Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[Meglobob]

Amhazair said:
God, I love this game...

I started a game with Machaka earlier today (no particular reason), and after some playing I discover one of my now riderless spiders has the affliction: "Lost a couple of eyes" (game effect is the same as 'lost an eye' for regular units)

How in the name of god can you not love a game that does that?

More importantly: Why, oh why did I only find out about this game last month? I could have been playing it for years now, instead of throwing my life away with some of the (comparatively) dumb games I have been playing.


Okey, okey... I admit this was totally offtopic, but I still felt the need to share my enthousiasm about the lost couple of eyes

This was exactly how I felt, when I realised I had missed out big time on playing Dom2...Shrapnel/Illwinter need higher dominion to spread the word better....

[tibbs]

Amhazair said:
God, I love this game...

I started a game with Machaka earlier today (no particular reason), and after some playing I discover one of my now riderless spiders has the affliction: "Lost a couple of eyes" (game effect is the same as 'lost an eye' for regular units)

How in the name of god can you not love a game that does that?

More importantly: Why, oh why did I only find out about this game last month? I could have been playing it for years now, instead of throwing my life away with some of the (comparatively) dumb games I have been playing.


Okey, okey... I admit this was totally offtopic, but I still felt the need to share my enthousiasm about the lost couple of eyes

It's the little things like that which help make this game great. I had a kraken pretender with the affliction "Lost a few tentacles"

[Amhazair]

tibbs said:
It's the little things like that which help make this game great. I had a kraken pretender with the affliction "Lost a few tentacles"

Cool.

[Endoperez]

I've seen a Phoenix with "Beak chopped off".

[mivayan]

B0rsuk said:
I think it's nature magic that deals with increasing base protection. Fortunately Machaka has nature mages. Of course, it's just 10...
But there's an another spell: I don't remember the details, but it's Earth/Construction, high level, and grants 20 protection.

Iron warriors? Alt5, Earth2, gives hard, metallic hides = basic prot of 20. AoE 1 though, so not going to cover an army.

[Meglobob]

Twan said:
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.

I think on the death gem point you make Twan, you have just been plain unlucky. I have not really played Machaka in Dom3 but was my favourite nation in the Dom2 demo. I have played LA Caelum, Agartha and EA Nielfelheim in Dom3 and my best gem income in all 3 was death gems by perhaps 2-3 times any other gem type. So death sites are very plentiful normally.

I like your second point, its cool Machaka has no air or anti-air capabilty.
However doesn't fire make up for this anyway?

[Agrajag]

Meglobob said:
I think on the death gem point you make Twan, you have just been plain unlucky. I have not really played Machaka in Dom3 but was my favourite nation in the Dom2 demo. I have played LA Caelum, Agartha and EA Nielfelheim in Dom3 and my best gem income in all 3 was death gems by perhaps 2-3 times any other gem type. So death sites are very plentiful normally.

Now that I've actually noticed the point about death gem income (:X) I have to say that in Dom2, I found death gems were the most plentiful gems I've had, but in Dom3 I'm always having trouble finding death sites.
Could just be my bad luck though :\

[Meglobob]

Agrajag said:

Now that I've actually noticed the point about death gem income (:X) I have to say that in Dom2, I found death gems were the most plentiful gems I've had, but in Dom3 I'm always having trouble finding death sites.
Could just be my bad luck though :\

I am probably getting yours and Twans good luck when it comes to death gem sites.

I personally find air/nature gem sites lacking, rare as gold dust in most of my games.

In MP I usually get around those problems by gem trading, someone somewhere will always trade with you, usually.

[upstreamedge]

MAchaka can struggle in the early game, and is IMO more at the mercy of a starting position than others, I think that an awake SC pretender is a good way to counteract this in MP. Those Hoplites just kick so much ***...

[Twan]

About fire vs air, fire is of course more destructive, and may kill the ennemies faster if they just cast offensive air spells (air lack a big ae medium level spell as efficient as falling fires). But most air nation have also access to water 2 mages to cast rain, some may have earth+water for fire ward, and fire indie mages also seem more common than air mages. At high construction levels, any nation having a fire 1 mage can empower him death 1 and forge fire boosters, when a non air nation will need a level 4 mage to start to forge them. Air can finally strike at a very longer range before high levels (once the fire nation has access to spells like pillar of fire this advantage of course disappear ). Finally the kind of national troops Machaka has will suffer against air in mid game (Machaka hasn't medium troops able to survive well against arrows, and the heavy hoplites cost too much ressources if they are to be killed by lightnings, lots of indie infantry with shields will have to be recruited).

At really high levels there are counters to counters, like the use of shock immune summons, earth-fire, death-fire or nature offensive spells, mass protection earth spells etc... But Machaka will have big difficulties if targeted before by an air nation.