Is Man (Tower of Chelms) the Ulm of LA?

[OmikronWarrior]

Yes, I'm being somewhat of an exaggerator here, but still I'm surprised with how many disadvantages LA Man seems to have. The troops are fine, or would be if they A) weren't so resource intensive and B) overwhelmingly map move 1. Still the combination of crossbowmen and heavy infantry is a very deadly one, especially with easy access to air magic for Wind Guide. Then you set your defenders to fire closests. When the opposition closes those in the front move to engage in melee while those in the back continue to fire with remarkable accuracies AP bolts.

Yet, as Dom3 veterans know, you have to win midgame battles with magic, preferrably damage spells until you move further up the research tree and have more options open up. And Man has only one battle mage, the Magister Arcane (A2E1S1 +50% ASEF). You could use the A3 Arcane's to cast storm and everyone power up to Air-3 for a thunderstrike spam, but that halves your archer fire power creating a terrible synergy. Anything else, you only have a 1/8 chance of getting. Theoretically, any arcane master could form a communion, but Man doesn't have any easy access to cheap, low level astral mages that make communions work on a reliable basis.

Yet here's the real kicker. The Magister Arcane costs a whopping 250 gold. I scoured the late age for any commander that was a worst value for that gold. There are none. The same amount of gold gets you a Jotun Skratti (Capable of SC duty) or Staret of Bogarus (Comes with a lot more paths and does a lot better in research even in Drain-3 dominion). Magister Arcanes have 1 map move, pretty bad old age with no chance of nature or death to mitigate it, minimal hp, and no protection. They don't have any priest levels or even sacred status. So, you recruit a lot, pay a lot of upkeep, and then watch a whole bunch get diseased come winter even with Growth-3.

Then, just to add insult to injury, half of your starting gem income is nature gems, but you have no nature mages.

So, has anyone found a way to rock with Man? Sure, there's always the expand fast with an awake SC, but you really need both excellent scales (including production-3 and growth-3) and a Pretender who bring Magic Diversity. Its sort of like choose two out of the three you need.

[Meglobob]

Yes, I agree La Man is a bit on the weak side. I think as Dominions has developed, some nations have been left behind, Man both Ma/La is one of those nations.

Ulm both Ma and La got a boost, indeed La Ulm is now a very good nation. Man could do with a similar boost.

Having said that, you never mentioned La Mans one great strength which is stealth, a decent strategy around wardens/lord wardens and magister can be put together. But, you will still struggle mid - late game.

I would like to see:-

1) Magister of theology given stealth.
2) Increase the stealth of Lord Wardens/Magister/Wardens to 20.
3) Magister Arcane paths increased to 3A 1E 1S 1N with 1 100% random of AESN.
4) Judge inceased to 50% chance of 1F and 50% chance of 1D.
5) Some additional unique summons.

[Sombre]

I don't know too much about MA Man, but I believe it has a /lot/ of problems (such as old age on their best casters), problems that LA Man doesn't really have. Chelms is actually a very interesting nation and while it isn't great I don't think it's in the same situation as MA Ulm.

[Meglobob]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I don't know too much about MA Man, but I believe it has a /lot/ of problems (such as old age on their best casters), problems that LA Man doesn't really have.

There best mage does have the exact old age problems that the Ma Man Crone has, except its worse, because there best mage has F magic vs N magic.

[zzcat]

IMO Man is the weakest nation of LA. Their army is ok but very resource intensive. As a battle mage, most magister arcane are even weaker than a harab seraph but cost 80% more.(while Harab seraph can sommon valkyries in battle, A2E1S1 do not bring any dual-path spells like acid bolt)

[OmikronWarrior]

The Magister Arcane's might be fine if: 1) they got a price cut to 190-210 and 2) had easier access to cheap slave to communion with. Also, a 10% cut accross the board in resource costs would be nice.

[Sombre]

Perhaps Man should be given a lesser version of the Ulmish Castle Production Bonus. I think MA Ulm is at 20% or something. Don't know about LA Ulm.

[AreaOfEffect]

I was going to save this discussion for my guide to the nation. Yet, if your going to bring up a sore subject, I might as well chime in.

I believe the reason the Magister Arcana is priced that way is because he has drain tolerance. It's the only explanation I can develop. That said I feel that it's unfair for the player to pay for that ability in gold cost as it has already been paid at nation selection. Each nation has advantages and disadvantages. When you choose a nation you, in theory, pay for any advantages with some disadvantages. The advantage of drain tolerant units was paid for with a lack of recruitable thugs, the lack of any national unit template, the lack of high magic skills, and severely hindered site searching ability just to name a few.

Drain tolerance should be a national advantage tagged to all casters of Man at no cost. It should be a given as it is a national advantage that is suppose to make up for the laundry list of things they don't have.

[OmikronWarrior]

And honestly, the drain tolerance thing only goes so far to explain the heavy price tag. For example, the Bogarus Staret (sp?) will usually have 12 RP, but 10 RP in 3-drain dominion. The Magister Arcane will only average 6.5 RP in drain dominion, but costs exactly the same. Furthermore, RP is the only thing you buy mages for and thus not the only thing to blance with price considerations.

The normal Magister is by far the best researcher Man's got, and does have the advantage of not requiring a lab to be build. But, you can't use him in battle.

[Agema]

Maybe don't think about Air so much, and think of your mages more for unit buffing than damage spamming.

Okay, A2E1S1 (+1 AESF).

Early, you can easily access Wind Guide for your already awesome longbowmen. With a simple communion, you can add flame arrows with F. And you get arrow fend if your opponent has archers. That will make you very unpleasant in the early game, and your national troops are pretty decent anyway.

For damage spam, don't Storm-Storm Power-Thunderstrike and cripple your archers. Just 2 communioned guys will give A3 for caster and slaves. Use 4 and you'll have A4 casting half-price thunderstrikes, which means a lot of thunderstrike spam. Also note that Earthpower on a master will also reinvigorate your communion slaves. Mostly Use your earth magic. You get E2 mages. That means earth boots for +1E. You've got Summon Earthpower. That's easy access to blade wind. For E1F1 mages, earth boots + summon earthpower to get magma eruption.

You have access to earth's vast array of unit buffs and debuffs. Legions of Steel, Destruction, later on Army of Gold or Lead, and so on. All are in easy reach. You can set up Fog Warriors as well with communion via air. Finally, with E/A, you've got the massive combo of Army of Gold and/or Fog Warriors, followed by Rain of Stones/Earthquake.

Also bear in mind your E/S combo. With E2 mage make earth boots, give to an E1S2 mage, and you've access to all the crystal stuff: coins for +1S, slave/master matrices, shield (E2S3?) and so on. That gives you more leverage as well.

You've got 120 points from Drain. Maybe invest in a rainbow pretender for site searching to get income going. Your troops are hard enough to make you an unattractive rush target, so SC not required. Maybe invest to make you pretender high in a good late-game magic, like Death or Astral.