Can someone tell me about Machaka?

[thejeff]

Machaka's all about the Spiders. Not the big Hunter spiders but hordes of Spider Riders and then upkeep free Spiders when the Spiders die.
Later, Fever Fetishes in vanilla and drakes & cheap death summons in CBM.
Sorcerors & Black Sorcerors are both good for battle magic.

Maybe a minor bless in paths you need for diversity, but that's incidental.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Chris, those black hunter lords sound nice in theory, but without being able to self-bless they're kind of useless as thugs. And for expansion it'd be a pain to buy BHLs and priests alternately since you wouldn't be buying mages and would only be kicking out an expansion party every other turn.

Sacred commanders without holy levels make me sad, especially when they want to be used solo.

This is the reason I said "like LA-Man"

The trick is forts... Lots and lots of forts. Look:

1. Your expansion forces are going to cost between 80 and 350, depending on whether you are going to solo, or send a group of spideys.

2, you start with a priest, and you prophetize another: two expansions groups on turn two.

3. once you get going, if you stick a ring of regen, and a lycan amulet, with the bless, in spidey form you're regenerating 14 hp a turn. and you've got what 4 attacks a round, inc web spit? handles most indies just fine.

4. I don't have a problem hitting the magic number 15 in SP play with machaka, with this strategy.

[vfb]

Rings of regen and "lots and lots of forts" are not a good expansion strategy.

[BigDaddy]

I don't think spiders would make me feel safe. For instance, if I was playing Abysia, like I said in the first post, and I came across him at turn 20, he could have 40 spine devils or more, and I don't think I could protect myself. I think those big spiders, especially the skinny ones, would fall like so much chaff to a reaper.

If I was in two player, I'd want one of Machaka's forts right up his butt... and then he'd probably quit.

Those spiders might be good enough on turn 12, but one turn 18, on turn 20... 25... I'm scared if I only have spiders and skelly spam.

Someone said I should get drakes. I always thought of drakes as something the enemy beats on while I hit them with spells.

What spells should I be casting ?

[BigDaddy]

So, how about some drakes and a sea of longdead + legions of steal?

Versus some spine devils, lots of summoned imps, and some minor fire evos... Abysia seems like a particularly tough enemy for Machaka.

[Trumanator]

Honestly I have never seen someone use spine devils. Also, are you talking CBM or Vanilla?

[Jarkko]

I would advice you to prophetise a Black hunter lord. If you have a small nature bless, you'll have a regen already there (give him a few normal spiders as body-guards, script Holy Avenger Attack rear). In fact, I would go as far as to try to get the rider killed... In friendly dominion the auto-blessed spider will have north of 100 HP and regenerates with a minor N bless (though just 5 HP per turn, but still good enough to prevent afflictions) and you still have two misc slots (for a ring of regen, or lucky amulet, or whatever you fancy).

With Machaka you can push out an expansion party each turn (indy leader (if you just get some indy leader who can shoot something, so much better) moves to capital to pick up 10 spiders, then goes hunting; 10 spiders will rip apart most infantry (avoid barbarians though)) or if you need to take something heavier (barbarians, knights, heavy cavalry) recruit spiders for a couple turns (30 spiders can take out most likely anything, just form them into three squads with orders Fire closest; when your riders start to die (to enemy arrows) the riderless spiders charge forwards and spit web, disrupting the enemy lines totally).

If you face elephants (or other tramplers) or giants (or Hydras for that matter), you need to recruit the black spiders. The black spiders are not really worth it IMO, but they laugh themselves silly at elephants and giants, who get webbed up and poisoned to death by these humongous spiders.

After the initial expansion frenzy you should have a boatload of riderless spiders. They are upkeep free and excellent flankers.

If you play with CBM you should by now have Dragon Master (Ench 3, which also gives you skelly spam) and Summon Fire Drakes (Conj 3) researched, then go for evocations. Fire Drakes in center (they are tough as nails and the breath fire), riderless spiders on flanks, sorcerors bombarding evocations (keep a sizeable body guard of the heavy Machakan infantry around the mages, they repel any fliers easily). The ever loved skelly-spam is also an option, especially against nations who do not fear fire (Abysia for example; let your skellies exhaust the abysian infantry with their high fatigue, and rip them apart).

If you are playing vanilla Dominions, then you should go for Fire Fetishes as fast as possible, and then go for Flaming Arrows instead (while not forgetting skelly-spam, it is even more important in vanilla), and BURN everything in sight with your basic cheap archers, while your heavy infantry and skellies holds the center and the spiders attack on the flanks. Flaming arrows really is too powerful in vanilla (and totally useless in CBM, but that is just my personal opinion, others claim they still see it used under CBM; personally I hope so very much Flaming arrows would see some slight change in CBM to at least make it an option to consider), so take full advantage of that. While your Flaming Arrowed armies hold your neighbours in terror, take maximum advantage of the fire gems the fetishes bring; craft items, summon stuff, even alchemise them to bring in money for more castles etc. Fetishes are really the thing Machaka desperately needs.

However, Machaka is a one trick pony. When your opponent notices you are all about fire fire fire and some more fire wether it is CBM or vanilla, you are doomed (there are so many ways to make even full armies fire resistant); in CBM this happens quite a bit sooner though, in vanilla you might have a chance to stick around slightly longer. Machaka has no proper tools for endgame, sadly. You have to rush the map when you are at your strongest, in middle game, and hope the others fold over. Also, a lot depends on your pretender, as you have to choose your pretender to either boost your strengths (but you already are so very strong in fire, so it is hard to come up with something that would make it even more stronger) or to compensate your weaknesses (but there are so many weaknesses Machaka has, that it will be very difficult).

[BigDaddy]

CBM because you get 3 at a time, for spine debils. It lets you switch to a different path. I just use them for defense, not attacking, but in a pinch I'm sured they'd perform just fine.


Spine devils plus blood mage imp spam will kill armies stupid enough not to respect lvl 1 blood in the early-mid game.

[Jarkko]

Spine devils on defence works fine as long as your PD is at least half decent. Spine devils (and imps to take the banishment barrage) works wonders when you plan your PD to hold the center while the spine devils get to rip anything and everything on the flanks.

However, Machakan PD just sucks. You'll see your PD spearmen rush forwards, get shot by your own PD archers, and your spearmen rout, which sees your archers being next in line to take the brunt of the assault, and your army routs before the spine devils had a chance to deliver a single hit...


EDIT: Machaka is an all out offensive nation. You have about zero defensive options, so just press on like mad when you can, and hope your opponents croak before they notice you are the glass cannon who delivers pain just fine but can't take anything in return without shattering totally.

[Amorphous]

You seem a bit hung up about the spine devils.

Please consider that 40 of them represent a major investment at the stage of the game you are talking about. Since they cost 3 slaves and a blood 2 mage turn per unit in addition to the requirement of a researched level of blood they are at least the equivalent of 120 blood slaves and 200 research points. You need to make a commensurate investment as Machaka to get the sort of result you want.

Machaka is primarily a mage nation, and this is where you should look for power. You do not summon a wave of cheap troops, that is what low resource troops and spiders are for. You blight your enemy's capital, spread disease among his troops and poisons his land. To battle you bring your mighty sorcerers that frighten, curse and burn the rabble that your enemy managed bring against you. Then you feed upon the corpses and dance upon a dead god's grave.

Sure, a lot of spiders and men will die against tough oponents, but who cares? Machakan spears are the blades of the singing grass of the savannah and the layers of crawling spiders in the Machakan forests are countless. Let lesser nations worry about troops dying - Machaka always has more.


To put the raving aside, you have top notch mages - use them. Most of your mages can self-buff with Eagle Eyes, which makes them deadly accurate. You can get far with the usual fire evocations, but where that is not effective - say against Abysian troops - you have things like Magma Bolts as well as poison and stun damage. And frighten is always fun.

With your very resource cheap archers, Flame Arrows is ridiculously good against practically anything not fire immune.

There are plenty of battlefield spells that goes very well with your cheap and fast troops. Look at spells like Iron Bane and Curse of Stones to get an idea of what you can do.


Finally, do not underestimate spiders. Poison is rather effective in a lot of situations and those wonderful webs makes everyone very easy to hit. While all varieties of spiders have their place, the vast majority of those you buy should be the resource cheap ones, so you should have a lot of them.

Edit:
CBM changes things around a bit, but not that much really. Flame Arrows is harder to cast and Fever Fetishes are not available, which makes fire gems less plentyfull, but at this early stage it does not matter that much. Dragon Master does make greater utilization of Fire Drakes economical, though. And that helps against Abysia.