Marignon CotS - What's the hook?

[jaif]

I probably shouldn't have said "better", but maybe 'unique' 'different' or 'special'. Right now it's different mages and sailing ability on many of the commanders. Personally, I'm not impressed with sailing ability when there's water breathing and amphibians in the game, but that's probably a lack of experience on my part.

-Jeff

Edit: posted too soon. Let's say I made an 'island' map (imagine earthsea archipelago or greece/med or whatever), what races would generally be viable? Obviously CotS, ermor, atlantis, r'lyeh, and Vanir. Am I missing any that would work well?

[ March 23, 2004, 16:50: Message edited by: jaif ]

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by jaif:
Edit: posted too soon. Let's say I made an 'island' map (imagine earthsea archipelago or greece/med or whatever), what races would generally be viable? Obviously CotS, ermor, atlantis, r'lyeh, and Vanir. Am I missing any that would work well?

Well - Man, vanilla Marignon, and really any nation with relatively plentiful sacred units would work well *if* they happened to take Water Cult.

[PvK]

Sailing is a very different advantage from underwater ability. On some maps, it can be very useful. Not just for islands and hops over water to otherwise-blocked continents, but also when there are seas which border on many land provinces - this can let you sail an army a land-distance of many provinces in one turn. So the value can depend a lot on the map.

PvK

[Cainehill]

Seems to me that CotS should start with a Missionary, not a Friar (since they don't recruit Friars anymore).

Also - Holy Pyre seems unsuitable as a starting spell for the theme, given that they have no national mages capable of casting the spell, at least not without using gems.

In fact - Zen made this same point back in January, suggesting that CotS should have Holy Pyre replaced by something castable by the national mages, in the "Petition for Marginon (sic) CoTS Theme".

Kristoffer O's response was, "Good Point".

Wha' happen?

[ June 21, 2004, 16:14: Message edited by: Cainehill ]

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
[QB] Seems to me that CotS should start with a Missionary, not a Friar (since they don't recruit Friars anymore).

Quite possibly. The Missionary isn't Stealthy, is he? I could see problems with giving a Sailing Stealthy Priest as an initial commander.

OTOH, Raptor Caelum gets Seraphines with Province Defense.

Also - Holy Pyre seems unsuitable as a starting spell for the theme, given that they have no national mages capable of casting the spell, at least not without using gems.

Holy Pyre, yes, that's a problem. Probably replace it with that low-Evocation Astral attack spell.

Personally, I greatly prefer CotS Marignon to any other theme (or base) Marignon. I think that's because Air and Astral magic are my two Favorites.

But really, CotS's advantage is that it is the only nation to get Air-2/Astral-2 mages. Well, there's 15.625% of Arco's Mystics, but I wouldn't want to bet on 15.625%. Get enough Chartmakers together, and you can outdo Caelum's High Seraphs at Orb Lightning.

The other nice thing is that none of your mages are capital-only.

And you don't lose access to your Inquisitors.

All in all, CotS is a very nicely done theme, to me.

[archaeolept]

CotS's advantage is that it is the only nation to get Air-2/Astral-2 mages.

hmm, I guess, given that arch-theurgs are Air-2/Astral-3

[Blitz]

Arch Therugs are better, but don't they cost 380 gold? A fully developed COTS communiuon is truly frightening, with all the astral (paralyse, astral healing, antimagic, control, etc), as well as the air (orb lightning, shockwave, thunder strike). You also still get a 4-power priest, with some fire capability... as well as often getting astral/fire mages through national heroes. This means the wind guide/flaming crossbows are more common, and devestating even in a storm.