Nations under CBM 1.6

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Originally Posted by Mardagg

Huh?
The rider got a spear in addition to the lance.
In addition,the death poison attack of the rider is strength 18,whereas the spider only bites with strength 13.Thats quite a big difference for such a powerful attack.

It's not a poison attack for either 18 or 13 dam. It's a physical attack, with death poison if the defender takes any damage. I only ever see little green 3s and 4s, no matter if it's the spiders with riders, or just spiders. If you're worried 13 is not enough to punch thru MA armor, you can add B4. You even get a little more out of that spear you like, in that case. I'm not too excited about spears.

[Mardagg]

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Originally Posted by Mardagg

No it's not, it's 10, which is average (and just 1 less than the rider had). And it's more than 10 if you take an S bless from a rainbow god.

E9 buys you nothing for the late game, and it makes your net income lower.

lol,what do you want to achieve here?
You want to show me how useful spiders are now in later battles vs humans?
MR 10,MR 11,hell even MR14 with S9 blessing are a joke for an Sc type expensive unit.
They are for Early game mainly and to a lesser extend for midgame.
I dont need any MR there,i dont need any S9 there.
S9 makes the hunters much worse in comparison to E9 vs indies and early game humans.
U cant rely on spiders wihtout riders alone for that matter.
IF u would take S9N9,we could talk again.But that really doesnt allow for good scales anymore and still leaves u with a v fragile rider and a durable but weak offensive spider.
And why do you even talk about late game,when i always stated that i concentrate on early game with that blessing??

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Originally Posted by Mardagg

lol,what do you want to achieve here?
You want to show me how useful spiders are now in later battles vs humans?
MR 10,MR 11,hell even MR14 with S9 blessing are a joke for an Sc type expensive unit.
They are for Early game mainly and to a lesser extend for midgame.
I dont need any MR there,i dont need any S9 there.
S9 makes the hunters much worse in comparison to E9 vs indies and early game humans.
U cant rely on spiders wihtout riders alone for that matter.
IF u would take S9N9,we could talk again.But that really doesnt allow for good scales anymore and still leaves u with a v fragile rider and a durable but weak offensive spider.
And why do you even talk about late game,when i always stated that i concentrate on early game with that blessing??

What I want to achieve: I don't want to pay upkeep for my spider horde, that's what I want.

You said spider MR was less than average, and that's wrong, because it's exactly average.

And I do want E+S on my god for the late game. I never said S9. Obviously you are joking about that, since S9 is for low-prot jags/vestals, not for a high-HP regenerating beast.

I don't understand why you say that you only want to concentrate on the early game. You don't even need E9 in the early game, unless you are trying to get all your Black Hunters to survive to the midgame in rider form. If all you want to do is expand in the early game, take an A3W3E3F3N3D3B3S3 bless, that will do you just fine.

If you must know, I'm using a E4N4S4B4 bless.

How well does that work, versus E9N4?

Well, a few more spiders will be in spider form instead of having riders. Damn you riders, die! So you'll still have to fork out some monthly cash for their pensions. But not as much as if they all had riders.

Your god will have done some nice site-searching for you, it's not like you need him fighting. E4N4S4B4 is not all you get with a rainbow, so he can find sites with a minor path like W too. He'll be able to forge lots of nice items, summon some golems, maybe throw in a few surpises here and there. He can make all the rings you want. He can actually dispel stuff.

[Squirrelloid]

See, i don't like N4 because in testing the riders rarely took damage at all against indies, so who cares if they reinvig? And against other players your sacreds are hardly your strength. And when they did get an affliction I generally didn't care.

I'd rather get some astral on my pretender, for example, or do just about anything but get more N in a nation that already routinely gets N3 on Sorcerors.

Great Mother seems like a waste of points since there's no real reason to invest in a super high dominion either. Take a master druid if you absolutely must have E+N.

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

See, i don't like N4 because in testing the riders rarely took damage at all against indies, so who cares if they reinvig? And against other players your sacreds are hardly your strength. And when they did get an affliction I generally didn't care.

I'd rather get some astral on my pretender, for example, or do just about anything but get more N in a nation that already routinely gets N3 on Sorcerors.

Great Mother seems like a waste of points since there's no real reason to invest in a super high dominion either. Take a master druid if you absolutely must have E+N.

right,with E9 your riders are hardly damaged,but if you are swarmed in big indie fights that 1regen +less affliction chance is extremely good.They are hit rarely,but its like ever 2nd or 3rd hit gets them an affliction without N blessing!

Also,i am talkin about early game,meaning also attacking humans as early as the the start of year 2,when you definately absolutely can rely on your hunters.In those fights,Nature is even more important.
Also,N makes the spider much better after the rider died(for the 4th time now!).

Sure,S on pretender would be nice.I have to rely on Shamans and arcane probing to at least to be able to forge some items later on.Without clams though,your opponents wont field that much astral anymore.And since i want to emphazize on early and midgame with that paths,i dont care.
You can also find good astral mages on earth sites e.g..

You are right,the Master Druid leaves you with 184 points left taking Dom 5 ,the mother 168.If u take Dom 6,they are equal.
Thanks for this,the Druid is indeed slightly better there..

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by Mardagg

Without clams though,your opponents wont field that much astral anymore.

I beg to differ. Most of the really good astral spells do not require massive amounts of pearls, and the fact that astral nations still are astral nations means that they will field astral magic against you. Unless you specifically somehow counter their astral battlefield magic instead of their usually weaker/equal other paths. Lack of clams reduce the amount of wishing and possible empowers, which lets you concentrate your pearl/research resources elsewhere. The nation with reliable national astral magic would be stupid to not use it.

[WraithLord]

Mardagg, your strategy is ok for SP. For MP its problematic. No strong astral is bad in late game. No access to water hurts too. If you make it to late game you'd be left with a bless that is only good for a capital only now easy to counter average MR unit.

Where I fighting your build I'd have MHed all your mages and enslaved/soul slayed your armies. I'd have shut down your capital production as my first shot in the war. Astral pretty much rules end game and your bless has denied you any piece of that cake.

I'd say Machaka needs either awake SC or awake/sleeping rainbow (with s6,d5, w3 for example)

[Mardagg]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Mardagg, your strategy is ok for SP. For MP its problematic. No strong astral is bad in late game. No access to water hurts too. If you make it to late game you'd be left with a bless that is only good for a capital only now easy to counter average MR unit.

Where I fighting your build I'd have MHed all your mages and enslaved/soul slayed your armies. I'd have shut down your capital production as my first shot in the war. Astral pretty much rules end game and your bless has denied you any piece of that cake.

I'd say Machaka needs either awake SC or awake/sleeping rainbow (with s6,d5, w3 for example)

yeah ,i know.
Basically i am saying,that a much better early game makes up for that on many maps.
I still got Nature and Death for Tartarians,Astral summons/rituals are a lot less common without clams.
I rely on spiders early to mid,to ideally get number 1 or 2 in provinces.
Then i support them with dragon mastered sorcerers summoining 3 fire drakes per turn and mages.
Late game tartarians with GoH up,due to my early power i should have v high gem income.

And,btw u cant shut down my capital January Year2.
Later on i dont rely on spiders much anymore at all,but i still will have like 50+ hunters left,because they simply never ever die vs indies.
What u are mixing up is my game plan with the general game plan,advisable for standard builds.

i mean common,after all the developers even thought that 120g hunters are balanced.I even took that build for fun purposes at that time and wasnt that disappointed at all.Now you basically get a free spider every 3 u produce.Also u get nice gold income since ur upkeep stays pretty low with those low number sacred units.
we got 33% decrease in cost now,mind you,thats HUUGE!
Maybe even overpowered,seriously.

[WraithLord]

The problem is not the price on hunters. It's lack of synergy.

Your plan sounds ok. I'd even give it a try in a few SP test games. The thing is that no matter how you turn it Machaka still remains a weak nation IMO. I think their mages should be boosted or they should get some unique (sacred --> for bless) summons.

[Sombre]

Shouldn't the hunter spider have str 18?