Malleus Maleficarum

[Swan]

This is my summary for Marignon,fiery justice, and will be mainly a sp guide.
I made this guide because marignon is a funny nations but there aren't guides for Middle age.
but don't watse time and let's burn some heretics.
Pretender
Thematically the virtue or the baphomet are the way to go.
you will not need a sc, because marignon has plenty of angelic summon and crossbow can take care of rush.
You will also not need a rainbow pretender, because the main magic path you are looking for(S,F,A.E) are covered by your national mages and you should not worry about other gems(N can be easy found on indie,D is useless,B is useless too)
I suggest
1)a phoenix with f9/Ax awakened or dormant in order to cast buff to your archer(wind guide,flaming arrows).
2)a baphomet f9/s9 for bless(this will double the life of a flagellant and flaming attacks+improved attack skill means they can hurt).

scales
Ord/turm:i'll choose order to reduce the possibily of bad events on your first turns.
turmoil could be good if you need design points(it makes good sinergy with luck)

Death/growth: your best mage and your best priets are old so i'll chose growth.on small map you can choose death but then you will have to protect old mages with anti-aging products.

prod/sloth:if you choose to take the flagellants path, you should take sloth,otherwise take production1 or 2

hot/cold: take hot 1 or 2 because they are design point and this will stop water mages and empower fire mages because some spell are related to temperature scale(fire=hot,water=cold)

magic/drain:you need your crossbow buffed, so i'll take magic 1.

luck/unluck: i never choose unluck because a bad event in the begin can gimp you forever.

Unit
All your units have good morale(11+) with the expection of the crossbowman, normal health(10) and good armor (not excelent)

Crossbowman:You will have to recruit legions of them and then you can begin to laugh evily; buffed with wind guide and flaming arrows, castable by your pretender of a grandmaster with an A pick enmpowered, they can clean the screen from the bad heretics

Infantry: 3 flavor(sword,pike,halberd) but no shield.ouch.
they cost 20+resources,too much for killing them with your arrows.skip

Man at arms: here we go.15 prot,13 def. your best defensive infantry. it doesn't worth a buff.

Royal guard: cavalry with good def and good attack. they attack twice a turn so they are your best offensive weapons for meele if you dont recruit paladins.

Paladins:3 attack for the first turn,2 for the rest. good prot(17) and offensive ability.
a little bit expensive(80g,37res) but who dont like a legion of holy knight with flaming weapons? an heretic that must be burnt,i'll tell you.sacred.
on that (if your lucy) you can use enrage from an indie druid empowered without much problem.

flagellant: two attck but low att value(9 and they literally die like flies).
You can recruit them in any fort,so, with a good dominion you shuld be able to recruit a lot of them. a S9/F9 bless really helps them, and is better than W9(S9 gives them 2 lifes and f9 increse att and dmg.)i dont recruit them.sacred

Commander
scout:"look comment on every other national scout"

spy:with them you can spy. nothing special

assasin: useful to assasinate the enemy of the god.doesn't worth nice magic item(an armor negating weapon could be useful anyway)

paladin: a g.o.r.ed Knight of the chalice. maybe useful as thug.sacred

friar: a stealth preacher, useful to lower heretics faiths from the shadows.sacred

inquisitor: very good to clean your lands from the false god due to inquisitor.sacred

high inquisitor: an improved inquisitor. he have H3 so he can cast divine blessing and can reach H4 when propheted.I always use him as priest for my army because he can be recruited everywhere.sacred

initiate:lesser elemental spammer, later will o' the wisp spammer

witch hunter:2f/1s/1h, useful as battle mage for fire spells.sacred

grandmaster:f3/s2/h2 [100% a/f/s/e;10% a,f,s,e] , very good and cheap (270g). may have air pick(wind guide and prec booster) or eath pick(astral coin ect).cap only;can be used as researcher or caster.sacred.

magic path

alt4(wind guide)-->cons4-->ench5(flaming arrows)-->evocation5(falling fire)-->conj9
atleast this is the path i take in order to destroy the heretics.
or you can choose to go alteration 6and take iron warriors then construction 7 for sharpned weapons and then buff your horde of flagellant(you will have to use alot of empowered mages,so is not a good strategy)
in thaum4 you can take vengeance of the dead and use your flagellant just to let them die vs your opponents'god/prophet(this strategy works best with a d/b bless,but is more funny than useful)




summon
marignon got plenty of nice angelic soldiers so let's use the in our crusade versus the blasphemy created by the mere existence of the enemy.

harbringer[conj6;S4]: A3 so can use some buff, very good vs undead due to the horn,good hp.good choice

Heavenly wrath[conj7,s3f1] blood vengeance, better than the harbringer, but it lack horn.

angelic host[conj7,s5]:6 angels for 50 gem.i prefer harbringer or angel of fury.can be used to conquer far province with weak defense.

heavenly choir[conj9,s7f2]:a seraph.with 3 harbringer.and some angel of the host.summon him.now.

For the last summon you can use the s9/f9 baphomet pretender or an empowered grand master(astral cap+astral coin+ring of wizardy+some empoweremnt)

[Calchet]

I'm probably going to get yelled at for actually going and *posting* this... and I'll be the first to admit it's not the nicest of posts, but sometimes there's just nothing nice to be said - and who knows? I might inspire future improvement!

To begin with, if you're in such a hurry that you can't spare the time to type up your guide using words rather than chatspeak, you probably didn't have time to think up any worthwhile content, either.
Actually reading the "guide" seems to confirm my suspicion - a rushed job with no substance whatsoever.

Your scales section seem to be nothing but butchered descriptions of what effects the scales have, something that's much easier to read in the manual or in-game - there's nothing about which ones are useful for the nation in question, which might have given it some redeeming value.
The pretenders section is roughly twice as useful, mostly because you actually mention something resembling strategy.

Units? Crossbowmen with buffs and either heavy infantry or paladins, with no reasons given. Okay, that's nice, I guess.

Commanders... well, I'll be darned! You can spy with spies! And assassinate with assassins! What will they think of next? Mages casting spells?!

Magic... well, it looks like we're back to the crossbow buffs. Is that the key strategy, I wonder? Then angels?

Here's a summary of the "guide", for those who'd rather not navigate that jungle of Weblish:

Marignon in five easy steps
1. Build crossbows.
2. Buff crossbows with your pretender.
3. Summon angels.
4. ???
5. Victory!

[Endoperez]

Calchet - you have a point, but you don't have to say that so harsh. We don't have a decent MA Marignon guide yet.

Many guides are written in this "here's all they have, these things aren't worth it" format, and there's nothing wrong in listing all the options, especially if e.g. the assassins aren't worth giving expensive magical equipment.

The current grammar is so bad it makes it hard to understand parts of the text, and that could use polish. As was said, scale suggestions should be more affirmative, e.g. "If you focus on Flagellants, take sloth; go neutral otherwise."


Surprisingly, the crossbowmen/flaming arrows strategy Swan described isn't in the strategy index. The F9S9 flagellants aren't there either.

I wager that Swan was drunk or at least sleep-deprived when he wrote this (I know I post some WEIRD stuff when I'm tired), and I suggest that he'll have to write a proper Marignon guide as punishment for the sloppy grammar in this one. Thankfully it's all in the first post of the thread, so he can replace it with the better version.

[Sombre]

I'd say it's more that English isn't his first language. Not that the content is excusable.

[Swan]

Perhaps you are right : more than a guide is a summary.
the point about spy and assasin was that: they are nothing special.
crossbow is the core of marignon strategy for expansion until late game.
about scales what else could i have said? they are a nation with no weak points that you can fix with scales, so i simply wrote an opinion about what to take only for some of them(like temperature).
But anyway your "marignon in 5 easy steps" is right(point 4 is "evil laugh")

[Calchet]

The prime example in this case would be the three letters "You". In English, this is a word - and a beautiful one, for that matter!

"u" is usually merely a letter, and no word at all. The exception to this is when using what I call chatspeak, though you may know by other names, where it pretends to be a word. In regards to this specific butchery of the English language, some people actually dislike being addressed as such, since it implies that they aren't worth the amount of your time it would take to type the whole "you".

English not being a first language is not an excuse for these types of errors, especially not when the person in question actually does use the real word occasionally, proving that he does know how to type it - he just chooses not to, for reasons unknown.

I'm not demanding that anyone study the language to reach a high enough level of proficiency in order to post on the internet - I'm just asking that you take the few extra seconds required to use what you do know rather than slamming your forehead repeatedly against the keyboard hoping that words will come out.

In either case, if you do clean it up and expand it or call it a summary, I'll be glad to accept it as part of the internet, as well as a (moderately) useful contribution to the sum of human knowledge.

[Swan]

When i wrte "u" instead of you is when i write quickly; it's not that i choose to write wrong, is simply how i'm used to.
improved scales part.

[Swan]

and magic part

[Endoperez]

You don't have to be so harsh, Calchet. If it bothers you that much, you can help clean it up.

Swan, you should also mention the main battlemagic routes (Evocation and Thaumaturgy with the conjuration battlemagic-boosters), and little about forging. At least Ring of Wizardry (allows Earth Boots and Crystal Coins on Earth-random Grandmaster), Light/Banner of the Northern Star and such.
Also, using Smite in expansion and early fights, mapmove 2 armies (everyone except normal infantry and Grandmasters, even them if you get winged boots), using spies to shut off enemy economy etc, what to do if you are at war against Abysia, etc.

Initiates are F1, so they can't be used in communion, but if you've got Fire gems to burn a bunch of initiates can summon a respectable amount of Lesser Fire Elementals. Later you can use Will'O'the'Wisps instead, and you get two for every gem you spend, and there's also Combustion and Blindness and Bonds of Fire if you don't care about losing them any more.

[Tifone]

The tones of the thread are becoming... uncomfortable to read. Calchet, if you don't think this isn't a guide woth your attention, please just consider it the will of Swan to share some views, some ideas, some ways he had fun with Marignon he thinks would be funny, and maybe role-playish for others to try. We're in an adult and friendly environment and acting grammar-nazi and going all bold words is a bit harsh I think. Help Swan improve the guide with your thoughts, will ya? Here, a beer to everyone!

Salute!