Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?

[legowarrior]

Now that Wardens can be hired everywhere, does that make them a bless nation?

If not, what kind of nation are they in CBM 1.92

Also, is production a requirement for this nation?

[Shardphoenix]

Tried them with E9/n4 bless and decent scales. They hold the line very nicely and deal some serious damage with their high str. and greatswords.
Hydras still eat them for breakfast, though.

[bbz]

for the cost of 28 resources I guess you can be safe with getting production 1 and clever caslte placement. You could try prod 0 but I wouldnt take sloth since you still need more unts(longbowmans) while these guys hold the line.

[Shardphoenix]

Armored sacreds have one problem: destruction/rust mist/other anti-armor totally screws them.

[Corinthian]

They *can* be played as a bless nation now. But Man also needs other thins like diversity so I would rather use knights as the mainstay forces and only take a light rainbow bless for the wardens. The wardens can then be used as stealthy raiders. The knights are a bargain now. The same stats as bogarus heavy cavalry, but 10g cheaper.

[Nightfall]

Now that Wardens can be hired everywhere, does that make them a bless nation?


Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

[Shardphoenix]

quadrupal buffed UFF... What bless do you suggest for them? And on what chassis?

[Nightfall]

quadrupal buffed UFF... What bless do you suggest for them? And on what chassis?

The quadrupal buff thing wasn't was referring to the bless but to the fact that CBM also -
1. Increases their combat stats
2. Increases their magic resistance
3. Increases their movement
4. Reduces their encumbrance

In addition to making them cheaper.

[Shangrila00]

Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

Wait, the nation with access to only 4 paths, and needs a pretender to forge boosters for all of those, no way even to get holy 2, much less 3 besides the prophet, and also can't take dump scales thanks to old mages plus resource intensive regulars and sacreds...is the best bless nation in MA?

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Yes, the quadrupal buffed, recruit anywhere wardens make man _easily_ the best bless nation in CBM MA now, far superior to the actual bless nations...

Wait, the nation with access to only 4 paths, and needs a pretender to forge boosters for all of those, no way even to get holy 2, much less 3 besides the prophet, and also can't take dump scales thanks to old mages plus resource intensive regulars and sacreds...is the best bless nation in MA?

The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

[Shangrila00]

The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

You'd think so, but then there's his second post on the matter. If that's sarcasm, it's at a level far beyond my ken.

[Valerius]

I don't know about being the best MA bless nation but I will say that wardens are tough customers. Add in even a light EN bless and they can make for some strong, cheap raiding parties. Adding in something like a frost brand on a lord warden or mage support from a mother of avalon and you can do even more damage (I speak from the experience of having had them used against me ;)).

I view them somewhat like TNN's tuatha warriors in terms of small numbers being surprisingly strong - the difference being that rather than avoid damage though high defense they can take a lot of hits.

They're not high profile like Mictlan's sacreds but I think they're a solid unit. I don't think going for a major bless would be wise but I also don't think they need it in order to be effective.

Actually, I haven't heard much discussion about MA Man under CBM 1.92. They got some significant boosts - the one that really stood out to me as being powerful is hex.

[Nightfall]

The priestesses have scryed upon Nightfall's post and have detected sarcasm.

Not at all...

Let me put it this way...

The closest recruit anywhere sacred comparison unit I can think of in terms of how they fight (high damage attack and soak incoming damage) is the Arssartut; lets say you put an E9/S8 bless on them to increase the survivability and magic resistance.

That is pretty much your base warden with just E4 bless.

Priest options are similar, the extra 2 morale points on wardens makes up for the lack of easy sermon of courage.

Man has slightly stronger, cheaper and more efficient Mages...

LA Atlantis just swaps in D for N, they are both good paths.
LA Atlantis has stronger W compared to Ma Man's stronger A, A is a much stronger path.

[Mightypeon]

I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.
I am not convinced that this is neccessarily a stronger choice than something like E4/N4 with extra paths (and without the horrible misfortune scales I felt compelled to take to pay for Prod 3), especially since Mans mages are really "Meh", even in comparison to someone like MA Ulm (Mage Smiths can blow up stuff by themselfs, while Mothers need a Crone that casts storm to get Thunderstrike, which of course means that you dont get anything out of your quite decent archers.
If they had native A4 (which they dont, the chance of that is really low on their cap only stuff), you could use a storm staff or forge boosters to get things going.
Mind you, in Forbidden friendship or Over People Mod games, Man eventually get Tarrasques which deal with the lack of magic diveristy a bit, but those happen quite late.

[Shardphoenix]

LA Atlantis just swaps in D for N, they are both good paths.
Seriously? Death has skellyspam, magic diversity (spectres), thugs (banes&banelords), great anti-chaff spell (shadow blast) and best SC chassis ever (tartarians). Nature has... What? Charm and tarrasques? And couple buffs, that aren`t really useful for your sacreds, because they`re already regenerating, reinvigorating, have high protection (I assume E9N4 bless) and are unlikely to rout. And you can`t even forge penetration boosters for your charmers, because you don`t have any reliable S access.

LA Atlantis has stronger W compared to Ma Man's stronger A, A is a much stronger path. First, stop comparing MA to LA. LA has generally weaker mages. Second, air magic is strong, but only when you have reliable access to A3, where thunderstrike and guided arrows happen. Man only has A3 on 25% of its cap-only mages, who are also old and map-move 1. Well, you can cast Storm to boost your A2 Mothers to A3 - but this means they`ve just lost 50% of their precision and your archers are now next to useless. Oh, and you still need a highly vulneurable crone to cast it.
Also, thunderstrike by itself isn`t going to win the game for you - you NEED A4 to get to real air magic (boosters, globals, high-end summons), while with water you can successfully climb a ladder starting from w2. And Man needs over 200 turns to reliably get 1 crone with A4.

[Shangrila00]

Priest options are similar, the extra 2 morale points on wardens makes up for the lack of easy sermon of courage.


Wrong. Having H2 priest mages (that aren't mounted, damned Eriu) means a crystal shield from a pretender, lucky indy, merc, or trade boosts it up to H3. And barring that, H2s, which Atlantis can recruit anywhere once it gets underwater, are hugely more than just for sermon of courage. Any large number of sacreds take an insane number of H1s to bless, with huge wastage. Man doesn't even have priest mages, and in order to take advantage of the Warden's stealth special ability, would have to use fort turns to recruit H1s. Which you have to, or surely you wouldn't seriously compare Arssurtuts without mentioning amphibian, or the magic weapon that destroys SCs with strength drain.

[Nightfall]

I am currently playing a E9 bless Man in a goon game.

That's a bad choice of bless. In fact pretty easy access to relief means I wouldn't bother with any E on them unless I wanted it for other reasons.

[Mightypeon]

In MA Mans defense, Sleepers are comparable to Banes although a fair bit more expensive.
It also has a 2 decent evocations (Sleep Cloud and Storm of Thorns) of which one is quite early. It also has some ok Battlefield buffs, although your already spiffy troops do not need those as much.
If you wish to expend some gems, Nature has the very usefull Swarm and Howl Spells. Summoning Sprites also has significant niche uses. Last but not least it also gets Faeri Queens.
It is also a nice forging path. With regen gear, reinvig gear, and one highly usefull anti thug weapon (Axe of hate).

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.

[Mightypeon]

My bless works out quite well so far. F9 would be sub par as Wardens have scant issues with dealing damage. Water 9 is interesting but gives serious fatigue issues. D9 is more of a point, as it opens up D, but I would prefer that one sacreds with multiple attacsk to be honest. S9 does not help much, Mans sacreds are usually tough enough to take a hit.
A9 and N9 are obviously sub par.
E9 gives them Ulmish prot while being fatigue neutral, and allows them to wade through a lot of even good stuff without taking a scratch. In that goongame, lack of attrition allowed me to through about 300 Wardens on Machaka on turn 30, after previously winning an early limited war against Shinuyama.
I would have prefered E9N4, but simply couldnt find the points.

[Nightfall]

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.

Please note that I haven't said that...

I do think wardens are too good currently to be recruit anywhere, when compared to other sacreds, but that is a much bigger assessment.

[Nightfall]

Man only has A3 on 25% of its cap-only mages, who are also old and map-move 1.

Your not seriously saying that any A3 mage has deployment issues.

Also, thunderstrike by itself isn`t going to win the game for you - you NEED A4 to get to real air magic (boosters, globals, high-end summons), while with water you can successfully climb a ladder starting from w2. And Man needs over 200 turns to reliably get 1 crone with A4.

Rubbish, CBM crones have been buffed to a little over 1.5% each of having A4, that's not an unplayable gamble, if you want to go that way. Taking risks or playing it safe is what makes pretender design interesting.

Playing a big bless almost always involves taking a risk.

[tratorix]

Rubbish, CBM crones have been buffed to a little over 1.5% each of having A4, that's not an unplayable gamble, if you want to go that way. Taking risks or playing it safe is what makes pretender design interesting.


1.5% is a real longshot, especially on a cap only mage. Not having reliable access to boosters for one of the only two magic paths you get really good access to is an issue. It's not a risk, it's "do you want your mages not to suck, y/n?"

[Nightfall]

1.5% is a real longshot, especially on a cap only mage. Not having reliable access to boosters for one of the only two magic paths you get really good access to is an issue. It's not a risk, it's "do you want your mages not to suck, y/n?"

Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 60 air gems to empower, hardly disastrous considering the boosters cost 25 each anyway.

[Shangrila00]

Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 45 air gems to empower, hardly disastrous considering the boosters cost 25 each anyway.

Wrong again, it's 60 gems to empower from A3 to A4. With a 1.5% chance per recruitment, you still have a 50% chance of not having an A4 after 45 turns of crone recruitment. Crones aren't even that cheap, so it's unlikely you could have recruited 1 per turn from the very beginning.

And what does this have to do with Man being the best bless nation in the MA anyway? Have you presented an actual argument including bless and strategy for that yet?

[Nightfall]

Wrong again, it's 60 gems to empower from A3 to A4.

Lol, and yet my point is still entirely valid, at worst the gamble has cost me just 35 air gems...

And I'm guaranteed to be able to afford that from capital income by turn 30 if necessary.

[Shangrila00]

Lol, and yet my point is still entirely valid, at worst the gamble has cost me just 35 air gems...

And I'm guaranteed to be able to afford that from capital income by turn 30 if necessary.

No, it just cost you 60. What, with if you empower so you can forge boosters, you still need to forge the boosters. If you take turn 30 as the latest you can wait before empowering, and you manage to recruit one crone per turn from turn 1 be damned to expansion or fort building, that'll happen in 2 out of 3 games.

[legowarrior]

What about the pretender make the first air booster? That would save you some money. An Air bless isn't best, but 75% shock resistant on the Wardens might be a good thing.

Titan, Imprisoned, 9 Air/9 Earth, 2 Production, 1 Growth, 2 Drain, 1 Heat Domain 6 can be done. Air Boosters can be made. End game would suck, but you summon cyclops and Aesir I think.

[Nightfall]

If you take turn 30 as the latest you can wait before empowering.

Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

[Shardphoenix]

In MA Mans defense, Sleepers are comparable to Banes although a fair bit more expensive. No, they are not. They lack Bane`s 0 enc., prophetizing them doesn`t give you reanimation abilities and they are vulneurable to numbness/frozen heart.

It also has a 2 decent evocations (Sleep Cloud and Storm of Thorns) of which one is quite early.And the second one comes when everyone else is already entering endgame. :)
If you wish to expend some gems, Nature has the very useful Swarm and Howl Spells. Summoning Sprites also has significant niche uses. Sure, nature magic is nice to have - but saying that it is comparable to death...
Last but not least it also gets Faeri Queens. Roughly, a copy of your cap-only mage... For a ton of gems. I think, I`ll pass.

It is also a nice forging path. With regen gear, reinvig gear, and one highly usefull anti thug weapon (Axe of hate).But you still lack astral for luck and AMA.

I think CBM was quite succesfull in boosting formerly weak nations such as MA Man and MA ulm into competetive levels, labelling MA Man as overpowered is quite the insult to the likes of Pythium or Shinuyama though.[/QUOTE]
Your not seriously saying that any A3 mage has deployment issues. More like "quantity and mortality issues". They die like flies outside of Growth-3 dominion, and you don`t have enough of them to easily replace.
Rubbish, worst case is that it cost you 45 air gems to empower...Rubbish, you aren`t going to have that many spare air gems as Man. And air boosters are the most expensive ones.

[Shangrila00]

Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

So did you have a point to make here? I've already pointed out how you aren't getting better than 50% odds until turn 45. You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9. I assume it at least includes D9 or F9 since with neither battle magic nor magic weapons, ethereality and/or mistform would wreck unlimited number of Wardens.

[Shardphoenix]

legowarrior, then why not getting a rainbow pretender instead? You`ll get better magic diversity with roughly the same combat effectiveness.
at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating. What exact bless are we talking about? Becayuse counters against E9 wardens are available earlier.

[legowarrior]

Not only did I not say that, it's a bad assumption, at turn 30, a heavy bless, with basic support, should still be dominating.

So did you have a point to make here? I've already pointed out how you aren't getting better than 50% odds until turn 45. You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9. I assume it at least includes D9 or F9 since with neither battle magic nor magic weapons, ethereality and/or mistform would wreck unlimited number of Wardens.

Technically, since each crone is independent of the crone before her, your chance at any one time of getting A4 is always going to be 1.5%. On the other hand, using binomial distribution of getting at least 1 a4 in the first 25 turns is 31%, which is still pretty low.

But again, I'm just curious if you can base a strategy around wardens, since they can be hired everywhere now (which I'm not a huge fan, but it does buff Man).

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

Which bless would work best with Man is a secondary question to this. If we can find a Bless that will get us the Air Booster we desire, wouldn't we be one step closer to an effective bless strategy for man? Than we have to find a Chassis that will do that for us.

[Shangrila00]

Technically, since each crone is independent of the crone before her, your chance at any one time of getting A4 is always going to be 1.5%. On the other hand, using binomial distribution of getting at least 1 a4 in the first 25 turns is 31%, which is still pretty low.


Yes, that is how I calculated it.

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?

Which bless would work best with Man is a secondary question to this. If we can find a Bless that will get us the Air Booster we desire, wouldn't we be one step closer to an effective bless strategy for man? Than we have to find a Chassis that will do that for us.

I do rather like F4W4 myself, as a part of a general minor bless. You can take a sleeping Archdruid with F4W4E4N4 with a bonus D2 and A2 for dom6 and plus 2 scales.

Wardens are kind of hard to heavy bless for. The only thing obvious is E9 for neutral fatigue and super heavy armor. None of the others are obviously beneficial, since they are very tough for a human, but not nearly as tough as giants, pretty high encumbrance, and very hard hitting with only a single attack.

[Nightfall]

You've yet to present this super duper bless that would let Man sweep all before them without needing battle magic well into year 3, except that it's not E9.

Is it possible for you to make any statement at all without misrepresenting me. Limited support means you deploy battle magic when you need to, but you shouldn't need much.

As for what bless is best, that depends a lot on how you intend to play, the best 2 for them, in my opinion, would be W9 or D9, they both have pros and cons, but that's the case with all bless strategies.

And I think your vastly overestimating the effectiveness of mistform and etherial against a base of 23 damage and 17 protection, can it work, sure, but it has to be on something pretty damn tough to begin with.

[Nightfall]

So, the point is, as man you need to break into A4 right? You can try to get a Crone with A4, you can have have A4 on your pretender, you can try for S4 to get the rings, or you can get either A4/E4 or F4/W4 for the staff. Does that sum it up?


This is slightly off topic, but frankly spending points on your pretender for A4 just for boosters is worse than just empowering a crone. In game reality is that unless your doing poorly, you will easily have the income to afford it.

Taking S4-S6, and making it a priority to take over a lizzie province, is a different story, and gives you a far more usefull expenditure of pretender points; it is worth considering.

[legowarrior]

Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it. I like Air 4 gives me the Staff of storms, and the flying ship. Still, a Fire/Water bless will also help you boost your crones to 4.

[Shardphoenix]

BTW, fire/water also works for Cu Sidhe.
the best 2 for them, in my opinion, would be W9 Mother if Rivers is dirt cheap, but I`ve tried it, and, frankly speaking, wasn`t really impressed with W9 wardens. Their base defence is not that high, and fatigue can be a problem. OTOH, it also works for Cu Sidhe...
or D9BUT WHY?
frankly spending points on your pretender for A4 just for boosters is worse than just empowering a croneOnly if you have a gem factory stached somewhere. Or play with like 70 sites. You can never have enough air gems when you play as Man.
Wardens are kind of hard to heavy bless for. The only thing obvious is E9 for neutral fatigue and super heavy armor. None of the others are obviously beneficial In fact, N4 is very nice with super-heavy armor, since when you get hit through it, it`s usually only a couple poibnts of damage, unless you are getting hit by a giant.

[Nightfall]

Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it.

Haven't tested it myself, but I've read that the A bless shock resistance does not stack with spells, which makes it pretty useless for anything.

[bbz]

Well, if Thunder and Lightning are your main spells, Shock Resistance MAY be worth it.

Haven't tested it myself, but I've read that the A bless shock resistance does not stack with spells, which makes it pretty useless for anything.

I've tested it and it does stack.

[Torgon]

I've enjoyed playing man with a W9N4 bless.

The fatigue is actually rarely an issue. The wardens simply kill things fast enough that they never rack any significant amounts up, and there's always a nice leap frog effect where the guys behind jump in front of those who were on the lines. And once you get in really big battles you always have relief up. An N3 daughter with a mace can cast it and you should have those coming out of your ears.

True they don't have super high base defense, but they rack up stars like crazy. Once they have a couple you're talking about a defense of 17 which makes them very hard to hit, and the little bit of regen makes them very hard to kill. I went with an imprisoned lady of springs, O3C3G3Mis1M1.

Empowering a crone to A4 is really not that much of an issue. True Air gems are very valuable, but as Nightfall has pointed out, an Air booster already costs 25 gems. Just view the empowerment as a double priced booster that you cant switch to a different mage and it seems a lot more reasonable.

You basically have 3 options for guaranteed A4 as man:
1. Empowerment
2. A4 on pretender
3. S4 on pretender

As someone else has correctly pointed out, 1 and 3 are really the only viable options. Taking A4 on a pretender for a nation that otherwise has no use for it is a whole lot more expensive than 60 Air gems (really only 35 if you view it as just forging an extra booster to get another crone to A4).

This build expands FAST. A lord warden and 5 wardens can take pretty much any indi, including barbarians and knights, with minimal loses.

The biggest problem is obviously the lack of magic diversity, and you are hurting in this regard. The key however is to just expand fast, win early wars with your wardens and keep expanding. Man is not a late game powerhouse, trying to cram a little death onto your pretender is not going to make them a late game powerhouse. I say its better to leverage your strength as an early game powerhouse and roll with it. Expand fast and try to find some good indy mages to cover you for diversity. True its a gamble, but even with the buffed wardens man is not a nation you win with without gambling.

And nature is actually not that bad especially when combined with air. One obvious option is false horror and panic spam in conjunction with a few raiding bands of wardens. Or just panic spam in conjunction with kithriotic lion spam (they now have fear, and have been buffed along with the other animals) and are conveniently size four to go along with your size 2 wardens. Air also gives you confusion very early which when spammed by your A2 mothers can create some fun results.

You also have all the big buffs at the end. Fog warriors + relief + mass regeneration + blessing of gaia + a couple weapons of sharpness from the E mothers with boots you've scraped together or foul vapors + serpents blessing + everything else.

[Shardphoenix]

You also have all the big buffs at the end. What about Antimagic?

[Shangrila00]

Presumably Army of Lead cast by the "earth mothers."

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.

Which is the main problem with the proposed strategy. It assumes you'll have enough gems to throw on super expensive empowerments and summons, and still have enough to do what you were actually after in the first place. There are plenty of games where a 60 gem empowerment sets you back 10 turns.

There is no understanding of the importance of timeliness. Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical. Man has no native astral access, and it can take most of the game to scrounge up the 75 pearls for starshine cap+ring of wizardry. F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

[Shardphoenix]

Man has no native astral access I was super-lucky to get Brangwen The Blind One (S3 hero) both times I was trying to make high-bless Man work. It still didn`t save me from massed Iron Angels first time and communioned Pythian magic second time. Well, the second time i probably was just not agressive enough.

[Shardphoenix]

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.What paths does Ancient Kraken summon have in CBM? Maybe, it can help with diversity? Mother of Rivers even provides you with gems for it.

[Nightfall]

Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical.


As I have already pointed out, but you ignored, lizardman shaman are a reliable get in MA for a bless nation that can fast expand, and they are worth fighting an early war for.

If you always build your pretender for the worst case, your going to be losing a lot of long boring games.

Also it's almost always better to take S5 than S4 if your taking S, for a lot of reasons.

[Torgon]

Presumably Army of Lead cast by the "earth mothers."

Except what earth mothers? More 50 gem empowerments? Presumably what he actually means are troll kings summoned either by one of the extremely rare E2 crones or a E1 crone after another 30 gem empowerment.

Which is the main problem with the proposed strategy. It assumes you'll have enough gems to throw on super expensive empowerments and summons, and still have enough to do what you were actually after in the first place. There are plenty of games where a 60 gem empowerment sets you back 10 turns.

There is no understanding of the importance of timeliness. Which incidently, is also why the S4 path as a means of boosting A up to 4 is also not practical. Man has no native astral access, and it can take most of the game to scrounge up the 75 pearls for starshine cap+ring of wizardry. F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still not arguing that man is a strong nation by any stretch of the imagination. It still has glaring holes.

However, what we're arguing is about the relative strength of various strategies for this weak nation. Basically there are two primary ones we're discussing.

1. A high bless strategy to leverage wardens. Either a water bless or earth bless seem to be the best options both with a little nature thrown in.

2. Some sort of rainbow strategy for magic diversity. With air or astral to get you A4, earth and water to bootstrap you up those paths, death to get that covered, etc.

The standard opinion for man prior to the buffs and recruit anywhere status for wardens was #2. At MM 1 and cap only a bless strat for wardens never made any sense. Now it might. I've tried building both and you end up with about the same scales as long as you're really gearing your pretender to magic diversity.

So what do you really give up going for a bless strat rather than a rainbow?

Not mitigated by indi's
60 Gem Empowerment for Air mother - assuming you don't get an A4 random

Potentially mitigated by indi's
30 Gem Empowerment for an E mother to get earth rolling. Once again assuming you don't get an E2 random.
Guaranteed Astral Access
Guaranteed Death Access
Guaranteed Fire Access

The bottom line is that you're going to find at least a couple of the last category on indi's, especially if you expand fast. So the question really comes down to whether or not you think a strong bless on the wardens is worth 60 air gems and missing a couple of the 2nd category. It's true that if you don't find any indi mages then you're somewhat screwed. But if you do happen on some wizards, or metal orders, or moon mages, or even just some lizard men and some raptors you'll be much better off.

Basically i'll put it this way. The bless strat is high risk, high reward. If you happen on some indies who round out your diversity your going to do very well. If you don't you're going to loose. The rainbow strat is a bit less variance.

[Nightfall]

F4W4 works because Man has little use for fire gems and no critical uses for water.

That is a decent option, as long as you plan to leverage it in other ways; and there are a few good ones.

[Torgon]

Man has no native astral access I was super-lucky to get Brangwen The Blind One (S3 hero) both times I was trying to make high-bless Man work. It still didn`t save me from massed Iron Angels first time and communioned Pythian magic second time. Well, the second time i probably was just not agressive enough.

But would have a rainbow pretender really have saved you from these either? The bottom line is that Pythium is still pythium and ulm in 1.92 is super powerful. Traditional man with a rainbow would have lost to these guys as well unless you were off to a spectacular lead.

[Nightfall]

or D9
BUT WHY?


Because most people massively underestimate the D9 bless, it is very cheap to get on a master lich, and usefull in a variety of ways.

And a D9 master lich with a couple of extra paths is a great battle caster in it's own right.

[Nightfall]

However, what we're arguing is about the relative strength of various strategies for this weak nation.


To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.

[kianduatha]

To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.

A little birdie told me to say "MA Ermor."

[Shangrila00]

To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.

MA Mictlan is still very much a top tier bless nation, vastly better than Man in every way. Honestly, Jags in the cap and eagles out is better than the other way around, since eagles are best mid and late game, and you still have all the jags you want early. It takes a bit more work for MA Mictlan to get to all those lovely sacred blood summons, but the nature jaguar summons are still quite a bit more decent than Cu Sidhe.

Vanheim and CBM Bandar Log are easily better bless nations than CBM Man. Sure, Ashdod no longer has good sacred troops, but their sacred commanders are still worth a high bless, same for Eriu.

[Torgon]

However, what we're arguing is about the relative strength of various strategies for this weak nation.


To be fair my original statement was that MA Man is, at present, easily the best nation to play a bless strategy with in CBM 1.92 MA.

That has kind of gotten lost by the fact that it hasn't been addressed in that context; being that none of the bless nations in MA are considered top tier.

True. So the other bless nations might be:

Mictlan (while good is not EA or LA mictlan)
Bandar Log
Vanhiem
Ashdod
Eriu (commanders only)

Am I missing any? So is Man a better bless nation than these guys? None are as limited magically as Man so they don't have that handicap. I think it may be somewhat questionable to claim that man is a "better" bless nation than these guys.

[Nightfall]

MA Mictlan is still very much a top tier bless nation, vastly better than Man in every way.


You are just plain wrong; CBM 1.92 wardens are better than jags and eagles in EVERY way.

They are harder to counter, have better attack and defence, better morale, better magic resistance, suffer less attrition and do more damage.

Mictlan may have wider path access, but it's even harder to get them up to usefull levels and blood with MA Mictlan without rods only works if your opponents are asleep or if you build a pretender to get you into blood; which means no bless.

Vans and Tiger Riders may seem to be comparable bless chassis to wardens, until you realise that your going to have at least twice as many wardens to work with.

[Shangrila00]

Oh for God's sake, again, bless nations need a good sacred, but that's not all they need. Mictlan has low resource needs, free points from temp preference, wide magical diversity allowing for an imprisoned pretender at little cost, and recruitable flying H3s. In addition, it has tons of sacred summons that benefit from exactly the same blesses as its recruitables, and which can take over in the late game.

Bandar Log has as many problems as Man blessing its sacreds, but again, low resource requirements, and free points from temp. Its magical diversity isn't the greatest, but what it has is far more useful, with communions and mind hunt. And like Mictlan, it too has tons of sacred summons for the end game should it manage to bootstrap into blood.

Vanheim has sacred thuggable commanders for when its sacred troops stop being the greatest. Ashdod and Eriu don't actually have good sacred troops, but their commanders are thuggable very early with a good bless.

And wardens are harder to counter? How do you think sacreds are countered? Evocations murder wardens as well as it does anything else. Jags and Eagles on the other hand, are harder to deal with using evocations since the former has 2 lives and the latter has flight. The other nations listed all have thugs/SCs/high hp summons to lean on once evocations make human hp sacreds obsolescent. What does Man have?

[Nightfall]

None are as limited magically as Man so they don't have that handicap.

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

Only Ashdod has both astral and death...

Only Vanheim has usable blood...

So, I'd say of those the only nations with significantly better natural spell access are Ashdod and Vanheim.

The others all have their own diversity or scaling issues with magic.

[Nightfall]

Mictlan has low resource needs, free points from temp preference, wide magical diversity allowing for an imprisoned pretender at little cost, and recruitable flying H3s.

The slight points advantage doesn't even make up for the inferior choice of pretender chassis.

And you don't need flying H3's to run bless strategies, it just makes things a little easier if your lazy.

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.

The other nations listed all have thugs/SCs/high hp summons to lean on once evocations make human hp sacreds obsolescent.

Getting much mileage out of the Mictlan, Ashdod or Bandar Log summons without an awake blood pretender or clams in CBM is a pipe dream; your not going to get them in numbers or early enough.

Vanheim and Eriu thugs scale into mid game a bit better, at the cost of gems, but the wardens catch back up when battlefield enchantments come in.

[Nightfall]

How do you think sacreds are countered?

Against Mictlan? Indy slingers will do the job.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.


Why do you say that coutal's are easier to take out than priest kings? Large size? But you can summon jade serpents (good hitpoints, so well suited to this purpose) or monster toads as decoys. Magic being? Opposition and Control are only range 20, and the coutals are hanging out in the back dropping buffs and evocations. Other than that, I don't see why they would be more vulnerable than priest kings.

[Shardphoenix]

Vanheim and Eriu thugs scale into mid game a bit better, at the cost of gemsSince when did glamour, mistform and air shield start costing gems? BTW, Sidhe Lord with barkskin tops Lord Warden in protection.
but the wardens catch back up when battlefield enchantments come in.
What enchantments? Arrow Fend, Fog Warriors and Growing Fury? Of all those only Fog Warriors is universally useful. You can`t have Army of Lead without either empowering+forging+summoning with E1 crone for 90 E gems total, or being lucky with super-rare E2 Crone AND still spending 60 E gems for forging+summoning. Add 50 E for every Weapons of Sharpness caster.

[rdonj]

You would need a LOT of indy slingers to get anywhere against mictlan, especially assuming there's remotely competent archer decoying going on.


Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.


Why do you say that coutal's are easier to take out than priest kings? Large size? But you can summon jade serpents (good hitpoints, so well suited to this purpose) or monster toads as decoys. Magic being? Opposition and Control are only range 20, and the coutals are hanging out in the back dropping buffs and evocations. Other than that, I don't see why they would be more vulnerable than priest kings.

Magic duel.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But they aren't SO vulnerable that Mictlan shouldn't use them; they are its best mages, after all.

On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage?

[Shardphoenix]

But they aren't SO vulnerable They are cold-blooded, right? Cold scales (from Wolven Winter or cold dominion) should seriously hurt them.
On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage? Single-target spells usually target biggest/highest HP suitable target.

[Corinthian]

Magic duel is completely random in its targeting I believe. Unlike other single target spells. Or atleast it did not target the golems when I used it in another game. It targeted the normal mages. And Mictlan have plenty of turkey duelers.

Ehh, give me a moment and I will test this....

Edit: Yep, completely random. This is why people send things like turkey mages and other cheap astral mages along to protect important astral casters.

[Shardphoenix]

Edit: Yep, completely random.Completely - or by unit`s ID?

[Corinthian]

Hmm. Thats hard to test. But anyway, how is MA Man or all nations supposed to magic duel the turkey nations anyway?

[Shardphoenix]

We are comparing them not in duel against each other, but how well do they fare in game overall.

[Shangrila00]

The slight points advantage doesn't even make up for the inferior choice of pretender chassis.

And you don't need flying H3's to run bless strategies, it just makes things a little easier if your lazy.

Those Couatl's that your relying on to bless by the way can and will be taken out by a decent player. Possibly before they get divine blessing off; you should be using priest kings.


Couatls are H2. It's the High Priest of the Sky that's flying H3. And having access to H3s is hardly just something for lazy players. Look at Man, only priest is H1 nonmage. It needs to recruit indy priests just to start up a second expansion party if it's leaning heavily on Wardens. Admittedly, Bandar Log has the same problem.

And what inferior bless chasis? The only thing Man has that Mictlan might want is a good Water bless chasis.

Getting much mileage out of the Mictlan, Ashdod or Bandar Log summons without an awake blood pretender or clams in CBM is a pipe dream; your not going to get them in numbers or early enough.

Ashdod has recruitable SCs and thugs. It doesn't begin to need its summons to leverage its bless.

Mictlan can get into blood pretty easily without a blood pretender. Those cheap recruit anywhere turkey mages have a 2.5% chance of blood, and 2 out of 4 heros have blood. The big advantage though, is a B2 summon that can summon itself. CBM has significantly nerfed it, but still, all it takes is a single B2 caster and 35 slaves to get the ball rolling. Even without luck in randoms or heros, that's achieveable with scouts reasonably early.

Bandar Log admittedly is much harder to get into blood with the massive nerf of Dakini, but they're still good enough to invest in. You do have to make a solid commitment with pretender design to summon one, but once you do, they can summon themselves and blood hunt. That's a late game thing, but it's a late game option that Man doesn't have.

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

That's a pretty nutty claim right there. Barring rare randoms or empowerment, Man has up to A3/W1/E1/N4 in cap, and A2/N3 everywhere. Notice how hard it is to get battlemagic out of its recruit anywheres. It can naturally only forge 2 boosters, W+1/N+1 out of the 9 total in its 4 paths.

Bandar Log is pretty bad diversity wise, but compare it to Man. Also only 4 paths, up to W1/E1/S4/N3 in cap, S2/N1 everywhere. Its natural booster access gives W+1/S+2/N+2, and all that S means communions. So better than Man.

Ashdod has F3/S3 in cap, and F2/E3/S2/D4 everywhere, and it can boost F+2/E+2/S+2/D+2. How is that not better in both breadth and depth than Man?

Eriu is the easiest, since it has exactly the same paths as Man. With the exception that it naturally gets A4, W2, and E2.

[Mightypeon]

Man is in competition for having some of the worst mages of the game, one should however not underestimate having excellent spies.

[Shardphoenix]

Bandar Log is pretty bad diversity wise, but compare it to Man. Also only 4 paths, up to W1/E1/S4/N3
Its natural booster access gives W+1/S+2/N+2You`ve missed something really important. :) Notice this S4. S4+Starshine cap gives you RoS, and then RoW. And those two rings open up big E, big N, big W...
Also, E1S1 means crystal shields for combat mages, and couple Gifts from Heaven can really ruin your opponent`s day... Especially when one of them hits his fully-kitted titan-sized pretender while he is outside of his own dominion. And Gifts, unlike Thunderstrikes, can`t be countered by simple ring.

[Corinthian]

Sooo... You count your pretender as a national caster? Or? Because there is no way for MA Mans mages to cast GfH with native mages.

Keep in mind that every magic path you put on your pretender have a opportunity cost in the form of what you could have spent the points on otherwise.

[Shardphoenix]

Sooo... You count your pretender as a national caster? Or? Because there is no way for MA Mans mages to cast GfH with native mages. I`m talking about Bandars.

[thejeff]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But they aren't SO vulnerable that Mictlan shouldn't use them; they are its best mages, after all.

On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage?

I'm about 95% sure Magic Duel always targets the strongest astral mage. Highest path, not biggest or most hp.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But they aren't SO vulnerable that Mictlan shouldn't use them; they are its best mages, after all.

On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage?

I'm about 95% sure Magic Duel always targets the strongest astral mage. Highest path, not biggest or most hp.

I agree that it would make sense, but it doesn't seem to be true. After I made that post, I tested a bunch of S1 magic duelers against a few coutal and turkey mages, and turkeys were targeted too, so Im thinking it's either random, or based on some other variable. Perhaps the deliciousness of the target?

[rdonj]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. But they aren't SO vulnerable that Mictlan shouldn't use them; they are its best mages, after all.

On a related note, does Magic Duel always target the strongest astral mage?

I'm about 95% sure Magic Duel always targets the strongest astral mage. Highest path, not biggest or most hp.

Yeah this is wrong. Magic duel seems to hit very random targets. As in, size 6 s4 mages can be decoyed by size 2 s1 mages levels of random. When the s4 mages are closer to the enemy. So don't rely on it hitting one thing or another, it will pick and choose itself.

[Shardphoenix]

So, to sum it up - Wardens are so good because they are meant to be used with only a minor bless, for taking a major bless for them means you`ve just shot yourself in the leg.

[Torgon]

So, to sum it up - Wardens are so good because they are meant to be used with only a minor bless, for taking a major bless for them means you`ve just shot yourself in the leg.

So I'm not sure that sums it up at all. Refer back to my earlier post.

Most of the discussion since then has been about the relative strength of Man vs. the other bless nations like bandar, miclan, van etc. Theses guys are stronger than man PERIOD. Bless or no bless. They have more options, better diversity, better summons, better mages, better thugs, etc. With players of equal skill and equal luck man is probably going to loose whether it has a rainbow or whether it has a bless.

But the question you're asking is a completely different one. Your asking the question of what version of man is better, the one with a bless or the one without. Just because both are weaker than these other nations doesn't necessarily mean the bless version of man is weaker than the version of man with a rainbow pretender. Once again go back to my earlier post, what are you really trading off between the bless version of man and the rainbow version of man?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
So what do you really give up going for a bless strat rather than a rainbow?

Not mitigated by indi's
60 Gem Empowerment for Air mother - assuming you don't get an A4 random

Potentially mitigated by indi's
30 Gem Empowerment for an E mother to get earth rolling. Once again assuming you don't get an E2 random.
Guaranteed Astral Access
Guaranteed Death Access
Guaranteed Fire Access

The bottom line is that you're going to find at least a couple of the last category on indi's, especially if you expand fast. So the question really comes down to whether or not you think a strong bless on the wardens is worth 60 air gems and missing a couple of the 2nd category. It's true that if you don't find any indi mages then you're somewhat screwed. But if you do happen on some wizards, or metal orders, or moon mages, or even just some lizard men and some raptors you'll be much better off.
------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think its necessarily clear at all which one is a stronger bet. I think, as I said, that its more about variance. Find some good magic diversity on indies from some rapid expansion fueled by blessed wardens and you'll do very well. Don't find any and you're going to loose and loose very badly. If instead you go with a rainbow pretender, man will preform somewhat below average almost all the time, but you'll be guaranteed at least a decent showing before being eliminated. Since man is a weak nation to begin with going with the high variance strategy at least gives you some probability of wining. Going with the rainbow ensures that you'll preform at a middling level in almost every game.

[Shardphoenix]

But if you do happen on some wizards, or metal orders, or moon magesAnd how big is a chance for you to get those without a rainbow pretender sitesearching? Remember, without a pretender you can reliably search only for full N, full A, 1W (full W after you hit const6) and 1E. Poison glades (D access), Tower of the Silver Order (Air version), Tower of the Iron Order (Earth version and only with manual sitesearch) - but that`s about it, I think.

[Shangrila00]

That's the thing though, Man doesn't have trouble expanding or fighting early game. Man has superb regular troops, and always did, even before CBM made the knights and avalon knights useable. Wardens don't inherently change the dynamic, especially as they are just as resource intensive as Man's regulars. Unlike, say, Eagle Warriors, or Ashdod/Eriu's sacred thugs/SCs, Wardens start petering out in the midgame same as most sacreds. Earlier actually, since trying to bless a large Warden army other than the one with your prophet is horrible, and you can forget complex scripting.

Putting a heavy bless on Man basically exaggerates Man's existing strong early, weak later characteristics. Especially the W9 bless. At least E9 is good for the sacred mages later. And I'm not convinced an army of high blessed Wardens supported by regulars (and Wardens still need regular support even with high bless) is all that much stronger than an army of regulars supported by rainbow blessed Wardens.

[Corinthian]

The thing is, if you are not going with a strong bless you might as well expand with knights, because then you can use the limited commander recruitment slot in the capitol to recruit mages instead of priests. Knights can be commanded by indy commanders after all.

[Shardphoenix]

Well, from personal experience I can tell that Wardens with E9 N4 bless accumulate stars fast, with archer support eat Machaka/Bandar sacreds for breakfast and generally have very low attrition rate.

[Shangrila00]

The thing is, if you are not going with a strong bless you might as well expand with knights, because then you can use the limited commander recruitment slot in the capitol to recruit mages instead of priests. Knights can be commanded by indy commanders after all.

I'm pretty sure that even with a strong bless, expanding with Knights of Avalon for all but the first expansion party with your prophet is at least as efficient as doing so with Wardens. As you say, they can be led by indy commanders and don't require you spend 400 gold like turn 3 to get indy priests for additional expansion parties, or waste capital recruitment on nonmages.

[Torgon]

The thing is, if you are not going with a strong bless you might as well expand with knights, because then you can use the limited commander recruitment slot in the capitol to recruit mages instead of priests. Knights can be commanded by indy commanders after all.

I'm pretty sure that even with a strong bless, expanding with Knights of Avalon for all but the first expansion party with your prophet is at least as efficient as doing so with Wardens. As you say, they can be led by indy commanders and don't require you spend 400 gold like turn 3 to get indy priests for additional expansion parties, or waste capital recruitment on nonmages.

Knights of A are great But its not just initial expansion, its also the first couple wars you find yourself in. Blessed wardens coming out of 3 or 4 castles can steamroll in a few early wars, especially if you make full used of their stealth, leaving you very well off coming into the mid and late game. You'll just never have enough knights for them to be more than niche plus they're still fairly expensive.

[Nightfall]

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

That's a pretty nutty claim right there. Barring rare randoms or empowerment, Man has up to A3/W1/E1/N4 in cap, and A2/N3 everywhere. Notice how hard it is to get battlemagic out of its recruit anywheres. It can naturally only forge 2 boosters, W+1/N+1 out of the 9 total in its 4 paths.

Bandar Log is pretty bad diversity wise, but compare it to Man. Also only 4 paths, up to W1/E1/S4/N3 in cap, S2/N1 everywhere. Its natural booster access gives W+1/S+2/N+2, and all that S means communions. So better than Man.

Ashdod has F3/S3 in cap, and F2/E3/S2/D4 everywhere, and it can boost F+2/E+2/S+2/D+2. How is that not better in both breadth and depth than Man?

Eriu is the easiest, since it has exactly the same paths as Man. With the exception that it naturally gets A4, W2, and E2.

It's nice that you took the time to confirm the original point I was making, that all of those are limited to 4 paths.

As for battlemagic from recruit everywheres, they have the some of the best early-mid game evos, the lightning spells, and one of the best late game evos, storm of thorns. They can also self buff precision. Exactly how much more do you want them to be able to do.

[Nightfall]

Putting a heavy bless on Man basically exaggerates Man's existing strong early, weak later characteristics.


The whole point of a bless strategy is to win or generate a large lead quickly.

You don't do that by just taking indies.

[Shangrila00]

It's nice that you took the time to confirm the original point I was making, that all of those are limited to 4 paths.

What's with this ridiculous backpedaling? This is what you claimed before:


It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.


Mictlan and Vanheim have greater breadth in magic. Indeed, Mictlan has access to every path except earth, with death and blood available on semi-dependable randoms from turkeys, heros, and all else failing, its national Tlaloque summon.

Those nations noted all have greater depth in their 4 paths. Again, Man can natively forge only 2 out of 9 boosters in its 4 paths, and no astral rings. None of the others are that limited. Bandar's not even really limited to 4 paths, with its wide range of national summons that provide access to paths outside those needed to summon them. Ashdod can forge all the boosters in its paths plus the astral rings, and again, Eriu is just Man, but better.

As for battlemagic from recruit everywheres, they have the some of the best early-mid game evos, the lightning spells, and one of the best late game evos, storm of thorns. They can also self buff precision. Exactly how much more do you want them to be able to do.

What in the world are you talking about? Only 1/4 Mothers can cast lighning bolt. For more serious evocations, Man has to wait for Evo 5 and getting orb lightning. For better than piddling range, it needs to cast storm with a slow, fragile, and ridiculously old crone, and simultaneously render useless its excellent archers, so the 1/4 A2 Mothers can cast thunderstrike.

Bandar Log has massive communion potential, and so does Mictlan. Vanheim and Eriu can seriously pull off lightning evocations. Ashdod post CBM nerf is the only one with worse battlemagic than Man...but at least it still has early SCs.

The whole point of a bless strategy is to win or generate a large lead quickly.

You don't do that by just taking indies.

Due to lack of blessers, Man can't even translate a high bless into notably faster indy expansion the way Mictlan can, unless it wastes half its year 1 capital recruitment on otherwise worthless priests. And the point of a bless strategy is to gain a lead quickly, and use that to translate into a victory. With excellent troops bless or no bless, it's that second part that Man has a problem at.

[Nightfall]

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

What's with this ridiculous backpedaling? This is what you claimed before:


Since you have trouble comprehending English I'll highlight it for you.

[Nightfall]

Due to lack of blessers, Man can't even translate a high bless into notably faster indy expansion the way Mictlan can, unless it wastes half its year 1 capital recruitment on otherwise worthless priests.

Only if your incredibly bad...

It will expand faster than Mictan, without any attrition, and you should only need 2 lord wardens from the capital before your second fort takes over... Less if your a little lucky and get an indy priest province.

[Valerius]

Due to lack of blessers, Man can't even translate a high bless into notably faster indy expansion the way Mictlan can, unless it wastes half its year 1 capital recruitment on otherwise worthless priests. And the point of a bless strategy is to gain a lead quickly, and use that to translate into a victory. With excellent troops bless or no bless, it's that second part that Man has a problem at.

You won't want to use the priests - get the lord wardens. That's who you'll want leading your raiding parties later, possibly with a magic weapon to add some punch. It's also worth noting knight commanders can also bless your troops and could make nice mini-thugs.

Thinking it over, I think it's certainly viable to play Man with a strong bless (not necessarily optimal long term - but viable). Personally I'd prefer E9N4 - net 0 encumbrance on your wardens and 4 points of reinvig for your sacred mages. When you consider the total package of reasonable cost, recruit everywhere, tough in a battle but with stealth as an option I think it's fair to say that Man's sacred troops can be considered among the best in MA.

I think Torgon is right that your build depends on your tolerance for risk. Nothing is going to change the fact that you've got no native S/D/B access. Are you willing to take a risk that you'll find some indies to help you out or do you want to make sure your pretender can break you into those paths ASAP? Personally, I'd be willing roll the dice and go with an ENS pretender and see what happens.

But, as I mentioned earlier, if you don't like leaving things to chance I think wardens are perfectly usable with a light bless (EN first, FW are also nice).

[Nightfall]

Personally I'd prefer E9N4 - net 0 encumbrance on your wardens and 4 points of reinvig for your sacred mages.

I think that E4D9N4 is interesting, opens up all death, Lamia Queens and HiS. And you still have positive scales at Dom 8.

[Shangrila00]

It's worth noting that of those only Vanheim has definitively better access to magic; with both wider and higher paths than Man.

What's with this ridiculous backpedaling? This is what you claimed before:


Since you have trouble comprehending English I'll highlight it for you.

So you were just making up your own nonsensical definition of "better magic"? All those nations have either more paths and equal levels, or the same number of paths at higher (thanks to better booster access) levels. Their paths also synergise better, but lets ignore that, and stick to your definition. And you're still wrong, Mictlan and Bandar Log.

Only if your incredibly bad...

It will expand faster than Mictan, without any attrition, and you should only need 2 lord wardens from the capital before your second fort takes over... Less if your a little lucky and get an indy priest province.

Do learn to read, preferably without making up your own definitions. There will be indy priests in your cap circle pretty much guaranteed. That's not the problem. The problem is Knights of Avalon expand just as well as an equal resource value of high bless Wardens, and it's equal gold value too once you factor in the early temple and indy priests. Somewhat better actually, since Knights can handle crossbows and elephants better than Wardens.

That's why you don't expand any faster with high bless than without. Unlike Mictlan, resources limit how fast you can put out secondary expansion parties.

I think Torgon is right that your build depends on your tolerance for risk. Nothing is going to change the fact that you've got no native S/D/B access. Are you willing to take a risk that you'll find some indies to help you out or do you want to make sure your pretender can break you into those paths ASAP? Personally, I'd be willing roll the dice and go with an ENS pretender and see what happens.


That's not really the issue. Yes, having a pretender that can break you into S/D is great depending on your luck with indies. But it's just as important to have a storm stave in the mid-game so you can do battle magic without needing to use a super vulnerable and slow crone, or bust out flaming arrows to compliment your excellent archers or various other assorted battle magics that your national mages can't do by themselves.

[Soyweiser]

Nightfall, go to irc.gamesurge.net #dominions. And stick around for a while. Some people that are banned here had some disagreements with your ideas about bless nations.

[Calahan]

Nightfall, go to irc.gamesurge.net #dominions. And stick around for a while. Some people that are banned here had some disagreements with your ideas about bless nations.
Some?!? Think you left out an 'a' and two 'l's there Soy.


But it's funny to see newbs and patzers playing theory Dominions. They make me laugh. If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gki8DgcWCs0

[Mightypeon]

Considering getting minor E/S, there are also Mercs to consider.

[Nightfall]

But it's funny to see newbs and patzers playing theory Dominions. They make me laugh. If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gki8DgcWCs0

I'm happy to admit that I'm still mostly a newb Calahan, but I also have some direct multiplayer experience with both major bless MA Man and MA Mictlan in CBM 1.92, how many of the people dismissing me out of hand can say the same.

[Nightfall]

So you were just making up your own nonsensical definition of "better magic"?


Not only did you, once again, leave out an important word, but your lack of comprehension is not my problem.

Due to lack of blessers, Man can't even translate a high bless into notably faster indy expansion the way Mictlan can, unless it wastes half its year 1 capital recruitment on otherwise worthless priests.
It will expand faster than Mictan, without any attrition, and you should only need 2 lord wardens from the capital before your second fort takes over... Less if your a little lucky and get an indy priest province.
Do learn to read, preferably without making up your own definitions. There will be indy priests in your cap circle pretty much guaranteed. That's not the problem.

I'll just fix that quote for you so the outright lie is more obvious.

[llamabeast]

Stay calm chaps.

[HoleyDooley]

Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless on how strongly you feel they are wrong.

I love CBM, for me it makes the game 1000% more enjoyable, if you don't like it feel free to say so (politely) and enjoy playing vanilla. I am just using that as an example.

That is the beauty of playing wargames, people have their own and varying opinions on strategies and nations. Otherwise we would be stuck playing chess.

Express your opinion by all means, questions others opinions by all means, but do it nicely.

Remember strongly word posts usually come across MORE strongly than they were intended and can cause friction.

[Shardphoenix]

I think that E4D9N4 is interesting, opens up all death, Lamia Queens and HiS.D9? For a nation with magic weapon on troops? BUT WHY?

[Shangrila00]

Not only did you, once again, leave out an important word, but your lack of comprehension is not my problem.
...
I'll just fix that quote for you so the outright lie is more obvious.

So...no actual response to points made. I've noticed you like doing that, just ignoring anything you can't respond to, but this is the first time you've ignored everything. I guess we're done here.

[Valerius]

patzers

A what? Daaannngit, speak American.

* googles patzer *

Hmm, so I'm not a newb. That means I just got called a ... You wanker!

[Valerius]

Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless on how strongly you feel they are wrong.

I love CBM, for me it makes the game 1000% more enjoyable, if you don't like it feel free to say so (politely) and enjoy playing vanilla. I am just using that as an example.

That is the beauty of playing wargames, people have their own and varying opinions on strategies and nations. Otherwise we would be stuck playing chess.

Express your opinion by all means, questions others opinions by all means, but do it nicely.

Remember strongly word posts usually come across MORE strongly than they were intended and can cause friction.

Well said!

I kind of view builds as falling in different categories:

Optimal: Here you are trying to minimize luck as a factor. You're looking for a build that will build on your nation's strengths and cover for their weaknesses.

Viable: This approach can emphasize a certain aspect of the nation, trying to build on that strength at the cost of leaving yourself vulnerable in other areas (especially over the long term). While this approach isn't optimal it can certainly still be a competitive approach. It can also be very fun, allowing you to try something different.

Uncompetitive: This would be going against the grain of the nation, trying to them into something they're not. As an example, at one point I decided I wanted Eriu to become a blood nation - not dabble in blood mind you, but have it as an endgame strategy (note that SDRs were available - even I wouldn't have tried it without them ). Uncompetitive approaches can be fun as well but you're going to need a lot of luck in order to have a chance.

I view playing Man with a level 9 bless as falling into the viable category. It may not be optimal but I certainly don't think it falls into the they can NEVER win category.


That's not really the issue. Yes, having a pretender that can break you into S/D is great depending on your luck with indies. But it's just as important to have a storm stave in the mid-game so you can do battle magic without needing to use a super vulnerable and slow crone, or bust out flaming arrows to compliment your excellent archers or various other assorted battle magics that your national mages can't do by themselves.

The crones are certainly a pain with map move 1 and are fragile but I don't think you can rule out battle use and just confine them to the lab. But if you really need to boost your A2 mothers so they can cast storm the ESN pretender I mentioned can forge a crystal shield.

But I want to loop back to N magic because N is Man's strongest path. What I'm curious about is the 1 in 4 mothers who have N3 and what kind of damage they can do with flood of life (gems/booster required for that one), hex and mass polymorph later in the game. Air magic may have more punch on the battlefield but N is what you're best at and I'm curious just what can be done with those spells. Seems to me there was deliberate effort in the latest CBM to make N a better offensive path, with a special national spell for Man. Was that successful?

[Shardphoenix]

I think, N already has enough ways to deal with lonely thugs - vine arrow, stream of life (against self-buffing thugs), polymorph, charm... What it lacks is a good, low-level chaff-killer. Flood of life needs a ton of +N to be really effective, Storm of thorns is so high in Evo it may as well be non-existant, poison/sleep clouds need time to work and have friendly fire issues.

[Shangrila00]

The crones are certainly a pain with map move 1 and are fragile but I don't think you can rule out battle use and just confine them to the lab. But if you really need to boost your A2 mothers so they can cast storm the ESN pretender I mentioned can forge a crystal shield.


You need to take the pretender sleeping rather than imprisoned for that to matter, and that hurts if you are running a high bless. Man can't take sloth, and pretty much must take Growth 3, so it's hard to squeeze out acceptable scales under those limitations and still have a high bless with a sleeping pretender. What pretender were you talking about? Man has the best E/N bless chasis in the Lord of the Forest, but you can't really affordably add S to that.

[Valerius]

Yeah, I was looking at LotF. The old age thing is a pita. This is why the only old age nation I play is Aby and I just put boots of youth on every warlock I recruit.

How about a sleeping Arch Druid (another excellent pretender, though sadly you won't have meese manning the walls of your forts) with A2E9S2D1N4 dom 6 and completely neutral scales. Pay for growth with temp scales. Would really like to get magic 1, though. And it bugs me a bit that you can't boost your way to rings of sorcery but it does open up some nice stuff like hidden in sand.

One other factor here: forest of the ever young will knock 40 years off the caster's age, which will cover most of your mages with one casting. Costs 2 gems and gives you 10% insanity. That give you a bit of a safety net since you could have the mages that get bad afflictions cast it and then have daughters heal them up.

[Shardphoenix]

Arch Druid with A2E9S2D1N4
Hm, what for do you need A2 there?

[Valerius]

Arch Druid with A2E9S2D1N4
Hm, what for do you need A2 there?

Had 8 points left and couldn't do anything else with them. :p

[Shardphoenix]

For the same cost you can get sleeping E9N4S2 Lord of the Forest. You loose 1D, but get lots of chaff and titan-sized chassis, vulneurable to Mind Duel - but still able to do some thrashing against non-astral nations.

[Shardphoenix]

Costs 2 gems and gives you 10% insanity. 15%, IIRC.

[Corinthian]

You could also use transformation to deal with old age. But what old age really? Crones start with N3 and will get N4 like 31% of the time. For the ones with N3, transformation is always an option. Probably better than the forest of the ever young as it also gets rid of the upkeep.

No, the only thing that is mandatory for MA man is production scales.

[Valerius]

For the same cost you can get sleeping E9N4S2 Lord of the Forest. You loose 1D, but get lots of chaff and titan-sized chassis, vulneurable to Mind Duel - but still able to do some thrashing against non-astral nations.

I like them both a lot. The LotF's chaff is really useful to protect forts and act as decoys on the battlefield and he's certainly capable of acting in an SC role.

But the archdruid has virtues as well. Map move 3, stealthy and recuperation. So with this build you can get some early mind hunt protection (without the risk of magic duel), a couple extra paths, and later if you can get an elixir of life and cast ritual of returning you can use them in battle and they'll heal any afflictions if they are "killed" (admittedly, this last point is a lot more appealing to Eriu, which doesn't have national healers like Man does).


Costs 2 gems and gives you 10% insanity. 15%, IIRC.

I was getting 10% in my tests, with each casting increasing it by another 10%.

[Mightypeon]

Some random ramblings from me here:
-Currently still playing E9 MA Man (with some fairly positive scales and an imprisoned lord of the forest). I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well
-Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.
-Man can do the "position in the back on guard commander and attack in turn 5" things perhaps better than imho any other nation. This is due to Song of Quickness, and the ability to summon targetting friendly chaff. Your longbows can also hit people from really far away.
-Wrath of Avalon gives you a slightly more cost efficient way to get High HP chaff, and the Moose help a ton too.
-I had Magic one scales, and otherwise money scales. At the moment I am leading in research, although MA Ulm just put up the Forge.
-If you ever get access to the Wizard Mercs, get them! In the absence of true A4, Crystal Shields improve everything by a loving ton.

While MA Man is a competitive nation, the following issues are significant:
-I have around 8ish castles, only about 2 of them can actually recruit 9 wardens a turn, at Prod 3 Scales. Mictlan can fairly easily outproduce me in Sacreds, and I dont have a lot of ways to get fire resistance against them.
-I was fighting Shinu and Machaka early, while there may have been some value in handing out some frost brands to warden commanders in general, this clearly seemed like a poor choice against Skellie Spam.
-E9 Wardens have counters, but Skelli Spam is not among that. Heavy evocations are something else, but wardens are usually tough enough to survive one direct hit.
-Blessing stuff is a major problem. I could partly mitigate it by buying lots and lots of indie priests (and finally getting Zon Priests who are H2 and can get H3 via a Crystal Shield).

My Wardens are a nice asset, as is High E on my pretender (which helps a ton into getting E, and the pretender can forge boot+Ring which allows certain crones to get Gargoyles), I also liked having a highish dominion.
I would believe however that a rainbow may be better longterm, as the f.e. total lack of Death hurts.

[Nightfall]

No, the only thing that is mandatory for MA man is production scales.

If your using wardens rather than knights, neutral is enough, barely enough, but enough.

Production 3 is certainly worthwhile currently though.

[Shardphoenix]

I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well Now add Gift of Health to the mix - works really well with Wardens. And Crones. And everything, in fact. You`ll also pick some nice spells on the way there. :)

[Mightypeon]

Some random ramblings from me here:
-Currently still playing E9 MA Man (with some fairly positive scales and an imprisoned lord of the forest). I did rush Alteration 5/const 4 for a very early mother oak, as the number of heavy N nations was limited in this game. This plan worked out well
-Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.
-Man can do the "position in the back on guard commander and attack in turn 5" things perhaps better than imho any other nation. This is due to Song of Quickness, and the ability to summon targetting friendly chaff. Your longbows can also hit people from really far away.
-Wrath of Avalon gives you a slightly more cost efficient way to get High HP chaff, and the Moose help a ton too.
-I had Magic one scales, and otherwise money scales. At the moment I am leading in research, although MA Ulm just put up the Forge.
-If you ever get access to the Wizard Mercs, get them! In the absence of true A4, Crystal Shields improve everything by a loving ton.

While MA Man is a competitive nation, the following issues are significant:
-I have around 8ish castles, only about 2 of them can actually recruit 9 wardens a turn, at Prod 3 Scales. Mictlan can fairly easily outproduce me in Sacreds, and I dont have a lot of ways to get fire resistance against them.
-I was fighting Shinu and Machaka early, while there may have been some value in handing out some frost brands to warden commanders in general, this clearly seemed like a poor choice against Skellie Spam.
-E9 Wardens have counters, but Skelli Spam is not among that. Heavy evocations are something else, but wardens are usually tough enough to survive one direct hit.
-Blessing stuff is a major problem. I could partly mitigate it by buying lots and lots of indie priests (and finally getting Zon Priests who are H2 and can get H3 via a Crystal Shield).

My Wardens are a nice asset, as is High E on my pretender (which helps a ton into getting E, and the pretender can forge boot+Ring which allows certain crones to get Gargoyles), I also liked having a highish dominion.
I would believe however that a rainbow may be better longterm, as the f.e. total lack of Death hurts.

[Valerius]

Largely using Sleepers with Vine Shields and Frost Brands as Thugs so far. And 18N5W those arent overly expensive, but significnatly improve your damage output.

Did you find sleepers more effective than lord wardens? Sleepers have 3 more HP but otherwise they seem very similar.

[Mightypeon]

I have some kind of inbuilt thing against using recruitable human thugs somehow. Propably a blowback from a lot of failed attempts at thugging with Ulmish Black lords :)

[Shardphoenix]

I think, blessed Warden Lords should be more effective than Sleepers.

[Torgon]

Nightfall, go to irc.gamesurge.net #dominions. And stick around for a while. Some people that are banned here had some disagreements with your ideas about bless nations.
Some?!? Think you left out an 'a' and two 'l's there Soy.


But it's funny to see newbs and patzers playing theory Dominions. They make me laugh. If Matrix was here, he'd laugh too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gki8DgcWCs0

Care to elaborate? Not everyone has a chance to get on the IRC channel. Wouldn't mind hearing some other opinions especially if they come from vets.

I'm personally of the opinion that you're not allowed to insult people for ignorance if your also not willing to try to do anything about it.

It would also be nice if everyone turned down the heat a little bit in this conversation. We are talking about a game with little men who cast magic spells after all (a very fun one but still a game). Lets try to have fun.

[Torgon]

Optimal: Here you are trying to minimize luck as a factor. You're looking for a build that will build on your nation's strengths and cover for their weaknesses.

Viable: This approach can emphasize a certain aspect of the nation, trying to build on that strength at the cost of leaving yourself vulnerable in other areas (especially over the long term). While this approach isn't optimal it can certainly still be a competitive approach. It can also be very fun, allowing you to try something different.

Uncompetitive: This would be going against the grain of the nation, trying to them into something they're not. As an example, at one point I decided I wanted Eriu to become a blood nation - not dabble in blood mind you, but have it as an endgame strategy (note that SDRs were available - even I wouldn't have tried it without them ). Uncompetitive approaches can be fun as well but you're going to need a lot of luck in order to have a chance.

I view playing Man with a level 9 bless as falling into the viable category. It may not be optimal but I certainly don't think it falls into the they can NEVER win category.


But does minimizing luck really = optimal? Just because you're minimizing luck doesn't mean you're maximizing the number of times you win.

Seems like this would be accurate with a relatively strong nation. Sure if you minimize the luck involved you'll end up in a good position every time. However, with a weaker nation you may actually want to play to the high risk strategies. Your downside is always limited: the worst that can happen is that you loose, and I'd rather loose fast than loose slow.

[Shardphoenix]

However, with a weaker nation you may actually want to play to the high risk strategies.Man going high-bless seems to be a high-risk low-reward strategy - Man already has very good knights (not only Knights of Avalon, but regular knights too) and great archers. Adding another hard-hitting high-prot unit doesn`t seem to add much tactical flexibility even in the beginning, besides knights and wardens have similiar counters.

[Torgon]

However, with a weaker nation you may actually want to play to the high risk strategies.Man going high-bless seems to be a high-risk low-reward strategy - Man already has very good knights (not only Knights of Avalon, but regular knights too) and great archers. Adding another hard-hitting high-prot unit doesn`t seem to add much tactical flexibility even in the beginning, besides knights and wardens have similiar counters.

There are multiple differences between knights and wardens.

The biggest one is stealth. Stealth is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers. A few lord warden led raiding parties can be a huge pain in someones side during a war.

Second, they're sacred, this gets you the bless but almost as important it gets you cheap upkeep. If your relying on knights and archers alone your upkeep is quickly going to become a serious problem.

21 vs. 18 standard damage. May not seem like much but it's important vs. higher protection units. True knights have the lance strike but that can be easily countered with a screen of cheap chaff.

Higher MR. 14 vs. 10.

Knights of A do have the magical Alicorn attack, which is pretty important, but then you don't have to choose between knights of A and wardens. You can have them both.

Additionally, as long as you leave your regular knights and archers out of the mix you have entire armies with forest survival, which depending on the map can dramatically increase you're flexibility.

[Valerius]

But does minimizing luck really = optimal? Just because you're minimizing luck doesn't mean you're maximizing the number of times you win.

I think minimizing luck was poorly phrased - it would have been better to say not relying on luck.

Perhaps more to the point: being able to change gears and not putting all your eggs in one basket. I mean, Man has some nice units - they're not like Mictlan where the sacreds are head and shoulders above the rest of the lineup (and where you can segue into excellent summons that require only blood slaves, not gems). Nightfall and I both used one level 9 bless and a pair of 4s in our builds. Changing his D9 bless to a D4 will buy him four scales (and still give a nice entry into D magic as well as combo path spells like hidden in sand and lamias). Changing my E9 to E4 would buy *6* scales - that will buy you a lot more mages (faster research, more combat magic) and a lot more of your other troops. Redirect some of those points to better magic diversity as desired.

So that's why I don't think a level 9 bless for Man is optimal. But it's certainly playable and fun and honestly things will get boring if everyone goes for scales/magic diversity/light bless builds.

This discussion is getting me interested in playing Man since they've got a significant stealth aspect (my favorite part of the game). I just don't know if I have the patience for dealing with old age on the crones...

[Valerius]

The biggest one is stealth. Stealth is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers. A few lord warden led raiding parties can be a huge pain in someones side during a war.

It's worth mentioning that mothers of avalon can add some punch to your raiding parties. The sacreds probably won't need it, even with just a light bless, but it's a nice boost for woodsmen raiding parties.

[rdonj]

If you really want stealth, there's nothing preventing you from buying some wardens even without a bless and using them for the stealth aspect. They don't even really need a bless to be decent PD raiders. They'll suffer more attrition that way though.

[Shardphoenix]

Torgon:
There are multiple differences between knights and wardens.Yes, but...
The biggest one is stealth.You don`t really need a heavy bless for stealth-raiding with 17 base prot. units.
And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers.So what? Eriu can have even better stealthy force in their thugs.
you have entire armies with forest survival,As long as you go without mages, yes. "Chicken isn`t a bird" as they say in my country. Mother of Avalon isn`t a real combat mage, you need couple A3 crones, and crones have mapmove 1.
which depending on the map can dramatically increase you're flexibilityDramatically? Well, if map consists of forests and nothing else - then yes.
21 vs. 18 standard damage. May not seem like much but it's important vs. higher protection units. What high-protection targets are we talking about? If you run into Ulm early on - you`d better use knights anyway. Black Guardians obliterate wardens. And if you`ve taken a rainbow instead of high-bless - later on you can deploy a couple boosted crones with Destruction/Weapons of Sharpness. That`ll do you much more good against high-protection targets, while even with high E bless you risk your pretender to be late for the party.
Valerius:
Changing his D9 bless to a D4 What for? You need only 2D for lamias and climbing up D ladder. Do you think doubling affliction chance of a melee unit is worth the points?

[Torgon]

You don`t really need a heavy bless for stealth-raiding with 17 base prot. units.

True wardens can raid with out the bless. But bless allows you to raid with 1. Much lower numbers 2. With almost zero attrition.

Additionally, its not just about raiding, its also a matter of taking said raiding parties and recombining rapidly into a very hard hitting force to which a heavy bless provides a significant multiplier.

So what? Eriu can have even better stealthy force in their thugs.

Yes, Eriu has good stealth thugs. So what? Why do I care about what Erie can do with their thugs. Last I checked we were talking about relative power of two different builds for man. We can get back on the subject of man's relative power vs. other nations, but I think we both agree there. They're a relatively weak nation compared to many others. Not disagreeing about that.


As long as you go without mages, yes. "Chicken isn`t a bird" as they say in my country. Mother of Avalon isn`t a real combat mage,
I think you're underestimating the strength of mothers in a fight. Here's basically everything you can do with them:

Sprites, Swarm, Hex, wooden warriors/mass protection, false fetters, false horror, wind guide, fog warriors, sleep cloud, breath of the dragon, poison cloud, stream of life, flood of life, storm of thorns, lightning bolt, orb lightning, thunderstrike, storm, wrathful skies, haste, all your spellsongs, poison ward, relief, serpents blessing, mass regen, siren's blessing, thunder ward, arrow fend, mass flight, storm warriors, confusion, panic, sleep, charm, growing fury

Now some of these require a nature booster, an air booster, or an air booster + summon storm power, but what else do want them to be able to do. This is list isn't a load of useless combat spells. And mothers are cheap, sacred, and stealthy, so you'll have a crap ton of them running around.

However, I won't argue that they're are better combat mages out there, of course there are. However, even if the mothers didn't have as much they could do they're all you have outside of the cap. You have to work with whats given to you. Obviously its nice to have a few crones around, but their numbers are always going to be limited.

you need couple A3 crones, and crones have mapmove 1.


So what, cloud trap them in prior to important fights, give them boots of flight if you have an important one you need to move around the battlefield. Also you're main armies moving at mapmove one anyway as it takes territory. Flexibility is important for reaction forces and reinforcement.


Dramatically? Well, if map consists of forests and nothing else - then yes.
I've run into numerous situations where a forest was blocking retreat or reinforcement. The difference between one turn of movement and two turns can be pretty dramatic.


What high-protection targets are we talking about? If you run into Ulm early on - you`d better use knights anyway. Black Guardians obliterate wardens. And if you`ve taken a rainbow instead of high-bless - later on you can deploy a couple boosted crones with Destruction/Weapons of Sharpness. That`ll do you much more good against high-protection targets, while even with high E bless you risk your pretender to be late for the party.

Ulms not the only nation with high protection units.

Arco: hoplites or heart companions, 17 prot. Knights do 1 damage on average, wardens do 4

Ermor: Praetorians or Triarius, 17 prot

Marignon: Knights of the chalice or men at arms, 17 or 15 prot

Abyssia: 16 prot on all heavy infantry

Jonthiem: 17 prot on almost all their giants outside of militia

I could go on. Many of these are good units for these nations and will show up in their armies. 21 vs. 18 damage basically quadruples your damage output. Against slightly lower but still decent protections of around 14 or 15 it doubles your damage output. And a square of knights only gets 2 attacks at 18 damage after the first strike, the other two are only at 12. Wardens get 3 at 21. This is hardly insignificant.

Also you can boost your crones without taking a rainbow. Find some E2 indi, an E2 merc, or just suck it up and empower for 30 gems. You're still basically saying that a 30 gem investment that you wont even have to make in most cases is so expensive as to outweigh any benefit you get from a bless.

[Shangrila00]

I don't think that's how damage with exploding dice rolls works. It would make the B4 bless as good as the W9, at 50% greater damage. Do we have a mathmatician here?

In any case, any well played Man will have both knights and Wardens, and longbowmen too regardless of bless. It's just relative proportions that change. It's not like Mictlan where the bless multiplies the effectiveness of the entire army and extends to the endgame summons.

And making that list of battlemagic useable as early as possible is one of the major arguments against a high bless. Take flaming arrows, which is only available off a pretender, despite being obviously ridiculously good with Man, who on top of great archers, has excellent research (cheap forts, cheap temples, efficient sacred researcher), and some interesting national spells in enchantment. Like Song of Power which you left out of your list, and Man's the only nation that has it and can actually make good if unpredictable use of it, with its expendable N3s. I've had some success with a F4A4 Phoenix in tests. Okay, it does very little either for diversity or bless, but it does give you early high air magic, and it's pretty much ideal for supercharging your archers with the mobility to support more than one archer army if necessary.

As a sidenote, how good are sprites? I've never actually used them since you can't script them. Is it worth summoning a Faery Queen just to chain summon sprites that you can script?

[Torgon]

I don't think that's how damage with exploding dice rolls works. It would make the B4 bless as good as the W9, at 50% greater damage. Do we have a mathmatician here?


So damage is STR + weapon damage + DRN (two exploding 6 six sided dice)

Protection roll is protection at location + DRN

Defender takes damage in hit points equal to the difference. So yes, you are correct that when STR + weapon = protection the expected value of the damage is greater than 0 since the lower half of the distribution is cut off.

Use a little monte carlo with protection of 17. Str + weapon = 18 has an expected value of around 2.66. Str + weapon = 21 has an expected value of 4.75. So around 180%, about double the expected damage output.

So you're correct, I overstated the effectiveness. It just about doubles your damage vs. protection 17 forces. Against protection 12 forces its 6.45 vs 9.23.

In any case, any well played Man will have both knights and Wardens, and longbowmen too regardless of bless. It's just relative proportions that change. It's not like Mictlan where the bless multiplies the effectiveness of the entire army and extends to the endgame summons.

Agree 100%. I just find that KoA out of the cap generally fill all the need I have for knights when I've played with a high bless. And yes, archers are still definitely worth recruiting in the right circumstances.

Like Song of Power which you left out of your list, and Man's the only nation that has it and can actually make good if unpredictable use of it, with its expendable N3s.

I had it in there. Just said all the spellsongs rather than listing all of them. IMO SoP is just really hard to use effectively, as you have to script and set it up perfectly or its just an unmitigated disaster. It seems like a cool spell, but I've never been able to use it in practice unless i was just going up against someone who didn't remember that man has it. If you've found a way to make it effective I'm all ears.

I've had some success with a F4A4 Phoenix in tests. Okay, it does very little either for diversity or bless, but it does give you early high air magic, and it's pretty much ideal for supercharging your archers with the mobility to support more than one archer army if necessary.

Phoenix is good. It just seems like that build makes man just as much of a one trick pony as the bless option. And its a trick thats much more easily countered than just a load of heavily armored, high damage, high stat stealth wardens.

[Shardphoenix]

Phoenix is good. It just seems like that build makes man just as much of a one trick pony as the bless option. And its a trick thats much more easily countered than just a load of heavily armored, high damage, high stat stealth wardens.A4 on pretender frees up some A gems for guided arrows or wyverns. F4 gives you Zmey, and a head slot on phoenix means cheaper F5 for fire kings and, eventually, emberlords (if you need them).

[Shangrila00]

Phoenix is good. It just seems like that build makes man just as much of a one trick pony as the bless option. And its a trick thats much more easily countered than just a load of heavily armored, high damage, high stat stealth wardens.

Well, it's countered by researching to evo 5, or more completely enchantment 6 for nations with air magic. Nations without air magic are kind of **** out of luck if they rely on mass armies and isn't Abyssia. By the time you get to Evo 5, sacred troops in the direct combat role are pretty much obsolescent anyway against most nations, except for Eagle Warriors and EA TC's Wot5E, and as stealth raiders, they have until evo 6 and mind hunt for full effectiveness.

I see it as basically the same as high bless Man. Weaker year 1, though Man's still a terrible rush target, but otherwise high power to roughly the same point. Better against nations without air magic but with strong astral, like Bandar Log, worse against someone like Eriu, but overall even. However as mentioned, even after flaming arrows gets countered, the Phoenix does have some solid uses, more so than a high bless pretender in Earth or Water at least.

Regarding Song of Power, it's no game changer obviously. But you'll have diseased crones not worth rejuvenating. Script mirror image, mistform, flight, attack, Song of Power for some shenanigans against high value sacred armies. Later in the game, N3 mothers plus fog warriors can do much the same thing on a larger scale. Easy enough to counter, but good for a surprise.