Dud nations

[Shovah32]

I also think yomi could do with a bit more variety, although they are fairly strong but quite boring(there arent a large number of ways to play them).

[HoneyBadger]

That's what I'm saying. They aren't underpowered, they're just not flavored to the full capacity of the theme.

[Sir_Dr_D]

What is the reason that marverni is concidered so weak.

There druids are great mages. Astral, earth and nature seems like a great combination of magic. (eagle eyes + gifts from heaven for example) And the Ambinite warriors have good stats for their cost.

[DrPraetorious]

Yeah, Druids can be quite useful, but they take more research points to get going than do other casters, and they make *no research boosting items whatsoever*. So you probably don't survive to reach the mid-game, which other people achieve before you do.

Their military is just mildly inferior, but the mages are their real problem. They take too long to get off the ground - the other human nations have a better military, AND they have earlier access to useful combat magic.

The Eponi Knight is decent - but he doesn't have a *lance*, which is a real problem, and you can't fight another player with a military made entirely of medium cav.

The rest of their military is only slightly inferior to equivalently priced Ermorian legionaires. They might look better on paper (they have a higher strength, and broad swords instead of short swords) but they don't have javelins and they don't have tower shields. This is a big problem for early expansion.

That said, I don't think Marverni *needs* a stonger military. If their Druids were more useful around turn 5 they'd be able to hold on - and later in the game, earth/astral/water/nature is a devastating tetrad.

I have a marverni fix mod with just extra national spells that I think does the trick well enough, but I'm hoping for some extra functionality in the next patch.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I am playing marverni in a multiplayer game right now. I used the strategy of rushing to evocation 5 as quick as possible. But the fact that they don't have research boosters is begginning to be a problem.

I agree. I would rather see Marverni improverd with national spells, then troop boosting. But it would be nice if the game engine could also make better use of bare chested warriors. Then Marverni would be a very interesting nation to play.

[vfb]

Here are some problems I've had with Marverni:

Ambibate Nobles are good warriors. However, they are not sacred, so if you build a ton of them, they will eat up a lot of maintenance. A combo I tried with Ambibate Nobles was to get Legions of Steel. That worked nicely. Except that once you get Legions of Steel, your casters will spam it on every unit you've got, even if it's a single Horn Blower sitting behind the ranks. Ambibate Nobles are expensive in terms of resources too. No way can you take any sloth.

The old age on Druids is a bit of a pain. Since Marverni has no blood/fire, it's difficult to stop them from aging. And they are expensive.

Researchers are weak/expensive. Really you've got to take at least Magic 1 to keep up in the research game. Since you have no Air/Death/Fire, you can't build ANY research items unless you get lucky with an indy.

You have no bows. Sure you can mass slingers or javelins, but then you are even more screwed with upkeep.

You have no national summons. (Devs, how about sending at least some Cu Sith love Marveni's way?)

Nature: It's quick to get a Gutater to N3 but you need Const 6 or empowerment to get him to N4 so you can make Ivy Kings.
A Lamia Queen would be much better but you've got no Death. Even if you could make 1 Lamia Queen with a Pretender, it can't make its own Lamia Queens. Firbolgs are great thugs, especially if you have a druid casting healing light.

Earth: Troll Kings are kind of cool. But you have to summon the whole court, and that's expensive.

Astral: Golems are cool. But they're way up in Const 7. Sorry, no Ether Lords, because you guessed it, no Death. Perhaps an Astal/Death pretender to let you conjure Ether Lords might be a good plan, since Marverni does have a nice Astral base to start. Ether Lords could then make more Ether Lords. But at 90 pearls a pop, I think you'd run out pretty soon.

You have no killer rituals. I suppose Baleful Star is not bad, way over in Alt 5. But Air gets Hurricane in Evo 4 (Evo 4 is killer of course), Blood gets Toads in Blood 3 (duh), and Death gets Burden in Thau 5. Fire gets Raging Hearts at Thau 5 too. If Marveni had Death, it would be cool to cast Blight, but, hey, no Death. Melancholia is a good spell -- for someone to cast on Marverni.

Anyway, I still play Marverni, even in MP, because I like the theme. I'd lose in any case because of my vast noobishness .

Marverni also does just fine in SP, since it's a lot easier to put up another castle and pump out a bunch of stargazers to support your druids, and you probably don't have to worry about getting rushed on turn 9.

[HoneyBadger]

That pretty much sums it up.

Marverni's a lot like my sorta sister-in-law. Marverni's a nice person (to us anyway), and we like Marverni, but Marverni doesn't have a lot of things going for it. Marverni's not real "together" and can't seem to hold down a job. We'd love to help Marverni out, and we do, but we're not giving Marverni any money or anything it could sell for cash, because that would be a mistake at this point. Marverni's got a real sweet kid though, and is an ok mother. Hopefully, someday, Marverni will straighten itself out, atleast for Marverni's kid's sake, but probably not if Marverni stays married to our sorta brother-in-law Ulm-who's even more of-let's face it-a loser than Marverni is.

[Teraswaerto]

I don't see research as Marverni's problem, fairly cheap sacred researchers. Take magic 1 and you're set.

All druids should start with 1 nature, in addition to what they have now, cost stays the same. Not sure if it would really "fix" Marverni but it would be a good change IMO. Druids could then get 3 nature, and they wouldn't have old age.

National spells would be a cool way of helping Marverni.

[Sombre]

If Marverni don't have the early game power they should, one way to fix that is simply to give them a gold boosting site in their capital. It becomes less and less important as the game goes on, but in the initial rush it could help provide a mass of crazed warriors.

[Sandman]

Would it not be better to simply slash the price of the druids? They're hideously overpriced. For the same basic powers (6 magic, 2 holy), Marignon's grand master costs 270 gold, a difference of 110!