Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[curtadams]

In strict game terms the fever fetish nerf isn't so bad. Recruit an indy commander and stick a fetish on him 9 turns. You'll pay about 50 gold all told for the 9 gems, which is less than 6 gold/gem - a great price.

The real world micromanagement of a big pile of fetishes is of course utterly grotesque. From the micromanagement point of view, they should incapacitate a commander somehow rather than kill him. At the very least if a fetish kills somebody in a lab the fetish should go back to the lab. Actually, that would be a good rule for any noncombat death in a lab. If I forget to take a booster off a commander aging to death can't the undertakers take the magic items off the corpse?

[thejeff]

But, if I understand the fever fetish correctly, it doesn't even produce a gem every turn. Which leaves it even more nerfed. By far the worst of the gem producing items.

[Evil Dave]

I've run some short tests, and on commanders that get disease afflictions, it produces a gem nearly every turn. There does seem to be a start-up period where the commander is sick, but he isn't coughing up gems yet.

[Sheap]

heh, I like that. The commander with the fever fetish is diseased, and has a terrible hacking cough, eventually he coughs up gems instead of phlegm.

[moderation]

Sheap said:
heh, I like that. The commander with the fever fetish is diseased, and has a terrible hacking cough, eventually he coughs up gems instead of phlegm.

The phlegm is the gem!

[Sensori]

Great necro.

[secretperson]

This is an old thread I know, but I was actually looking for a guide on Machaka and found this thread linked. I'd like to point out a few nice things I've noticed about Machaka.

Yes Black Sorcerers are quite old. The interesting thing about them though is that they cannot die from disease. Their hp goes down from 9 to 0 then the next turn they are back to 9. The nice thing about this is that they even will heal afflictions they had before sometimes. I suspect this is tied to the fact that when they die they go to spider form, but switch back to normal form as the new turn begins. This would account for the afflictions disappearing as I recall reading that certain form switching has a chance to remove afflictions.

Obviously this means that while the old age can be annoying (ie poor precision) It really isnt much of a problem other than reducing hp in battles, aside from the occasional feebleminded/mute. But then again, 9 isn't much in the first place. Interestingly enough Black Sorcerers will never die with a fever fetish on them. This goes along nicely with the fact that most of them can cast Flame Arrows in conjunction with Phoenix power.

[Meglobob]

thejeff said:
But, if I understand the fever fetish correctly, it doesn't even produce a gem every turn. Which leaves it even more nerfed. By far the worst of the gem producing items.

Actually, I think its a very, very good gem producing item. I have been sticking them on great hawks (15hps), I get 10'ish fire gems out of it. Then I just repeat the process, over and over again.

Nothing wrong with Machaka, its a powerful, fun nation to play.

[Twan]

Personnally the only problem I have with Machaka is the lack of death gems, which seem to be a site distribution problem (or just bad luck for me). I've noted playing Ermor and C'tis that I find many little death income sites with astral or water searches and the very good death gem sites only with d3 mages ; the d1 sites seem to be mostly battlefields giving just 1 gem. With Machaka you'll have lots of d1 mages, a small number of d2, only 1/40 black sorcerer d3, and you have no astral or water mages to find lifeless lakes etc..., what, coupled with no death gem capitol income makes death gems very rare (I've never found a death income site with a fire or earth search, don't know if some exist, I've found one or two dying forests with nature but they seem rare). So you have to hope having luck with Dark Knowledge, and DK cost 1 more gem than all other site detection spells, without a starting death income you won't be able to cast it a lot without alchemizing your other gems (and if you are unlucky you lose your rare death gems in the process without finding good sites). Don't know if I am cursed but in the 3 games I've played with Machaka I had less than 10 death gems income after 30 or so turns, each time with more than 30 provinces all explored d1 at least and some with dark knowledge, and you need a lot those gems for boosters as d2 is the minimum to make this path useful on the battlefield.

Machaka has also the general "no air" weakness, a problem worse for nations with very light (weak against arrows) or very heavy (not cost effective against lightning) troops, the two kinds of troops Machaka have, but it's something that affect any non air nation. When there are anti-fire spells with water/earth, and when water magic is the easiest to develop, allowing all nations to use anti-cold spells/items, the only anti-shock / anti-arrows spells/items are in air magic, and air magic is ridiculously hard to develop with the boosters only forgeable at A4. The air nations are boosted by the new randoms system giving no way to all non air nations to have protective spells/items to counter wind guide or lightnings without an enchantress or crystal amazons province, or incredible amounts of gems for the empowerements (80 to have a mage able to cast thunder ward, 120 for arrow fend, 170 to start to forge air boosters... hum). I think it would be a good idea to add anti-arrows items/spells out of air magic, in example in fire ("arrow combustion"), an anti-shock version of "fire ward" accessible with two non-air path, or an air booster needing just a level 1 like the water one.

[curtadams]

Machaka has good access to Legions of Steel, which is a very effective anti-arrow spell. Lightning is a weakness, but I think it's good that most nations have weaknesses, and with Machaka able to field almost unlimited amounts of LoS'ed chaff (cheap warriors plus supply items), it's a pretty mild weakness. Lightning Machaka often means frying 1 or 2 10/3 warriors - big whoop.

I agree Machaka would be far stronger with death gems. However, 27.5% of sorcerers, and all Dark Sorcerers, have D2, so D2 is easy to come by.