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[Cruxador]

(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)

This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.

MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.

Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero. Marignon has poor access to magic, flagellants are too weak to be useful and knights of the chalice too expensive. Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spells, and that's the sum total of what Marignon has going for them as far as I can tell. The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.

(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that game

Submit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform
I imagine that the folks who address balance would like to hear how exactly you did it and any thoughts you might have about the nation. Your experience is obviously not typical, and I suspect that Caelum probably was not played well (basic thunderstrike spam should have been enough to wipe out a typical Marignon army) but if nothing else, having won a game as Marignon makes your experience worth sharing.

P.S. Diplomacy is best weapon and best defense in games where it's a thing.

It's not a good indicator of nation strength, though.

[Cruxador]

(accidental nginx triple-posting)

[Cruxador]

(oops)

[Shadowlord]

(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)

This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.

I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.

MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.

Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero.

Recorded? People record their games?

Marignon has poor access to magic, flagellants are too weak to be useful and knights of the chalice too expensive.

I never recruited flagellants or knights of the chalice. I used the orange knights instead ("Royal Guard"), which have better protection, cost less gold, and aren't cap-only, so if you have the gold you can recruit them from multiple forts to spread out the resource cost. ... I mostly used them as heavy chaff with lances, though.

Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spells

I don't really understand how you can come to that conclusion.

The Angelic Host spell costs 50 pearls and gives you the H3 Archangel commander along with 6 Angels of the Host (units). If you only want the Archangel, you can get him with Wish for 100, but it gives him to you as a unit, so he's useless for claiming thrones and shit, so you have to blow another 25 pearls on Divine Name to make him a commander...

If you are looking at the Seraph, which is summoned by the 144 pearl Heavenly Choir spell, then yeah, you can get him cheaper with Wish + Divine Name. You'd be missing the 9 angels of the heavenly choir and 3 harbingers, though.

To be fair, I wasn't interested in the angels beyond the Archangel's use for rapid throne-claiming.

The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.

I thought crossbows in a line with flaming arrows with strong scales to enable pumping out massive amounts of them would be obvious, but okay.

(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that game

Submit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform
I imagine that the folks who address balance would like to hear how exactly you did it and any thoughts you might have about the nation. Your experience is obviously not typical, and I suspect that Caelum probably was not played well (basic thunderstrike spam should have been enough to wipe out a typical Marignon army) but if nothing else, having won a game as Marignon makes your experience worth sharing.

Perhaps. It was a 5-player game, however, and not with expert-level players - and like I said, diplomacy made it easier since Caelum took losses defending against other players' attacks, as well as mine. (That thing you linked, which I don't think I've seen before, says it isn't interested in games with less than 6 players, which is fine, but I've mainly been playing games with less players lately)


Edit: fixed a broken quote tag, and re-added the author+link+date tags to the quotes

[Cruxador]

(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)

This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.

I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.

Recruiting mages is kind of a big deal, though.

MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.

Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero.

Recorded? People record their games?[/quote]"Reported" might have been a better choice of word. That would be using the form I linked, and you can see the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dlrvyEqLFYIaXRc49TheMmfdoP8jEh1m5rZJHJAzDWQ/edit?usp=sharing
It's considered to be very useful information for balance purposes.

Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spells

I don't really understand how you can come to that conclusion.

The Angelic Host spell costs 50 pearls and gives you the H3 Archangel commander along with 6 Angels of the Host (units). If you only want the Archangel, you can get him with Wish for 100, but it gives him to you as a unit, so he's useless for claiming thrones and shit, so you have to blow another 25 pearls on Divine Name to make him a commander...

If you are looking at the Seraph, which is summoned by the 144 pearl Heavenly Choir spell, then yeah, you can get him cheaper with Wish + Divine Name. You'd be missing the 9 angels of the heavenly choir and 3 harbingers, though.

To be fair, I wasn't interested in the angels beyond the Archangel's use for rapid throne-claiming.[/quote]The lower-level angels don't add a lot to nation strength in my opinion. You get air access that way, but in general they're nothing special as national summons go. I guess they're good for throne-rushing but since you already have H3 (which moves as fast as your armies), that's more of a little logistical helper than anything.

The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.

I thought crossbows in a line with flaming arrows with strong scales to enable pumping out massive amounts of them would be obvious, but okay.[/quote]Oh, yeah. Seems like less of a strategy than just the default, but flaming arrows and crossbows can cut through a lot in the early game.

(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that game

Submit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform
I imagine that the folks who address balance would like to hear how exactly you did it and any thoughts you might have about the nation. Your experience is obviously not typical, and I suspect that Caelum probably was not played well (basic thunderstrike spam should have been enough to wipe out a typical Marignon army) but if nothing else, having won a game as Marignon makes your experience worth sharing.

Perhaps. It was a 5-player game, however, and not with expert-level players - and like I said, diplomacy made it easier since Caelum took losses defending against other players' attacks, as well as mine. (That thing you linked, which I don't think I've seen before, says it isn't interested in games with less than 6 players, which is fine, but I've mainly been playing games with less players lately)[/quote]Yeah, a small game where diplo was the main deciding factor makes sense. How many turns did this take?

[Shadowlord]

61 turns, it appears. That's the last turn in my email for that game.

[Frumple]

... y'know, it'd actually been a bit since I played an aspho game. I had somehow forgotten how freaking mobile this nation is. 3 map move with forest survival is... common. By which I mean there's like maybe three national troops (pans and the minotaurs, and let's be honest, you'll probably be using carrion elephants if you want tramplers) you're actually going to use to any extent that doesn't have that. It's kinda crazy. Know it's a pan thing in general, but... still. Good stuff.

[Shadowlord]

Aspho is really easy to beat though. Hell, you really only have to keep them from expanding, and they'll burn out, even with growth scales.

[E. Albright]

(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)

[...]

I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.

Um, you do know that unrest reduces blood hunting success and effectiveness, don't you?

[Shadowlord]

Yes

[sprinkled chariot]

Is there any point in Lanka province defence? It gets BRUTALLY SMASHED just by basic ea tien chi human troops.
Also managing all those skellingtons is pain in demonic ass.
What has best synergy with skill in death magic?
Does blood magic skill affect mages somehow?
Is plague battlefield spell devastating?
Is BLESSED THUG LIFE viable strategy  for Lemuria ?

Turmoil + luck seems more effective then just order 3, does anybody have calculations for this stuff?

[Delta Foxtrot]

Is there any point in Lanka province defence? It gets BRUTALLY SMASHED just by basic ea tien chi human troops.

PD provides some unrest reduction and patrol strength. Sometimes the bodies can be useful. And you only use Lanka PD on your forts, everywhere else it's based on indie troops. But in general I'm not a fan of huge PD and that doesn't change much when looking at Lanka.

Also managing all those skellingtons is pain in demonic ass.

Fair enough. 'n' key helps, but there's still a lot of clicking around. Have you looked at nations with lots of D but no reanimators? They give you death focus without the drudgery of organizing all your permanent chaff. EA has some cool nations for that, C'tis, Ermor and Sauromatia spring to mind. Research Horde of Skeletons from enchantment school and you get a renewed wall of chaff for every battle.

What has best synergy with skill in death magic?

You mean which spells scale best? I'm a big fan of Shadow Blast at evoc-5. It scales really well, has huge AoE and does AN damage. Only downside is that it checks for MR. In my experience high D skill, penetration gear and huge AoE compensate enough for that. Oh and it costs a gem to cast. Totally worth it for big mages. Best for your D9 pretender but any elite mage with D3 or D4 and penetration gear gets results.

Turmoil + luck seems more effective then just order 3, does anybody have calculations for this stuff?

They do different things. Order is better if you want gold. Luck gives random stuff at random intervals. Turmoil just ups the event frequency while giving you less gold. Certain events also require certain scales so they can happen. I don't have a list handy right now, but I remember seeing one somewhere at some point.

[Frumple]

Aspho is really easy to beat though. Hell, you really only have to keep them from expanding, and they'll burn out, even with growth scales.

"Only have to keep them from expanding" is how you stop... pretty much everyone

So far as aspho goes, though, so long as they've got that 8 nature income (well, and nothing's killing their reanimators), they're still growing. Despite everything, they're still largely a gem nation, not a gold one, and their chaff hordes are dependent on their centaurs, not their provinces. They don't really take growth for the gold, they take it to make their A spam better. They don't actually need that much space to be really painful to deal with, just time to build up the centaurs. And once that happens you're dealing with sceleria levels of chaff, with somewhat less numbers but much, much better units.

... also it's something of a bastard to stop them from expanding if they really want to. Remember, they've got bucketloads of stealth. If they want to bypass your blockade and go nabbing provinces on the other side of the map, they kiiiiinda' can.

As for your questions, SC, blessed thug life is pretty much entirely viable for lemuria. It's... honestly one of the few things they're actually good at -- consuls are freaking amazing for their cost and research, and being the sort of nation it is you're probably tanking your scales (except magic and luck, at least) into the ground anyway, so a double or triple bless is easy to nab up. Consuls are brutal for early expansion, though -- they can easily solo most indie provinces without a bless, nevermind with one.

Blood magic does effect mages. It... should be in the manual, actually. Have forgotten exactly what it does at the moment, though. Probably strength, maybe age mitigation. And it definitely gives you some undead/demon command, though iirc not as much as death levels do.

Turmoil/luck is definitely less gold effective than order 3 (and also less gold effective than order/luck, heh, since there's some serious gold gain events when you've got order scales), though I do forget the calculations. It's pretty alright with getting other things, though -- gems, items, mages of various sorts, etc. Just don't take turmoil 3. Never take turmoil 3.

E: Oh, and plague is... not very devastating. It doesn't really do much for the battle itself, it just diseases a bunch of stuff and makes the afterbattle more of a hassle. Good for harassment and attrition, less good for winning a fight directly. Cast and retreat is effective enough for neutering armies, though, especially if you can get A2 from somewhere and give your plague casters flight boots. I'd rather have my S3 grand lemurs palling around with a buncha' bane venom charm carrying black servants or somethin', m'self

[Mithras]

The blood hunting without patrolling things really puzzles me. So pros, you don't have to acquire a patrolling force and pay upkeep, you don't have to occasionally move when your population drops below 4000. Cons you lose income, you lose blood income, and if you're lazy like me you lost the ability to recruit mages in the blood hunting province (building a lab is a small price to pay for not having to aggressively micro)

Seems like from a cost efficiency basis it makes sense to at least keep an army of patrollers who's upkeep is less than the value of the province. From a blood hunting efficiency point of view once your unrest is 100 the straight chance of failure is 25% according to the manual. That means for every four bloodhunters you are paying one to just make people angry, and without managing unrest you can get to a hundred unrest in three or four turns, seeing as the unrest generated by succeeding at blood hunting is 1-(3xthe number of blood slaves collected+4) it would take on average  132 blood slaves collected before the chance of failing a blood hunt in that province is 50% from unrest alone and 265 blood slaves before blood hunting was entirely shut down by unrest. Now this is assuming that the passive things that reduce unrest balance unrest caused by failed blood hunting. This becomes less and less true as unrest rises because it causes more failed blood hunting.

[Mithras]

Blood mages get +5 magic and undead leadership per level of blood magic according to the manual. Seems about right.