Nation Guide for Marverni

[Sombre]

I think nobles are better than barechests even when we're talking mass prot spells flying around, due to the way armour and base prot combine.

[iainuki]

I'd like to respond to a couple of points.

First, about slingers: I didn't mean that the slingers were useless in all circumstances, but rather they only have some niche uses and that independents outcompete them for the most part. A Marverni slinger is just as gold-expensive as a Marverni bare chest, and for the most part I usually find I'm gold-limited, not resource-limited, in recruitment. Moreover, independent slingers and archers of various sorts are comparable to the Marverni slingers and because they're resource-cheap, you can often hire 20 or so a turn from a forest or mountain province; I'd rather spend fortress turns on other units. Are there any real advantages slingers have that should make you choose them over independent archers, presuming you have access to both? Against archers, I've found slingers not to be so good: even shortbows outrange you and often the tribal or independent archers have more armor than you do so the shield doesn't give too much of an advantage. The AI/independents puts its archers way in the back so slingers will usually run into the heavy-infantry line before being able to shoot the archers, and against humans, a slingers-in-front deployment is easy to rout with a cavalry charge. Against glamored troops, slingers break glamor well but they have extreme trouble doing the killing afterwards. A typical example is Vanheim, where their huskarls have protection 9 and a shield, so they take little damage from slings but the Marverni bare chest's broad sword still works quite well, and unlike javelins and melee weapons, Marverni has no guaranteed easy way to buff them. (Yes, flame arrows, if you have fire on your pretender and found independent fire mages or can spare your pretender to buff your slingers.) Finally, Marverni gets lots of slingers in its PD, so even if you never hire a single one you still often have decent numbers available.

Eponi knights get two attacks in CBM, but not in vanilla. In CBM I can see wanting to close first, though that's always a bit risky in MP because your opponent is probably thinking the same thing. I have more experience with vanilla so that's what I thought of first--I will probably add an addendum to future versions of the guide, which I will probably put on the wiki.

The trouble with Carnute bare chests is I'm not sure when I'd use them. They really aren't much better at armor penetration than Marverni bare chests (7 axe + 11 Str = 18 versus 6 broad sword + 10 Str = 16) without berserk, but if you're using Carnute bare chests instead of Carnute nobles chances are you're up against high-damage or armor-negating attacks which will kill them in one hit and thus they won't go berserk. In the later parts of the game, I find that I have an overabundance of resources so I'd rather just hire more Carnute nobles even if I'm facing high-damage or armor-negating attacks because they aren't much more gold-expensive than the Carnute bare chests.

Fantomen, I don't understand your comment: "Marverni should take luck *and* order IMO. The bloodhenge druids are so good for kick starting bloodstone production that the lack of synergy is neglible."

I mean, I don't know what bloodhenge druids have to do with luck and order, and I've never seen bloodhenge druids as recruitables. (I have wished many times for them!) Luck and order can work if you're going for max scales; it works better in CBM, I think, because of the increased effect of luck on random events.

[thejeff]

Well, Marveni slingers have shields, which archers don't. You also get more sling bullets than arrows so you can keep firing in long battles. Slings are strength-based, right? So Strength of Giants would help.

But, yeah. Generally inferior to indy archers.

And I'd love to see recruitable Bloodhenge Druids. Even knowing they're not I'm still disappointed every time I find them and can only recruit normal druids. I think there might be a site? If not there should be.

[Amonchakad]

Originally Posted by iainuki

I will note going in that Marverni is not the best LA nation, not by a long shot, but I would argue it's not the worst, either.

Yeah, I also think that Marverni doesn't fare well in LA either

Stupid precisations beside, great guide! Really a good job

[Sombre]

Slings are not strength based.

[Baalz]

Good guide.

Originally Posted by iainuki

Baalz has some good suggestions for midgame tactics for Marverni, including teleporting druids. While druids with province defense support can rout impressively large armies, I've had some trouble teleporting in and routing the PD before something reaches me. Thus, I tend to be a bit more conservative than Baalz and use teleporting druids in pairs, with bottles of living water and swarm to delay the defenders while the druids kill them with blade wind or gifts from heaven

I find that the one man druid hit squad requires some fine tuning depending on what specific PD he's going up against - and doesn't work at all against some PD's (Caelum, for instance). Fortunately PD is the same every time so you can test out some scripts in a test game before dropping in on somebody in MP.

Earth elementals are great at tying up PD and sometimes work much better than evocations at dealing damage. 3 E gems = two earth elementals, which will squish plenty of different types of PD without worrying (much) about them closing on your druid. I find this tends to work better than living earth in most situations.

If you're doing a two man squad consider one summoning earth elementals and another buffing them (body ethereal or quickness/haste depending). You can rotate who's buffing and who's summoning to squeeze out extra buffed elementals.

Lantern shields (if you've managed to get those paths) can work well in tying up enemy PD.

Remote attack spells (call of the winds, call of the wild, arouse hunger, etc.) arrive at the same time as a teleporting druid and look a whole lot nastier when you drop mass protection/army of gold. Can be a good way to buy yourself some turns to hammer an enemy army.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by iainuki

The trouble with Carnute bare chests is I'm not sure when I'd use them. They really aren't much better at armor penetration than Marverni bare chests (7 axe + 11 Str = 18 versus 6 broad sword + 10 Str = 16) without berserk, but if you're using Carnute bare chests instead of Carnute nobles chances are you're up against high-damage or armor-negating attacks which will kill them in one hit and thus they won't go berserk. In the later parts of the game, I find that I have an overabundance of resources so I'd rather just hire more Carnute nobles even if I'm facing high-damage or armor-negating attacks because they aren't much more gold-expensive than the Carnute bare chests.

Yeah, sure the nobles are better if you are indeed not restricted by resources. I suppose this depends on your playstyle and if you take production or not. The way I play I usually don´t buy too many units until I need them and therefore I appreciate low recource units that can be massed on a few turns. I usually have lots of gold later in the game when I´m done building forts. When I have access to the more juicy buffs I find it very effective to spew out hordes of carnute bare chests with a druid or two to buff them up. If there is a fairy queen for fog warriors as well then the choice is even easier. But until you have those kind of buffs researched I´m not arguing the superiority of the nobles.

Fantomen, I don't understand your comment: "Marverni should take luck *and* order IMO. The bloodhenge druids are so good for kick starting bloodstone production that the lack of synergy is neglible."

I mean, I don't know what bloodhenge druids have to do with luck and order, and I've never seen bloodhenge druids as recruitables. (I have wished many times for them!) Luck and order can work if you're going for max scales; it works better in CBM, I think, because of the increased effect of luck on random events.

The bloodhenge druid is a Marverni hero, and you may get several. I play them with luck 3 and I usually land one or two before the end of year two, which gets you bloodstones much faster than scouts. But turmoil is not a good option for marverni, you need the gold. Hence order+luck.

[thejeff]

Bloodhenge Druid Hero. That's CBM only, I assume?

[Fantomen]

I don´t think so, but it´s possible. I´ve gotten used to playing with it on.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Bloodhenge Druid Hero. That's CBM only, I assume?

The answer is: you're entirely correct.