Wishlist: Torches in the Night: MA, Newbies (10> mp games) only, CBM 1.7 (CRASHED AND BURNED)

[dark7element]

The game has been created. Go ahead and send your pretenders in. Don't forget to enable CBM 1.71 WHILE you're making your pretender, as it affects the creation process.

For Ragnelle and anyone else who might be unfamiliar with the process (I was until recently), email your pretender file to pretenders@llamaserver.net. Make sure 'TorchesInTheNight' is the subject of your email (without the ' ' apostrophes of course).

I would REALLY rather you not password-protect your pretenders, the llamaserver FAQ says that can cause problems. Unless you can somehow hack into another player's email, there's no way you can cheat by examining someone else's turn. It makes it difficult to get a sub when people drop out (and people usually do).

Get your pretenders in, and with luck, we can start soon.

[Corvus]

Submitted.

[Ragnelle]

Done.

[dark7element]

I just thought I should let everyone know that I've changed my mind at the last minute about which nation I want to play. I've read a number of guides and strategies about MA Man and they all agree that it's a very weak nation, possibly even worse than Ulm. I'm not really that good a player, so I can't afford to play a nation that takes an expert to use. I'm changing my nation to Arcoscephale, not a powerhouse by any means but reasonably competitive. If anyone else wants to change nations let me know.

[Corvus]

If you were going in to man without any real plan then I could understand that, since you would probably get curb stomped by the first semi-competent opponent you met. But really you should always have a fairly detailed plan going into any game. Long term goals, expansion plans, its pretty important to have at least a rough idea of what you're going to do before you start the game, with any nation.

[Ragnelle]

[Having MA man would have been an excellent thematic ally/nemesis.

Ah, well. I would hardly call Man weak when we have Ulm and myself on the battlefield. :P]

[dark7element]

I did have a plan. I was going to try and rush towards Mother Oak and Gift of Health, while not taking any scales of growth to save points, in order to counteract crone mortality, which is one of Man's biggest weaknesses. I was planning to spam tons of castles and aggressively trade for air gems to summon the air elemental royalty as a SC, to compensate for my crappy national troops. That strategy allowed me to defeat a bunch of AI players set to 'mighty' difficulty. But even against inexperienced players, it probably wouldn't work very well. Arcoscephale has crappy troops also, but at least their mages are good (and don't require massive effort to stop them from dying of old age constantly).

[dark7element]

Eriu is at least good at raiding, and Ulm at least has good forging capability. Man has neither of those. I love their fluff, but they're too hard to use properly. Maybe in the future CBM will make wardens worthwhile, but as it is, you have to be an expert to make Man competitive at all.

[Corvus]

You would be amazed at how effective bardspam usually is against new players. Plus longbowmen are pretty drat good en masse, especially buffed. Shutting down an enemies recruitment and income in one turn can be pretty devastating, especially if they don't know the counter. If you move before they can get counters to archers your longbowmen will rape, especially if you can get to flaming arrows quickly.

[Corvus]

Well crap, I had 2 middle age Ulm pretenders premade and it looks like I sent in the wrong one, and it has a password... This might muddle things a bit... ah well.