Thoughts on balancing MA Man

[Twan]

A double 9 bless for a nation without temperature preference (nor drain tolerance nor young good mages to take death nor bonus for turmoil, etc) and mapmove 1 capitol only ressources intensive sacred !? Out of blitzes do you really recommand that ?

Now it's true that whatever sacreds are good with a F9/W9 bless, but there are better nations to take that.

[Xietor]

First, we are talking about man as a viable MP race. Man may be good in sp. But I think there is a consensus among veteran players in mp games that Man is among the weakest. That was not always the case, as Ulm used to occupy that lofty perch.

Now if Man is boosted, one could argue, it becomes a never ending circle, with the "consensus" weak nation needing a boost. As I stated at the start, Man is not a broken race.

It is a weak race, likely the weakest of the ma land races now. Having no s or d mages, it will never be among the top races, but it could be more fun to play, and more competitive. with a few tweaks.

[MaxWilson]

Summon Air Power is unfortunate in that you need a storm to cast it. Not only does that mess with Longbowmen, it hurts precision on mages too.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

thematic suggestion:

Allow the Forest wardens to use Fairy Trod (or similar).
Allowing them to transport an army to a forest location.

Solves a bunch of issues: aka movement- and stays thematic.

Secondly, regarding Forest Lord.
It has long been a beef of mine that you can do nothing fundamentally to change terrain.

I would like a forest lord to be able to spend a turn (or more) like building a castle - to be able to 'Grow Forest'.

Along the same idea, the lady of springs should be able to convert wasteland to barren, or barren to plains.

A being of Fire - the Moloch - maybe should be able to despoil the land - making it wasteland.

To be truly thematic - you could have sprites,ents, and other forest creatures, contribute to the greening of a territory - and do it like seiging - the territory changes once a sufficient number of points are generated.

[Dedas]

It would mean immense work to have a different map layer for every change imaginable to a map. And it would be kind of lackluster to just change the terrain type without changing the actual map.

[MaxWilson]

That would also require reallocating the magic sites, because they're restricted based on terrain type.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

Nah, no need to change magic sites. Publish the event, let it be known that the FLord increased the power of the growing forest (sic).. and it explains why you have atypical magic.

[Aezeal]

Let's keep it simple

1. If man is not broken (your words and I agree)

2. Then do not try to fix it

[Xietor]

Just because they are not broke, does not mean they should not be improved. There is a reason no one has won a mp game as ma man. Horst F Jens won a newbie game with them, but he was also in a mp game with me, lolomo, tuijdy, dr.p and several other experienced players and played Man there too. and fared much worse.

Man has severe limitations that appear in the midgame, and blossom in the late game. So while I stand by my assertion they are not broken, I also think they need help if they are ever to compete in bigger mp games. And man is still free
in Kingmaker, if you want to trade in EA Vanheim and play Man.

Nothing better to prove your point about Man needing no changes then leading them to a glorious victory in Kingmaker over 60 other players!

Plus, no one has refuted the logic of having a 3 move commander with forest survival to lead the koas.

And i would really like to see Man have a signature pretender, like the Gorgon is for Pangaea, where players are
sorely tempted to play Man just to play the Pretender. May
he/she could have a weapon that charms, like the tartarian chains enslaves. who knows. the possibilities are endless.

[mathusalem]

so, just make a nationnal Summon Air Power that doesn't need Storm is perhaps an idea ?