Re: Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?
It is all well and good to consider what a nation can and cannot do without a pretender as long as you do not forget that it actually has a pretender. Shoring up weaknesses of the nation is one of the things pretenders are good for.
That said, site searching works rather well for Man as long as you realize that you have to use spells to do it. Manual site searching is good for getting the needed income to start using the spells. And the spells do find the better sites.
Calling the randoms used for site searching unreliable is something I find a bit of a stretch. Now, of course, if you demand absolute forehand knowledge, that is a problem, but that is then something Man shares with a lot of nations. 1 in 4 Magister Arcanes have either E2 or S2 and the first such is usually what I utilize for initial manual site searching. My initial income will be better in one area than the other and I do not know beforehand which, but it can hardly be called unreliable. Apart from death, everything is found on the same type of mage, which also happens to be the only commander you buy in your starting castle at least during the first year. Again, when an initial income has been secured, magic is the preferred way of searching.
Sure, there are nations that search for gems faster, but as a general rule these are also the nations that need those gems earlier.
As for the astral searching spell being in a different school, you want evocation 2 reasonably early anyway, so it really does not strain your research.
Regarding research I was evidently unclear and I apologize. Owl Quills is not my recommended solution, but only something I mentioned in case you are insistent upon getting as much as possible out of your researchers. What I do if I fall behind in research, is build more castles in order to produce more Magisters. They do not require a lab to build and with map move 2, they can be built within easy reach of a castle with a lab. As a general rule you want a lot of castles with Man anyway, as that cuts the need for high production scales and you are also very good at defending them.
The Magisters also do a bit better in research than some think, in my opinion. It is true that the average research for the Magisters you buy are less than 3, however, the average research of the magisters you actually research with is a bit above 3.5. The rest of the Magisters you use to lessen the income of your opponents.
Now, regarding pretender I think it is not as hard as all that. I made a small test game in SP (Silent Seas, normal parameters) in order to make sure that my memories did not deceive me regarding conquering pace and used a pretender that I think pretty representative for the type of play I prefer when using Man.
Dormant Lady of Springs dom6 A4W4S3N2 Order 3, Production 1, Growth 1, Drain 3
Planning on building lots of castles, I do not find higher production necessary and in my view you do not need higher growth, but if someone is adamant about it, I would recommend paying for it with misfortune.
A Partholonian Sorceress could have provided slightly better magic skills for the same price, I think, but the water income of the Lady is very helpful for the odd early clam and ease of summoning the first Naiad.
For me the result was pretty average, but I am not very good at this game yet, so please take it for what it is worth.
Late winter the first year I had taken 11 provinces, so that would fall somewhat short of the 12 line, however, if it helps I had 13 the month after that and in the following months my third army would be conquering territories, too.
Last month the first year, my first army was still quite healthy (18 longbowmen, 9 defenders, 3 tower guards), the second had only lost a defender and the third army was approaching the front. My initial castle could now produce a solid army every 3 months, a second castle was on the way (I was a bit sloppy there, so it had not been finished yet) and I had found a standing stone giving me one extra air and earth gem respectively.
As I said, this is about what is to be expected. The first turn is spent patrolling, buying some longbowmen and a defender and the next turn you send your army to conquer a province. The first army is going to need backup eventually and including the first turn it will require about 4 turns of production. The second army will need 3 - 4 turns of production and then you can reliably churn out a decent army every third turn. Ideally your first army can take 10 provinces the first year, but mostly there will be a holdup for one turn, caused by the placement of your original province or possibly extra tough independents. A combination of both can reasonably set you back another province, so average is about 9 provinces. Your second army should be able to take somewhere between 1 and 3 provinces the first year and the third army will probably not reach the front till the second year.
Reasonably speaking a better player could use somewhat smaller armies and possibly be further ahead.
As for armoured elephants and heavily blessed sacreds, those can always be a problem, but I am not any more worried about that than I would be with another pretender or nation. Defenders are high precision and morale crossbowmen, so small squads of them scattered around the battlefield do present a serious problem for armoured elephants. The defenders also happen to be good hp, decent protection and defense heavy infantry, so they are not pushovers for most sacreds either.
Thing is, a SC could obviously help with elephants through sheer size, if nothing else, but sacreds is something else. Going from memory, the SC choices for Man would be Wyrm, Cyclops or Prince of Death, or am I missing something obvious?
None of them are that powerful out of the box and need magic and/or equipment to really be able to deal with everything. It might be because I am really bad with SCs, but I usually have problems taking one province each turn with SCs that cannot fly the first year. And mostly I do not manage it with flying SCs either. I simply need some equipment or magic to make it work reliably, or I risk losing the SC or at least acquire a really debilitating affliction. And if I do that I just paid dearly for an SC and got nothing in return.
Of course, the initial expansion will still be faster with a SC, but the price is, I think, to great.
Regarding Drain for Man, I do agree that it is not exactly free, but in the same vein, neither are most of the scale preferences. A non-standard temperature preference is only free as long as you are not exposed to temperature scales in the other direction and there are magics that manipulate this.
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