Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[Twan]

With a nation having a capitol only best mage and a capitol only most cost effective researcher, nobody will recruit a capitol only assassin, good or not.

To see bane spider used the options are : make all mages recruitable everywhere, burn the lab in the capitol, or make the bane spider recruitable everywhere.

I think the third is the best one.

[Meglobob]

Xietor said:
It is not unthematic at all to have Bane Spiders everywhere. Though they were trained at God Mountain, some have moved about the Kingdom and have trained others.

Errm...could you not say this about virtually every capital only unit in the game?

I always thought capital only units were simply a, 'balance' issue rather than a thematic one.

[Chris_Byler]

Well, some of them have supernatural reasons why they have to come from the specific site.

...Actually, the Bane Spider is one of those, with their God Mountain-forged standard equipment.

The problem is as Twan points out, other capitol only units overshadow the bane spider, cool as he is.

There's a fourth option: allow recruiting of 2 commanders per fort, but only 1 can be a mage (because you have only 1 lab; on similar grounds you could limit only 1 priest, but it's not as important as a balance issue). It would require some recoding and affect balance for everyone, but I think overall the changes would probably be good, especially for nations with overshadowed non-mage commanders (many of which are mini-thugs or assassins that see little use because it's more important to spam mages).

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Xietor said:
I would like to see the bane spiders recruitable everywhere as that would give machaka a whole new stealth attack strat to go with their spies.

it is too limited with them being capital only, and i would never miss recruiting a black hunter in any event as they are a great unit even in the endgame with web, poison.

From a gameplay, national flavor, I am actually opposed to Machaka having any stealthy non-capital troops or commander. I could go into that, but I don't have Dom3 in front of me at the moment, and would rather get my names right.

Anyways, the black hunter only overshadows the bane spider if you have enough dominion and funds. I find with high scales and low dominion that I can afford to regularly recruit some of the troop version (non-sacred) of bane spiders along with the black hunters who are sacred. After a few turns, I have enough stealth troops to warrant a bane leader.

[JimMorrison]

Meglobob said:

Errm...could you not say this about virtually every capital only unit in the game?

I always thought capital only units were simply a, 'balance' issue rather than a thematic one.

Yes and no. Some commanders state in their description that they rarely leave their city/temple/site/thing, so it's kind of a blessing you can get them at all.

Personally, I'd almost say that the biggest aid that could be done on that note, is to provide a second level of Lab and Temple that you can build AFTER the first (make it cost more, and possibly take more than 1 turn). This structure would make certain capital only casters available there, as you have invested the time and effort in creating a place of interest for scholarly study and research that one might visit after their training at home is completed.

Either that, or if there were some sort of Academy building you could build, that would allow you to build 2 commanders a turn. It would be really expensive of course, but would be a nice bonus for the capital, once it could be afforded.

It's just a shame when a nation has a cap only researcher that is far superior to their other mages, and yet also has other very useful capital only commanders.

[MaxWilson]

Chris_Byler said:
There's a fourth option: allow recruiting of 2 commanders per fort, but only 1 can be a mage (because you have only 1 lab; on similar grounds you could limit only 1 priest, but it's not as important as a balance issue). It would require some recoding and affect balance for everyone, but I think overall the changes would probably be good, especially for nations with overshadowed non-mage commanders (many of which are mini-thugs or assassins that see little use because it's more important to spam mages).

There's another potential option for scenarios (i.e. w/ map commands instead of mod commands): start with several provinces under your control, and have the Bane Spider-producing site in a different province. I'm not 100% sure it would work but I think it would--the game doesn't care where your "home" province is, it just keeps track of what provinces you start out with.

-Max

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I was a bit surprised when I noticed Machaka's Warriors and Archers have three movement, along with the chief. Throwing in forest survival, and they are strategically faster than most nation's cavalry. Anyone ever use this to any advantage, or are they just too flimsy to use even in border raid hit and runs?

[JimMorrison]

Flimsy hardly describes it..... You can make effective raids against moderate PD I'm sure, but you'll take losses, losses that you'll only not mind TOO much cause the little buggers are cheap and fast to train.

[Samulus]

Im currently playing with Machaka and can say that all their regular light infantry suck... really bad.

Hopalites are much better but pseudo-hopalites in the face of Acrosphale's Hopalites or Ermor's Triarii. Machaka Commanders and Hunter Lords are good thugs with some additional equipment while Bane Spiders are crazy good assasins/thugs. They can even lead others in battle. Spider Riders would have been feasible units to be recruited with a gold reduction and a short bow added.

Spider Knights are really the only cavalry that works early-mid game. End game you'll probably go with a combination of Black Hunters and Spider Knights for your cavalry needs. Their cheap mages and solid priests are alright substitutions for inferior light infantry. The old age diseases still piss me off though. Twiceborn solves the problem but I really don't want to go to enchantment lvl 4 just to save a bunch of decent mages.

My total review
Infantry-Lame
Cavalry-Decent
Priests-Good
Mages-Decent

[Samulus]

Double-Post

So one last addendum(sp?). PD is atrocious. Your better off spending the 200 gold on spider knights, which is only 4... and they die off pretty quick anyway.

Someone should make a replacement mod for them; at least to improve their units and lack of death sites at their capital.