Marverni

[fantasma]

ok, I just play Marverni in my first MP game and heve played them a lot in SP. They got my love on day 1 of my dominions career.

As with Baalz, I cannot reveal all that they have going for them, but some things are really nice about.

First, their troops have shields. Second, they may lack armor but they have high defense. The troops have map move 2, the cavalry 3. The Slingers are really nice with the protection you face in EA for their cost.

In short games, or when you fear rushes, use E9N9 boar warriors. They cost 30gp, have 14hp, regen 3, 20 prot, 17 attack when they go berserk and a shield. Send a dozen with a gutuator and take whatever indies. Even heavy cavalry is no problem. A forest father is the cheapest for that, I think. The N9 is also nice on the boars you can summon. I don't know how fatal

But you do not really need to go bless with Marverni. What you need regardless how you play them are ridiculous amounts of gold. Use order 3! Patrol with your starting army. They are excellent for that, at 170% taxes unrest stays at 0. If you need, alchemise the earth gems.

Research like mad! Take magic 1, at least.

If you do not bless, recruit a lot of the ambitate nobles, they are decent fighters. For 14/17 you have a mobile, prot 12, att 12, def 15, 13hp unit. Did I mention that the troops have shields?

What you need to do is expand fast! I had like 15 provinces at turn 10 and 3 fortresses (maybe the third was still in construction, I don't remember). But then I found an iron mine on the first conquered province.

Recruit as many mages as you can and research!
Thaumaturgy is the most important for early mind hunt, sleep, panic, site search. Then go evocation. Then construction. At what level you switch depends on what you face.

I use hornblowers to boost morale of the unarmored troops (9), sometimes. I place then in the squad and set them to guard commander. Maybe that isn't the most efficient way but they die too easily otherwise.

I haven't been rushed myself, so I don't know if it really works out.
Elephants are best countered by hordes of javelin throwers (def 14) and slingers and mindhunt/panic.
Against vans, poison, mind hunt, sleep and bladewind when available.
Against niefel, you may rush for soul slay, maybe.
Always field chaff with slings and javelins in the numbers! They lack in protection but not in combat skills. Divide them into small squads because they break easily.

Use the best of diplomacy to demonstrate that you are not the easy target they mey think. The point is that you may still lose but that it will be a costly and drawn out defeat. Especially having at least two forts deters the rusher, hopefully. Forts are cheap, a big plus for the nation.

Later, use communions to their best! The stargazers unfortunately are very slow, so you may rely on the 1/4 gutuator as reinforcement slaves.

[Sombre]

You don't get the parry based def bonus against trampling afaik.

[Foodstamp]

I was messing around with various nations the other day trying to look for tactics that people normally don't consider.

One thing I tried with Marverni was a fire9/earth9 bless. The blessed sacreds are pretty much godmode against indies even in ridiculously small numbers. 4 Boar warriors and 1 blesser can rip most common independents to shreds. You can crank these armies out 1 per turn at the start of the game too.

I am thinking about trying them out in a longer game and tweaking the bless with a little less earth for better scales. Probably not the greatest strategy in the world, but it sure does entertain me .

[Zenzei]

I'm not a fan of double 9 blesses, except for the S9X9 blesses via Oracle, because of the horrible scales that come with them. So with that in mind I used an imprisoned E9N6 great mother in my Marverni test run (first 12 turns). Dominion strength was 7 and scales were order3/sloth2/misfortune1/magic1.

I really liked that particular setup. By the turn 13 I had conquered 22 provinces, had two forts under construction and really nice gold income. My expansion forces, which I recruited every other turn, were made of Gutuater + 6 to 10 Boar Warriors. I didn't recruit any other units because this was a simple test, with additional recruitment I might have been able to snag one or two extra provinces. Indy strenght was 5 and there was plenty of room on the map.

E9N6 bless has great synergy with Boar Warriors because berserk goes very well together with regen and high prot.
E9N6 has also very good synergy with Maverni's mages because it gives reinvigoration and regeneration lessens the effect of old age somewhat.

For some early research I think the best choices are alteration 3 (eagle eyes & protection), evocation 4 (arcane probing & blade wind), thaumaturgy 3 (site searchers & teleport) and construction 4 (clams, hammers, thistle maces & shrouds of the battle saint). The research order depends on game situation but evocation 4 first is probably the safe choice.

EDIT: Looks like my thoughts about Marverni are pretty similar to fantasma's, except for the bless part. I think N9 doesn't give big benefits compared to N6 and berserk is a real liability with sacred human mages. N9 also cost a lot more of design points. Other than that, what was that saying...great minds think alike.

[Forrest]

I did 13 provinces by turn 13 with 2 castle starts. However it was a bad start and I found barbarians eat Blessed Boar Warriors. Strange thing was they seemed to do better against Hirdmen and Huskarls, with a little archer help. Biggest problem with this method is that a lucky arrow at the start of the battle leaves your Boar Warriors with out a commander. Maybe I am just unlucky in this way.

Over all E9N6 worked well. Money was not a issue without over taxing.

While you loose the woodland movement, indie preachers make good commanders for this method which combines with the 200 gp churches. Leaving you mages for better things.

Also Heat 2 does not seem to bother Marverni.

[triqui]

***did 13 provinces by turn 13***

That's pretty low i think.

[Foodstamp]

I am going to try an earth 9 / death 9 PoD next to see how that works out. Should be a solid bless for the boar warriors and the mages. I mainly want to see how it stacks up against the fire/earth bless when it comes to taking indies with less than 5 guys .