Malakim questions and concerns

Hey All,

Since its not yet the 15th of december i'm playing under 8.34, as malakim. A few things stand out in this game and i'm wondering whether they're bugs, features or just missing tooltips...

-asceticism: lvl 3 diciple unit spell. Seems to be undocument.
-Chariots: the tooltip says they require horses or nightmares, but after a siege workshop is built, they can be build.
-Adapts with Water I can't cast spring, why?
-Why do the malakim start with water mana in the first place (with the more mana option)?
-How come that some riverside plots change to floodplains and others don't?
-Why can i only build workshops on deserts? Even when they are next to a river?
-How come that after building a mine the Scrubs remain (thereby giving an additional ?
-I have met multiple civs (which whom i have trade) and still my trade is domestic only, even after i build the malakims special building the bazaar (which gives increased foreign trade yield). I even run the foreign trade civic.
-Is it intentional that the city plots themselves turn into Oasis, thereby giving an additional ?

asceticism gives your unit some expierience, i think there are two spells associated with it one is guiding spell that helps other units to gain exp in deserts and the other is a spell that gives the unit exp casting it, but i am not so sure.

not all riverside plots change into floodplains because of balance reasons, it would be quite overpowered if it did.

the rest sounds like bugs to me.

no, it's all fine. For foreign trade for example you need open borders and a connection to their trade network.

Sephi said:

no, it's all fine. For foreign trade for example you need open borders and a connection to their trade network.

Click to expand...

Ahh thz sephi... that's what was missing! (connection with trade network wasnt the issue, the OB was)

Hi,

I just started a game as Malakim in MoM and it is actually my first trial of MoM.

I have several questions

1) Roads?

I do have the exploration tech (and actually also many other "improvement" techs). I can build mines, farms etc. but no roads. I should mention that so far I only tried to build on desert tiles. However I do get all ressources from all tiles. I have two gold mines (adjacent). Only one is next to a river which leads to my capital. However I do get 2 gold. This is all slightly confusing.


2) Global Yield Overflow ?
My mines also produce metall and my metall counter is rising and rising. What for ? Will this metall counter ever decrease for anything ?

3) Battle Captain

I do understand that the Battle Captain is a normally unit and can defend. However I dont understand how other units can benefit from him.Also what is meant by "the Battle Captain gets experience when his units get experience" . Is this working with units on the same tile ?

Thanks for any answers !

1. malakim do not need roads they can trade over desert, i.e. desert are their roads and your territory will be transformed to deserts in time.

2. metal is used to quicken the production of melee units and give them weapons (iron weapons for example)

Rod said:

Hi,

I just started a game as Malakim in MoM and it is actually my first trial of MoM.

I have several questions

1) Roads?

I do have the exploration tech (and actually also many other "improvement" techs). I can build mines, farms etc. but no roads. I should mention that so far I only tried to build on desert tiles. However I do get all ressources from all tiles. I have two gold mines (adjacent). Only one is next to a river which leads to my capital. However I do get 2 gold. This is all slightly confusing.


2) Global Yield Overflow ?
My mines also produce metall and my metall counter is rising and rising. What for ? Will this metall counter ever decrease for anything ?

3) Battle Captain

I do understand that the Battle Captain is a normally unit and can defend. However I dont understand how other units can benefit from him.Also what is meant by "the Battle Captain gets experience when his units get experience" . Is this working with units on the same tile ?

Thanks for any answers !

Click to expand...

1. as tesb said, the malakim do not build roads, they connect all automatically in deserts. They are desertnomads. You find rarely roads in deserts...

2. Global yield overflow will be reworked with the next patch, afaik. What you can do with metal is boost melee prod. and weapon upgrade (bronze-iron-mithril) and afaik it is used for some buildings, too.

3. battle captains boost a certain amount of your units in his range via his combat aura. Mouseover the battle captain and you will see what effects he gives, mouseover some units and you see the effects of the battle captain. Typical is strength, healing and protection from first strikes bonus.

Greez,

Tschuggi

P.S.: Look in the MoM forum and read the quick guides available, they pretty explain the most of the changes. Kingknarf did write a good starting manual.

@all

Thanks for the quick answers (btw I read the manual , but the manual doesnt explain civ-specific specialities like the Malakim's Children of Desert starting tech)

I figured it out so far and I really enjoy the great work in this mod.

However I do have a concern.

I actually play a Standard map and quick speed with increasing difficulties starting from Monarch. Now in turn 120 I am on deity level.

I think that Battle Captains are overpowered. My highest ranking captain has 70+ experience in turn 120 and he is boosting a very small but extremly powerful army :
My local legend (Desert Raider) - XP 300+ ,
a Stonewarden , which I got when I researched Arete, XP 50+,
and another Hero (Horseman) which I got pretty early thanks to an event (Bandits), XP 100+ (Nietz the Bandit Lord)

For defence I added a Hunter (which is an upgraded warrior) with XP 80+

Not to meantion that I have Orthus Axe AND the Zarcas Bow (they appeared close to my capital)

With this army I am on a conquering campaign since turn 70 and I have taken 6 cities so far. My units always attack with probability 95% + and this seems REALLY overpowered
I figure this must be due to my Battle Captain who is giving 120% additional experience, 50% city attack, 50% add. strength and 30% healing etc.

Maybe Battle Captain should be toned downed down a bit ?

Rod said:

Maybe Battle Captain should be toned downed down a bit ?

Click to expand...

IIRC it's been mentioned that the xp gain will be reduced. I suspect the rest could be toned down, too.

Tarquelne said:

IIRC it's been mentioned that the xp gain will be reduced. I suspect the rest could be toned down, too.

Click to expand...

yes, battle captains atm are extremly powerful and pop up a bit too easy... but, Rod, use normal speed and not quick speed, afaik AI has still a few problems to manage other speeds than normal. Normal speed, standard size map etc. are best customs atm. I use increasing diff. as well, starting with monarch or immortal. Is nice. Prob. is, that AI does not yet know how to counter very powerful and highly upgraded units like your described stack. Next patch will change this, as I understood... did AI counterattack on your territory while you took the cities. Did it try to reconquer its' cities (it often does in my games and if I do not defend the taken cities very well, ... )

When we assess the effectivness of the AI against me we must consider that Malakims are in an excellent defense position.
Malakim dont need roads and they convert all their territory into desert.
That means that you can happily pillage all roads when you conquer and while the terrain slowly becomes desert there are even more more hindrances for the AI to launch an invasion. My inner cities are surrounded by 3-4 rings of desert and the average AI army needs 3-4 turns just to reach them. While my units have the double speed avantage. Eventually when the AI armies have finally finished their long march they have a 25% malus on defence...

Hence the AI was only effective in taking one border city in a suprise attack (newly founded directly at the border) and is able to give me some trouble in the newly conquered territories. In fact wild beasts, barbarians and spectres are more of hazzle then my fellow neighbours.

Just imagine the powerful Hippus slowly marching through the desert with no use for their Command ability.

Nevertheless the AI HAS improved significantly. This was initially less visible towards me but towards the other AIs. So while I claimed the entire West and South West of the continent (wiping out the Grigory, who declared war on me and the Orcs) the Ljolsalfar divided the entire East and South East between them and the Elohim in some kind of alliance or mutual interest. In the process they wiped out the Calabim and Hippus and finally attacked the Orcs. The only way to prevent encirclement was to close borders and to claim the last Orc settlements myself. However the day when the last Orc city fell the Elves consequently declared war on me. They focus their efforts on the newly conquered Orc jungles where they have the natural advantage instead of doing me the favour and sending their units to die in the desert.
For the first time I have to strategically retreat from some positions and cities in order to prevent my armies from being splintered and overwhelmed by pure numbers of deadly rangers.

Rod said:

When we assess the effectivness of the AI against me we must consider that Malakims are in an excellent defense position.
Malakim dont need roads and they convert all their territory into desert.
That means that you can happily pillage all roads when you conquer and while the terrain slowly becomes desert there are even more more hindrances for the AI to launch an invasion. My inner cities are surrounded by 3-4 rings of desert and the average AI army needs 3-4 turns just to reach them. While my units have the double speed avantage. Eventually when the AI armies have finally finished their long march they have a 25% malus on defence...

Hence the AI was only effective in taking one border city in a suprise attack (newly founded directly at the border) and is able to give me some trouble in the newly conquered territories. In fact wild beasts, barbarians and spectres are more of hazzle then my fellow neighbours.

Just imagine the powerful Hippus slowly marching through the desert with no use for their Command ability.

Nevertheless the AI HAS improved significantly. This was initially less visible towards me but towards the other AIs. So while I claimed the entire West and South West of the continent (wiping out the Grigory, who declared war on me and the Orcs) the Ljolsalfar divided the entire East and South East between them and the Elohim in some kind of alliance or mutual interest. In the process they wiped out the Calabim and Hippus and finally attacked the Orcs. The only way to prevent encirclement was to close borders and to claim the last Orc settlements myself. However the day when the last Orc city fell the Elves consequently declared war on me. They focus their efforts on the newly conquered Orc jungles where they have the natural advantage instead of doing me the favour and sending their units to die in the desert.
For the first time I have to strategically retreat from some positions and cities in order to prevent my armies from being splintered and overwhelmed by pure numbers of deadly rangers.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a very cool game

Lack of roads are actually a hindrance. They may save some time in linking up your cities, but it vastly reduces how quickly you can mobilize freshly produced troops. If a tile contains an oasis, flood plain, or scrubs, units don't gain the usual movement bonus from moving through desert. This is in addition to just being slower in general once you research Engineering.

I'd like to see Malakim still be able to create roads, so that they are on equal footing in terms of mobility within their empire at the late game, or at least fix the issue with losing their movement bonus in scrubs/flood plains/oases. You don't need to spam it everywhere like the other civs do, it is just to improve mobility through difficult passes (like crossing rivers or through a mountain pass blocked by scrubs).

I also feel like the Malakim suffer greatly in terms of production. Their hammers from trade doesn't amount to a whole lot until late game, which by that point I'd imagine you'd either be crushed already or soundly winning. Deserts frequently are not as hilly as other areas and the conversion to desert eliminates a large amount of the "passive" hammers you'd get working plains or through forests. In my Prince games I am lucky to get a single city producing troops at a reasonable rate (archers in less than 10 turns, preferable ~5) - even with conquest - before I am boxed in and the other civs start coming for me.

Regd. movement

I agree that it would be useful to apply the movement bonus to all deserts even when they contain any features. I also noticed that mobility (speed + 1 ) doesnt have any effect, so you dont rush with a speed of 4 through the desert , even when your basic mobility is 2 (1+1 from mobility).This should be changed as well.

Regd. Production

I had no issues with unit production, but that is because I ignore archers. I focus on the melee line and on cavalry. See the melee units get a production bonus from metall (not to mention weapons).. which is easy to get and the Desert Raiders and later Camel Archers are the backbone of my army because they allow me to mobilize quickly in terms of an invasion (not to mention the withdrawal option).
Archers on the other hand get a production bonus from wood .. and I didnt see much wood in the desert.

So maybe in your case the trick is to adjust your strategy to desert warfare ?

btw: funny afterthought.
I have no archers, but I have hunters and rangers. The animal cages províde a nice happiness and culture bonus, the war elephants are cool as well but most importantly the house vadalis provides food resources !! Food is exactly what is missing most in the desert !

btw 2: after 10-15 years of intensive warfare the Elves made the strategic mistake to follow my retreating troops into my desert .. may they rest in piece.
I worked out perfectly just like in a handbook. After several medium size stacks of high experienced rangers had marched deep in my territory I started to surround them and pick them out one by one with my best units,e.g. just my Local Legend camel archer with now 5 movement is able to take out up to 5 rangers per turn (Orthus Axe), not to mention that I have some more high experience troops. Then the elves retreated but at a very low speed, giving up valuable defence positions, like hills with scrub forests and moving into the open desert. One of the last battles was fought very close to a river crossing which would have led into safe Elven forests .. Kythra died heroically .. and meaningless .. near some unimportant oasis)

Now after their armies have perished I am coming for THEM ... dealing at first with the biggest obstacle. The Elves built a Mercurian Gate during our war and both our nations are good .... I have to expect HORDES of Angels

agreed, the movement bonus should always be applied in desert.