Balance Machaka

[HoneyBadger]

I think learning more about African lore could be a big help here--or not. More about that in just a moment.

I know it doesn't have anything really concrete to do with the mechanics or the balancing, but I still think it's really important to understand the nature and purpose of a given Nation, and to therefore be able to extrapolate somewhat the manner in which that Nation (prefers to) achieve it's goals.

Balanced strengths and weaknesses are crucial, but I think having the appropriate mix of strengths balanced against the appropriate weaknesses is just as important.

However, I'm not convinced that even knowing everything about the lore would really help here, as Machaka seems to lack both a defined nature, and a real purpose.

You could balance Machaka like a Swiss watch, but until someone makes the theme come alive in some way, I just don't think it will ever be interesting enough to be really fun to play repeatedly.

The biggest problem I have with Machaka is that the Devs don't seem to have used any actual African basis. The closest correlation I can find (believe me, I looked hard) is the Ashanti, but even that is extremely diluted. There's just not a whole lot of reality to be inspired from, or to draw from, which I think makes it difficult to expand upon the central idea, and really hard to find a lasting thematic desire to want to replay them.

We've got a generic, vaguely Maasai (by way of Rome, oddly enough) looking African people.
We've got giant spiders, a royal death-cult, and a dead-but sadly undefined-god.
We've got a forbidden magical mountain where devineish/decadent sorcerors, priests, spiders, and priest-sorceror-spiders live and rule, in a theocracy seemingly reminiscent in it's paranoia, of Stalinist Russia.

There's little present, though, to tie any of these aspects together.

Frankly, these guys are just begging for Conan to get chased onto their scene, despoil their women, steal their treasures, and slay their Pretender, before moving on to the next conquest, and rightly so.
There's not much more development here than one would expect from a 1930's pulp magazine. Infact, the very flavour of the Nation seems to me far more pulpish than epic, let alone mythic.

As an example, this is their most memorable hero (the only one I can remember, anyway):
"Abasi is a strong man. At the age of ten, he strangled a lion. At the age of twelve, he strangled his father, which was harder by far. At the age of fifteen, he was discovered by the Eyes of the Lord and given an army to lead. He immediately attacked a small kingdom and was almost killed. His army was dispersed and Abasi himself had to flee. When he crossed a river, he was attacked by a crocodile. The beast was difficult to strangle, so he grabbed a log and bashed in its skull. He quickly flayed the animal and used the skin to swim unseen past the enemies. When he had passed the guards, he found himself in the camp of the enemy king. He took his log and thrashed the camp before the enemies could react. Now Abasi has returned with his log to bash the enemies of the Lord"
A normal human who hits things with a club, in other words.

Some Nations act well as springboards to the imagination, and even teach us something about cultures, and what/why they believed, that we didn't know before. Others (Agartha) invent sweeping new myths and cultures that seem to tempt the imagination with a world of speculation. Machaka seems to badly fail at that, and I think, apart from mechanics, that it's genericness is a big reason why this Nation is generally considered to be weak and unbalanced, if not plain broken.

There exist plenty of fantasy versions of Africa to borrow from. Everything from King Solomon's Mines to Charles R Saunders' 'Imaro' trilogy, to something like Michael Crichton's 'Congo'.

There's a gigantic body of lore and historical material to be drawn from real world Africa too, enough for a dozen Nations, and yes I think it would be extremely useful and rewarding to anyone interested in the real world mythological aspects of Dom3 to familiarize themselves with it. Sadly, the one really African-themed (as opposed to Egyptian-themed) Nation in the game, Machaka, seems pretty obviously to have been added as an afterthought.

It's not based on anything in the real world, and it's not a fully realized vision of a "fantasy Africa", and I think that hurts it as much or more than any lack of balancing ever could.

In reply:
Obia, AKA Obeah, is a religion/folk magic/mysticism movement that originated in Central and Western Africa, and has since spread to the Caribbean (to the West, rather than East). There's actually quite a lot to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obeah so the Obia mentioned is just a very brief aspect of a whole magical and spiritual tradition.

Shinuyama = Japanese. The two words aren't spelled the same, and probably differ in pronunciation. Most likely it's just a coincidence.

As far as the others, I couldn't find much about the Zin, except that they're of Songhai origin, but here's the result of about 15 minutes research on Google of the Sasanbonsam.

The Sasanbonsam:
AKA the Asanbosam
Please Note: None of the following material is original to me, I'm just using it as an example of what can be easily found on the web.



http://www.monstropedia.org/index.php?title=Sasabonsam :
The sasabonsam is a forest vampire which originates from the Ashanti people of Southern Ghana but is also found in Togo and the Ivory Coast.
Little is know about this creature outside of native folklore, which is prone to exaggeration and contradiction. The creature is described as about man sized with short, stubby arms, but has been reputed to have a wingspan of up to 20 feet. It is also often given iron teeth. Sasabonsams are rarely seen nowadays, but they were known to sit on treetops and catch unsuspecting passers-by to suck their blood.
Much like the kongamato, the sasabonsam may be a conflation of representatives from multiple baramins, combined with some Ashanti imagination. More research is definitely needed.


http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/s...asabonsam.html
Africa certainly has its share of mysterious and fantastic animals, and the sasabonsam is no exception. The creature was depicted in an Ashanti(natives of Ghana) carving seen by J.B. Danquah. The sculpture showed the Sasabonsam as a man-faced creature with a beard and small horns. It had two short, stubby arms which were raised to display bat-like wings under them, an emaciated body, and short, twisted legs with toed feet. Although the creature is most likely a creation of mythmakers, some have wondered if it could have been some type of gigantic bat.
A young man present in the crowd observing the sculpture told Danquah that once he had actually seen a Sasabonsam, which had been killed by a man named Agya Wuo. He gave Danquah several details of his sighting. The creature had been a little over 5 feet tall, with a wingspan of almost 20 feet. Its teeth and arms were quite long, it was spotted black and white, and it had scaly ridges over the eyes. Agya Wuo said he had found it sleeping in a tree, and that it made a somewhat bat-like cry. The body had been taken to the home

of the District Commissioner, L.W. Wood, who on February 22, 1928, photographed the carcass.

Danquah contacted Wood later, but Wood was not sure if he had, indeed, taken the photograph He said that he was in Ashanti in February, 1918, but not 1928.
In his discussion of Danquah's story, Bernard Heuvelmans states his belief, backed up in his seminal 1986 checklist, that the Sasabonsam is merely a local name for the kongamato, olitiau, and the other bat-like creatures of eastern and central Africa.
However, the form of the Sasabonsam portrayed in the folklore of the area is quite different than Danquah's bat-like monster. In mythology, it is usually portrayed as an archetypical ogre: according to A Dictionary of World Mythology,

...the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter.

Matthew Bunson further states that there are three types of Sasabonsam (asanbosam in the text): male, female, and small. Also, he notes it is credited with iron teeth, a common attribute of folkloric ogres and vampires
The mystery of the Sasabonsam shall probably never be completely solved, at least until another body or Wood's photograph surfaces.

http://www.answers.com/topic/sasabonsam
According to the Ashanti, the hairy Sasabonsam has large blood-shot eyes, long legs, and feet pointing both ways. Its favourite trick is to sit on the high branches of a tree and dangle its legs so as to entangle the unwary hunter. Belief in this forest monster is on the wane, but its curious mythical relation might have been the Sciapod of medieval Europe. A Sciapod was a man with one foot so large that he could lie on his back and use it as a sunshade.

[rtyffg]

Considering what you have said , it creating a nation from scratch seems more efficient then driving Machaka into a likeness of any real nation.
Some throughts about the present state of Machaka - maybe it can be made more logical by shifting it to one of its present themes.
Now about a possible direction of that shift - won't spider/sorceror as leaders/enslavers/masterminds theme fit? Considering a spider theme not just by spiders themselves, but by tendention to use poison/murder/weakening as a means of gaining power. That way special spells, which enhance their warriors, but mr negating wounding them might fit. Their light spiders are then just tools for war, as well as their riders. While black spiders become sacred themselves then (and its rider is only sacred because he rides sacred creature). The tactics of luring enemy into a trap seems quite fitting then, for which those wards are.
- Their basic human troops don't seem useful currently, and this would serve as a background for that.
- If Machaka would be looked upon as a nation with someway enslaved population that poses a logical description to their low morale and skills (slaves are not good warriors after all) - even some weakening/cheapening would fit them then?
- All of their population seems to have forest survival. Which makes rainfores/jungle zone to fit as their home so any of the plain/desert portion lore seems unfit then, so that Abasi hero's story seems strange then (where did he find a lion if he is a jungle dweller)?
- Their heavy human troops (hoplites) seem unfitting for a theme of jungle people (because of their iron armor in a rainy climate) - they need to be changed into a leather(or spiderweb)-armored variant then?
- They have 2 of 3 priestly as spies or law enforcers and a 3-rd order as a propaganders, which seem to fit well.
- Their spider warriors/bane spiders - again their heavy armor seems strange, othervise, stealthtroops/assasins seem fitting to the theme (maybe changing their dagger to paralysing poison would fit for spidery ways).

[kianduatha]

I think that just switching their Hoplites over to Plate Cuirasses instead of Hauberks and making Machaka Spears more like pikes (+1 to attack instead of -1 would go a really long way) would do so much. It'd give them 2 mapmove(so people might actually use them), 15 defense, a decent repel, and only 5 encumbrance.

Amusingly enough, the Spider Armor which is already in game is...sucky. It's 18 prot -4 def 4 enc, where full plate is 20 prot -3 def 5 enc. I'd rather take the full plate anyday. Maybe make Spider Armor not so bad?

[HoneyBadger]

Well, lions are known as the "king of the jungle", despite being dry plains predators, so while it's still an error, it's pretty forgiveable, and might even have been intentional for thematic reasons.

I think Machaka as a theme is still salvageable. It's a jungle/rainforest Nation, obviously, but one very different from Mictlan. Not only is this Africa, Machaka also has much more modern army, albeit one that doesn't currently stand out in any way.

Thoughts: I think you've got good points about the hoplites, Kianduatha. They could stand to be brought up into competitiveness. I was thinking thought, instead of giving them mapmove 2, they might be given a single (weak) poison javelin, along with the plate hauberks and improved Machaka spears. That would make them very effective, more thematic, defensive units, while not unbalancing them due to the poison bug, since they only have a single shot.

Machaka militia could also stand to carry a single javelin into battle. This is a Nation of hunters who live in the jungle, and even the poorest peasant classes would probably carry atleast wooden javelins for self defense. That'd give them a strong militia, which wouldn't hurt their PD. Not a bad thing, I think.

The spider riders could also stand to have one of those poison javelins. That would do a lot to up their damage potential when they're closing to attack, and hopefully synergise with their shortbows enough that they become somewhat more effective when used at range.

I'd also add a stealthy (0) unit to their army. This is where I'd put the mapmove 2: It would be equivalent to a Machaka militia in stats, but instead be armed with a spear and a single (weak) poison net, with an Area 1 poison effect. Basically, a net full of tiny poisonous spiders. They wouldn't be poison resistant, so they'd damage themselves, but those nets in combination with stealth should find some uses.

As opposed to summoning spells (although I still think the Sasanbonsam unit could be a good one-more about that in a moment), I agree that I'd like to see Machaka get more National combat spells. Here's one that seems pretty obvious.

Spell Name: Arachnophobia. Alt 2/Nature 1.
There's every reason in the world to give them a spell that summons a large group of tarantulas in combat. They could have 2 hp, a 1 poison damage tiny bite att, complete poison resistance, 14 action points, and a relatively low Att. (7-9) for balancing reasons. Castable at Alt 2 with Nature 1, 1 Nature gem, and 10+ effects. The spiders could be used to defend the sorcerors, to reinforce the mediochre warriors, and ofcourse to stretch battles out.

As far as summon spells, I've come up with 3.

The first would be an improved version of Mandragora, but instead be based on the gigantic tarantulas the Black Hunters ride.

Spell Name: Instill Effigy. Const 5. Nature 2/Death 2

The spell would give you 3 Black Hunter spiders (called "Obiah"), with Sacred, Undead, MagB, Mapmove 3 and Sleepvines x2. Considering that this is a jungle Nation with a spider theme, the spell makes a lot of thematic sense, and gives you a little more reason to have a decent Bless.

You could then have an undead hero riding one of these beasts.

The second would be a spell I came up with for my Cimmeria Nation.

Spell Name: Construct Skull Totem. Const 0/1 Death. 1 Death gem.

Skull Totem
Hp. 4 Size 2 Str. 2 Att. 2 Def. 10. Prot. 3 (3) Mor. 12 MR. 12 Mv. Immobile/No Teleport. Prec. 8 Weapons: None
Fear (0), Patrol bonus (1) Demon. Self Healing.

Not the most impressive unit, but cheap and massable, which makes it effective with the Fear, and useful enough simply as a PD helper, with the Patrol bonus. It should also help a lot against early Rushes, in combination with some improved Hoplites, since it's immediately available. It remains thematic, with the Hunter theme, and the sprite is even done for it already.

Finally, the Sasanbonsam:
Spell Name: Heart of Darkness. Blood 5. Requires Blood 3/Nature 3
This spell would give you a flying, undead, stealthy (10) vampire (more or less) assassin, with 2 (strong) poison iron hook attacks, a Lifedrain bite, Immortality, and Regeneration 10.

Thematically, harpies occasionally nest on the Black Mountain, and the bravest Machaka heroes occasionally will capture one alive. They cut off it's legs, feed it a drop of the dead god's blood, sacrifice it to the dead god by putting it in a sack with dozens of tiny spiders who take weeks to kill it and fully dessicate the corpse, then the Machaka replace it's feet with several big iron hooks they've dipped in spider venom, and the Sorcerors and Voices of the Lord cast spells and perform rituals over it's corpse. It reanimates as a hideous vampire thing that serves Machaka in unlife.

It wouldn't have any magic paths, and no hand or feet slots, so it's continuing usefulness would be limited, but as an assassin it should be quite effective.


One would think armour made from spider silk and chitin would be lightweight.
Spider armour, it seems to me, should be no more than 2 Enc, tops. Maybe -2 Def, also.


What does everyone think of giving the Black Hunters/Hunter Spiders a spider claw attack? That would make them significantly more effective at dealing damage, especially as Sacreds. I'm also in favor of having the Sacredness carry over to the hunter spiders, themselves. You could additionally give them one of the mentioned poison javelins. It won't go over the maximum 4 attacks allowed, and I think it would serve to make them a top Sacred in the game, dangerous in both melee and at range.

[rtyffg]

Hmm, an intresting collection of ideas to mod.
About that spider armor - i agree, that it should be lighter, and, maybe, less sturdy how about 2 variations:
- spider armor: prot 15, def -2, enc 2, rcost 26 (as light as ring mail, as protective as scale mail, but costly) -- made for bane spiders/spider warriors (raising their defence and allowing to give them mapmove 2) -- which, in turn makes them that mentioned stealth unit, as they are already stealthy.
- light spider armor: prot 11, def -1, enc 1, rcost 16 (as light as leather mail, as protective as ring mail, still costly) -- made for hoplites (as lighter armor would allow them fast move and, again iron plate armor in a rainy climate...)
- giving a javelin/poison javelin seems a viable idea as well, maybe plain javelin to most non-bowmen and a poison javelin to hoplites and heavy spider riders? But not to light spiders, as they already have web spit attack and a total of 4 weapons.
- About small spider battlesummon - i already did a spell of throving spiders into anemy ranks, not sure they need small spiders as an addition (since spell numbers are limited).
- About skull totem - i've tried to make simulat idea (immobile lifeless wards, shooting needles with nasty effects), but lacked skill to do sprites.

[kianduatha]

Well, the lighter spider armor isn't really necessary; Plate Cuirasses are 15 prot -1 def 2 enc, which is a good all-around for a Hoplite.

I'm afraid that coming down to 15 prot would erase every semblance of the Spider Warrior's survivability. They don't have shields, and going up to 8 defense won't really save them. Heavier armor is better for them, almost. Spider Armor would be fine changed to just -3 def 3 enc. A much better thing to do for Spider Warriors and Bane Spiders is increase their magic resist. At least the Bane Spiders. It's just criminal to have them be 10 MR.

Militia having javelins would be awesome and fix a lot with the nation as a whole. Their PD wouldn't even suck as much with so many javelins (and the militia not running in so fast to die).

I would think that one of the most important things to get Machaka is a bit of magic diversity--a bit of air access(from a summon?) would give them Arrow Fend and Wind Guide, among other things.

A sacred summon(ghost spiders? shards of the dead god implanted into a squad of Spider Warriors?) would help a bunch too. I'm hoping that it's somewhat justifiable to take a production scale(or at least neutral), what with better Hoplites and soforth. That in turn would make it easier to use Black Hunters.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, as far as the limited number of spells, units, etc., it's really becoming a serious limiting factor on mods. One that's going to eventually cut into the enjoyment of the game, atleast for me.

But, I wouldn't worry about it too much, in this particular case. Machaka is one of the vanilla Nations, and I think it deserves a certain priority, when it comes to something like spells, especially combat spells, which are already underrepresented, in comparison to summoning spells. Besides, you're not adding an entire new Nation to the game, you're just fixing one that's already taking up a lot of space.

If the smaller spider riders already have 4 weapons, then they're fine. The shortbow still seems kind of superfluous, though, but admittedly not completely out of place.

You're welcome to use my sprite for the Totems:
Normal
Attachment 9073
Attack
Attachment 9074

Machaka sorceresses already have air magic,

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Sorceress

and they're a pretty diverse Nation already, for that matter, with recruitable access to fire, death, nature, air, astral, and earth. If you want additional magic diversity beyond that, maybe they could get a capital only lizard shaman? That would give them access to Astral/Nature, and it wouldn't really break the theme, or unbalance them, since it's a pretty common unit anyway, and making it Cap would keep it small scale. Curse seems like it would be both useful and thematic to Machaka, and having early access to it should serve as an additional rush deterrant. It would also make Machaka slighly more formidable against Miasma C'tis, not a bad thing considering both Nations are likely to take Heat scales. As a bonus, no need to add another unit to the game.


As an aside, considering how blah Machaka's basic human warriors tend to be, it would be great to dress them up with some varied African weaponry.

I'm already familiar with a few of these, having borrowed some for my Aksum mod, but there's a ton more to choose from, including a wide variety of throwing weapons, and even many fantastic weapons that were intended to be used as currency.

Here's a few image galleries for use as references:

http://www.hamillgallery.com/SITE/Weapons.html

http://www.rrtraders.com/weapons.htm

http://www.joelcooner.com/African/Af...f-weapons.html

http://www.antiqueswords.com/Topic%2...%20Weapons.htm African, as well as some Asian weapons.

http://www.africanarmsonline.com/ the Designs link on the left hand side of the page is particularly useful.

http://eriksedge.com/category.php?ca...rican%20Swords


I have another idea for a low level summon, by the way:

Spell Name: Summon Wolf Spider
Requires Conjuration 1, Nature 2. Cost 1 Nature gem.
# of effects: 2
This spell summons 2 Giant Spiders (again, no need to add a unit or draw a sprite).

Giant Spiders are weaker than the spiders Machaka can already recruit, and don't have webs, but they're still pretty decent, and ofcourse much better than your human warriors.
At 2 spiders per gem, the spell is pretty cost effective, but you'd only get 2 spiders per cast, which I think should balance it out pretty well, considering the requirements to cast it, and that it would be competing with Summon Animals. Basically, it would be there to give you the option to use your sorcerors to quickly raise a fighting force, should the need arise, and you should be able to get it early enough in the game to make it effective, even considering the time spent away from researching for several sorcerors to cast the spell.

[rtyffg]

This seems to be mistake in the wiki.
Machakan sorceresses are actually FED +10%FEDN not A2S2 + 20%AWSD. Thus Machaka only has reliable access to 3F,3E,2D or 3N on recruitables.

[kianduatha]

There are just two different Sorceress units. The A2S2 one is an indy. Heck, if Machaka had those as sorceresses there wouldn't even be a point to the mod--they'd be the most magically diverse nation around and no longer subject to mindhunt beatdowns.

If you wanted to really make Machakan baseline troops a bit better, just replace the normal hide shields on their infantry with Great Hide Shields. Combine that with making Machaka Spears at least 0 to attack instead of -1, and you have decent troops. They'll still take a beating, but parry 6 instead of 4 does make a difference.

It'd be fun to see at least.

[HoneyBadger]

Not a bad idea about the great hide shields. You could also give any of their troops that don't have the Machaka spears, assegai instead of spears. Assegai could have -1 to length from standard spears, but +1 to damage and +1 to attack. That would give you more strategic depth, when combining forces.

You could also give some of their warriors knopkerrie, instead of spears. Knopkerrie would be identical to maces.