Conceptual Content Mod

[Dedas]

Well, the Ghost King (death magic) is a pretty good choice for MA Man, both thematically and in a strategic sense. Half cost temples will see to that many ghosts of old will haunt the misty highlands of Man. The Ghost King of long past Tuatha sees to that great black hounds hunt in the night (utterdark).
There, now MA Man can fight mid-late game.

[cleveland]

Thank you very much.

A recruitable troop is a bit more difficult. Like Wrana said, they have inferior infantry because their longbowmen are so good; simply giving them a better infantry unit would be unbalancing, I think.

One possibility is to adapt the "Forester" commander (MA Man's scout) into some sort of rank-and-file troop. The Forester is an unusual but interesting commander: 2-weapons (axe & dagger, ambidextrous) plus a short bow (at 12 precision), stealthy(+10), patrol bonus(5), forest survival, but no leadership.

How's this sound:
Forester Cadet
"Those who aspire to be Foresters must undergo rigorous training as Forester Cadets. Midway through their training, Cadets are pressed into active military service, usually to quell unrest and hunt down enemy spies, but occasionally as marksmen in support of the Wardens behind enemy lines. Cadets lack the hand-to-hand combat skills of true Foresters, but proved quite effective against the large Tuatha when in formation.”

The unit would then be a copystat of the Forester, with several ability reductions (they’re in training, after all):
Edit: On second thought, I'd recommend keeping the axe/dagger/short bow combo of the base Forester, but remove the ambidextrous to make him bit less effective
11 precision(vs. base precision 12) , so the short bow is somewhat less effective
Stealthy(+0) (vs. base stealthy +10, though this has no effect for units)
Patrol Bonus(1)(vs. base Patrol Bonus(5) )
15gold? (vs. base cost 20gold; a longbow costs 13gold, for comparison)

Basically, this unit should make the MA Man player give serious consideration to stealth raiding. As it stands, MA Man is awash with stealthy commanders, but has only one stealthy troop, the Warden, which is capital-only sacred.

They’d be useless in large battles, where less-expensive longbows will be the preferred missile units and the lack of a shield will make them too vulnerable as blockers (shieldless=death by friendly fire), so no imbalance there.

But 2 weapons plus a bow gives them very nice stealth raiding potential, and in a pinch they can be thrown at giants/elephants for some six 6-attack-per-square action.

Thoughts? If nothing else, it gives the poor Forester unit some company, which currently seems so out-of-place.

[Sombre]

A unit themed around the Forester commander also sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure about the equipment and stats, but a middle tier mapmove 2 infantry/ranged unit with stealth and forest survival sounds good for MA Man. They are largely a forest based nation after all.

I'm quite tempted to go with minor animal awe actually - in Britain various animals such as wolves were hunted to extinction as the population grew - these forester themed units could be specifically trained to hunt down dangerous beasts. This of course would give them some more niche uses.

Also - wolfhounds. These fit with the Camelot/Round Table influence and the general feel of Man. Also act as a cheapo version of the summons.