Racial attributes:
15% lower costs to city upgrades
20% faster city upgrade
20% extra gold income
What these percentiles narrow down to is: a town upgrade costs 110, a
city upgrade costs 225. 20% extra gold income means they get 1 more
income from a village, 2 more from a town, 3 more from a city, and 4
more from a citadel.
The council faction is rather unique in the fact that it is directly
between the economic nationalists and the swarm army royalists. Of the 3
mareten factions, it is arguably the easiest to use, and is by far the
most versatile. While often referred to as the newbie faction, many
veteran players play council to deadly effect. With enough economic
bonuses to make it nearly be able to match the nationalists, most
council players are ones who use the slow but powerful armies of
infantry or grenadiers with magic support.
As council, you would generally have a cluster of towns. Due to the
cheap and fast settlement upgrades, a good council player will always
upgrade his/her settlements to towns (not only does it only cost 110
gold, but it's also much faster than expanding, especially with their
increased upgrade speed, and costs less than expanding twice with kohans!).
The 20% extra gold income doesn't seem to particularly affect the game
much, but when you think that council would get 1 gold every 10 seconds
instead of every 12 (like the factions) from EACH villages, the extra
income tends to add up quickly.
Council always seem to upgrade their villages, as a result, they
aren't lacking in company limit. As a result, they can field far more
armies than the nationalists can, but can also have high tech armies,
unlike royalists.
In an economic start, council are much slower than nationalists, but
once past this point, they grow strong very rapidly.
A standard economic start:
kohan + settlers x 2 (110 + 60)
town upgrade (110)
bank, IE, wood export in town (132 x 2 + 88)
bank in 2 villages (132 x 2)
econ 12 + 6 x 2 + 15 x 4 + 10 = 94
cost: 896
troops: none
From here, you would upgrade one of the villages to a town, and begin
hiring troops.
An advantage to this start is that it's very adaptable. Rather than
build a l, you can just as easily build a sawmill for a few early
fighters. Or, build a blast furnace instead of the iron export, and put
down some infantry.
While doing both drops your economy down to 69 rather than 94, just
by upgrading a town or expanding, your econ goes up to 75, and you could
put your IE or whatever there instead to push the economy to 90. This is
one aspect of council's versatility, the changes which can be made to
any strat in a moment's notice.
In military, council is not limited to the use of any single troop.
They can go mass archers, mass infantry with magic support, goons, etc.
All options are viable with council. Generally, most council players use
grenadiers or infantry with magic support, a few archer companies, and 1
or 2 goon companies for flanking/raiding the enemy.
As a faction, council have a relatively slow start off (if not using
a rushing strat). But once they get going, they are very tough and
nearly impossible to destroy.
One thing a council player should be wary of is their vulnerability
to raiding, even more than the nationalists. While nationalists would
have quite a few fast troops, council armies generally consist totally
of slow armies. Outposts are the best way to defend against this,
delaying enemy troops until your own armies arrive. However, DON'T GET
LOCKED DOWN! Quite often, council players, afraid they will be raided,
have their armies stationed defending, not attacking, and being held out
by 2 or 3 puny companies of goons.
Council Special Units:
Elite Bowmen:
The weakest of the elite units, these bowmen are still incredibly
powerful. While they have a slower reload rate than the other elites,
these elites deal damage from afar, not in danger of being killed as
they attack.
Channelers
The basis of council armies. Channelers grant + 6 defense to the whole
company, and heal all troops by 25. Channelers alone make council armies
nearly unbeatable on the battlefield. (I found a battle where 5 inf/chan/wiz
companies was against 5 void companies, and I would of won if not for
the morale factor!)
Wizards
Wizards are basically a better version of the magicians. Their bolts,
while dealing less damage, lower morale and are cast faster than the
magician fireball. While they don't increase morale like the magicians,
they give +6 defense vs. archers instead.
