Nations under CBM 1.6

[Squirrelloid]

Well, no one forces you to play them as a bless nation. It is unfortunate that KO chose a rather bizarre sacred unit for man. (Seriously, where did heavily armored magical men come from?) I would have figured them for a sacred cavalry nation based on the theme.

But lets face it, if you're not playing Man as just another EN bless nation, you're playing them as just another archer nation. They don't really have much worthwhile to set themselves apart, especially since their magery is basically 'like Eriu, but with more suck'. And we already know how well that worked out for Eriu...

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

no one forces you to play them as a bless nation.

Yar.

I don't really get how a simple change like making wardens recruit everywhere has ruined the entire nation for you.

[WraithLord]

Well, in SP I can do all kind of fun experiments but in MP I minimax like hell. If I have sacred mages and blessed heavy armor, 5 Enc, moderate HP unit recruitable everywhere then EN bless becomes an efficiency consideration so strong that I can’t in good conscious not take it for an MP game.
The EN looks great on wardens.
The E looks great on sacred mages.
The N looks great on old diseased mages (shroud).

It’s the ripple effect. Small change, big difference

Squirrelloid, you have a point there. I just wish Man would have been tweaked in another manner, one that would make it more unique and fun.

[Belac]

I think an E/N bless makes sense for MA Man. Consider its mythical influences: Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, Arthurian legend. All feature great swordsmen capable of fighting all day without fatigue and without being hindered by minor wounds. Stealthy elite infantry with that bless are reminiscent of the Rangers of Ithilien, the Lord Wardens are reminiscent of the Warders from WoT (combined with Two Rivers Longbowmen)...it gives Man a stealth-and-endurance feel, small elite armies against hordes, that is really quite interesting.

[Lingchih]

Originally Posted by Belac

I think an E/N bless makes sense for MA Man. Consider its mythical influences: Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, Arthurian legend. All feature great swordsmen capable of fighting all day without fatigue and without being hindered by minor wounds. Stealthy elite infantry with that bless are reminiscent of the Rangers of Ithilien, the Lord Wardens are reminiscent of the Warders from WoT (combined with Two Rivers Longbowmen)...it gives Man a stealth-and-endurance feel, small elite armies against hordes, that is really quite interesting.

Yes, I believe the Wardens were based on the Warders from the Wheel of Time books. But Warders were only trained in Tar Valon, so making them recruit anywhere strays from that.

[Humakty]

Well, from the reports I recall on MA Man MP games, I think giving them some early strategy to pursue easily can't be called 'ruining this nation game'. Afterall, they're considered really weak. Crones are a frustration on their own rigth !

[Zeldor]

MA Man still sucks. Sure, their troops can take on indies and some nations, but their mages are really uncool. And this nation is extremely frustrating. You can get to midgame, that's the reason for all that frustration. Because you get there and then everyoen can own you so easily. But they don't even have to - you will want to commit suicide, seeing all crones with good randoms die every winter. They are nature nation and even N4 mages are old! They live 170 years, 120 above old age limit, to die when you take over the empire. It says a lot.

[Sombre]

I don't see qm adding it and I don't think it makes sense to justify it as her spawning offspring. Autosummons etc are hard to balance and tend to create annoying secondary economies which don't rely on gold or even gems.

qm did try some national commanders summoning extra troops but quickly took it out.

[Sir_Dr_D]

But doing that, or giving them some other ability to make them unique is the only way to get anyone to hire those secondary commanders at all. Even if they were free, you are better off recruiting your most powerfull mage.
Even if some of those commanders could auto "train" a small number of troops, I would still see myself getting mages most of the time.

[Trumanator]

You're right, but that's just the way its going to be with the current system. Perhaps one thing that could help would be to try and make more national commanders thuggable, but that's not a real solution. In the end, unless you're playing an NI map or national commanders become recruitable outside a fort somehow they're going to run a very long third to mages and spies/assassins.