Good Pretender design for Marverni?

[Edi]

I'm playing a co-op hotseat game with a friend where he has Marverni. He took a dormant F9 phoenix and enough production to be able to crank out a good number of sacred troops, which he promptly used to squash the indies around him. With hard research and powerful indies, the first 12 turns allowed him to get research up to spec so that the phoenix was usable as an artillery platform against indies by the time it awakened. Don't know how useful that would be in MP, though.

Marverni can make use of several evocation and thaumaturgy based magic strategies, especially when coupled with certain magic and penetration boosters.

The last thing they need is a rainbow pretender.

Edi

[Wish]

well, compared to sauromatia, lanka, and yomi (the new races I am familiar with) - (helhiem and vanhiem also, but those guys clean up with recruitable troops.)

[SelfishGene]

I used a 4-Fire Dragon in a multiplayer game, thinking i could expand out quickly so that i could bring the magic economy up to speed. However, well, the Dragon got eaten by the bugged Eater of Heroes, but anyway.. i don't think that he would have been able to dish out enough damage to beat Pangaea's really decent Satyr Warriors and huge swarms of Maenads. The other problem with fast expansion is that i'm a paper tiger, and most other nations have stronger troops, so seeing me get big fast makes me the first target. Marverni has some decent potential but you need to survive for 20+ turns unmolested to really bring that potential out. Once you're magic/battle magic economy gets rolling this are easier. It's the early game that all those damn human troops just get in the way.

I like the 9F Phoenix idea.

Personally (imo) all the human themed nations in the Early Era are to a greater or lesser degree weaker than the "mythological" nations available.

[KissBlade]

They are not weaker. S&A, Ermor, Sauromatia, etc are all up there for my picks in EA. Maverni not so much because they have no archers but IMO their excellent mages some what shores up that weakness. In base, I would probably go a dom 10 Prince of Death and use high order 3/magic 1 (or 3) with points coming out of misfortune and sloth to power the early expansion drive.