Here’s the complete list:
COST # DESCRIPTION
7000 1 Scout/recon at double normal skill rank.
3000 2 Scout/recon at +20 to normal skill rank.
4000 3 Scout/recon at minimum 50 (all characters) - Dwarves only.
2000 4 Challenge rank bonus (a character special ability) more likely for new characters.
7000 5 Stealth rank bonus (a character special ability) more likely for new characters.
2000 6 Armies lose no morale for force march.
2000 7 Armies w/o food gain 1-2 morale while stationary, lose 1-2 moral while travelling; troops lose
1-2 moral while force marching, lose 2-5 morale while force marching w/o food.
6000 8 Buy/sell orders receive 20% market adjustment.
6000 9 New emissaries start at rank up to 40 (Order #734).
4000 10 New mages start at rank up to 40 (Order #737).
6000 11 New agents start at rank up to 40 (Order #731).
3000 12 New commanders start at rank up to 40 (Order #728).
2000 13 All new troop recruits start at training 20.
3000 14 All new troop recruits start at training 25 - Elves only.
2000 15 All new HI recruits start at training 30 - Dwarves only.
1000 16 All new MA recruits start at training 25.
2000 17 Build ships at 1/2 timber cost.
2000 18 Build ships at 1/3 timber cost - Elves only.
4000 19 Build fortifications at 1/2 timber cost.
3000 20 New armies start at morale 40.
7000 21 New armies hired at no cost.
2000 22 Uncover secrets at minimum 40 (all characters).
4000 23 Can learn lost “weakness” spell.
4000 24 Can learn lost “conjure mounts” spell.
4000 25 Can learn lost “conjure food” spell.
4000 26 Can learn lost “conjure hordes” spell - Dark Servants only.
3000 27 Can learn lost “fearful hearts” spell - Dark Servants only.
3000 28 Can learn lost “fanaticism” spell - Dark Servants only.
4000 29 Can learn lost “summon storms” spell - Dark Servants only.
6000 30 Can learn lost “teleport” spell.
12000 31 Kidnappings/assassinations at +20.
3000 32 Navies can travel open seas w/o fear of storms or becoming lost.
2000 33 Navy warship strength at 4.
3000 34 Navy warship strength at 5.
So, which of the above is your favorite? I’ve done my best to select the 9 that I believe are people’s favorites. If I missed, choose #10 on the poll (Other)
I am in a FA game with Clint and that bunch and they have used the SNA#23 “weakness” ability quite well, this is not on you list but in a No super agent game it may be the most powerful ability. The nice thing about Weakness is you get to kill the army commander befor emissary orders so Mage/Em companies become very powerful.
Originally posted by Scott W I am in a FA game with Clint and that bunch and they have used the SNA#23 “weakness” ability quite well, this is not on you list but in a No super agent game it may be the most powerful ability. The nice thing about Weakness is you get to kill the army commander befor emissary orders so Mage/Em companies become very powerful.
Scott - thank you for your comment. It is an interesting strategy and perhaps a viable one if it’s supportive of a team mate who is an agent nation, mostly because with weakness you can kill those really hard-to-assassinate characters. But I would ask you to consider: In a LAS game, how long does it take to have useful (assassination-capable) agents? Is the answer “never?” No, rather it’s until the teens or early twenties (turns). And then you can have quite a few (if your nation is so focused) assassination-capable agents. Note that it only takes one agent to kill an army commander, whereas it takes 4 mages of rank 75 or greater, or 5 mages of rank 60 or better to kill a character with weakness (and all must succeed at the spell casting). And it takes just as long to get these mages to this skill rank (or longer) as it takes to get an agent to assassination-capable level. Weakness doesn’t give you any better scout-character ability, so the limitation imposed by LAS on that ability is apples to apples. Thus, I personally believe weakness to be a much less desirable way to get the ability to axe characters than agents @40 (although it’s admittedly 2k cheaper as an SNA). The clincher is that it takes 4-5 times more characters per kill. That’s brutal and very inefficient. If your nation relies on weakness to axe characters, and you go up against an agent nation, who do you think will win the character war? Even in LAS?
One of my ‘other’ favourites FA SNA’s would be the ‘Can learn “conjure mounts”’ ability.
If your nation can pump out heavy cavalry armies against an enemy who is fielding heavy infantry, there should be only one winner if all other things are equal.
Has anyone ever decided that the SNA’s were not all that great and just taken Hire for free w/ a slew of artifacts, or even more extreme, no SNAs at all and just took 6 artifacts? Understanding that you leave alot to chance, you could wind up w/ some interesting designs just on that…
Not saying that SNA’s don’t add to the game or anything of the sort, just a query…
well I don’t know… there are about 200 artifacts and I think just 30 of them are really an improvement worth that sacrifice - the big problem is that you have to design your nation before you know what arties you get… so what if you go for a mage nation and get an agent arty, or vice versa? If you play in a FA team game, some of the nations could sacrifice their snas for artifacts and give them to the nations which can use them, that would be an interesting option - but I would not want to play this nation
in general, the choice of sna’s depends heavily on the team play. in every grudge team there should be one weakness nation - have seen that played to great effect - but it must be supported and protected by the others. in a grudge team, I would go for 1 weakness, 2 agent, 1 artifact retrieval, 3 economy and 5 military nations.
in a normal game though, it is better to play a versatile, self-reliant nation, 40 emis, 40 agents and cjmounts are premier choices for those
I always take one or two SNA’s to name characters at 40. Agents are a good bet because they’re so much more effective at 40 both offensively and defensively.
If you don’t know what else to take, Mormegils suggestion of conjure mounts is a good one. If you don’t need the punch, use the mages to find artifacts. And if you do, you’ll be damn glad to have the heavy cav.
But definitely spend the 20k on a few SNAs, you’ll wish like hell later in the game you could buy them for such a small amount of gold…
right, cjmounts can never hurt. if you can’t use the mounts your teammates usually can, and even if they can’t it is good to sell, since mounts prices are generally high even if everyting else is down. don’t forget to create sufficient plains camps though, since mounts alone don’t make hc…
If your nation relies on weakness to axe characters, and you go up against an agent nation, who do you think will win the character war? Even in LAS?
There’s lots of answers to this one.
Don’t go into a battle you can’t win.
Mages have 2 orders per turn that agents (effectively) don’t have. So you can 940 430 Ji Indur (which we did a lot of) and/or Items. By the end of the game we’d 412ed/428ed 90% of the items.
Mages can challenge - we killed a few characters this way. With the odd combat item and mage items we got the challenge advantage in 95% of the circumstances (turned out 100% but I didn’t want to risk it at one location).
Mages can guarantee a kill - agents can’t. Their ability to 502 before the enemy can act is very important and worth more than an agent or sometimes even two.
Don’t go in with just the squad - we had agents back it up. At one point I took out a commander, 3 back-up commanders, and 525ed the capital pc down to marginal twice - lots of fun.
Scouting seems pretty poor and spells are much more accurate.
By the end of the game my rough tally for two nations was around 32 kills ( I don’t have the accurate numbers but one turn I killed 6 in a turn for two nations). Turn 27. Not bad for a LAS game.
Disadvantages
Costs a lot of characters and orders.
Takes a lot of organising to do right. I had a document set up where I was transferring items, locating new ones, organising who was killing who and there were still mistakes done. One cost us a kill.
Takes a lot of team-work to get support.
Most people would find it boring… (Me I loved it).
I’m not sure it’s as cost effective as 60 rank agents…
One kill on the squad can negate it and early on you’ve not got much chance of successfully killing.
As an aside:
How do you get items off the Blue Wizards though… it’s something I’ve tried in 2 games now and failed both times.
Originally posted by Clint
…
2) Mages have 2 orders per turn that agents (effectively) don’t have. So you can 940 430 Ji Indur (which we did a lot of) and/or Items. By the end of the game we’d 412ed/428ed 90% of the items.
> well my bias is that artifacts aren’t worth the energy to find in 4th age. But admittedly, it’s a bias. It takes either luck, or a LOT of orders to find the important artifacts. Once found, they’re super nice to have… it’s the finding that is costly (order opportunity cost)
Mages can challenge - we killed a few characters this way. With the odd combat item and mage items we got the challenge advantage in 95% of the circumstances (turned out 100% but I didn’t want to risk it at one location).
> good point. agents won’t have the challenge ranks.
Mages can guarantee a kill - agents can’t. Their ability to 502 before the enemy can act is very important and worth more than an agent or sometimes even two.
> order sequence is another good point, but at 4mages per one agent, you’re still going to lose out in a 4v4 mage vs. agent situation. And as you point out later, once you lose one of your 4 mages, your squad is no longer a death-threat.
Don’t go in with just the squad - we had agents back it up. At one point I took out a commander, 3 back-up commanders, and 525ed the capital pc down to marginal twice - lots of fun.
> yep. i agree. a mage nation can complement a team design, but you need the agents to do the ScoChars, and Emissaries to do the InfOthrs, etc. Doing a solo nation as mage-centric is pretty risky business.
…
Disadvantages
Costs a lot of characters and orders.
> this is my main point. In the end, a player’s power in MEPBM is delivered through character orders. The number of character orders that it takes to build up the weakness squad is huge in comparison to the number required to build up assassination squads, and the payback is less. Plus agents are probably building up their assassination skill by stealing gold from the enemy.
Takes a lot of organising to do right. I had a document set up where I was transferring items, locating new ones, organising who was killing who and there were still mistakes done. One cost us a kill.
> agreed. but as you point out, if done as a coordinated part of a team, it can work. but the team must truly be a TEAM.
Worked fine until we met a few agents (two capitals later though).