Nations under CBM 1.6

[thejeff]

Why best blood hunters? Just because they're sacred & cheap?

I'm not sure it's worth using up castle recruitment slots over the standard indy scout.

[vfb]

Yes, sacred and cheap. Indy scouts get miasma and die if you don't send them off to do actual scouting outside your dom. Whenever I was short on cash and could not hire a mage, I bought a H1 for blood hunting.

[thejeff]

Miasma. Of course.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Wardens everywhere is actually in-line with flavor. They're supposed to guard mothers, and mothers are everywhere. The previous discrepancy in recruit options between the two made no sense.

Perhaps that's true but the bless change makes a body guard unit into the main fighting unit. You're not supposed to have armies of wardens as MA MAN. Besides, the bless effect factors in and I really don't think another EN bless nation is required and certainly MA Man shouldn't fall into that category. It is not a faith nation but rather a pagan, mysterious & mystic nation, at least that's the way the myths tell it.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Perhaps that's true but the bless change makes a body guard unit into the main fighting unit. You're not supposed to have armies of wardens as MA MAN. Besides, the bless effect factors in and I really don't think another EN bless nation is required and certainly MA Man shouldn't fall into that category. It is not a faith nation but rather a pagan, mysterious & mystic nation, at least that's the way the myths tell it.

Uh.. weren't you the person who was just referencing arthurian mythos as the inspiration for it and asking for Arthurian heroes? How is that a 'pagan, mysterious, and mystic' set of source material, especially as regards *the nation*? Most certainly religious (You don't get more religious than questing after the Grail). Only the women of avalon would be mysterious or mystic, otherwise its an early medieval feudal nation with all the political and religious implications that entails.

I would wonder which source material you would class as 'pagan', given the maybe 10% that's derived from potentially pre-Christian sources was filtered through a Christian lens. Most of the Arthurian tales are the product of 12th century or later writers like Christian de Troyes, and have very definite religious overtones. Especially the Quest for the Grail, as in, the cup of Christ? I'm especially confused how you can consider the material not heavily-faith based. Knights who successful quested for the Grail were the epitome of the perfect knight in the Arthurian romances, and had to have profound faith to succeed - ie, Galahad and Perceval. Faith is definitely the appropriate cultural ideal.

Pagan is a totally inappropriate word in this context - what does it even mean? I mean, all nations worship and have faith in a god - the pretender. That's the whole premise of the game. Thus, every other nation is 'pagan' relative to your nation, and your nation cannot be pagan. ('Pagan' is a Christian-world word most closely related to the muslim use of 'infidel' in meaning, and was used to refer to anyone who didn't have faith in the God of the Pentateuch (ie, not Jewish, Muslim, or Christian) - the modern reclamation of the word as a name for a type of spiritual practice is basically reverse propaganda. As a perjorative word, no one pre-20th century would have referred to themself as pagan. The use and meaning of the word thus best translates into 'not worshipping our pretender' in dom3 terms, as I claimed above).

Drawing a distinction between 'faith' and 'pagan' is especially offensive. None of the groups historically described as pagan would have thought of themselves as anything but religious and with faith in that religion. I certainly doubt modern pagans would similarly appreciate being told they have no faith.

[Sombre]

Yeah Wraithlord, how dare you say something so offensive to medieval peasants!

[WraithLord]

I stand corrected

I've no desire to stumble into the mine field which is religion either by way of overloaded terminology or semantics.

Let's stick to the point please. MA Man becoming yet another EN bless nation is lame. I'm sorry but no sugar coating would make me feel different about it. Under CBM 1.6, I feel like I don't want to ever play MA Man again and if I get it in RAND I'll probably lose any fun in the game.

[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.