Marverni

[Sombre]

You don't get the parry based def bonus against trampling afaik.

[Foodstamp]

I was messing around with various nations the other day trying to look for tactics that people normally don't consider.

One thing I tried with Marverni was a fire9/earth9 bless. The blessed sacreds are pretty much godmode against indies even in ridiculously small numbers. 4 Boar warriors and 1 blesser can rip most common independents to shreds. You can crank these armies out 1 per turn at the start of the game too.

I am thinking about trying them out in a longer game and tweaking the bless with a little less earth for better scales. Probably not the greatest strategy in the world, but it sure does entertain me .

[Zenzei]

I'm not a fan of double 9 blesses, except for the S9X9 blesses via Oracle, because of the horrible scales that come with them. So with that in mind I used an imprisoned E9N6 great mother in my Marverni test run (first 12 turns). Dominion strength was 7 and scales were order3/sloth2/misfortune1/magic1.

I really liked that particular setup. By the turn 13 I had conquered 22 provinces, had two forts under construction and really nice gold income. My expansion forces, which I recruited every other turn, were made of Gutuater + 6 to 10 Boar Warriors. I didn't recruit any other units because this was a simple test, with additional recruitment I might have been able to snag one or two extra provinces. Indy strenght was 5 and there was plenty of room on the map.

E9N6 bless has great synergy with Boar Warriors because berserk goes very well together with regen and high prot.
E9N6 has also very good synergy with Maverni's mages because it gives reinvigoration and regeneration lessens the effect of old age somewhat.

For some early research I think the best choices are alteration 3 (eagle eyes & protection), evocation 4 (arcane probing & blade wind), thaumaturgy 3 (site searchers & teleport) and construction 4 (clams, hammers, thistle maces & shrouds of the battle saint). The research order depends on game situation but evocation 4 first is probably the safe choice.

EDIT: Looks like my thoughts about Marverni are pretty similar to fantasma's, except for the bless part. I think N9 doesn't give big benefits compared to N6 and berserk is a real liability with sacred human mages. N9 also cost a lot more of design points. Other than that, what was that saying...great minds think alike.

[Forrest]

I did 13 provinces by turn 13 with 2 castle starts. However it was a bad start and I found barbarians eat Blessed Boar Warriors. Strange thing was they seemed to do better against Hirdmen and Huskarls, with a little archer help. Biggest problem with this method is that a lucky arrow at the start of the battle leaves your Boar Warriors with out a commander. Maybe I am just unlucky in this way.

Over all E9N6 worked well. Money was not a issue without over taxing.

While you loose the woodland movement, indie preachers make good commanders for this method which combines with the 200 gp churches. Leaving you mages for better things.

Also Heat 2 does not seem to bother Marverni.

[triqui]

***did 13 provinces by turn 13***

That's pretty low i think.

[Foodstamp]

I am going to try an earth 9 / death 9 PoD next to see how that works out. Should be a solid bless for the boar warriors and the mages. I mainly want to see how it stacks up against the fire/earth bless when it comes to taking indies with less than 5 guys .

[Forrest]

I thought you might feel that way. Reality was they just kept dying. In the end I had 3 armies left. One of which had not seen combat. Better than 60% of the Boar Warriors I built were dead by turn 13. I added 15 of those indie monkey archers to two groups just to keep them alive. I did have several provinces next to my capital that these troops were the wrong troops to attack with which added travel time.

I guess you guys are just better than me cause I usually have trouble keeping up with your numbers.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
I am going to try an earth 9 / death 9 PoD next to see how that works out. Should be a solid bless for the boar warriors and the mages. I mainly want to see how it stacks up against the fire/earth bless when it comes to taking indies with less than 5 guys .

A nice bless, and a powerful SC none the less...