Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[Verjigorm]

I'm testing them now. I have played with them before, but not frequently. I like the Colossal Fetish, Machaka's unique pretender, so I took this:

Colossal Fetish (Body 1346, 120 hits)
Magic: Earth 6 Astral 4 Death 3 Nature 4
Dominion 4
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 3
Dormant

I know that my basic units either (a) suck or (b) are too expensive to be truly useful, but I also know that I have these things:

1: Hunter Lord: This little thug has a base protection of 20 without making gear, 14 hp, and 13/13 attack/defense which seems like a good thug chassis.

2: Bane Spider: Another thug chassis, but stealthy and has magic weapons to start. 14 hp, 18 protection, attack 13, but has awful defense skill, 9.

1: Black Sorcerer: 2f2ed +110 fedn. Fire/Earth mages are offensive battle mages. 1/4 can spam undead.

2: Sorcerer: fd2n + fedn. This would be our defensive battle mage casting nature buffs. Like the Black Sorcerer, 1/4 can spam undead.

Why I took these scales:

Order-3: I always take Order-3 unless I'm working with a nation that gets lots of free units or doesn't need money or that uses scales to attack (LA Ermor for example).

Sloth-3: I'm not planning on using the natives extensively except as cannon fodder.

Heat-3: 40 Extra points for pretender over my preferred heat scale and further boosts the power of my evocation magic.

Growth-3: Keeps my old mages alive longer. They have fire magic.

What I see immediately as far as research targets:

I have Earth, Nature, Fire, and Death magic and my units suck, so I want to get thugs and summoned units on the floor ASAP. I don't have any death gem income.

What is the obvious solution?

Construction-5: Mandragora and Manikin can be summoned by Sorcerers and I get level 4 magic items to equip my thugs.

Alteration-5: If I have stronger nature magic opposition to taking the Mother Oak, I can't go for it, so if I have Man, Pangaea or Oceania on the map, I am unlikely to be able to take it. If, however, none of these 3 nations are present, then I will have an even shot at taking the Oak, and Alteration-5 gives us Wooden/Iron Warriors as well.

Enchantment-3: Skelespam, Regeneration, Heal.

Evocation-3: Magma Bolts, Sleep cloud.

Those are the 4 immediate targets I can see, but I don't early evocation for Machaka. Which one should I start with? Let's see....

Alteration-5: If I have an even shot against the other nations (i.e. no nations with 3N or more basic income), I can take a pretender with Nature-5, to start, but in MP, taking the Oak that early is going to make me a target for destruction, and I will have nothing to protect myself other than Wooden/Iron warriors and my crappy units which I cannot produce because of the Sloth.

Construction-5: I get 5 different things to summon, 3 mass summons: Clockwork Horrors, Manikin, Mandragora, and two non-healing lifeless, mindless thugs: Wooden Construct and Crusher, all of which I am sure to be able to field depending on how my site searching goes. I also get Level 4 magic items to equip thugs. The non-heals are only useful defensively since I need to keep them in range of a lab preferably at the lab site, or begrudgingly within 1 turn-step.

Enchantment-3/Evocation-3: This one is an easy target and I won't have a problem hitting it, but I don't want to go for it first because it means taking my mages off of research to go into the field, but of these two, I tend to favor Enchantment-3 because of the big bonuses I get Regeneration and Heal in addition to my Skelespam for my recruit-anywhere Sorcerers which I much prefer to attack magic for my cap-only Black Sorcerers. Because I'm using thugs, short range, small aoe external buff spells have heightened usefulness.

So, I'm probably going to do this as my opening:

Construction-5
Alteration-3
Enchantment-3

Now I have well-buffed thugs which is what I'm going to need to survive, and I'll be able to equip my fetish well so that no one will be able to survive very long in my dominion under his 0-Enc SC feet.

My next target will be to get a thug chassis that I don't have to recruit--the Sleeper, or:

Conjuration-3

which also nets me Summon Earthpower and Phoenix Power which brings my Black Sorcerers into their element, so our next target can now be:

Evocation-6

Falling Fire, Magma Eruption, Bane Fire, Earthquake, Stream of Life, Poison Cloud, Blade Wind, etc... Evocation has now become useful, and now that I have Sleepers and Black Servants, there is no reason for me to hire any recruitable thugs, so it's Black Sorcerer every turn instead of just most turns. By this time I should have a modest death gem income at least unless I was very unlucky on my site searches.

Now I will start shifting my thugs from Hunter Lord/Bane Spider to Sleeper/Black Servant, and if no one else has taken it yet, I can push the Mother Oak with confidence in my defenses, otherwise, I'm going to try for Construction 7 to 9 and the Earth Blood Deep Well (Enchantment 7) and Forge of Ancients and the associated benefits of high construction (Mechanical Men which I can summon lots of and Golems that my pretender can make), and once I get 9, Iron Dragons should be easy to find with my 3E Black Sorcerers and Poison Golems with the 2D versions. If I have enough death gems, I can go for Spectre, Mound Fiend, and Wraith Lord chassis as an alternative (Conjuration 6/7), but Lichcraft and Ritual of Rebirth are in Enchantment, and since I'm in the business of making thugs, I should have at least a couple on the leader board.


Keep in mind that all of this is untested and theoretical.