A quick question about Man

[ywl]

Originally posted by st.patrik:

p.s. BTW I agree that Knights are more cost effective than Knights of Avalon, which makes large-scale production of the latter redundant. In that case, could Wardens be produced outside of the capital? There's no redundancy with an existing unit there - Man's Infantry (aside from Wardens) isn't very good.

Man's tower guards have 13 protection, lower than your usual heavy infantries. However, I don't think they're as handicapped as they look.

The problem is if you have a bard among them, they'll usually cast "Protection" (Alteration 3). The spell has low fatique and give Bark Skin to a few of your units, raising their protection by 7 (to 20). Or they might cast "Tangle Vine" and lower the defense of their opponents to 3. They can also cast spell songs to remove fatique, restore some hitpoints.

Of course, it would be nice if the protection of Tower Guards is increased to 15, corresponding to Man-at-Arm of Marignon. But then, Man-at-Arm does not have a defense bonus. And Marignon can't easily boost the protection of their as easily ("Body Ethereal" has a shorter range, and Bard is a very cheap unit). I don't really know where the balance lies.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:

oops sniped the Ermorian part... Have you played against Ermor commanded by Wendigo (Pepe M.). I think you would change your mind about Ermor.

Yep, I met him twice, and yep, I admit he's a good player. And nope, I won't change my mind ;-).

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

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Originally posted by st.patrik:
So it's the same in Dom II - ok. But could you tell us why Man has so many units only recruitable in their capital? And is that fact open to re-consideration?

I think the main problem (for Man & perhaps C'Tis) is that if you want to use your home province troops you are forced into taking a high administration castle. That's the cost here. Your pretender's abilities and dominion are limited because of what seems to me to be a somewhat random decision to make not one, but two of your best troop types in your home province, not to mention mages for Man.

I think it's totally reasonable to have a high-end unit type and or an elite mage built only in your capital - just like Abysia, Pythium, Ulm, Arco, Pangaea, Vanheim, Jotunheim, and Marignon. All of these have maybe one unit type and or one or two elite mages limited to their home province. C'Tis seems excessive, having 2 elite troop types, and Man seems even more excessive, having 2 elite troop types and all their mages.

So is there a reason for this? Is there a corresponding advantage to the disadvantage of having to take an (expensive in design points) high admin. castle in order to field your best army? If so, what is it? And finally, is there a chance this will change?

p.s. BTW I agree that Knights are more cost effective than Knights of Avalon, which makes large-scale production of the latter redundant. In that case, could Wardens be produced outside of the capital? There's no redundancy with an existing unit there - Man's Infantry (aside from Wardens) isn't very good.

There isn't allways an easy explanation for all features, sometimes forgotten features are rediscoverd, in the case of Man the reasons the troops that are recruitable only in Man is so is probably because it seemed to fit the descriptions. That said I do not think that Man is as disadvantaged as you seem to think. Their tower Guuards are decent heavy infantry, if you test them in the dom 1 battle simulator they will hold their own fairly effectively costeffective wise, they just aren't as spectacular as some other troops. The cost of their mages are ok, and they are fairly powerful, they have access to arguably the best heavy infantry in the game, they have spies´, they have extra good longbows that are a boon in the early game. I agree though that Man isn't the strongest nation in the game, but I think they are strong enough to still be competetive.

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Johan, thanks for the reply. I don't think that Man are disadvantaged in general - that's not what I was trying to say. Cost/effectiveness I think Man do ok - for sure they are competitive. What I was trying to say is that in design points they have a disadvantage, if they want to be able to field the best army their nation would allow, because of the need to take a high admin castle.

Maybe you think that the armies of Man would be stronger than most other nations, were it not for the fact that their elite troops were only recruitable in their home province (and so come in small numbers). In which case, that would be a (cumulative) advantage to balance out the disadvantage of having to take a high-admin castle. I'm not sure that I think that is the case however, and so I think Man has something of an unequalled disadvantage (except by C'Tis, which has much the same problem).

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:
My point is the battle of cold versus heat is largely dominated by cold, because of this handy wolven winter. And with Cold blood, C'tis is even in worse shape than any other nation. Even if you manage to have an ample suply of death gems, I dont think that all your units will be summoned ones. You will have Ctissian mages and lizardmen, and they will be crap soon in cold.

On this cold/heat balance issue I agree completely.

Anyway, unless you're really unlucky with death sites, C'tis can build up an impressive undead army in just a couple turns or 2 (See what a dozen sauromancers can do when you hold them on Carrion Reanimation).

Oh, BTW, Cloud of Death costs only 10 fatigue if I remember well. Quite handy when fighting in the snow, and the good news is Sauromancers like to cast it as their 6th spell too ;-).

About the Relief/Howl issue, one Last tip: when fighting one of the "cold" races, send Sauromancers with astral magic as their random pick. With a handful of Shamen, of course. The communion masters won't suffer from fatigue, and one Relief every other round is all you need to prevent your slaves to pass out. If you script at least 2 Shamen to cast 'Relief' in rounds 3-5, your casters and slaves should be fine in round 8.

About the "I can't have Shamen in every army" complaint: small battles are often decided (even if not finished) before this 8th round begins. Therefore keep your "communion teams" in your big armies, where they're really useful. And if you have 3 big lizard armies engaged in cold provinces at the same time, you'd better pause and rethink your strategy ;-)

I reckon that the 17 hp are handy for those arrows. Aside that you pay a level 4 priest for 280 gold. Seems overpriced to me. Can I remind you that Marignon has a level 4 priest, fire 1 magic user for 210 gold?

At the risk of looking sarcastic, I'd say I'm glad to pay 70 extra to get rid of that annoying fire-1 magic ;-) I bet you don't often use inquisitors to summon Will-o-Wispes, and I bet you like them better when they stick to priestly spells rather than cast those annoying Fire Flies, right? Indeed, I prefer Lizard Kings to High Inquisitors.

I notice that the Hierodule did not appeal comments from you.

I usually recruit one to build my first temple in a province that let me recruit regular priests, then I have her hatch eggs until the game's over ;-)

You just have to admit that more than half of the units or leaders are underpowered,

The leaders are OK. About troops, I could say the same about almost every other nation. How many flier types do you use when you play Caelum? Arco has 3 IIRC cavalry types, did you ever see one of them? What about all these Ulmish infantry variants?

At least C'tis has 2 different mages they can recruit everywhere, and both are cheap and useful.

and I promise that we will find some time for this Marignon/Arco duel

Duel? If you mean Magic Duel, you've lost already ;-)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by ywl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pocus:
oops sniped the Ermorian part... Have you played against Ermor commanded by Wendigo (Pepe M.). I think you would change your mind about Ermor.

I heard of the legend, just wondering what kinds of maps when that happened? Large vs small? Crowded vs spacious? Magically and economically rich vs poor?

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First time I met Pepe was on Urgaia (the tiniest map of all), average site frequency (40-50), standard richness, 6 players, none underwater. Pepe started with a disadvantage as underwater expansion was forbidden. He would have destroyed his closest neighbor (Pythium) as soon as turn ~15, but at this point Pythium received heavy help from Caelum and survived for another 20-25 turns. Because of that Pepe's expansion stalled, but he was one of the 2 surviving players in the end.

Second time was on a modified Hiperia, with some seas split in two, 9 players, site frequency was average, normal richness. Pepe started in a crowded area, made deals with most of his neighbors, and stayed relatively quiet for ~30 turns. At this point he managed to destroy Pythium (again!) in a few turns, with Arco's help. Then he attacked Ulm and conquered about half his provinces. Eventually he ran short of troops to fuel his expansion, as he mainly reanimated ghouls for defense, so he couldn't hold all his conquests. At this point the game was stopped because of RL reasons.

[Psitticine]

A side-note for the lizard-debate: the new theme Desert Sun is available to all nations, including C'tis. It spreads heat even beyond your Dominion, meaning that map will warm up like Atlanta in July. Those poor Caelum are left just standing around with their armor and weaponry dripping all over the furniture.

Well, unles they counter with the Heart of Winter dominion, which has the effect of spreading cold instead of heat . . .

[Wendigo]

Legend? lol, no labels pls. Besides, many players can kick my arse, Jacques included.

I remember Arhyper & Jacqnew fondly, they were my two first games (they were simultaneous). My Ermorian design proved to be non optimal at that time (or at least I have done better afterwards with some changes in scales & candles as discussed in the newsgroup).

That was like 2 years ago. Funny that at the time Caelum was considered the weakest nation. Then Jacques published his Jacqstorm tactics in the CGOnline forum (no longer existing) and proceeded to nail us with them in the Jacqnew game. Perception of Caelum changed a bit after that.

Arthyper was also a pretty interesting game. My initial expansion sucked horribly but a pact with Arco allowed me to make up for it in the long term, the close quarters however limited my reanimation a lot, as I could not push up my Dominion without hurting my ally.
Dealing with Jacques soul slaying Squigheads was a headache for half the players in this game. Eventually I cast GoR on a unholy Knight & got a mindless (!) commander supposedly immune to Soul Slay (and with 25 undead leadership because of being undead, so he could supposedly hold an horde of skeletons if every other commander perished), but I never got to field him as the game was declared over before that as Jacques had some RL trouble to keep playing & it made little sense to go on without him at that stage.