Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[thejeff]

Also many of the Black Sorcerers can cast Twiceborn, all with a Skull Staff. That helps mitigate the age problem.

As said, excellent battle magic: Blade wind, Magma Eruption, Flaming Arrows.

Black Sorcerers with Fire Shield & Invulnerability make good thugs. That's what their spider form is for. If they had a change shape command they'd be brutal.

As for units, Spider Knights are pretty robust and once you've got a bunch of them, the web becomes surprisingly effective.
Dual bless Black Hunters are also impressive. Fire/Earth works well for the Hunters, Fire/Nature once the rider dies.
I wouldn't worry about arrows, they've got either good protection or lots of hp. The low MR of the spider form is their biggest problem. They weren't affordable in Dom2, but with the extra money in Dom3...
Blessed Hunter Lords make good thugs as well. The spider form of the Black Sorcerers is sacred too, but I've never been able to get them blessed reliably.

[B0rsuk]

From thematic point of view: God Mountain is not an academy. It's a place where higher caste of sorcerers lives. They are said to have blood of a dead god in their veins. It's pretty clear they're there because they were born there, not because they earned their place in God Mountain.
In short: no reason for old age.

As for old age being not so bad, I think I read somewhere that it gets worse depending on how far are you behind the max age. 60/40 is pretty far.

From balance point of view: mages seem to be all Machaka has, and they're not spectacular. Good at best. Why nerf them ?

[Endoperez]

B0rsuk said:
From thematic point of view: God Mountain is not an academy. It's a place where higher caste of sorcerers lives. They are said to have blood of a dead god in their veins. It's pretty clear they're there because they were born there, not because they earned their place in God Mountain.
In short: no reason for old age.

As for old age being not so bad, I think I read somewhere that it gets worse depending on how far are you behind the max age. 60/40 is pretty far.

From balance point of view: mages seem to be all Machaka has, and they're not spectacular. Good at best. Why nerf them ?

1st - whether or not the mages are trained in an academy or not ISN'T THE POINT. What affects starting age is the amount of magic a mage has. Having a second shape could also have an effect.

2nd - Only maxage affects aging. This was confirmed by one of the developers in an old thread. I'll try to dig it up. The [startage divided by maxage] doesn't do anything, only maxage matters. Also, it's 46, not 40. 50, -2 per pick of fire, so 46 for a Black Sorcerer with F2, 44 for one with F3 (one random), 42 for Black Sorcerer with both 100% and 10% randoms in Fire.

3rd - I think I said Machaka has things other than mages. Because I happen to think they have more than mages. They have HI that's very good against missiles and can punch through at least medium armor, they have cheap, easily massable archers, they have good priests (including stealthy ones)...
Now, these mages Machaka has, they were NOT nerfed. Nerfing would be a change spesifically targeted to Machakan mages, and the only deliberate change to Machakan mages has been the restrictions set on their randoms. Due to general changes in the game and the addition of new game mechanics, they might be weakened. If you want, you can report this as a bug, as in Black Sorcerers should start young or live longer. I don't think it is, because many other good mages are old as well.


P.S. I use the spiders too, but I don't know whether or not that's such a good choice.

[Boron]

Imho Machaka is weaker than in Dom2.

Some major changes disadvantage them a lot. Some of them were mentioned already, but i will list all changes that imho hurt them in a summary.

-Fever Fetish nerf

In Dom2 Machaka was really good at hoarding fever fetishes.
You used those gems mainly for flaming arrows and for FftS.

-Flames from the Sky price increase

The combo of fever fetish hoarding and spamming of flames from the sky was quite useful for Machaka in the lategame in Dom2.

-Minor nerfs for fire battlemagic

Fire battlemagic was slightly nerfed, at least the midgame spells like falling fires.
In lategame you get pillar of fire though.


In Dom2 Machaka was an average nation, imho fine. In Dom3 i would still rate them average, but they are slightly weaker than in Dom2.

[Sheap]

I would go along with the idea that the Black Sorcerors could live longer. They definitely seem to be of supernatural origin.

Otherwise, I don't see that they are so bad. The fever fetish change is the big thing that hurts them. Fire battlemagic is just as good if not better than it used to be because it doesn't miss all the time.

[tibbs]

I don't think they can be too bad. Machaka is the most powerful nation in one of the games I'm playing.

[curtadams]

In strict game terms the fever fetish nerf isn't so bad. Recruit an indy commander and stick a fetish on him 9 turns. You'll pay about 50 gold all told for the 9 gems, which is less than 6 gold/gem - a great price.

The real world micromanagement of a big pile of fetishes is of course utterly grotesque. From the micromanagement point of view, they should incapacitate a commander somehow rather than kill him. At the very least if a fetish kills somebody in a lab the fetish should go back to the lab. Actually, that would be a good rule for any noncombat death in a lab. If I forget to take a booster off a commander aging to death can't the undertakers take the magic items off the corpse?

[thejeff]

But, if I understand the fever fetish correctly, it doesn't even produce a gem every turn. Which leaves it even more nerfed. By far the worst of the gem producing items.