Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Marverni

The Marverni are a tribal society of bar-chested fighters ruled by druids and nobles. Only the nobles can afford chain mail or horses. Its people have a powerful connection to the Earth, Nature and Astral magic. They exist only in the Early Age.

Background
See the manual on page 121: Marnervi is inspired by the celtic gauls as described by Julius Caesar in his report The gallic war and by other Roman historians. See also the comic Asterix for visual inspiration.

National Features
Your national troops are composed of nearly identical light and heavy infantry types, supported by javelin throwers and slingers. Most infantry types exist as a low-resource variant without armor (bar-chested warriors) and a resource demanding noble variant. Your cavalry is expensive, but quit good for Early Era. Your Druids have powerful Earht, Astral and Nature Picks and can encance their battlefiled magic with powerfull Communion Master/Slaves combinations. Your only sacred unit can go beserk and is capital-only.

Units

 * Marverni Horn Blower: Gold 25, Resources 1
 * The horn blower increase the morale of nearby troops (Standard 12) and is a bit slower then all other infantry types (Battlefield movement: 9). He is only armed with an dagger and do not wear armour. It is best to let him guard commanders because he will often outrun his javelin throwing comrades if mixed with ohter infantry types. His own morale is quite low (Morale:9), maybe because he know that without armour and shield a single arrow means certain death.


 * Marverni Slinger: Gold 10, Resources 3
 * More expensive than independent Slingers (Gold 7, Resources 2) the Marvernis Slinger is still mass-recruitable in times of need and wear a shield (but no armor). Morale is low (Morale: 8) but the shield will protect somewhat against enemy archers. If you find Jaguar Tribe Warriors (Gold 10, Resources 7), recruit these instead: For the same amount of gold you get a nearly normal armor (Protection 9), better morale (10) and a (primitve) Sword instead of an Dagger.


 * Marverni Javelineer: Gold 10, Resources 5
 * This mass-recruitable Javelin thrower has better morale than the Slinger (Morale 9) and fight with spear and shield. He also has no armor, making the fire and flee command a better option than the fire closest.


 * Marverni Bar Chested Warrior: Gold 10, Resources 9
 * A good fighter (Broad Sword, Shield, Javelin), this unit has only ridicule protection (Iron Cap, Protection 3), sub-par morale (morale 9) but demand a lot of resources. If you find independent light infantry, recruit these instead: For nearly the same cost, you get less melee damage, but better protection and morale.


 * Marverni Noble Warrior: Gold 12, Resources 17
 * This is a resource hungry, but good heavy infantry unit.


 * Ambibate Bar Chested Warrior: Gold 12, Resources 8
 * Better morale (morale 10) than the Marverni Bar Chested Warrior but no javelins.


 * Ambibate Noble Warrior: Gold 15, Resources 17
 * One of the best recruitable heavy infantry units of your nation. Better attack, defense and morale than the Marverni Noble Warrior for just 2 more gold make this unit your default must-have. Build several forts to mass armys of those units.


 * Carnute Bar Chested Warrior: Gold 15, Resources 6
 * This unit fight with axe and shield, can go berserk and hast the forest survival ability. Protection is still very low (protection 3) but at least the morale is the best (morale 11) of all bar-chested warrior. Marale, attack, protection and strength will increase when the unit becomes wounded, but the defense (12) will decrease.


 * Carnute Noble Warriro: Gold 20, Resources 15
 * This berserker unit is recruitable in every fortress but more gold expensive than the Ambibate Noble Warrior. Mix it with independent Elephants (at least 5 Carnute Nobles for each Elephant) to make much use of the high morale and the berserk effect. Carnute nobles will nearly never break and flee, but are slower than the Elephants. The Elephants will run forward trampling over the enemys while the Carnute Nobles catch up. Morale is always checked for the entire squad, and as long as you have enough Carnutes alive, the Elephant will fight to the death before considering fleeing.


 * Eponi Knight: Gold 30, Resources 18
 * Maybe the best unit in your arsenal. Not very expensive for a mounted unit, and having the unique combination of good armor, shields and javelins. Like most mounted missle troops, the precision is low (precision 8) but the Eponi Knights are excellent melee fighters with shield and broadsword. Unfortunatly, the horses are not trained to use their hoof in battle like other heavy cavalry.
 * Remember that in one combat square can fight 3 infantry units (size 2) but only 2 mounted units (size 3). Depending on the foe you are facing, it can be better to use the Eponi Knights as flankers or second line troops behind your Ambibate Noble warriors instead as shock troops in the first line.


 * Boar Warrior: Gold 35, Resources 15
 * The sacred Boar Warriors are only recruitable in the capitol. Fighting with axe and shield, this unit is capable of going berserk (3) and can be blessed to higher stats.

Commanders

 * Marverni Scout: Gold 20, Resources 2
 * A simple Scout with bad morale (9), no armor, no shield and a spear. Use independent scouts instead.


 * Marverni Chieftan: Gold 40, Resources 17
 * The marverni Chieftan fight with Broadsword and shield and increase the morale of nearby troops (Standard 3). He is a good all-around-commander (Leadership 40).


 * Ambibate Chieftan: Gold 50, Resources 17
 * The only difference to the ceaper Marverni Chieftan is the better attack value (13 instead of 12). Not really worth spending 10 more gold.


 * Carnute Chieftan: Gold 60, Resources 15
 * Capable of going berserk and having the forest survival ability, the Carnute Chieftan is quite expensive.


 * Eponi Chieftan: Gold 60, Resources 18
 * Your best commander to ferry huge armys, the Eponi Chieftan has excellent leadership (80) and good strategic movement (3).

Your standard priest (holy 1) suffer from low precision (9) as well as from old age (that will in turn lower his precision even more)
 * Vergobret: Gold 50, Resources 1


 * Sequani Stargazer: Gold 80, Resources 1
 * This mage is a dirt-cheap researcher (until you find independent Sage provinces) and a usefull dominion slave for your battlefiled mages. Recruit lot of this units, you will need them. The precision is good (11).


 * Gutuater: Gold 120, Resources 1
 * A versatile Mage-Priest. The Gutuater has 1 Holy and 1 Nature level and additional either 1 more Water or Earth or Astral or Nature level. Recruit enough of this unit to have at least one of each variant. The precision is good (11) and the Gutuater has the forest survival ability. He can perform blood sacrifices if you find a way to get blood slaves.

The Druid has always 2 Earth, 2 Astral and 2 Holy levels. Additional he is has 2 times a (Water or Earth or Astral or Nature) level and with 10% chance even one more of those levels. The druid suffer from old age but has excellent precision (12). If he is lucky to have a nature pick old age is less of a problem and he can also cast the spell eagle Eyes on his self to further increase his precision. If your Druid has no nature pick you should take care of his old age problems if you want to use him as a battlefield mage. He can also perform blood sacrifies.
 * Druid: Gold 380, Resources 3

The Boar Lord bears no standard and is recruitable only in your capitol. He is sacred an can be blessed to higher stats. He is also capable of going berserk.
 * Boar Lord: Gold 100, Resources 15

Starting Sites
Carnutes: Gives 3 Astral, 2 Earth and 1 Nature Gem each turn and allow to recuit Boar Warriors and Boar Lords.

National Spells
No national spells are known.

National Summons
No nationl summons are known.

Strategy A: Take good scales
This strategy try to make most use of your good national troops in combination with your powerfull batlle mages.

Scale Design
Take good scales, mostly Productivity, Growth, Order (Growth if you play on large maps or want to dabble into blood magic, else Order). You can risk misfortune 1 if you already have high Order. High order and high Luck are not advised (Hihg Order lowers the chance of getting random events). If you need Design Points and like to gamble, you can try High Turmoil and High Luck instead of High Order. However, take Re

Pretender Design
You have no access to Blood, Death, Fire and Air magic. Buy the best scales you can effort and invest the Design Points left in some of those magic picks. Look out for low cost pretenders. Take medium Dominion strenght (5 or 6) unless you take a combat pretender.

Expansion
Use nobles and lots of slingers / javeline throwers until you find indipendent archers. Build large armys, you have the commanders to lead them.

Research Order
Construction 4 is a must (Vine Bags) to avoid supply problems. Thaumaturgy 2 is important for site searching and Communion Master/Slave.

Later on, research either Evocation/Thaumaturgy spells for more battlefield magic, concentrate on summons (conjuration) or invest in construction: Level 6 let your Druids forge Earth shields (+1 to all magic levels in combat) as well as all the path boosters (ring of wizardry). Level 7 let you contruct Golems and outfit him with any items you like. If you have Golems, Alteration 3 (Personal Luck, Body Etheral) and Enchantments 3 (Astral Shield) are important. Golems have to Levels of Astral Magic, and wich just a skull cap (Contruction 6) can Teleport (Thaumaturgy 3) themself on top of enemy armys (magic movement phase).

Conjuration 6 allows you to cast Troll King Court and Sea King Court. Troll Kings make excellent battlefield buffers with spells like Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants and Weapons of Sharpness (important for your bar-chested hordes).