Man: A Bless nation in CBM 1.92?

[Shardphoenix]

However, with a weaker nation you may actually want to play to the high risk strategies.

Man going high-bless seems to be a high-risk low-reward strategy - Man already has very good knights (not only Knights of Avalon, but regular knights too) and great archers. Adding another hard-hitting high-prot unit doesn`t seem to add much tactical flexibility even in the beginning, besides knights and wardens have similiar counters.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

Man going high-bless seems to be a high-risk low-reward strategy - Man already has very good knights (not only Knights of Avalon, but regular knights too) and great archers. Adding another hard-hitting high-prot unit doesn`t seem to add much tactical flexibility even in the beginning, besides knights and wardens have similiar counters.

There are multiple differences between knights and wardens.

The biggest one is stealth. Stealth is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers. A few lord warden led raiding parties can be a huge pain in someones side during a war.

Second, they're sacred, this gets you the bless but almost as important it gets you cheap upkeep. If your relying on knights and archers alone your upkeep is quickly going to become a serious problem.

21 vs. 18 standard damage. May not seem like much but it's important vs. higher protection units. True knights have the lance strike but that can be easily countered with a screen of cheap chaff.

Higher MR. 14 vs. 10.

Knights of A do have the magical Alicorn attack, which is pretty important, but then you don't have to choose between knights of A and wardens. You can have them both.

Additionally, as long as you leave your regular knights and archers out of the mix you have entire armies with forest survival, which depending on the map can dramatically increase you're flexibility.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Torgon

But does minimizing luck really = optimal? Just because you're minimizing luck doesn't mean you're maximizing the number of times you win.

I think minimizing luck was poorly phrased - it would have been better to say not relying on luck.

Perhaps more to the point: being able to change gears and not putting all your eggs in one basket. I mean, Man has some nice units - they're not like Mictlan where the sacreds are head and shoulders above the rest of the lineup (and where you can segue into excellent summons that require only blood slaves, not gems). Nightfall and I both used one level 9 bless and a pair of 4s in our builds. Changing his D9 bless to a D4 will buy him four scales (and still give a nice entry into D magic as well as combo path spells like hidden in sand and lamias). Changing my E9 to E4 would buy *6* scales - that will buy you a lot more mages (faster research, more combat magic) and a lot more of your other troops. Redirect some of those points to better magic diversity as desired.

So that's why I don't think a level 9 bless for Man is optimal. But it's certainly playable and fun and honestly things will get boring if everyone goes for scales/magic diversity/light bless builds.

This discussion is getting me interested in playing Man since they've got a significant stealth aspect (my favorite part of the game). I just don't know if I have the patience for dealing with old age on the crones...

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Torgon

The biggest one is stealth. Stealth is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers. A few lord warden led raiding parties can be a huge pain in someones side during a war.

It's worth mentioning that mothers of avalon can add some punch to your raiding parties. The sacreds probably won't need it, even with just a light bless, but it's a nice boost for woodsmen raiding parties.

[rdonj]

If you really want stealth, there's nothing preventing you from buying some wardens even without a bless and using them for the stealth aspect. They don't even really need a bless to be decent PD raiders. They'll suffer more attrition that way though.

[Shardphoenix]

Torgon:

There are multiple differences between knights and wardens.

Yes, but...

The biggest one is stealth.

You don`t really need a heavy bless for stealth-raiding with 17 base prot. units.

And the warden is one of the most powerful recruit-able units with this ability. Only one that I can think of that might beat them out are revelers.

So what? Eriu can have even better stealthy force in their thugs.

you have entire armies with forest survival,

As long as you go without mages, yes. "Chicken isn`t a bird" as they say in my country. Mother of Avalon isn`t a real combat mage, you need couple A3 crones, and crones have mapmove 1.

which depending on the map can dramatically increase you're flexibility

Dramatically? Well, if map consists of forests and nothing else - then yes.

21 vs. 18 standard damage. May not seem like much but it's important vs. higher protection units.

What high-protection targets are we talking about? If you run into Ulm early on - you`d better use knights anyway. Black Guardians obliterate wardens. And if you`ve taken a rainbow instead of high-bless - later on you can deploy a couple boosted crones with Destruction/Weapons of Sharpness. That`ll do you much more good against high-protection targets, while even with high E bless you risk your pretender to be late for the party.
Valerius:

Changing his D9 bless to a D4

What for? You need only 2D for lamias and climbing up D ladder. Do you think doubling affliction chance of a melee unit is worth the points?

[Torgon]

You don`t really need a heavy bless for stealth-raiding with 17 base prot. units.

True wardens can raid with out the bless. But bless allows you to raid with 1. Much lower numbers 2. With almost zero attrition.

Additionally, its not just about raiding, its also a matter of taking said raiding parties and recombining rapidly into a very hard hitting force to which a heavy bless provides a significant multiplier.

So what? Eriu can have even better stealthy force in their thugs.

Yes, Eriu has good stealth thugs. So what? Why do I care about what Erie can do with their thugs. Last I checked we were talking about relative power of two different builds for man. We can get back on the subject of man's relative power vs. other nations, but I think we both agree there. They're a relatively weak nation compared to many others. Not disagreeing about that.

As long as you go without mages, yes. "Chicken isn`t a bird" as they say in my country. Mother of Avalon isn`t a real combat mage,

I think you're underestimating the strength of mothers in a fight. Here's basically everything you can do with them:

Sprites, Swarm, Hex, wooden warriors/mass protection, false fetters, false horror, wind guide, fog warriors, sleep cloud, breath of the dragon, poison cloud, stream of life, flood of life, storm of thorns, lightning bolt, orb lightning, thunderstrike, storm, wrathful skies, haste, all your spellsongs, poison ward, relief, serpents blessing, mass regen, siren's blessing, thunder ward, arrow fend, mass flight, storm warriors, confusion, panic, sleep, charm, growing fury

Now some of these require a nature booster, an air booster, or an air booster + summon storm power, but what else do want them to be able to do. This is list isn't a load of useless combat spells. And mothers are cheap, sacred, and stealthy, so you'll have a crap ton of them running around.

However, I won't argue that they're are better combat mages out there, of course there are. However, even if the mothers didn't have as much they could do they're all you have outside of the cap. You have to work with whats given to you. Obviously its nice to have a few crones around, but their numbers are always going to be limited.

you need couple A3 crones, and crones have mapmove 1.

So what, cloud trap them in prior to important fights, give them boots of flight if you have an important one you need to move around the battlefield. Also you're main armies moving at mapmove one anyway as it takes territory. Flexibility is important for reaction forces and reinforcement.

Dramatically? Well, if map consists of forests and nothing else - then yes.

I've run into numerous situations where a forest was blocking retreat or reinforcement. The difference between one turn of movement and two turns can be pretty dramatic.

What high-protection targets are we talking about? If you run into Ulm early on - you`d better use knights anyway. Black Guardians obliterate wardens. And if you`ve taken a rainbow instead of high-bless - later on you can deploy a couple boosted crones with Destruction/Weapons of Sharpness. That`ll do you much more good against high-protection targets, while even with high E bless you risk your pretender to be late for the party.

Ulms not the only nation with high protection units.

Arco: hoplites or heart companions, 17 prot. Knights do 1 damage on average, wardens do 4

Ermor: Praetorians or Triarius, 17 prot

Marignon: Knights of the chalice or men at arms, 17 or 15 prot

Abyssia: 16 prot on all heavy infantry

Jonthiem: 17 prot on almost all their giants outside of militia

I could go on. Many of these are good units for these nations and will show up in their armies. 21 vs. 18 damage basically quadruples your damage output. Against slightly lower but still decent protections of around 14 or 15 it doubles your damage output. And a square of knights only gets 2 attacks at 18 damage after the first strike, the other two are only at 12. Wardens get 3 at 21. This is hardly insignificant.

Also you can boost your crones without taking a rainbow. Find some E2 indi, an E2 merc, or just suck it up and empower for 30 gems. You're still basically saying that a 30 gem investment that you wont even have to make in most cases is so expensive as to outweigh any benefit you get from a bless.

[Shangrila00]

I don't think that's how damage with exploding dice rolls works. It would make the B4 bless as good as the W9, at 50% greater damage. Do we have a mathmatician here?

In any case, any well played Man will have both knights and Wardens, and longbowmen too regardless of bless. It's just relative proportions that change. It's not like Mictlan where the bless multiplies the effectiveness of the entire army and extends to the endgame summons.

And making that list of battlemagic useable as early as possible is one of the major arguments against a high bless. Take flaming arrows, which is only available off a pretender, despite being obviously ridiculously good with Man, who on top of great archers, has excellent research (cheap forts, cheap temples, efficient sacred researcher), and some interesting national spells in enchantment. Like Song of Power which you left out of your list, and Man's the only nation that has it and can actually make good if unpredictable use of it, with its expendable N3s. I've had some success with a F4A4 Phoenix in tests. Okay, it does very little either for diversity or bless, but it does give you early high air magic, and it's pretty much ideal for supercharging your archers with the mobility to support more than one archer army if necessary.

As a sidenote, how good are sprites? I've never actually used them since you can't script them. Is it worth summoning a Faery Queen just to chain summon sprites that you can script?

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

I don't think that's how damage with exploding dice rolls works. It would make the B4 bless as good as the W9, at 50% greater damage. Do we have a mathmatician here?

So damage is STR + weapon damage + DRN (two exploding 6 six sided dice)

Protection roll is protection at location + DRN

Defender takes damage in hit points equal to the difference. So yes, you are correct that when STR + weapon = protection the expected value of the damage is greater than 0 since the lower half of the distribution is cut off.

Use a little monte carlo with protection of 17. Str + weapon = 18 has an expected value of around 2.66. Str + weapon = 21 has an expected value of 4.75. So around 180%, about double the expected damage output.

So you're correct, I overstated the effectiveness. It just about doubles your damage vs. protection 17 forces. Against protection 12 forces its 6.45 vs 9.23.

In any case, any well played Man will have both knights and Wardens, and longbowmen too regardless of bless. It's just relative proportions that change. It's not like Mictlan where the bless multiplies the effectiveness of the entire army and extends to the endgame summons.

Agree 100%. I just find that KoA out of the cap generally fill all the need I have for knights when I've played with a high bless. And yes, archers are still definitely worth recruiting in the right circumstances.

Like Song of Power which you left out of your list, and Man's the only nation that has it and can actually make good if unpredictable use of it, with its expendable N3s.

I had it in there. Just said all the spellsongs rather than listing all of them. IMO SoP is just really hard to use effectively, as you have to script and set it up perfectly or its just an unmitigated disaster. It seems like a cool spell, but I've never been able to use it in practice unless i was just going up against someone who didn't remember that man has it. If you've found a way to make it effective I'm all ears.

I've had some success with a F4A4 Phoenix in tests. Okay, it does very little either for diversity or bless, but it does give you early high air magic, and it's pretty much ideal for supercharging your archers with the mobility to support more than one archer army if necessary.

Phoenix is good. It just seems like that build makes man just as much of a one trick pony as the bless option. And its a trick thats much more easily countered than just a load of heavily armored, high damage, high stat stealth wardens.

[Shardphoenix]

Phoenix is good. It just seems like that build makes man just as much of a one trick pony as the bless option. And its a trick thats much more easily countered than just a load of heavily armored, high damage, high stat stealth wardens.

A4 on pretender frees up some A gems for guided arrows or wyverns. F4 gives you Zmey, and a head slot on phoenix means cheaper F5 for fire kings and, eventually, emberlords (if you need them).