young as it also gets rid of the upkeep.

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

[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.

[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.

[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