MA Machaka pretender build

[GreenFairy Alchemist]

I was trying out Machaka and I really enjoy the faction. But I'm not sure how to fit a pretender to the nation. Machaka seems very well balanced to run without one, so how do you get the most out of your build?

I know everyone would have their own play styles and strategies to pull off, but help me understand what I could do, to some positive effect in short and long games.

Their units are cheap, barely needing much gold or production. They pump out numbers and seem to overwhelm very easily. So they don't need much scales buffing, but maybe something for survivability? They seem very limited on magic though, their witch doctors and sorcerers barely have much power (though a cool ability to summon more spiders to overwhelm)

I've been trying super combatants for early gains and that seems like their only option. But that can't be viable for longer games. Really hoping for something more unique? Ideas??

[Cal Lord]

Go super scales for unending hoads.. ps i am no pro..

[zenblack]

Depends on if you are playing MP or SP.

MA Machaka strengths: Good units for early expansion or being attacked early. Good bless on Black Hunter will provide you with early game superiority and great midgame cavalry, but cannot stand up late game.

MA Machaka mages have a number of things going for them. Access to Flaming Arrows for midgame superiority. Mass castings of Magma Eruption, Fire/Earth Elementals. Access to easy crafting of Reinvigoration items.

MA Machaka weakness: No real access to SC's or mass reinforcements. Best you can hope for without a pretender is empowering a 2 or 3 Death caster to get access to Staff and Skullface to create Bane/Wraith Lord thugs but without astral they cost too much to make effective.

A good starter bless strategy would be a dormant Lord of the Desert Sun with a Flaming Weapon/Regeneration bless, 1 or more Production, 1 or more Growth, 1 or more Misfortune, 1 Drain. Still recruit Black Hunters initially since they are good enough even without the bless to expand with. When your pretender arrives you suddenly have a large force of cold-blooded killers that are extremely difficult to fully kill.

The main problem with MA Machaka right now is there is a bug right now that Black Hunters don't get their riders back and huge micromanagement with the Hunters due to how the riderless Hunters abilities are set.

[hanssverre]

Don't they have an assasin too?
That can be a pluss now

[ComatosePhoenix]

One of the things that machaka has that basically no one else does is the collosal fetish.

Its basically a monolith or other immobile pretender, with the ability to walk around.

It is also the only mindless pretender chassis in the game which give it some unique invulnerabilities.

I am 90% sure there is some way you can cover its weaknesses, (low attack and defense scores) with low level construction items and then just roll over other nations.

[GreenFairy Alchemist]

Originally posted by zenblack:

Depends on if you are playing MP or SP.

MA Machaka strengths: Good units for early expansion or being attacked early. Good bless on Black Hunter will provide you with early game superiority and great midgame cavalry, but cannot stand up late game.

MA Machaka mages have a number of things going for them. Access to Flaming Arrows for midgame superiority. Mass castings of Magma Eruption, Fire/Earth Elementals. Access to easy crafting of Reinvigoration items.

MA Machaka weakness: No real access to SC's or mass reinforcements. Best you can hope for without a pretender is empowering a 2 or 3 Death caster to get access to Staff and Skullface to create Bane/Wraith Lord thugs but without astral they cost too much to make effective.

A good starter bless strategy would be a dormant Lord of the Desert Sun with a Flaming Weapon/Regeneration bless, 1 or more Production, 1 or more Growth, 1 or more Misfortune, 1 Drain. Still recruit Black Hunters initially since they are good enough even without the bless to expand with. When your pretender arrives you suddenly have a large force of cold-blooded killers that are extremely difficult to fully kill.

The main problem with MA Machaka right now is there is a bug right now that Black Hunters don't get their riders back and huge micromanagement with the Hunters due to how the riderless Hunters abilities are set.

Wow thank you for the detailed explanation!
So in SP they lose ground late game, so early and mid are vital. How are they MP? I was looking to practice more with pretender builds so as a new comer to the series I won't be smashed right away by others.

I'll certainly try out a build like you say, see how that works out - and the mindless collosal someone else mentioned too.

One last thing, can you expand on the bug? So if the rider dies, was he supposed to eventually come back? I've thrown all the feral spiders in their own group right up front to just rush ahead.

[Mormacil]

Yeah eventually a new rider should appear as long as the spider survives. But I think with obvious XP loss.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by DarkerMist:

One last thing, can you expand on the bug? So if the rider dies, was he supposed to eventually come back? I've thrown all the feral spiders in their own group right up front to just rush ahead.

As I understand it, it's supposed to get a new rider if you ever bring the spider back to your capital.

You can work around this bug by just modding it to work this way with #homeshape, or you can wait for Illwinter to fix it. I can describe in more detail if you need me to.

[sum1won]

Originally posted by DarkerMist:

I was trying out Machaka and I really enjoy the faction. But I'm not sure how to fit a pretender to the nation. Machaka seems very well balanced to run without one, so how do you get the most out of your build?

I know everyone would have their own play styles and strategies to pull off, but help me understand what I could do, to some positive effect in short and long games.

Their units are cheap, barely needing much gold or production. They pump out numbers and seem to overwhelm very easily. So they don't need much scales buffing, but maybe something for survivability? They seem very limited on magic though, their witch doctors and sorcerers barely have much power (though a cool ability to summon more spiders to overwhelm)

I've been trying super combatants for early gains and that seems like their only option. But that can't be viable for longer games. Really hoping for something more unique? Ideas??

Machaka was considered one of the weaker nations in dom4, and it's unclear that they've improved a great deal in dom5. They do have some solid spammable units, though.

I'd largely ignore black spiders. A bless is mostly not worthwhile for them as is - they're more than 100 gold and frankly mediocre cavalry. And if you do take a bless, take it awake so that you can actually leverage them before a human gets some magic online to counter them cheaply (doesn't take much). And no, they're not very good expanders without any bless at all.

The dominant strategies for them (early on) revolve around flaming arrows, earth buffs with your black sorcerors, and nature to debuff enemies while tying them up with chaff. You can expand that by taking a booster pretender build.

The thrust of your question seems to be "what can I get my pretender to do that he couldn't do before." Boosters and sitesearching. S5, or S4E1 will get you to rings, assuming you can mass the pearls. W2F3 or E3A4 is sufficient to get you to elemental staves - though you'll need some water gems. D4 is enough to bootstrap all the way up D. (Note: some of these might need a few more paths depending on available booster slots).

Depending on how far into lategame you want to go, an alternative presents itself that solves problems: Take a pretender that opens up your magical access. This increased access gets you better summons



A neter of kings is something like F2W2S5. (sorceress forges skull of fire, he forges water bracelet and water robe, wears both, forges elemental staff, and boostraps up astral with starshine hat->ring of sorcery->ring of wizardry) These boosters combined get any mage to +2 in all paths you can get access to. At dom 5 and dormant, he has +5 scales, and at imprisoned, +10.

Alternatively, you can get a long-term bless. Probably not the toppest multiplayer strategy, but its worth a look:

A4E4S4D7 demilich. This gets you the same booster access (though he needs to forge a crystal coin before the ring of sorcery). What he adds is he let you add regeneration to undead summons if they are sacred (mound fiends) or given shrouds of the battle saint.

[zenblack]

Originally posted by sum1won:

And no, they're not very good expanders without any bless at all.

All it takes is 2-5 up front and/or 10 archers and 3-5 Black Hunters and a Voice to take most province types. Try it.

Originally posted by sum1won:

A4E4S4D7 demilich. This gets you the same booster access (though he needs to forge a crystal coin before the ring of sorcery). What he adds is he let you add regeneration to undead summons if they are sacred (mound fiends) or given shrouds of the battle saint.

I haven't tried this but it screams "only if I get NAP's with everyone around me".

[zenblack]

I imagine you can do this with any decent sacred cavalry as you get into their backline on turn 2 and kill indie commanders no problem. However having access to a cheap 2 holy priest would also be a requirement to field multiple groups.

[sum1won]

Originally posted by zenblack:

Originally posted by sum1won:

And no, they're not very good expanders without any bless at all.

All it takes is 2-5 up front and/or 10 archers and 3-5 Black Hunters and a Voice to take most province types. Try it.

so all it takes is an expansion party of . . .560 to 790 gold? That's a lot.

Just tested it, anyways. They took indie provinces more often than not- but lost spiders about half the time anyways. They got beat back by jaguar tribe, somehow. That is not an impressive performance at that price point.

Originally posted by sum1won:

A4E4S4D7 demilich. This gets you the same booster access (though he needs to forge a crystal coin before the ring of sorcery). What he adds is he let you add regeneration to undead summons if they are sacred (mound fiends) or given shrouds of the battle saint.

I haven't tried this but it screams "only if I get NAP's with everyone around me". [/quote]
I literally cannot remember the last time I agreed to a NAP with anyone, and I frequently take late game builds. Don't be catty.

[Ica]

Originally posted by sum1won:

I'd largely ignore black spiders. A bless is mostly not worthwhile for them as is - they're more than 100 gold and frankly mediocre cavalry. And if you do take a bless, take it awake so that you can actually leverage them before a human gets some magic online to counter them cheaply (doesn't take much). And no, they're not very good expanders without any bless at all.

Honestly Black Spiders are the only units I've found to be really good at expanding. I don't like them against other humans and they're not a good long term strategy, but during the first 6-8 turns I feel that anything else you try to recruit just isn't guaranteed to take provincess successfully. Admittedly I don't have a ton of experience on expanding in Dom5 yet.

[sum1won]

Originally posted by Ica:

Originally posted by sum1won:

I'd largely ignore black spiders. A bless is mostly not worthwhile for them as is - they're more than 100 gold and frankly mediocre cavalry. And if you do take a bless, take it awake so that you can actually leverage them before a human gets some magic online to counter them cheaply (doesn't take much). And no, they're not very good expanders without any bless at all.

Honestly Black Spiders are the only units I've found to be really good at expanding. I don't like them against other humans and they're not a good long term strategy, but during the first 6-8 turns I feel that anything else you try to recruit just isn't guaranteed to take provincess successfully. Admittedly I don't have a ton of experience on expanding in Dom5 yet.

Man if it works for you, it works for you. I've expanded with them with a bless, but without I found them too lossy to do so cost effectively.
I can see a niche for taking your cap circle before you have the resources to get anything more cost-efficient.

[Ica]

That's exactly the niche. Also sometimes there's so tough provinces next to my cap that I'll start expanding outward before finally taking the toughest neighbour provinces. Once there's enough resources I'll switch to other units.

[Telos]

I'm not sure what all's changed about MA Machaka in Dom5, but in Dom4, it didn't have much going for it. Here are the main problems, and what I see as the least-bad work-arounds in Dom5.

Most units are lacking in protection, so get decimated in combat and by archers. This gets worse in Dom5, as now the targeting AI is less easily distracted by decoys, and does better at finding big clumps of units to lob arrows at. The best early-ish solution is wooden warriors, but that causes fire vulnerability, which interacts very poorly with your own desire to throw fire around, especially in your heat scales.

There are a few high-protection units, but they're very gold-expensive for what they are. Still, probably the best unit is the hoplite, as it's survivable and it's sticker price isn't *that* bad for semi-elite stats and great protection. So, I'd probably play with good scales, including prod-3, to be able to afford your overpriced heavy infantry, and lots of combat mages to back them up.

You do have an interesting cap-only assassin, with wall-scaling (so it's great for use in sieges), and Dom 5 lets you recruit these at a much faster rate than Dom4 did, but it still competes with your best mages for your cap-only recruitment slots, so probably can't be put to very much use, unfortunately.

I think the spiders are still a trap: way too much gold to invest in a 13HP unit that'll die to magic about as easily as units a fraction of that price would. If they get the regrow-a-rider trait to work right, that might make them a bit more playable, but don't count on many riderless spiders surviving long enough to get a second life. If I were to play sacred spiders, I'd probably want bless traits to help them avoid enemy spells a bit longer, esp. regeneration and elemental resistances. But even then I don't think they're worth it, as you won't be able to make them survivable enough to be worth the cost without wrecking your economy so much that you can't afford them.

In Dom5, it's often worth taking a bless for sacred mages. Unfortunately Machaka doesn't have any. A cheap mage bless can make 3-pearl hammered-shrouds be worth forging for mages, but Machaka has no native access to S, so probably shouldn't buy a bless just hoping for this. Machaka's non-spider sacreds are just naked priests, who aren't really worth the effort. You could give these priests item-blesses (like precision, reanimation, weapons boosts) but MA Machaka doesn't have EA's forge discounts, and it has no access to air for Bows of War which are the best item for a weapons bless. Still, other things equal, I think you may as well pick up bless traits that'll help mages and item-wielders, especially with hopes that you find a good source of S, for shrouds for mages, and/or A for bows of war.

Dom5 also has some bless options that make commanders better leaders, which may be your best bet, as your two priest-commanders are already pretty decent leaders, and could be great leaders with a good bless. Dom5 lets you recruit these faster than Dom4 did, so it may well be worth using a temple-fort to churn them out, especially if they're augmented with a good bless.

So anyway I'd say your best bet is not to worry much about the bless, just grab some paths that might be useful on a pretender that you won't mind taking into battle, grab the most useful-for-mages/commanders/item-wielders bless traits that fit those paths, take great scales, build a ton of hoplites and a ton of mages, maybe a few flaming-archer armies and an army of skelespammers to mix things up, and be liberal about bringing mages to battle to provide DPS while your hoplites or skeletons hold stuff in place. Take advantage of Dom5's higher site frequencies to find some magic sites to round out your magic diversity, and ride your great scales to victory!