MP: ComfortZone - All MA Nations - Running

[cleveland]

Jim - Thanks for putting in the time to try synthesize a new map. I agree with you: preventing the water nations from turtling is a major responsibility of the land nations. As Xeitor points out, failing to do so means a possible stalemate. Regardless, I appreciate the time you invested, I know how much it takes to get the mapgen to spit out a coherent water mass.

But it seems popular opinion hasn't budged from Fallacy, so we'll stick to it.

Speaking of which, I've identified a few more "fjord" type connections to be made for consistency. An updated picture of the map, with all fjord connections in Yellow:

Sorting out the connectivity of that NE island was tough, but I think a proper balance is struck by treating province 223, which is land cut in half by the sea, as a barrier to aquatic travel (represented by the red line). Presumably the inhabitants of this province would occupy both banks of the province, and therefore be able to stop any armies trying to travel through. Thoughts?

[JimMorrison]

I appreciate your time too, Cleveland, you're doing good things with this game. <3

I'm unsure about the issue with 223. That waterway should be miles wide, and by extrapolation, is probably at least 1000' deep? Not sure the landlubbers would even know there were troop movements, let alone have researched Depth Charge technology to deal with it. Would be interesting if there were a mechanic to differentiate between deep sea dwellers (gillers) with surface water dwellers (lungers).

Anyway, we'll have a good game one way or another, and if I have to win on a map that is not very good for aquatics, then the victory dance will only be that much sweeter. And if I lose (95% or so probability!), then I'm blaming the map, not my pretender design, or any decisions I personally make thereafter.

[cleveland]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

I'm unsure about the issue with 223.

Me too. I'd originally tried simply connecting everything, but it turns out to be a convoluted mess...lots of connections, lots of aesthetically disturbing lines criss-crossing each other, very hard to decipher. I didn't want to simply eliminate the inland connections either, just because it's a neat geographic feature. I think this is a nice compromise, though I'm in full agreement that depth charges are definitely a LA technology.

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

And if I lose (95% or so probability!)

Me too.

Off to upload to llamaserver...

[cleveland]

Hmmm. Llamaserver seems to think the map is already located in it's databanks, and therefore won't allow me to upload it. A thorough scan of the map browser revealed nothing, though.

It's around midnight in the British Isles, so Llamabeast is probably either drinking Newcastle from a boot or dreaming of quantum electrodynamics in non-integer dimensions. Either way, I don't think we'll be online until the sun rises on the British empire...

[archaeolept]

you can do the s9n9e4 with an imprisoned Sphinx order 3, 1 prod, 3 heat, 2 misfortune 1, 0 luck, and 2 drain. I

see - this is why "machaka never wins" - people keep trying insane bless strats. go for scales, a good pretender, and spider knights/hoplite armies

oh, yeah, their PD is truly awful. don't bother with it, other than a pt or 2 to dissuade scouts.

[rabelais]

Machaka's hoplites in dom2 were awesome... and their archers were cheaper...not sure why they were nerfed for dom3. It's true that a critical mass of web attacks are shockingly effective in sp... but they'e never been a MP scarecard. also giving the sorcerors a break in the age dept (they have magic/demon blood after all) would go a long way to restoring machaka's battlemage potential. eagle eyes + fire darts is fun, but it stops there, pretty much.

I think Man will be ok in this game, it seems to me that CBM makes them weaker, so the old version with range 40 resource 8 longbows will do pretty well, even with the weaker pretenders.

[Xietor]

I have won my share of mp games. It is my humble opinion that the best, though admittedly small, path to victory machaka has is through an aggressive early game on the back of its Sacred Spiders. But there are more than one way to skin a cat.

You can get some of both worlds with a monolith s9n9 3order, 6 dom, 2 drain, 1 growth, 3 heat. Those are pretty good scales and gives you growth to lessen the old age effects of your best mages.

I have fought Machaka when it has had good scales, and it is basically helpless with hoplite armies. The stealthed banes can be easily mind hunted. The early thugs with constr 4 gear like banelords will plow through any castle bought troop that machaka can throw out.

In fact in 2 of the games I won I had 1 on 1 wars with machaka. And in both games they had decent players. And in both cases they had no bless and in both cases they were soundly beaten.

Though Sir_D_D did have an interesting strategy with them he had the Pheonix and used flaming arrows, arrow fend, hoplites, and various death summons and had several stealth bane armies, plus evocation spells.

But in the end they just came up short-way short-against Shinuyama who i was playing.
And when i fought them as Pythium it was a pretty big mismatch.

I think the sacred spiders with their web attack, poison, and a good bless, could make
Machaka somewhat feared. You could possibly get by without the e4 bless until you got relief depending on who you fought. But stellar cascades could be brutal for the spiders without it.

And the Monolith is superior to the Sphinx in that it can gate armies around. Oracle can gate as well, but i hate the 10 hps more than the immobility.

I guess you could always take a sleeping Lich, d5, e3, a3, and try to tie into death and use the Lich to beat off all comers in your dominion. That is a valid strategy with any nation. basically what I did with la arcos in Kingmaker, and what I would do if I ever played Man, Oceania, or any other race that had no tie in to thugs.

With diplomacy, and a Lich with the proper buffs, it is always possible to pull a game out of the hat.

All of that said, I have never played them in mp, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

[archaeolept]

old age does not affect machaka's mages so much - they tend to lose their afflictions when they "die"... We really should have a new machaka thread; KO has mentioned doing some work on them, and it would be nice to pique his interest in some way... I'd be happy w/ machaka if they had pd that wasn't utter ****e, and a buff to their sacreds or their troops.

[lch]

KO probably meant that he's working on Machaka's EA version titled "Lion Kings". I wonder if this includes Simba, Pumbaa and Timon national heros...

[Xietor]

Maybe my version of the fallacy map was uploaded by llamaserver after all. You may need to talk to llamabeast about the tweaks.