Tip: Ba'al and Unrest

[Fate]

I would be more interested in improving the other research items. They seem underpowered in general to me.

[Dragar]

Owl quill is underpowered, mostly because of the small return for a mage turn, but used early enough can still be worthwhile. Lightless lanterns are useful, in particular because there aren't a lot of good uses for fire gems outside of direct combat use. Skull mentor is the best, certainly, but it costs use of one of the best gem types, so it doesn't see as much play (from what I've seen) as the lanterns.

[ano]

Have you seen the rephaite sage?
Build anywhere without a lab 6 research for 175 gold; When Ashdod has forests it is the quickest research nation, they get 800g forts in forests.

Have you ever seen the Minister of Magic?
Built anywhere without a lab 5 research for 70 gold. When Tien Chi has swamps(800gp castle) or even forests or plains (1000 gp castle) it is the quickest research nation.
That plus a native fire and ability to make mass fetishes makes them a research plasma-gun if they manage to set up good expansion.

[Atreidi]

Originally Posted by ano

Have you ever seen the Minister of Magic?
Built anywhere without a lab 5 research for 70 gold. When Tien Chi has swamps(800gp castle) or even forests or plains (1000 gp castle) it is the quickest research nation.
That plus a native fire and ability to make mass fetishes makes them a research plasma-gun if they manage to set up good expansion.

True_That

[Redeyes]

Well, I did mean that everything Ashdod does is unique, just that it's one of those strengths that aren't readily apparent but can be capitalized on, like their mild inoculation against flaming arrows/fire bless or cheap Slingers to leverage with buffs/use as wall breakers/as patrollers.

If you want to break it down to every component part T'ien Ch'i has an advantage in the Minister of Magic, though I think that holistically Ashdod is just as "quick" a researcher due to their ability to expand and great benefit from going construction early; T'ien Ch'i can't leverage magic items as well as Ashdod thugs.

[ano]

No, I don't mean to compare these races - they're too different, of course. I don't consider MA TC powerful at all because they have a lot of weaknesses. Good magic oriented nation, nothing more.

[Maraxus]

Hinnom:
-Able to side-search every magic path but water.
-Good blood nation
-Tramplers and good troops with magic weapons
-recruiteable okay thugs.

The nation is so powerful, a little unrest does not hurt.

[P3D]

Actually, unrest hurts. It forces you to patrol your capital continuously (or lower taxes) and/or recruit less of your capital-only thugs and giant troops initially.

[Maraxus]

Of course it hurts but does it hurt enough?

The effect is quite low, if you sent all unrest produces out, as soon as they are recruited. If you have taken sloth or at least no productivity, your first expansion might just be a (low income) mountain. As tough as Baals are, there is no problem having them research and cast rituals in labs on the open, either. And Melquats charge the enemy anyway.