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"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
Race | Military | Magic Access | Priests | Buildings |
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Prefer +2 Fast Humans: +2 MM vs. Regular Humans +1 CS vs. Regular Humans Spiders (Size 5 & 6) Pygmies (Size 1) | Light Infantry with Tower Shields Hoplites Archers and Poison Archers Spies, Spider Riders | 3 (rare 4) 3 (rare 4) 3 2 (rare 3) | 2 | Standard Forts |
God Forest | God Mountain | ||
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Enables recruitment of: Hunter Lord Black Hunter Spider Archer Produces: 2 per turn 1 per turn | Enables recruitment of: Black Sorcerer Sorceress Bane Spider Spider Warrior Produces: 2 per turn Boost ritual range by 1 province. |
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 |
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Machaka Scout 25 3 1 | Stealthy (40) Mountain Survival Forest Survival | Scout. | |
Machaka Chief 40 2 1 | Cheap 40 leader, never use outside fort building. If a leader with low protection cost is needed (for example in early game expansion) Eye of the Lord can be a better choice as he can be moved to other tasks after the expansion. | ||
Machaka Commander 70 27 1 | Forest Survival | More expensive 80 ld Commander. | |
Spider Lord 110 26 2 | wounded shape(Great Spider) Forest Survival Mounted | Commander on a spider. Don't add much more than a thug on a mount and that job could be done better by a Hunter Lord. | |
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. He is the one that gets you the most accurate information and may cause some unrest for the enemy. |
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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. If you do take a bless you may consider getting spirit sight so he can catch glamoured elves. |
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Voice of the Lord 115 2 2 | 2 Sacred Forest Survival | Can cast the low-level element holy spells and leadership 80. Recruit if dealing with undead spam. |
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Witch Doctor 80 1 2 Forest rec+ | 111 7 Inept Researcher (4) supply bonus (10) Forest Survival | Your cheapest mage non-sacred mage. As they can be mass-produced on the cheap in any labbed forest, they produce a lot of research, especially in +3. Despite looking like it has confused magic pathing, it's actually a dangerous combo using evocations on mass. Eagle Eyes helps with precision on landing his Evocations, spamming Bane Fire Dart, Frighten, or Phoenix Power and Fireball. |
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Sorcerer 195 1 2 | 1121100% 15 supply bonus (20) Forest Survival | Your off cap major wizard. For their cost, their paths are a bit scattered, but you can still do many things with them. You definitely want to keep rolling so you have some 3. While Black Sorcerers are your big Fire and Earth casters, Sorcerers still serve an important role as evocation blasters with Eagle Eyes to boost their accuracy and be your Devoted Death and Nature casters with a booster item. 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). |
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Sorceress 85 1 2 Capital Only | 111010% 11 Domion attracts units 20(Great Spider) Wounded Shape(Great Spider, 50% path reduction) Forest Survival Female | Your 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. |
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Hunter Lord 140 36 1 Capital Only | Sacred Wounded Shape(Hunter Spider) Forest Survival Mounted | Heavily armored human thug riding a Hunter Spider. Expensive but you can thug with him, using Machaka's forging power and any bless point you got out of your pretender. |
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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 you 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. Alterativly you can take them with a posy of Spider Warriors for PD raiding. |
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Black Sorcerer 210 6 4 Capital Only | 2211100% 10% 17 Old Age(60/46) Wounded Shape(Hunter Spider, 50% path reduction) | An old man feebly holding a Bane Blade as a deterrent. Despite his advanced age, he is your master of Earth magics and is not so Squish as He transforms into a Massive Spider to soak lethal damage. 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, and units you would never use, most of your troops cost a lot of recruitment points and also resources.
Sprite | Unit Name | Special Attributes | Comments |
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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 | Very cheap cannon fodder. The best use is siege chaff or as cheap throne garrisons. | ||
Machaka Archer 10 3 9 | Forest Survival | Human short bow archers. Rarely would there be a situation where you would use them over Pygmies. |
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Machaka Warrior 10 3 9 | Forest Survival | Lion tribe indies, the weakest indies. Just avoid until armor becomes completely useless on the battlefield. |
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Machaka Warrior 10 4 9 | Forest Survival | ||
Machaka Hoplite 14 27 18 | Formation Fighter(2) Forest Survival | Your mainline troops that make up for the rest of the trash Middle Age brought in. 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. Totally makes up for the rest of Machaka's trash line up, eh? |
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Spider Archer 12 4 20 Capital, Forest with Lab rec+ | Forest Survival | Man with poison Arrows. Dispite how much Recpoints they cost, you should be having a few stacks of them in reserve. Thier 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. |
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Spider Rider 25 4 36 | Forest Survival wounded 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. |
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Spider Knight 35 26 46 | Forest Survival wounded shape(Great Spider) mounted | Most people don't realize that they are the Allstars of your 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. |
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Black Hunter 115 36 46 Capital Only | Sacred Forest Survival wounded shape(Hunter Spider) mounted | A lesson on how the rule of cool can drag a nation into the mud. Black Hunter doesn't exist, THIS nation has NO sacred troops. This unit takes what made Zhayedans so powerful and made many small changes to make it a terrible sacred. They are too expensive for what they try to do. |
Sprite | Unit Name | Special Attributes | Comments |
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| Ainra - Lady of Spiders | 133 19 Shapechanger(Great Spider) Forest Survival female | Powerful Earth and Death mage with a second spider health pool. Best way to get to 4 spells, and one boost away from Lichs |
Abasi - Hero | Forest Survival inspirational(1) | Inspirational leader for free, may also used in minor arena battles. Save for late game with morale boost items for a army that is hard to rout. |
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Yasini - King Triumphant | 3 Sacred Forest Survival inspirational(1) awe(1) | Throne claimer, and a better leader then Abasi. | |
Mwaka - Crowned Ape | 1 Sacred Forest Survival animal Dominon attracts units (Great Ape) | Big 120 ld commander and gets some extra ape siege chaff. | |
Mchumba - Ape Oracle | 1 7 supply bonus (10) Fortune Teller (10%) Forest Survival animal Female | Only use is to have her sit around and prevent bad events. |
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nations | |
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Early Ages | Arcoscephale • Ermor • Ulm • Marverni • Sauromatia • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Mictlan • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Agartha • Tir na n'Og • Fomoria • Vanheim • Helheim • Niefelheim • Rus • Kailasa • Lanka • Yomi • Hinnom • Ur • Berytos • Xibalba • Mekone • Ubar • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Therodos |
Middle Ages | Arcoscephale • Ermor • Sceleria • Pythium • Man • Eriu • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Asphodel • Vanheim • Jotunheim • Vanarus • Bandar Log • Shinuyama • Ashdod • Uruk • Nazca • Xibalba • Phlegra • Phaeacia • Ind • Na'ba • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Ys |
Late Ages | Arcoscephale • Pythium • Lemuria • Man • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Jomon • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Midgård • Utgård • Bogarus • Patala • Gath • Ragha • Xibalba • Phlegra • Vaettiheim • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Erytheia |