Thoughts on balancing MA Man

[Xietor]

We have seen radical changes to Mictlan and Ulm, both who needed help more than MA Man. But MA Man imho, while not a broken race, does have more shortcomings than any other MA land nation, especially on large maps.

MA Man does have strengths. And it begins with the Crone's magical diversity, and strong air power which translates into good quick powerful evoc spells.

Man also boasts longbowmen, and the Knights of Avalon, who get a magical attack and recuperation.

But each of the strengths has drawbacks, which we can examine. My suggestions:


I. The Crone. Remove its Old Age.

Is it thematically possible that Crones, who have no fire magic, and who have abundant n magic, live long lives, but do not suffer old age? The Crone's evoc skill is Man's best hope to stave off an early attack, but they end up with 7 hps, and severe old age with no way of stopping it.

Pythium can take take 4n on its pretender, and slap a shroud on their capital only mages, as can Ermor. Abysia has boots of youth. Shinuyama has death magic, which lowers the chance of afflictions, and high hps.

I have seen a crone die within a few turns of being bought.
Of course, if possible, you can try to only buy them in the spring.

But it would help balance Man, make a race most new players tend to play 1st more enjoyable by eliminating the micromanagement of extreme old age, and be thematically sound as well.

In no way would giving Man crones that that started a a few years below max old age thrust Man into a MP power nation.They would still be close to the bottom, but would be more fun to play.

II. Knight of Avalon Commander

Makes sense to have a commander that has map move 3 and forest survival 3 to lead the knights of avalon. That would also give man a decent thug commander. (warden... Pleaseeeeee).

III. Reduce the gcost and resource cost of the KOA.

Man does not get any scale points to work with. And the KOA's are resource hogs, and also cost 75 gold each and are not sacred.

That is a double whammy. First it is hard to accumulate KOA's because of the high resource cost, and when you compare them to LA Arcos.' Agema's 31 resource cost it is just hard to justify. And if you do take a high production scale and buy a few, you will soon find it is hard to pay the upkeep cost on the KOA's.

KOA's are Avalon's magical knights. They come from the Forest of Avalon. Give them the same gcost and rcost as a normal knight. That is still quite high, but it is a reduction.

IV. Pretender Selection

Man's pretender selection seems a bit thin. To take advantage of the longbows, flaming arrows is nice. Maybe another pretender or two that starts with fire, like the Forge Lord?

Man does, however, get a couple of unique pretenders, the Lord of the Forest being one. And while more is always better, I would like to see the Lord of the Forest made more appealing. There are numerous ways to do that. Some very easy ones:

We can start with his spear. A spear is nice I guess, as he can hunt Boar with it, but could it not be a magical spear?
I mean even those dead gods with shattered souls have magical spears.

And since he is the Lord of the Forest, one would assume he hunts. A really cool magical bow would be thematic. Longbow of Avalon! Graphic does not have to show the bow, as it is likely slung when not in use.

Finally, great hunters typically have birds that help them hunt. A Lord of the Forest no doubt would command a pretty impressive hunting bird. One who would put a serious hurt on anyone foolish enough to incur his wrath.

[MaxWilson]

Good idea. In response to this, I added the following to my HouseRules.dm.

-- MA Man's Crones not old. Gives age 110 (125).
#selectmonster 153
#startage 100
#end

That's still plenty old in human terms IMO, but the nature magic offsets enough that they're not penalized.

-Max

[Zeldor]

Copy of my post in conceptual balance thread:

What they need would be probably:
- make wardens non-sacred, but recruitable everywhere
- lord warden recruitable everywhere [he may stay sacred]
- maybe add stealthy shortbow units
- add water picks on crones and mothers of avalon
- replace daughter of avalon with something useful or take it out, really stupid and useless capitol-only cheap mage
- considerably lower age of crones [to around 100 years] so they do not die like flies
- make a 2nd random on Crone 50 or 100%, not 10% [so they have some better chance for A4]
- make summonable stealthy beasts

That way MA Man would have an alternative way to make a stealthy army with good backup from mothers and monks. Now that strategy with capitol only wardens is not available.

[Xietor]

Crones do get a "chance" at a water pick.

Daughter could be useful if they could be recruited everywhere. Since Man gets cheap castles, that could give Man a research boost. 4 research for 80 gold and sacred to boot. Very cost effective.

I actually buy them during the winter months when you do not want to buy a crone.

[Renojustin]

TOO cost effective.

[Zeldor]

Xietor:

I was thinking about adding them W1 at start + randoms. So they could have W2 quite often and sometimes W3.

[Cor2]

I especially like your ideas about the Lord of the Forest. He needs to be beefed up.

[Renojustin]

Every nation could do with a few tweaks, but I really have to disagree with you that MA Man is inherently weaker than other MA nations. MA Man has a synergy that is mostly lacking in other nations of any age. Powerful archers combined with powerful air magic is quite a nice combination right up to mid-midgame, (not counting the terrific infantry blockers, albeit mapmove 1, but what unit with that kind of protection isn't except cavalry?) and as we know a strong early and midgame translates to a strong endgame. If anything, MA Man is in the top half of MA nations.

I have to admit I've also found Knights of Avalon to be a strange unit. Capital only, 75gp, non-sacred... just stop right there. Vans are only 90? Laughable. It could go a long way to make them sacred, increase the price, decrease the resources, and add a commander unit for at least a somewhat-thug. Not that you'd really want to be recruiting any commander other than Crones at your capital after turn 3ish.

Still it's pretty ironic that you're trying to take old age away from Crones. LOOK AT THE NAME!! If anything, add powers, don't take away the extremely thematic and appropriate old age. Anyway, age is merely a product of race + magic.

I could see adding stealth to Man's longbow unit for those amazing bards to lead around, though... call them Merry Men.

[Twan]

Erf have you already seen how Man do in MP ?

Start is usually very good (but against indies only, even with longbowmen and an awake god, Man isn't an as good rush nation as any nation with decent mapmove 2+ sacreds or tramplers) then arrives midgame and a war with another nation...

Man can score victories in the beginning and destroy some unprepared or newby ennemies with a classic longbowmen + wind guide based tactic. Then the ennemy realizes this tactic is easily countered by expandable archers decoys -to neutralize fire : closest-, and/or a mix of targetable troops and big heavy infantry squads -to neutralize fire : something else-).

Man then have basically two options in midgame :

- a long attrition war, using bards spreading unrest -> only works if the ennemy don't have access to mind hunt or good patrolers, and even if it works the effects are too long to come to save Man against any nation with good magic ; the longer the war is the weaker Man will be due to very limited magical diversity and crones dying from old age

- using air magic with a lot of crones on the battlefield spaming thunder strikes -> to cast more than 2 per fight they need a storm for summon storm power, and a storm make longbowmen quasi useless, it's the worst ever "synergy" in the game ; also crones being mapmove 1 you'll have to move slowly, or use gems to cloud trapeze them where they are needed

Finally no matter how good was the start, most other nations just destroys Man (before or after its few good spells are reached).

Other elements are better than air for first/second tier magic (up to level 6), larger ae for smaller fatigue in evocations, and spells often castable by non capitol mages.

In beginning of third tier (level 7 for fog warriors) air become better than fire and water for battle magic (especially as some crones have access to the excellent air+earth combo for rain of stones), but is still not as good as other paths. And in levels 8-9, there is simply nothing worthing to be researched (except air queens, if Caelum was cute enough to let some) when astral and death magic rules (and even fire/water become more dangerous, with the army destroying spells).

Personnally I would :

Keeping the same paths
- give free flying to crones, or at least mapmove 2
- and/or make half of them start before old age (make so the ones with +1 or more nature picks aren't old)
- and/or make daughters recruitable in all forts
- and/or add a cost effective national thug summon crones can cast (I mean a real thug, not the vine thing with 8 in attack or the big human leader nature already have)

...Or add a limited access to one of the powerful path to the nation, or a medium access to one weaker path, or more magical diversity out of capitol (ie : a random for non capitol mages, or another recruitable having say water and earth).

[Aezeal]

I don't think MA man is much worse than many other nations and I don't think they need a real boost