Advice on Machaka appreciated

[tinkthank]

I really like Machakian mages, and I like the "feel" to this nation a lot. Yet I fail miserably with them

I would like to know what you people who enjoy Machaka use for pretender builds.

Since their mages are not holy and their priests are not sexy and their only sacred unit is one I have never been able to afford, I have never made a build with bless effects, instead going for some order, production, and magic.

Things I dont understand include:
- what to do with their so-called "warriors". Fodder is nice, but what do I do early game? It seems all I have is fodder. Am I supposed to do lots of blindness/7-year-fever inducing hit-and-run attacks to weaken em up until I get juicier troops?
- My assassin seems very nice, I'd like to use him, but he's so expensive, capital only, and still dies easily to Indy normalo commanders without decent equipment (and he already starts with *bane blades*). What do I do wrong?
- PD. I know I like nations with stronger PD -- it is fun to see minor incursions / bad luck events stopped completely with PD alone (I have success playing Abysia). Machaka PD I dont understand -- should I just forget it completely? But then I feel so naked. How do you defend? Do you keep troops *everywhere*?
- How many spies do you use?
- Im not used to non-priestly mages (also play Tien S&A a lot); any tips?
- Hoplites seem nice, but they slow down my otherwise quick army. Any tips here?
- I love bowmen, but Machakian bowmen are the worst of them all, it seems. With their small range, they cant be all the way in the back, and then they have.... no protection. And 8 gold is not nothing, considering Marignon crossbows only cost 10, for example, ditto for Tien's compound bowmen. It seems I never have enough money for enough to mass a group which wont rout.... What do you do?

well I'll cut it short here
thanks very much!

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I would like to know what you people who enjoy Machaka use for pretender builds.

Usually a tough chassis with 1-3 magic paths (up to level 2-4) I don't get easily on my national mages. Or a tough Astral King. Or a Virtue for her mobility, cheapness, dominion strength and air magic. Or even an Oracle for points.

Since their mages are not holy and their priests are not sexy

Personal preference. I've always preferred plain mages and priests to mage-priests. I rather like the Machakan leaders.

and their only sacred unit is one I have never been able to afford, I have never made a build with bless effects, instead going for some order, production, and magic.

Same here. IMO that's the best way to go.

- what to do with their so-called "warriors". Fodder is nice, but what do I do early game? It seems all I have is fodder. Am I supposed to do lots of blindness/7-year-fever inducing hit-and-run attacks to weaken em up until I get juicier troops?

I completely forget about them. At least until Alteration 6, then with Mass Protection they have a use, since they can be recruited en masse in a inch. For early expansion I use Witch Doctor support who cast Eagle Eyes then Tangle Vines (all level-1 spells). If you research Evocation-1, they can make good use of Fire Darts on distant enemy targets like archers when their script runs out.

- My assassin seems very nice, I'd like to use him, but he's so expensive, capital only, and still dies easily to Indy normalo commanders without decent equipment (and he already starts with *bane blades*). What do I do wrong?

I've had the same experience with unequipped assassins. IMO their cost is high enough to justify at least some basic equipment.

- PD. I know I like nations with stronger PD -- it is fun to see minor incursions / bad luck events stopped completely with PD alone (I have success playing Abysia). Machaka PD I dont understand -- should I just forget it completely? But then I feel so naked. How do you defend? Do you keep troops *everywhere*?

I always build some, up to 5 (costs 15 - cheap). If I want extra defense I bring in some hoplites and archers, or I recruit locals.

- How many spies do you use?

I always try to recruit 1 scout/turn in every indep province where they're available. If you mean the stealthy Ear priest, I recruit them in fortresses with temples and no lab yet. I find them useful, but not enough to recruit one where I could recruit a mage. There are other ways to gather accurate intelligence.

- Im not used to non-priestly mages (also play Tien S&A a lot); any tips?

Huh? They play exactly the same except they can't preach and can't cast priestly spells. That's a strange question.

- Hoplites seem nice, but they slow down my otherwise quick army. Any tips here?

Regular HI with 15+ prot all have a strat move of 1 (Jotuns, Caelians and Hypaspists are the only exceptions I believe), so this isn't a Machaka-only issue. If you need tough fast troops, you could build a castle in a place where HC or knights are available (you've got high Production to help, haven't you?). Or summon a few tough, fast-moving critters (many constructs have a good strat move even if they're slow on the battlefield).

- I love bowmen, but Machakian bowmen are the worst of them all, it seems. With their small range, they cant be all the way in the back, and then they have.... no protection. And 8 gold is not nothing, considering Marignon crossbows only cost 10, for example, ditto for Tien's compound bowmen. It seems I never have enough money for enough to mass a group which wont rout.... What do you do?

They're not worse than any other shortbows. You can give them a bit of punch with Flaming Arrows (easy to get reasonably early with your magic scale), then they're very good to dispatch huge barbarian hordes. One of the best tactics to get rid of the feudals who guard the richest provinces (usually a few knights with some longbows and a horde of militia) is to bring a small squad of hoplites to divert enemy fire, a few Witch Doctors to stop the knights in their tracks with Tangle Vines, and 2 big squads of archers slightly behind on each flank, one set to fire closest (for the militia), the other set to fire archers. Works better if you have Flaming Arrows ready.

[Jondifool]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I really like Machakian mages, and I like the "feel" to this nation a lot. Yet I fail miserably with them

I would like to know what you people who enjoy Machaka use for pretender builds.

Since their mages are not holy and their priests are not sexy and their only sacred unit is one I have never been able to afford, I have never made a build with bless effects, instead going for some order, production, and magic.

Things I dont understand include:
- what to do with their so-called "warriors". Fodder is nice, but what do I do early game? It seems all I have is fodder. Am I supposed to do lots of blindness/7-year-fever inducing hit-and-run attacks to weaken em up until I get juicier troops?
- My assassin seems very nice, I'd like to use him, but he's so expensive, capital only, and still dies easily to Indy normalo commanders without decent equipment (and he already starts with *bane blades*). What do I do wrong?
- PD. I know I like nations with stronger PD -- it is fun to see minor incursions / bad luck events stopped completely with PD alone (I have success playing Abysia). Machaka PD I dont understand -- should I just forget it completely? But then I feel so naked. How do you defend? Do you keep troops *everywhere*?
- How many spies do you use?
- Im not used to non-priestly mages (also play Tien S&A a lot); any tips?
- Hoplites seem nice, but they slow down my otherwise quick army. Any tips here?
- I love bowmen, but Machakian bowmen are the worst of them all, it seems. With their small range, they cant be all the way in the back, and then they have.... no protection. And 8 gold is not nothing, considering Marignon crossbows only cost 10, for example, ditto for Tien's compound bowmen. It seems I never have enough money for enough to mass a group which wont rout.... What do you do?

well I'll cut it short here
thanks very much!

I will give my advices! First there is some really good advices found when searching on "machaka". Actual good debate about to most off your questions. Have to say it as i just reread it

pretender builds.
if going for bless its either fire or earth, to have those spiders be really strong. But don't build them to early (to costly for that). I have failed to make a F9E9 scorpion pretender really work, but have not give up trying.

with the wide range of magic skills availble, there is no need for a rainbow pretender (maybe except the cash cow ). The reason is that A black sorcerer and a sorcerer with right randoms (water, air or astral ) would together find around 2/3 of all magic sites there is hidden. Not the best ones ofcause but enough to get a very good start in magic income.

Back is either a SC or a pretender to fill in the gaps in the magic. Virtue (air) or prince of death (death) or even a water one. Filling in gabs , does give room for really good scales.

What to do in early game! All this fodder.

Patroll is a good option (40 troops in first round). Tax can fast be really high. To give a very good economic start. (growth scale comes in handy here).
I build all the hopelite i can (maybe exsept one) and round up with archers (12+). The would join as patrollers until ready to go out fighting. Unless drowning in resources the goal is to get a second fortification ASAP. To be able to spit out hopelites! If have enough resources I would still build second castle very fast as there is alot of commanders there is nice to build and 1 for each turn is simple to restrickting in early game, as I want those patrollers, and a few scouting priest and....
(actual knowing that I would build second castle very fast means that low producktion scales can be an option for a non blessed pretender)

About assasin I can't really give advice as i find him decent against most opponents (exsept maybe ulm and jotun), and I haven't really used him against indies.

PD: I add archers and a lvl 3 priest and thats makes it reasonble better! Or I patroll with a lvl 2 priest with patroll bonus and archers/ hopelites. So Yes I keep troops every where. And milk the provinces for gold once in a while.

I sure use to few stealth units, with machaka- but thats why I want that second castle- to cranck out some preaching stealth priests.

The trick about the mages. What I have learned so far is to look close at the random magic pics on my sorcs and black sorcs. (Earth, Fire, and death for the black , and death , nature for the sorc, this open up for all the +1 items at construcktion 4 (and 6 later). so thosse are keepers not to put in danger before they have research and forged the needed + items.
Else i think its alteration 6 there is the target. (after flaming arrows alt 4) but thats in the topic here

But to make it short Mass protektion does wonders to my hopilites and does make my archers protekted as well!
Incinerate is the best fire spell , and invulnerbility is a nice thing for thosse mages
and....

And now getting into the talk about bowmen and how to proteckt them. Thats a nice job for hopilites , they are actual excellent at it, they laugh at friendly fire and doesn't break easyly. So this is a standard archer/heavy inf combo that machaka have. And very dependely
And am I wrong about that bows benefit more from the flaming arrows than crosbows , because of the faster fire rate or did I misunderstood that.

on final thought I think thats patrolling is whats make the difference for me in the early game, not that I overdo it, but to get those exstra gold early is simply what machaka needs, and the flexibility is nice as i am able to make my income alot higher if needed. And the PD does need thesse ekstra troops aswell. remember that Anything a patrolling priest finds would kill him unless he is in good compagny.


btw I like your wordings" Since their mages are not holy and their priests are not sexy and their only sacred unit is one I have never been able to afford, I have never made a build with bless effects" Made me laugh
But have you seen a sorceress turns into a spider- defently sacred after! (but sure not sexy)

[rabelais]

Hmmm. I disagree that the priests aren't sexy. There are 3 Versions, all dirt cheap for their interesting abilities. I think except for arco and marignon, they have the sexiest priests.

(i.e.Harem Time!)

Maybe I'm silly, but I find getting a decent blessing with machaka is way too expensive. Plus the Hunters, as marvelous as they are, are overpriced. (Until they lose their riders, Heh. )

Fire/blood/death are all almost useless for the hunters. (if you got undead spiders, death would rule, but alas....)

Astral still doesn't get their post-rider MR into the survivable range. Air is potentially nice if you're using massed crossbows, but it seems rather unlikely.

Water and nature are both lovely, but you can't get them without paying through the draconic nose.

(If divine serpent were available... Yum!)

But 274 points is a lot to empower a unit you can't afford until midgame.

I like the Wyrm for a cheap SC or a rainbow with air/water/astral. Machaka is very good at summoning armies and the gems are gonna get used early and often.

Oh and the hoplites are, bar none, the most cost efficient infantry in the game. If not using a hunter bless strat, take a low gold castle (wizard tower kicks tush) and churn them out like the unstoppable death wave they are.


Rabe the Machakan Maven

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by rabelais:
Astral still doesn't get their post-rider MR into the survivable range.

Their MR without a rider is now either 10 or 11, so astral could easily bring that up a great deal.

[tinkthank]

thank you all!!

@Rabe: We have a vastly different conception of sexy. The Ear is by far the worst spy in the game, he is *always* getting caught -- for 70 gold I dont like him spying, and for 70 gold preaching? I'll take a Friar for almost half price any day. The Eye can patrol, which is... ok, but certainly not sexy. And what specials does the Voice have? No, a sexy priest is one who can summon cool monsters, fly, have magic paths, have enticing mammary glands (oh wait no forget that), be cheap, etc.

Maybe I must just learn to not want all things all the time....
ok I will try out your suggestions. Nature blessing, never tried that....

[Scott Hebert]

Mm. Machaka is about my 3rd favorite nation, so I think I have at least a few things to say about it.

Generally, I don't go for a Bless Strategy. With my Pretender, I either load up on Earth magic (burn to Forge, go insane with your versatile mages), or do something else. Yeah, I know, very helpful, but... can Machaka get the Great Mother? 4E/4N Pretender would be great for them, IMO...

With regard to the priests, no, they're not very impressive. The fact that you have a _Spy_ priest is rather good, though. OTOH, the others simply don't compare. The Voice costs the same amount as the Seraphine, with none of her benefits. Weird, that.

With regard to the troops, the Hoplites are indeed your best troop. I also like the Spider Knights, though I haven't tried the base Riders. I would think that webbing someone before they get to you and continuing to pelt them with arrows would be good.

But really, I find Machaka's strength is the versatile summoning platforms they have. Vinemen are very acceptable early (which also gets you to Construction 2 for the Fever Fetish), and a little more Research gets you Scorpions and other niceties.

As for PD... eh. My biggest complaint about Machaka is their tissue-paper PD, when I don't see why they have it for terms of balance.

[archaeolept]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by rabelais:
Astral still doesn't get their post-rider MR into the survivable range.

Their MR without a rider is now either 10 or 11, so astral could easily bring that up a great deal.

---

what do you mean by this? I just checked my riderless spider in a 2.11 test game, and he had an MR of 5.

5 is not very good

[Blitz]

I'm surprised you are having trouble with Machaka, I find them one of the more balanced nations out there.

Try going with an Enchatress with F3 W3 E3 S6 as your pretender. Early in the game, she finds most sites that your mages won't, and in the later game she's a walking artillery platform after a nice ring of sorcery and staff of elemental magery.

I usually only build a few more than the starting archer compliment for my initial expansion, concentrating more on the exceptional hoplites for the bulk of my army. They stand up to any independant short of knights. Put your javlineers on the edge and have them attack archers. They will die off eventually, but as we have established... they totally suck.

Later in the game, add some archer spiders to your army, not too many since they are a whopping 50 gold, maybe a half-dozen to slow down the cavalry. Another half-dozen spider riders in front of them set to intercept cavalry will result in your opponent's flanking force being quickly webbed and ganged up on. Hoplites still comprise the bulk of your army. They can go toe to toe with most infantry, but adjust your tactics if you see tramplers!

I like to keep a seperate growing force of hunter spiders on their own, led by my prophet. Use this army to quickly reinforce border areas the hunter spider is arguably the strongest recruitable unit, and a group of 12 or so backed by skeleton summonings and priests is a match for many armies 3 or 4 times it's size.

As for the horrendous PD of Machaka, I usually plant a necromancer in my remote border locations, quietly researching until it comes time to back up the 20 strong militia. Give him a +death staff and a cheap regen item and he'll try his best to stem the tide. It's not the cheapest solution, but costs near nothing after the initial investment, and ensures you won't lose provinces to a flock of blackhawks or two knights and a priest =(.

Lastly, remember that your research chicks can morph into spiders. Try the combat sequence (stoneskin, fireshield, change shape, attack). Not bad huh?

hope this helps.

[Wauthan]

Machaka virtually begs for a blesseffect strategy, considering their terrific sacred units. I usually pick one of the dragons for a single 9. Because their mages are not sacred I don't have to worry about a nature9 blessing causing my mages to run into melee. Or I skip bless and magic completely and just max the scales and castle.

Light protection indeps: Machaka got very cheap archers and almost arrowproof hoplites. Use hoplites to tie up troops and wither them with massed archers. Spiders are also arrowresistant but too expensive to risk to friendly fire. Put them on fireclosest to let them web enemies.

Medium protection indeps: Massed Machaka warriors on fire closest and a few flanking spiderknights on attack archers. Build one big regiment and get some priests to keep morale up.

Heavy protection indeps: Bring out them sacred units and mages, they'll make short work of them. A nature9 blessed group of four spiders will beat the snot out 20 knights. Especially if they got some magic support.

Machakas PD is propably the worst available. It was one of the very first things I modded in the game. Basicly you can just as well go "naked" and stick a though summoned unit or two in there (like a giant scorpion) with a cheap priest on pray (or perhaps 5 PD since the priest cost upkeep). Summoned units gets you a lot of bang for the buck and demand no salaries. Giant Scorpions are propably the best province defenders available for Machaka.

Machaka sorcerers can take out a lot of enemies all by themselves. Just learn a few good boost spells and put them on attack. First hit will turn them into huge spiders (with all the magic boosts intact) and they'll simply level small forces without any help.

I use enough spies to keep tabs on the frontier. Since PD can not be relied on (without modding) you need to see where your enemy will strike you.

Banespiders fragile? You must have had a bout of bad luck. The only thing I ever needed to worry about was mounted commanders. Their defence is a bit low perhaps.