The Royal guide to Marignon, Conquerors of the Sea
Marignon, The conquerors of The Sea.
So you started a LA game, but Ermor and Ryleh are already chosen. Well, wait for another game then. If you chose not to do so, or you play in a game without Ermor and Ryleh, a few other options arise, one of them is Marignon. Marignon is a very powerful nation with a few incredibly good perks and strong varied magic. In middle game, Marignon will have access to ALL spheres of magic, except nature, which is increadibly easy to get from indys.
This guide will count with:
1- Nation Overview and Pretender choice.
2- Units overview
3- Early Expansion and Defense
4- Magic paths
5- Mini-blood guide
Nation overview
Strengths.
Cost effective mages: Marignon has very good (for late age) mages, both in power and research, for the low cost of 150 and 190 gold. The best ones of them are sacred as well, so half the unkeep. It has as well a varied rounded up magic. Assuming you can get one of the dozen of independent mages with nature 1, you have ALL spheres of magic by turn 30 or so.
High level priests. You can buy level 3 priests (which mean you can afford lvl 4 profet) and they are inquisitors as a bonus. Very powerful. Sadly you dont have sacreds worth their name, but still a very good morale boost
Very decent PD: marignon gets 1 pikemen and 1 crossbowmen per PD point, plus 1 halbardier beyond 20. That�s a bunch of gold and, specially, resources to buff your defense.
Very decent base missile troops: Marignon gets a great missile unit, the crossbowmen, which have great cost efficiency, and can be naturally buffed with wind guide and flaming arrows, which make them powerful
Blood magic: With Mictlan, the only real blood power in Late Age. That means a lot of things.
No reliance on Capital: Only thing you can�t buy in a normal castle is the Admiral, which you wont buy at all ever.
Weakness:
Lack troop variety: marignon have bassically crossbowmen and royal guards. Everything else, even if they have good stats, have 2 mayor weakness, movement of 1, and lack of shield (which mean YOU will kill them with bolts)
Lack of Sacreds: Marignon do not have a sacred unit worth his name. The flagellants die in droves, and you need too much effort in scales to make a bless and dominion make them somewhat useful. If you want to try, use a Baphamot with S9F9.
Old Age: Marignon has old age in their main mages, which mean you �need� growth scale
Lack of Early Punch: Marignon is a very good nation in middle and late game, but it is not very well suited to rush, so might not be the best nation for blitz games. It can defend properly from other players rushes, though.
Pretender and Nation Design.
Marignon needs to expand early, create a reasonable empire, and defend properly until your middle game machine is ready to rumble. The best things to do that is getting a awake cheap SC so you can expand fast, defend if needed, and have enough points saved for good scales.
Pretenders
You get different possibilities, but less than most nations, as you wont follow Undead Pretenders (which bassically left behind the ghost king and the prince of death)
Cyclop, which has the bonus of giving some of your mages a mild reinvigoration bonus for relatively low cost.
Wyrm, which is always a cheap dispossable SC for early expansion at a very very low cost
Dragon, which also can give possibly a decent bless for your late game angels (specially blue dragon or green dragon)
Moloch, which is my favourite one, not only becouse thematic reasons, but becouse it is cheap, decent combatant, fly, and have gear options to use �as marignon you will go fast to construction becouse of the SDR- Cyclop does not fly, the other 2 do not have enough slots.
About magic diversity, you dont need a lot of it in your pretender becouse you already have a bunch of good and diverse mages. But you can think about getting a earth 2 pretender to build you your first earth boots to enter in bloodstone economy. If you dont do so, you are highly encouraged to trade for one. A pretender with S2 and E2 allways is good, becouse of the astral +1 coin.
Scales:
As marignon, you ideally want to build a lot of castles soon, to abuse your cheap as hell non capital researchers. That means money. The scales:
Order/turmoil: this is a must. Order 3 means castles and laboratories, which means mages and troops
Production/sloth: your only resource intensive troops are the ones you wont normally buy. I would get sloth, but 3 is maybe too much, as you need to mass Xbows to be efficent, and becouse knights still cost a bunch of resources.
Heat/cold. This depends on your point needs. If you have to use one of them, get heat, it will help greatly your later Devils heat aura. I often get heat becouse i need points for the other good scales.
Growth/death: Growth 3 is heavily advised. Your bulk of researchers are old people with fire magic. Also growth means lot of money, which is great.
Luck/misfortune. Luck is allways a good scale, but your national heroes are nothing to talk about (they have same spheres than your regular mages), and having high order makes misfortune 1 or 2 a good option to get points from
Magic/drain. Get magic 1. No explanation provided, just get it.
Although there are different options, i would rather stick to an Awake Moloch with Dominion 9 (for awe), F3B2, and [/i]order 3 sloth 1 heat 3 growth 3 misfortune 1 magic 1[/i] or get 1 extra scale in sloth and misfortune to give him earth 2, which makes him both a much better SC (with ironskin) and makes you your first earth booster, with a slight cost in scales.
Units overview:
Crossbowmen. With a cost of 10/8, wielding a crossbow, and having a half decent melee ability (for a missile troop, that is), and playing in nation with national mages with air 2 and fire 3, this are a no-brainer option agaisnt anything but a Arrow-fended army.
Swordsmen. Good stats for the cost, good protection, and a very good weapon. They lack shield (bad combo with your crossbowmen) and they move 1, which is sometimes a hindrance. Resource intensive as well. I like to buy a few to give them to some key mages as bodyguards versus assasins and horrors (you will have items that horrormark you)
Halbardiers. Pretty much the same than swordsmen. Worse stats with slightly better damage and reach 4. Normally Swordsmen are a better option
Pikemen. Like the two above, but change damage for a good Repel weapon (length 6 pikes). Still not worth it most the time
Men-at-arms: A good tanking unit with nice shield and decent stats, also have the movement 1 problem. Sometimes worth it (your fire mages move 1 as well), but most of the time you can use indy heavy infantries for almost the same effect and less cost.
Royal Guards: The other jewel of the crown. A lanceless knight with awesome defense, very good stats, and a kite shield that protect them from the flaming bolts of their crossbowmen mates. You need a good group of them to avoid being swarmed, but otherwise very good unit. Bassically your main �infantry�.
Flagellants: a total waste. With S9F9, and placing them properly behind some shield wearers and arrow-decoys, they can dish out a lot of damage before dying. And they are cheap as hell. S9F9 is also a good bless for your late game summoned angels. I wont sacrifice the scales, though (even if you have the perfect Chasis for this bless, the baphamot), but ymmv
Commanders
Scout. You have scouts. So what. Indi provinces also have. (As a hint for newer MP people, BUY a lot of scouts in an indi province. Information about your enemies is key in MP)
Assasins: It�s allways nice to have an assasin chasis, but this is a weak one. It�s not worth it to put him magic items, and you dont have death in early game to give him skull talismans, which is the cheap assasin secret weapon. Still, having a possible tool is better than not having it
Spies: That is a different story. Spies are great. If you time it well, you can put 3-5 spies in a castle, cast a unrest-rising ritual, and efficiently lock-down a capital for a good bunch of key turns. If you do it soon (without waiting the rituals), and you time it with an efficent knight rush, you can take down a close neighbour (at the cost of the research, you wont buy mages). It might be worth it, specially if you know that your closest enemy is planning to rush you (like most dual bless nations will do)
Missionary. A priest with sailor. Not worth it imho.
Inquissitor. A H2 priest with F1 (which means he can research), and 110 gold cost. It is nice to give the troops sermon of courage, although if you can afford the money you would buy great inquisitors instead. Nice to preach and try dominion kills as well
Great inquisitors: The holders of the faith. With Natural H3, this guys make great prophets (so you get the hard to get Fanatism). They are VERY potent preachers, AND they can blood sacrifice. So dominion kill is a very very viable tactic for Marignon against Dominion weak but strong armed oponents (such as dom 5 double-blessed nations)
Diabolists: Those guys cost 80g and have blood 1. Give them a Sanguine douse rod and send them to hunt slaves. They can also add to big communions if needed. They are not sacred, which means higher unkeep than Mictlan or Lanka hunters, but even then, they are nice hunters for the cost
Goetic Masters: Oh yeah. Research 7 pre-scales, with 190g cost, and can have up to f3 or b3 easy, with picks in astral and earth. They can cast Flaming arrows with no problems, later they can do heavy damage with hellfire, bloodrush, fire clouds.... VERY good mages for their cost. And they are not Capital only.
Captain: A regular 40 unit commander, but very expensive and armorless. They have the bonus of sailing, which might be usefull sometimes. Often, i would rather buy a Sailor Mage and give him a +leadership item. I hate wasting Castle commanders buy in a non-mage
Chartmaker: A weak lvl 1 mage with random pick and not so cheap (he is sailor). However, they have a major bonus: you can buy them without a laboratory. So you can start a castle somewhere with an indy comander, then buy one of those, then build the laboratory with them. If they get air as pick you have your owl quill creator, if he gets astral, you have a new remote-searcher. A total bargain imho.
Royal navigators: they cost 150 and they can have air 2 and astral 1 (wich mean communion-thunderstrike material), or air 1 astral 2 (wich mean astral battlemagic if you make comunions, like will of Fate or Antimagic), or A1S1W1 (wich opens you a new path, water, being able to craft frostbands and other water goodies, plus a very easy buff to W2 thanks to water bracelets). They also can sail.
Admirals: Like captains, but move 80 troops for more cost. Not worth it.
National Summonables:
Harlequin. Cost 1 slave, need B1 and research blood 1. They are not bad for the cost, but the problem is they are very intensive order-wise. Would be better if they were 5 harlequins for 5 or even 7 slaves.
Fallen Angel. You need Blood 7 path, and B4S1 to summon. It cost 88 slaves, and is a decent thug with 47 hp, fly and an in-built 2handed �brand� weapon. If you equip him with a good armor, specially if you cast Soul Vortex and fire Shield, he can do serious damage. The best part of it is it completelly opens you death magic (he has F3D3B3), so completelly worth the cost
Harbinger. Need S4 at Conjuration 6. It is a decent thug for the cost (fly, sacred, SR50, FR50, A3 which means mirror image and mistform, and 35 hp). It has a nice heavenly horn weapon as well.
Angel of Fury: A more than decent thug, and maybe even SC quality depending on your bless and how much items you put him. He has 49 hp, fly, fear and bloodvengeance. It cost 35 pearls, is summoned with S3F1 at conjuration 7. Very nice guy.
Angels of the host. You get 6 of them for 50 astral pearls. They are not worth it as troops imho (you can get 2 harbingers for that cost), but if you have the gems, it is a potent ritual to kill a province remotely.
Seraph. It is very expensive and very late game, but it is THE chasis for SC. It has 3 full inmunities, fly, is sacred, have F4S4A4H4, a powerful Awe +6(!) and inbuilt fire shield. It also comes with a group of 3 harbringers and a bunch of angels of the host. Incredible chasis.
Early Defense and Expansion.
Bassically you are able to take 2 provinces a turn from turn 2, one of them with your SC (specially if it is a flyer), and another one with your intial army + reinforcements. If you chose a moloch, Just place him slightly behind the middle of the battle map, with orders of hold hold attack archers. His imps decoys will swallow any cavalry charge, and he will charge whatever crossbowmen there are. Ideally however, you wont need to fight cavalry and crossbows before you equip him properly, as it is a flying commander and can choose weaker indies without losing expansion speed. Your regular army will be composed of Pikemen and crossbowmen. There are several ways to expand with missile troops with close to cero loses. For example, place a single troop (even better if it is a royal guard) in the front, with the order of �guard commander�. Place your commander in the leftmost bottom corner, with 5 orders of �hold� and then�stay behind troops, and your crossbowmen in the leftmost upper corner. That will make your decoy(s) to run back to your commander, then your commander to run to hide behind the crossbowmen. Most indies will follow the decoy while being massacred by the Xbows, only to face the Pikemen/knights that guard your commander when (IF) they arrive to the combat position.
Once you start to conquer provinces and you have resources to buy knights, those can expand easily with no loses also. You should be doing 3 provinces per turn very fast.
Buy a second castle as soon as you can. Sadly, Marignon builds very good castles. Which mean expensive castles that last 4 turns = ( . Get a 2nd castle pumping out mages and knights as soon as humanly possible.
Against an very early rush, you should be ready to defend with your Moloch, Xbows, few knights and PD. As soon as you get to Construction 2, your Moloch can equip with a decent armor (copper plate if you face an air nation), a enchanted or weighless shield, a fire sword, ice sword or enchanted sword and pendant of luck, more than enough to crunch most rushes singlehandlely or with the help of his crossbowmen. Remember he is inmune to Fire , so f9 bless rushes wont get very far against him. Other SC will have same effect if you build them the fire breastplate or a ring of flame protection. With your high variety of magic, you should be able to tailor-made your Sc versus whatever your oponent is using. That is very dissuasory to say the least.
Against a stronger turn 10-12 rush, you should focus and swift fast to Enchantment 4 and flaming arrows. That makes your army AND your PD very deadly.
Magic paths:
Normally you should rush to Construction 4. That would make you a happy sanguine douse producer, as well as giving your SC god a few key tools, such as brand weapon, maybe etherealness, magic resist, etc. In the way, you will get early defense items for your expanding god at construction 2, as well as the always-nice-to-have Owl quills.
However, as soon as you feel yourself in danger, switch to Enchantment 4. That will give your god Fire shield (or astral shield, breath of winter, etc, if you chose a SC different than the Moloch), and will give you Flaming Arrows, which is nice to have early. Depending how effective this defense is, you should focus on evocation to make use of your air and fire mages, or keep a long term goal.
If you defeat your closest neighbour, or can manage the defense without sacrificing too much research, then you should go to Thaumaturgy 2 (remote searchs) and evocation 2 (astral remote search and some combat spells) and then you have 2 options. First one is going to Construction 6, so you get the Lightless Lanterns as well as some nice boosters for Water and Blood, or you can start to rumble into Blood, which is probably the best option.
Once into Blood, you have several possiblities. One of them is building yourself a couple of bloodstones, which mean you will have several B2E2 mages able to summon the often overlooked Demon knights, which are really a Beast. You can pump armies of flyers with your devils (a tipical trick is using the Devil commander from Horde of Hell as �cheap� �or not so cheap- flying commander for your regular devils). Key spells for you in the blood path are:
Devils
Archdevils
Demon knights
Ritual of Five gates(this one rocks specially)
Infernal disease
Hellfire
Reascendence
With boosters and or comunions, the Horror spells (send and call horror and lesser horror) are great spells as well.
One of the archdevils come with F3S3. This one is a key one for you, becouse it starts with decent astral level. He will be the one that will summon your Seraphs later on, and will be the one that you will use to craft rings of sorcery and rings of wizardry (either empowering him, or trading for a crystal coin). Once empowered in blood (much cheaper), he will be your main caster of Send Horror items.
I suggest you to buy a lab and temple on the first indy province you can get with nature magic. Specially good are the lizar shaman, but Wolf, bear, deer shamans, jaguar priests, witch doctors, amazons, druids, halfling mages or any other of the several nature independent mages will work. Just buy half a dozen of them, start searching for sites, and empower one of them when you can. With blood and nature you can build a nice +1 blood and +1 nature armor, which makes your bloodempowered shamans to cast rain of toads, another key spell.
Once you have blood 7, you probably will start to switch to other paths to round up. Construction 7 is good (forge of ancients is a very good global enchantment for everyone, but specially for marignon, which have every path of magic and need a lot of booster items)
Conjuration is also a good path, since you have several nationals there. It will probably be your first path at 9th level.
As a side note, related to mages. Build as soon as possible a team of 2 mages, one of them a A1S1W1 royal navigator and the other one a F2E1B2H2 goetic master. Join them a Shaman or druid ASAP. With those 2-3 mages you will cover every path of magic but death (or death and nature until you get a druid-shaman). With that team, start moving every turn and searching every other turn. You will start later to remote search as well, but keep this team of 2-3 mages searching for sites as much as possible.
Mini-Blood guide.
There are several very good guides in the forum already, most of which cover the point much better than i able to dream of.
Just to point it out from the Marignon point of view:
Marignon works better with a �gardening� kind of blood. Setting the reign in fire as Mictlan and lanka does, with Death scales, patrolling provinces, and lots of hunters to find lots of slaves and rushing the war wont work. First, marignon do not have incredibly good non-capital sacreds as Mictlan or EA Lanka have. Second, his mages would die in a Death Scale reign. So take your time, put a few of your diabolist with SDR (or goetic masters with B2-3) in a couple of low income provinces (with 5000 pop), and start to colect blood. Your switch from gold to slave economy is slower, but you have better scales to back it up.
As other guides pointed up, you need cheap mages with B1 and Sanguine douse rods, in population 5000+ provinces, with the lowest possible income (Swamps and wastes are best ones), and low taxes to keep the unrest low. Instead of buying a lab in each of those forest, use indy comanders or scouts to move the slaves to your castles. It is more micro-intensive, but it is much cheaper. 6 provinces where you hunt means 2 castles with labs somewhere else. I often hunt in my normal non-capital castles though. I try to build them in 5000 pop provinces for that reason, specially the ones that are not supposed to build a lot of troops, but mages instead.
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