"The Machaka of the early age is influenced by the old pen and paper RPG Powers and Perils. In the fantastic campaign setting of this game there was a nation of African stock led by great men that were released from a great sleeping city. The notion of a released race of superior men was attractive. Various myths, tales, films, and "African" fantasy concepts have been mashed together and mixed with the middle age Machaka ideas. My first idea of clans based on body parts like liver, heart, hand, head and leg, did not feel right and was replaced with animals, more fitting with the spiders of the middle age.

The nation evolved side by side with Berytos, but it took a bit longer to finish. Creating two nations together and intertwining their history gave them both additional life. It is probably something I want to do with more new nations in the future." - Illwinter

Machaka has a bad reputation in this game, commonly considered one of the weaker MA factions. It has terrible-to-mediocre troops off-capital, its elites are expensive for what they bring to the table, and its cavalry is more akin to tanks or artillery than shock troops. It's a Death nation with Death as its weakest path (and no guaranteed Death gem income), an Earth nation whose guaranteed Earth mages are only found in the capital, and an Assassination nation whose assassins are (again) only found in the capital.

However, Machaka isn't a total pushover. Though it lacks Communions, its mages are quite capable in their own right. All of its mages have Fire & Death, a strong crosspath for Evocations that isn't shut down by the elemental resistances, and most have Nature for improving their Precision. Its capital mages are hard to kill, boasting spider forms with 25-50 extra HP in the reserve. The mounts of its cavalry will stick around in battle. Lastly, Machaka has just enough Earth to make its Hoplites work, unlike most other nations relying on tight frontlines guarding magic "cannons".

A lot of armourless troops with few wearing plates. Those without armour have an unusually high map move of 18, something most cavalry don't have. As this is paired with Forest Survival they can potentially move between 2 to 3 provinces a turn.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Machaka Scout 25 3 1	Stealthy (40) Mountain Survival Forest Survival	Scout.
	Machaka Chief 40 2 1	Forest Survival	Cheap 40 leader. If a leader with low protection cost is needed (for example in early game expansion), Eye of the Lord is a more versatile choice as he can be moved to other tasks after expansion.
	Machaka Commander 70 27 1	Forest Survival	More expensive 80 ld Commander.
	Spider Lord 110 26 2	dying shape(Great Spider) Forest Survival Mounted	More expensive 80ld Commander for a mount. Cheaper than a Hunter Lord and not cap only if used as a mounted counter thug.
	Ear of the Lord 90 3 2	1 Sacred Stealthy (60) Forest Survival spy	Sacred Spy so paying less gold over time compared to other spies. As a Spy he gives access to mundane score graphs and may be ordered to cause unrest or preach outside Machaka's borders. Can take a Spirit Sight bless to scout out Glamoured elves in their provinces.
	Eye of the Lord 65 4 1	1 Sacred patrol bonus(15) tax collector Forest Survival	Priest, small time leader, and decent at removing unrest and finding sneakers. Tax collector makes them better at raiding if there's a chance of getting cut off from forts.
	Voice of the Lord 115 2 2	2 Sacred Forest Survival	Can cast Sermon of Courage and has the cheapest upkeep for a leadership 80 commander. Can deal with undead spam.
	Witch Doctor 80 1 2 Forest rec+	111 7 Inept Researcher (4) supply bonus (10) Forest Survival	As Witch Doctors can be mass-produced for cheap in any labbed forest, they can provide a research boost, especially in +3. Out of the gate the Witch Doctor is a mediocre mage, relegated to using its 1 mainly for Protection and Tangle Vines. It becomes significantly more powerful with gem use casting cost-effective spells like Swarm, Will o' the Wisp and Corpse Candle. Eagle Eyes helps with precision on landing his spells.
	Sorcerer 195 1 2	1121100% 15 supply bonus (20) Forest Survival	The off cap major wizard. For their cost, their paths are a bit scattered, but they can still do many things with them. Highest nature in the nation, up to 3. While Black Sorcerers are Machaka's big Fire and Earth casters, Sorcerers still serve an important role as evocation blasters with Eagle Eyes to boost their accuracy and be the Devoted Death and Nature casters with boosters. Randoming earth may not be that useless for a Sorcerer, like Earth, Fire, Nature, some gems, and gear is the makings of an ok light thug (gold not wasted but situationally spent), and can cast Strength of Gaia or forge discounted Kithaironic Lion Pelts.
	Sorceress 85 1 2 Capital Only	111010% 11 Domion attracts units 20(Great Spider) Wounded Shape(Great Spider, 50% path reduction) Forest Survival Female	Early game Research power before the Witch Doctor Factorys come online. Cap only researchers with respectable research points. Similar paths as the Witch Doctor but trade Nature for Earth to become early game Magma casters. Respectable survivability with a second shape so they can flee when their initial hp reaches zero. As an added bonus they also occasionally spawn some free spiders for chaff.
	Hunter Lord 140 36 1 Capital Only	Sacred Dying Shape(Hunter Spider) Forest Survival Mounted	Heavily armored human thug riding a Hunter Spider. Expensive but can thug with him, using Machaka's forging power and any bless point out of the pretender. Unlike the Black Hunters, the commander's spider will not stay after battle, even in troop form.
	Bane Spider 110 38 1 Capital Only	Darkvision 50% Stealthy(50) Assassin(2) ambidextrous(2) scale-walls Forest Survival	A heavily armored assassin in full plate that scales walls and dual-wields bane weapons. Competes with the Black Sorcerer for cap recruitment, but can produce 2 each turn. They can take down an indie commander even if dying in the attempt, but their armour speed penalty does them no favors when being barraged by a mage (especially a Death mage). If fighting a player, replace that Spider armor with something lighter and give them Boots of Long Strides and a pokemon Item if you want those mages to not show up for the battle the next day. Alternatively you can take them with a posse of Spider Warriors for PD raiding.
	Black Sorcerer 210 6 4 Capital Only	2211100% 10% 17 Old Age(60/46) Wounded Shape(Hunter Spider, 50% path reduction) Forest Survival	An old man feebly holding a Bane Blade as a deterrent. Despite his advanced age, he is Machaka's master of Earth magics and is not so squishy as he transforms into a massive Hunter Spider to soak lethal damage (at cost of path reduced by half, rounding down). Despite Sorcerers being able to fill the role of Fire, Nature, and Death, they can't take Earth and magma from this old man. A Black Sorcerer is a key component in turning the hoplites into a front line that can hold up to the pounding of other nations. In addition, they bring down other spells like Maws of the Earth, Blade Wind, and Magma Eruption. That they are easily able to reach Earth 3 also is an important milestone as he can make Dwarven Hammers for cheaper item construction. Earthquake is quite useful as a hit & run spell as his spider form will save him from death if any armor he could have doesn't. It might be a good idea to Twiceborn them if you have the gems.

Outside of pygmies, most of Machaka's troops cost a lot of recruitment points, some also a lot of resources.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Pygmy 5 2 2	Forest Survival	Weak but cheap size 1 archers. As a nation with Fire, Earth, and Nature paths, they can actually be a significant threat since they take point buffs super well.
	Machaka Militia 7 2 3	Forest Survival	Very cheap cannon fodder. The best use is at patrol, siege chaff or as cheap throne garrisons.
	Machaka Archer 10 3 9	Forest Survival	Human short bow archers. Better at sieging than Pygmies, but put out less arrows.
	Machaka Warrior 10 3 9	Forest Survival	Lion tribe indies, one of them with a javelin, the other with a stronger length 4 spear. Dies easily until armor becomes completely useless on the battlefield.
	Machaka Warrior 10 4 9	Forest Survival
	Machaka Hoplite 14 27 18	Formation Fighter(2) Forest Survival	Durable mainline troops. These out-compete the hoplites of Arcoscephale with better defense skills and shield parry, at the cost of a flimsier shield and less head prot. They will produce 4 attacks x 15 damage per square the same as Arco's, however, it's the defense skill that carries the day along with their repelling capabilities. Add in all the troop buffs including offensive variants like Weapons of Sharpness, Strength of Giants, and you now have an all-around unit that can fill both offensive and defensive capabilities.
	Spider Archer 12 4 20 Capital, Forest with Lab rec+	Forest Survival	Man with poison Arrows. Despite how much Recpoints they cost, can be useful having a few stacks of them in reserve. Their poison is effective at trading with thugs, Armies, and raiders without poison resistance. Both sides will be losing resources, but you're very likely to bleed a enemy player dead if they try to rush you. This is a reason Machaka can stay in a game despite its shortcomings.
	Spider Warrior 25 36 31 Capital only	Darkvision 50% Stealthy(40) ambidextrous(1) Forest Survival	Elite plate warriors with high-quality dual wielding. Basically, a 19 prot Ulm variant with two swords, that gives up extra prot for Stealthy and darkvision, how cool! Expensive to make, they are effective at clearing out moderate groups of indies and pd with almost no casualties. If lead by a Bane Spider, they can pull off a ghetto elfing strategy and raid from the shadows.
	Spider Rider 25 4 36	Forest Survival dying shape(Great Spider) mounted	A cross of Spider Archer and Spider Knight. you will be paying a premium for naked archers and a spider. You get the most use out of them by having them stand directly behind Hoplite lines as they shoot poison arrows and short-range entangling webs. The spider fights after the rider dies, but leaves after the battle.
	Spider Knight 35 26 46	Forest Survival dying shape(Great Spider) mounted	Useful even at early game expansion. Not only they are well statted but slow knights units with a decently big HP pool, but their web attacks will shut down most indies and except knights. Having a square with no orders will gunk up the enemy so they can't attack while they go in with their Spears and Death poison Fangs. After expansion, they start a side role of specialists. Still faster than Hoplites, they specialize in messing with High Defence enemies like elves. Their poison fangs don't work well on high prot, but do very well against non-regenerating, Fire/Shock immune giants with Blood Bond and Fortitude.
	Black Hunter 115 36 46 Capital Only	Sacred Forest Survival wounded shape(Hunter Spider) mounted	Very expensive sacreds that leave behind a Hunter Spider with more HP but less protection. Similarly to Zhayedans (and unlike the other spider riders of MA Machaka), riderless Hunter Spiders stay after the battle and can be brought back to the capital to be remounted.

You are a Fire, Earth, Death, and Nature nation with all your wizards paying at least a premium to have a path in at least three of them. While a better nation would pay less for a wizard that's can be Earth 2, you get a spread of 1s. This does open your wizards up to multiple crosspaths. Lots of your stronger mages come about because you can forge a lot of the boosters (ie. Earth Boots, Dwarven Hammer, Skull of Fire, Flame Helmet, Thistle Mace, Skull Staff).

On Average you can get 5, 5, 3, and/or 3 out of your Sorcerers or Black Sorcerers with items during combat.

With luck and boosting you can get King of Banefires, King of Elemental Fire and King of Elemental Earth.

Summon Spectre can break you into Water and Astral, if you get lucky it may let you go further up in them and earth.

Machaka doesn't have anything note worthy.

• Herd of Elephants: 2 Conj 3 for 25 ( Elephantx5 + 1/2 [lv]). Uses Nature gems instead of gold to get Elephants for expansion parties.

• Pride of Lions: 2 Conj 3 for 10 ( Great Lionx10 + 1/2 [lv]). Turns nature gems into low tier killing power. Ok if your getting rushed in the early game but they don't do much after that.

• Get special Reanimations. Longdead, Longdead, Longdead Hoplite. 2/3 of undead are fully amroed skeliees. Hoplites are the Best kind of undead as they have good gear, and fit 4 in a square ontop of magicly spamable.

Machaka consists of hoplite buffing and evocations.

Using spells like Wooden Warriors, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants, and topped with Weapons of Sharpness for Machaka Hoplites

Another part is evocation. You are likely to have a lot of Witch doctors and Sorceresses for researchers, in the early game they can spam Magma Bolts, Bane Fire Dart, Frighten, Web, Swarm to denture attackers as a fast-moving magic death stack. Eagle Eyes is very useful in making every Fatiguing magic missile count.

You have big fire with Flaming Arrows on Pygmies, and a combo of Flame Ward then Heat from Hell and/or Fire Storm. Also, some big earth spells done by the Black Sorcerors.

With a Skull Staff, you can skelli-spam, but definitely not so good as more dedicated Death nations, but if you going on mage only raids, having some Longdead, or Corpse Candles for interception will give you time to wipe armies.

In terms of good things to cast, if you can get the boosters you can't normally forge, spend gems, or make a pretender for, there are good Global enchantments. As a forging Earth nation, you are naturally going to have Forge of the Ancients letting you churn out items that were slightly out of your mages reach and at an extremely discounted price. Riches from the Beneath can also help you out if you need more gold and Resources but more often you will get recruitment point limited. Like any other nature nation, if Pangaea is not in, then also Mother Oak is up for grabs.

IF you want stronger Death mages, having your lucky random mages be Twiceborn ensures they survive their first death and have a chance to give you that coveted 5 or at least 4 then give him a Skull Staff. With Forge of the Ancients you can also get access to the boosters needed to make Lamia Queens and Lichs.

If you want a summoned army Contruct Mandragora is a good value for Sorcerers, with its high strength and two additional High Fatigue attacks.

If you want to spam undead, if you get an early enough start down to Conj 7. Summon Mound Fiend is a natively castable spell that could net you hoards of Longdead and Longdead Horseman.

Despite all the forging, you do lack Heavier chassis to thug. King of Banfires and King of Elemental Fire can be used for this.

Machaka greatly relies on Earth, Fire, Death, and Nature boosters for the mages to be most effective. Having Skull of Fire and Fire in a Jar turn Wichdoctors into Fire spammers. With all the already fast-moving mages, Boots of the Messanger lets them zoom with 27 mapmove in addition to reinvigoration. Shademail Haubergeon is also an option that with the boots allows for mage raids.

• Kithaironic Lion Pelt: Const2, 11, 21. A cheap, low encumbrance item gives both body and head prot. This is definitely something you would mass-produce to give to all your mages to let them survive many big evocations like Earthquake. Dwarven Hammers only reduce the cost to 11.
• Bane Blade / Bane Blade: Const2, 1, 4. Comes in one and Two-handed variants. Cheap anti-thug weapon with its Decay effect.
• Totem Shield: Const4, 11, 44. Need outside help since astral is not a national path. Causes the attacker to become Cursed, will lose out to a Vine Shield in most situations.
• Spirit Mask: Const4, 21, 84. Gives some MR, and auto-cast Frighten. In the midgame having a commander passively spamming a fear spell can swing a fight in your favor.

The Beast of the Savanna by Baalz

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

• lacks a native end game
• Generally regarded as a weak nation, you have the defensive tools to make them bleed for trying before they get eaten by another player but not enough national offense to punish them yourself or be a strong aggressor against the higher tier nations.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.