Machaka in CB

[halfzware]

So what scales can you drop for a bless? Order & Productivity are required to build your sacred troops and death costs money too. Without money and resource, the number of sacred troops becomes to small to pay off the disadvantges...but then again I cannot see any bless strategy really working with most other nations either.

Now I'm no expert, but... I think it really depends on the size of the game. The longer the game, the more punishing bad scales are.

[shovah]

cant see bless wroking... ever heard of f9 w9 vans? e9 n9 neifel jarls? f9 s/a9 flagelants?

[Chazar]

halfzware said:

Now I'm no expert, but... I think it really depends on the size of the game. The longer the game, the more punishing bad scales are.

Hmm, I am playing small maps and I would say the exact opposite, since a large map means a long game and plenty of sites, thus plenty of gems and thus plenty of summons and magic, making ordinary troops obsolete (but that is just a naive guess of mine). I'd say that having money/resources early on makes it possible to conquer your enemy mainly with common troops on a small map (mid-game).

However, research is usually also limited by money for buying and maintaining expensive mages, so accoding to the music currently in my headphones I sing along "Counterfeit dollars or english zloty, anything I can get. I want more!"

[Chazar]

EDIT: The following post was meant as a direct reply to Endropez' very helpful post of a Machaka/BlackHunter/Bless-related thread-links list!

(Somebody here has too much time... )

Yes, I probably had Daynarr's comment and rabelais' comment from the "Advice on machaka appreciated"-thread in my mind. Only PvK seemed to disagree within this thread, but maybe I got the wrong impression.

Oh, and you missed other threads tackling the issue:

• "Newb Q: Pretender options for Machaka?": Zen's advice for beginners, which continues with "Machaka needs gold"
• "Last question (I hope) on magic learning strategies (Machaka or similar multi-path)?": Here a blessing strategy for Machaka is briefly contemplated as well, but no one really speaks much in favour of it.

Anyway, now that all these threads have been uncovered again, everybody can make up his own opinion what people once thought about it, for whatever that actually matters today...(Cast ritual: Knowledge of the Ancients)
From my experience I just say Machaka is much more powerful with Order+3, Productivity+3 (Hoplites & Spide Knights are cute) than without but with some bless...

[Cainehill]

Chazar said:
Oh, and you missed other threads tackling the issue:[list][*]"Newb Q: Pretender options for Machaka?": Zen's advice for beginners, which continues with "Machaka needs gold"

Of course, one (not very dependable) way to get gold is to take Luck-3, Death-3, at least with the CB mods having increased the relative value of luck. Getting 200, 500, even 1000 or 1500 gold in an event can make up for quite a bit of otherwise bad scales. (Similarly, getting a staff of storms, ring of wizardry, etc).

[shovah]

ive been doing some testing recently and ive found that a bunch of cheap mages spamming blind is AMAZING vrs indies, with the back-up of 2 or 3 offensive casting higher end mages they can go against non-missle/flying indies (i tested at lvl 7 or 8 indies with maybe 10 lower end mages) without any guard, although a little gaurd is neded vrs cavalry such as knights.

just set the black sorcerers to use high damage spells like magma eruption (if they have earth boots) and the blind just makes it so much easier (they also go very well with true armies just to give you the advantage)