Nations that seem strong/weak

[Nerfix]

I'll start.

Early Age - Strong

Sauromatia: This mounted terror shoots to the top of charts in every game it has been in. Great gem income, a diversity of aproaches to playing them, even better Misfortune tolerance than usual, blood magic, poisonous archers, blessable lizards...the list goes on.

Van/Helheim: Great blessables. Glamour troops. Vanheim gets Blade wind with the Dwarves and Blade Wind rules the Early Age.

Mictlan: Their troops are nowhere near as sucky as they used to be in the early age and the new blood summons are superb, especially Ozelotls who have terrifying synergy with the usual F9 W9 bless.

Neifelheim: Niefel Bussiness as usual, now with 256% More Wolves. 100% Ewil.

[DominionsFan]

Vanheim & Helheim are very strong nations for blitz games, we usually ban them. Also we allow only 1 level9 blessing in the blitz games nowadays. Games are much more balanced like this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

Multiplayer blitz games (usually played on maps where the provinces equal playerx10 or less) with no special victory conditions definetly do a lot toward defining strong/weak nations. I think that more game settings might help with those.

Mictlan with that flying stealth titan assassin pretender can also make a major dent in a blitz game very early on.

Neifelheim loses many of its drawbacks in a game like that, and it offers one of the few other strategies for a small blitz game (defensive buildup)

On the other hand, Im cranking up for some mega games on maximum maps which might shake out some people whose rankings of nations are too cast in cement. There are alot of game variations to explore.

[KissBlade]

The nice part about dominions is experienced players have proven that no nation is so crippled to be completely hopeless in a MP game. Even some weak nations like Abysia have one or two saving graces (Demonbred in their case with axe infantries not so bad buys if I recall). Tien Chi MA gets xbows and consorts. EA Ryleh gets nice flavor and aquatic thugs.

Also superior raiding strategies and decent pretenders/diplomatics go a long way.

[Nerfix]

Since when Abysia is considered weak? O_o

[Teraswaerto]

My guess would be since old age became a problem. In Dom2 anyway Abysia wasn't thought of as weak last I remember.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah Aby was quite strong in dom2. Good battle magic, good summoning, decent national troops (after CB).

[NTJedi]

Nerfix said:
Since when Abysia is considered weak? O_o



The aging feature hits Abysia harder than most nations.
At least one unit is bugged where precision was incorrectly switched with encumbrance. {ouch}
Most if not all troops have movement of one, which is noticeable for the larger maps.

I haven't played all the nations to actually call them weak, but those are the disadvantages I noticed.

[Teraswaerto]

Ironhawk said:
decent national troops (after CB).



Are you saying Abysian troops were poor before? How's that?

[Agrajag]

Try an Earth-9 bless and beeline to rejuvinate (or the age-stopping boots), and then tell me how weak Abysia is http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

There are winning strategies for everyone, thats the joy of this game. But if you are talking small map fast games, I would have to do some thinking on an abysian strategy. Maybe a strong dominion push to make use of their heat scale?

[Graeme Dice]

Agrajag said:
Try an Earth-9 bless and beeline to rejuvinate (or the age-stopping boots), and then tell me how weak Abysia is http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Most nations don't really have to spend blood slaves that are only huntable with a capital only mage to keep their other capital only mages from dying of old age. Especially not a nation that's supposed to be able to take heat 3 death 3 with little to no downside to offset their use of easily counterable fire magic.

[NickW]

Graeme Dice said:


Most nations don't really have to spend blood slaves that are only huntable with a capital only mage to keep their other capital only mages from dying of old age. Especially not a nation that's supposed to be able to take heat 3 death 3 with little to no downside to offset their use of easily counterable fire magic.



Blood hunting turns up lots of slaves very quickly and the boots are cheap. Besides, Abysia is a blood nation so it's not like they aren't going to have some blood hunters anyway.

[Meglobob]

My observations so far on:-

MA Man - This nation is powerful and very easy to play, especially early on. Mass Longbows with a small shield of infantary/cavalry in front of them slices through indie 5 provinces like butter. I often take 0 losses, many times the indie army has routed before its reached my lines, the rain of longbow arrows take a huge toll on any retreating army. Back this up with a awake combat pretender and u will be number 1 for provinces. Add in all the stealth units, powerful air/nature summons, lightning bolts, wind guide etc, etc... u will be a serious power early/mid game. Take good scales to get the most out of yr large empire.

The weaknesses r lack of fire/death/astral/earth magic, which could seriously dent yr endgame.

I would say its overall balanced and a good nation for a beginner to play, just concentrate on yr strengths.

This is based on 2 MP games with MA Man. (turn 16, turn 10).

[Dhaeron]

LA Ermor

Typical for autospawn nations this is hard to gauge. I can't exactly say if Ermor is weak since i didn't play other LA nations yet to compare, however compared to D2 they took a few very hard hits.
Decent priests are quite hard to come by. No more battlefield undead buff spells for every army from turn 5 onward.
The autospawns are among the weakest troops for LA. The good national troops will wipe the floor with them, even without further boost spells.
Banish has been improved greatly.
Ermor is restricted to ashen empire, which is a lot weaker against indeps than ghost gate was because of a) not ethereal and b) no healing.
Ermor can't use a sleeping or imprisoned pretender.
Besides the pretender, the only magic paths are 3 death and up to two random picks on dusk elders. In LA whith standard settings (35% magic sites) every gem counts, and ermor needs to use a rainbow pretender to get some non-death mages summoned. At least in long games.

So, as i see it, ermors strength now lies in mid-game. Early expansion is slower than before and lategame all useful troops have to come from magic gems which are sparse in LA. after getting a few provinces set up with castles+temples and dom 10, and before the other nations have assembled big groups of LA troops with heavy protection and skills, ermor can still grab provinces with frighteningly large armies.

Conclusion: not terribly weak, but weaker than i'm used to. (well, i'm used to slaughtering my unsuspecting buddy with mass castings of ghost riders in games on really large maps http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

[Graeme Dice]

NickW said:
Blood hunting turns up lots of slaves very quickly and the boots are cheap.



Blood spells require more slaves to get an equivalent effect to other magic paths, and the boots need to be put on dozens of mages, so you'll need to spend thiry or fourty blood slaves a turn just to equip the new mages you'll be purchasing.


Besides, Abysia is a blood nation so it's not like they aren't going to have some blood hunters anyway.



Abysia blood hunters are warlock apprentices, which are capital only and prevent you from recruiting a more generally useful Demonbred or Warlock in the middle age. This is even worse in the early age, where you have to make the choice between an Anointed of Rhuax and a warlock apprentice.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:

Blood spells require more slaves to get an equivalent effect to other magic paths, and the boots need to be put on dozens of mages, so you'll need to spend thiry or fourty blood slaves a turn just to equip the new mages you'll be purchasing.


Abysia blood hunters are warlock apprentices, which are capital only and prevent you from recruiting a more generally useful Demonbred or Warlock in the middle age. This is even worse in the early age, where you have to make the choice between an Anointed of Rhuax and a warlock apprentice.



Well, you don't need to give the boots to every mage, just the important ones with good picks, HOF abilities, or prophets. And besides, you should have plenty of blood slaves, if you don't you're not bloodhunting enough, it's not uncommon for me to pull in more than 100 a turn with 6 hunters if you give them Dowsing Rods if you're picking the right provinces.

Once you have access to the boots, though, you'll only need to purchase a handful of Apprentices and forget about it as they're not good for much else and anything they can do a Warlock can do better. And if it's that much of an issue, you can use the Warlocks and Demobreds (who won't get old) to do the hunting for you temporarily if you really can't recruit an Apprentice for whatever reason.

Another thing is Warlocks and Demombreds are easy to get them to where you need them either through teleport or flying, so you don't really need as many as a nation that has difficulty moving their mages around the map. Just keep your blood hunting close to home so your Apprentices don't have to go far and it's not that much of an issue.

I don't know, old age can be a pain, but I find that with rejuvenate, Growth scales, the boots, maybe building a pretender that can cast Gift of Health, Abysia actually has an easier time dealing with old age than most nations.

Think about it, Abysia doesn't need the early game help of mages or a pretender, their national troops crush indies easily so you can imprison your pretender and take good scales and get a lot of researching done. Then later in the game every other nations mages are still dying of old age and yours will be able to either cast spells to be young again or not age at all, and the cost of that is a tougher early game, but so what? You're not really having a tough time anyway as your nationals can take most conventional armies easily. I think Abysia is balanced really well in that regard.

[FAJ]

I end up using mostly demonbreds. I hate old age to the point that I barely ever buy Anath. dragons. Ive had more than one game where I had a mage die to old age before my pretender even awoke (asleep, not imprisoned mind you).

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
And besides, you should have plenty of blood slaves, if you don't you're not bloodhunting enough, it's not uncommon for me to pull in more than 100 a turn with 6 hunters if you give them Dowsing Rods if you're picking the right provinces.



The right provinces are any province with a population of around 5000, so that's not too much surprise. I think you're greatly overexaggerating how many slaves you get, however, since 6 B3 mages will average about 7 slaves each per turn. Those 6 mages also represent the total commander production of your capital for six turns, which is the real weakness of Abysia as a blood nation.


Once you have access to the boots, though, you'll only need to purchase a handful of Apprentices and forget about it as they're not good for much else and anything they can do a Warlock can do better.



You need three apprentices for every province you conquer that has a population of about 5000 if you want to seriously invest in blood magic.


And if it's that much of an issue, you can use the Warlocks and Demobreds (who won't get old) to do the hunting for you temporarily if you really can't recruit an Apprentice for whatever reason.



Blood hunting with warlocks and demonbred means that those units aren't available to cast rituals or forge items, or lead your summoned devils respectively. It also means that you've essentially devoted the turn that you recruited that mage at your capital to blood hunting, since you still have to recruit an apprentice to replace the expensive hunter. Then you have to constantly recruit replacement warlock apprentices as they die of old age. If you want 15 blood hunters to support a good blood economy, you'll be spending almost half of the first 30 turns recruiting those blood hunters and their replacements.


Another thing is Warlocks and Demombreds are easy to get them to where you need them either through teleport or flying, so you don't really need as many as a nation that has difficulty moving their mages around the map.



How many nations have real difficulty moving their mages around? Most have serious problems recruiting sufficient quantities of their capital only mages, but that's a different problem from getting them where they need to be.


Just keep your blood hunting close to home so your Apprentices don't have to go far and it's not that much of an issue.



Keeping your blood hunting close to the capital is another way to say that you won't be seriously blood hunting.


I don't know, old age can be a pain, but I find that with rejuvenate, Growth scales, the boots, maybe building a pretender that can cast Gift of Health, Abysia actually has an easier time dealing with old age than most nations.



Abysia should be playing with death 3, not a growth scale, and yet trying to take advantage of their death scale resistance hurts them more than almost any other nation thanks to their universally old mages.


Think about it, Abysia doesn't need the early game help of mages or a pretender, their national troops crush indies easily so you can imprison your pretender and take good scales and get a lot of researching done.



You'll be buying a mage every single turn in every castle, so researching won't be benefitted that much from imprisoning your pretender, and you'd get twice as much gold to purchase your mages and troops with if you had a pretender to help you expand.


You're not really having a tough time anyway as your nationals can take most conventional armies easily. I think Abysia is balanced really well in that regard.



I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat. Their other statistics are nearly identical (except for hitpoints) to humans of half their cost. Compare them to Emerald Guard to see what they have to go up against for similar cost.

[Archonsod]

Never had an age problem with Abyssia. Death or Growth scales both help (so far I've only ever seen disease kill an oldster, so unless your unlucky enough to get feebleminded it's not a problem under either scale).
Another option is to get into the Death path and simply undead your mages, through whichever spell is most convenient. Nature can also be a viable counter if you find yourself with plenty of nature gems (a single pick in nature is usually enough to knock the mage below old age level).

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:
The right provinces are any province with a population of around 5000, so that's not too much surprise. I think you're greatly overexaggerating how many slaves you get, however, since 6 B3 mages will average about 7 slaves each per turn. Those 6 mages also represent the total commander production of your capital for six turns, which is the real weakness of Abysia as a blood nation.

You need three apprentices for every province you conquer that has a population of about 5000 if you want to seriously invest in blood magic.



I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.

I use 2 hunters per province as it doesn't increase unrest so quickly and hurt my income and since I'm doing it in more populated provinces that produce more gold (not that gold is much of an issue if as Abysia gets more fire gems than I know what to do with so I alchemy them if needed), and since they capture more slaves per turn I don't need 3. You could always add a third later when you don't need the income as much.

The best part is less blood hunters are required for similar results if you're more picky about what provinces you're doing it in. You have to be or you'll be short on mages.



Blood hunting with warlocks and demonbred means that those units aren't available to cast rituals or forge items, or lead your summoned devils respectively. It also means that you've essentially devoted the turn that you recruited that mage at your capital to blood hunting, since you still have to recruit an apprentice to replace the expensive hunter. Then you have to constantly recruit replacement warlock apprentices as they die of old age. If you want 15 blood hunters to support a good blood economy, you'll be spending almost half of the first 30 turns recruiting those blood hunters and their replacements.



They can fill the blood hunter role when necessary and do other things when necessary until you get a replacement so you don't have to spend half of your first 30 turns recruiting blood hunters. Especially if you're doing it in high pop provinces, you won't need as many hunters thereby loosening your recruiting requirements at least early in the game.


How many nations have real difficulty moving their mages around? Most have serious problems recruiting sufficient quantities of their capital only mages, but that's a different problem from getting them where they need to be.



Well, for one thing mages that have to walk and don't have air or astral magic are probably going to move slowly and take several turns from when you recruit them to when they get to where you want them depending on how far it is, especially if they don't have forest or mountain survival. Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that. A Demonbred will probably take a little longer, but then again there aren't that many flying mages either.

The point here is that yes, you can only recruit them one at a time, but the travel time is lower which helps makes up for it.



Keeping your blood hunting close to the capital is another way to say that you won't be seriously blood hunting.



I don't know many maps where there's not 5 suitable provinces within two or three sqaures of your capital, especially when you're doing it at 5000 pop. I suppose it would be a problem if you're stuck on or near a map edge or large ocean if it's not a wraparound. How about "as close as possible"?



Abysia should be playing with death 3, not a growth scale, and yet trying to take advantage of their death scale resistance hurts them more than almost any other nation thanks to their universally old mages.



Why? It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.


You'll be buying a mage every single turn in every castle, so researching won't be benefitted that much from imprisoning your pretender, and you'd get twice as much gold to purchase your mages and troops with if you had a pretender to help you expand.



I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions. You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.


I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat. Their other statistics are nearly identical (except for hitpoints) to humans of half their cost. Compare them to Emerald Guard to see what they have to go up against for similar cost.



With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units. The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.


Either way, we play it different. I don't any more problem wiht old age and Abysia than I do with other nations, probably less problems with Abysia.

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.



I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.


Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that.



In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.


It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.




The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.


I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions.



I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.


You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.



Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.


With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units.



Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.


The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.



Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.

[Wick]

NTJedi said:At least one unit is bugged where precision was incorrectly switched with encumbrance. {ouch}



This isn't a Dom 3 problem -- it's been there since Dom I for Lava Warriors. (Which proves that Burning Ones were built off a Lava Warrior template.)

I also haven't read any mention that Abysia's mage costs have dropped a lot. This should substantially offset the age problem, right?

[KissBlade]

Heh Graeme pretty much covered all the points about Abysia. Though I should point out ten provinces by ten turns is actually the bare minimum you should be aiming for.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:

I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.



Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do. My mistake there though, and maybe it's just perception.


In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.



So that makes it a negative? It's still half that can't too. Take away the Starshine Skullcap though, and you still have a 1/4 chance of using Teleport and still have flying mages, and I'm sure that list will get smaller.


The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.



You're neglecting to include that both blood hunting and patrolling kill population, so it'll be signifcantly sooner that you kill the population below whatever level you find acceptable to blood hunt, plus it'll never grow back as long as it's in your dominion. IMO Death is bad for any blood nation.

But, you know, at least we agree Growth is probably a better choice.


I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.



You can have two armies fielded capable of taking provinces in 5 turns or less with Abysia, 20 Lava Warriors and a A. Dragon for divine blessing should mop up even knights easily. What you get for imprisoning your pretender is good scales and a good bless. You can get 10 in 10 turns easily, probably more if you took at least a moderate bless like B4F4E4 and use Lava Warriors, and be better off in the long run.

Not that I'm saying it's a bad idea to take an awake pretender and branch out early, especially if you're playing short games or small maps. Play how you want to, but other things work too.



Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.



Good scales will get you gold too and you'll probably be better off in the long run. It's two different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Magic 3 adds up research quickly btw, you'd notice it when you have a couple of mages.



Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.



Yup, nearly double hp. The Emerald Guard also has lower strength, a weapon that does less damage than most of the Abysian infantry, higher encumberance, a lower MR, half of Abysians have a higher battlefield movement, and EG costs more in both gold and resources (except when compared to Lava Warriors which are even more superior anyway), doesn't radiate heat and is vunerable to fire. Lava Warriors are universally better. Emerald Guards are great units, most heavy infantry is worse. That's supposed to be Abysias thing, great heavy infantry though, so no surprise that's exactly what they have.



Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.



Just for comparison's sake, Abysia can do it on Indy 7 and sometimes 8 without even adding a mage or priest. Their starting army is really good. Most nations start out with a handful of ranged units and some of their weaker infantry and take a huge loss their first attack unless you beef it up a bit or send your pretender or a mage or something. Abysia doesn't need to do that.

[FrankTrollman]

Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do.



Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

FrankTrollman said:



Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do.



Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank



I have no idea. I usually play defaults and bump indy up to 7.

Of course, that'd make sense.

[Teraswaerto]

I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat.

The heat radiation can make a big difference in longer fights, especially in hot lands. High encumbrance units will collapse in a few turns of fighting. Abysian units may still be overpriced though...

[Gandalf Parker]

Which brings up an important tactic. For Abysia, its important to keep track of where your domain has extended. And if you are fighting inside the reach of your domain then consider positioning your units to the far backside of the field (the far left of the positioning box) and have them wait there for the enemy to charge to you. The more armored and equipped that the enemy is, the more good this should do for you.
(this is an untested theory)

[Archonsod]

PDF said:
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...



The first time I played Abyssia I managed to get to turn 20 without losing a mage to old age (one or two limps and someone suffering a battlewound) with no growth scale.
Perhaps the problem is more in the way the afflictions are applied rather than any particular nation. It seems a little too random - I've had old units contract a disease a turn or two after recruitment, while others quite happily exceed their old age score by a couple of decades with nothing worse than a limp.


And don't tell me "yeah, just cast GoH and make boots", Aby isn't supposed to cast GoH, and boots don't cure disease !


Well, it's your choice whether to work around a nation's disadvantage or not. Abyssia is one of the few nations whose only real disadvantage is rather trivial to bypass. I much prefer that than (for example) something like LA Ermor, where your restricted to playing the nation to a specific strategy because of it's flaws.

[PDF]

There's really a problem with Aby "aged" Warlocks and Anathemants, they die like flies and, given that Warlocks are capitol-only I can't even conceive how you can start a Blood economy with them.
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...OTOH with Shinuyama and Death-1 scale I had only 1 Sorc out of 8 diseased by turn 20 ! Looks like a problem with "old age" at a low value 35.
IMHO in these conditions Aby isn't playable competitively at all and even in SP it's not fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
And don't tell me "yeah, just cast GoH and make boots", Aby isn't supposed to cast GoH, and boots don't cure disease !

[Nerfix]

Yeah, the problem is their low old age cap.

[calmon]

PDF said:
There's really a problem with Aby "aged" Warlocks and Anathemants, they die like flies and, given that Warlocks are capitol-only I can't even conceive how you can start a Blood economy with them.
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...OTOH with Shinuyama and Death-1 scale I had only 1 Sorc out of 8 diseased by turn 20 ! Looks like a problem with "old age" at a low value 35.
IMHO in these conditions Aby isn't playable competitively at all and even in SP it's not fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
And don't tell me "yeah, just cast GoH and make boots", Aby isn't supposed to cast GoH, and boots don't cure disease !



Hmm, maybe there is a bug. I play a Arco Testgame and i've plenty of old Philosophers. Its late Fall in year 3 now and only 2 are diseased and 1 died. I think this is acceptable. Growth 3 here.

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
You're neglecting to include that both blood hunting and patrolling kill population, so it'll be signifcantly sooner that you kill the population below whatever level you find acceptable to blood hunt, plus it'll never grow back as long as it's in your dominion. IMO Death is bad for any blood nation.



Blood hunting only removes as many people as the blood slaves you capture. Patrolling doesn't kill anybody in blood hunting provinces because you shouldn't patrol blood hunting provinces. The check on unrest to see if it's too high for blood hunting to succeed happens before patrolling. This means that with many hunters, they'll drive unrest up, cause blood hunts to fail, then the patrollers will kill large numbers of your population. You end up spending a bunch of gold to kill your population faster, then having to move your hunters out of their provinces with a castle and a lab to new provinces.


But, you know, at least we agree Growth is probably a better choice.



I would never take a growth scale in any game unless I knew beforehand that the game was going to last for at least 100 turns. Otherwise the benefit is miniscule.


What you get for imprisoning your pretender is good scales and a good bless.



Order 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, drain 3 with a dominion 10, fire 8 Moloch will expand even faster, and still has good scales. Then you can be capturing three provinces per turn if there's room.


Good scales will get you gold too and you'll probably be better off in the long run. It's two different ways of accomplishing the same thing.



The pretender posted above _has_ good scales for Abysia.


Magic 3 adds up research quickly btw, you'd notice it when you have a couple of mages.



Sure, but the problem is that you won't have spells researched that will change the course of battles till turn 20 even with a magic scale, by which point the game will be mostly decided.


Yup, nearly double hp.



50% more hitpoints than a normal human is _not_ nearly double. It's 50% more.


The Emerald Guard also has lower strength, a weapon that does less damage than most of the Abysian infantry, higher encumberance, a lower MR, half of Abysians have a higher battlefield movement, and EG costs more in both gold and resources (except when compared to Lava Warriors which are even more superior anyway), doesn't radiate heat and is vunerable to fire.



The emerald guard has a strength of 12, compared to abysia's 13. The broadsword has a damage of 6, compared to the axe which is 7 but drops the unit's attack down to 9. Battlefield movement is completely irrelevant to infantry units, and the cost difference arises because the emerald guard is a better unit than abysian heavy infantry.


Lava Warriors are universally better.



Lava warriors are also capital only. The emerald guard is recruitable everywhere. Of course, you don't need the emerald guard to beat abysian heavy infantry. Principes by themselves with standards mixed in are more than sufficient.


Just for comparison's sake, Abysia can do it on Indy 7 and sometimes 8 without even adding a mage or priest. Their starting army is really good. Most nations start out with a handful of ranged units and some of their weaker infantry and take a huge loss their first attack unless you beef it up a bit or send your pretender or a mage or something.



No, most nations do _not_ take huge losses on the default of independents 5 unless you don't use their troops correctly. Pangaea does, but that's because their starting troops are the unbelievably crappy satyrs.

[KissBlade]

Graeme, I think you would rather mod those scales to drain 2, misfortune 1. Or perhaps Drain 2, Misfortune 2, Death 2. Otherwise I would take somewhat the same thing save I usually end up taking the PoD, less death magic, dom 10, and skip the whole death scale altogether currently for Abysia. Though death 3 is supposed to be "built" for them, it certainly isn't at the current moment. There's also the old recycled, dom 10 cyclops chassis ...

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:
50% more hitpoints than a normal human is _not_ nearly double. It's 50% more.



And the Lava Warrior is 70%. Close to double. It's semantics anyway, they have more hp by a good margin.


The emerald guard has a strength of 12, compared to abysia's 13. The broadsword has a damage of 6, compared to the axe which is 7 but drops the unit's attack down to 9. Battlefield movement is completely irrelevant to infantry units, and the cost difference arises because the emerald guard is a better unit than abysian heavy infantry.



Weren't you just naming off a bunch of 1 or 2 point differences? And it's not a better unit simply because they have very similar stats but lack radiating heat/fire immunity while costing more, and it's probably the best human heavy infantry for the era. So even if we could agree that the Emerald Guard was a better unit overall than Abysian Infantry, Abysian Infantry is still better than 99% of similar priced HI.



No, most nations do _not_ take huge losses on the default of independents 5 unless you don't use their troops correctly. Pangaea does, but that's because their starting troops are the unbelievably crappy satyrs.



The point is if Abysia's starting army can perform well in 7 or 8 they peform even better in 5. You'll take heavy losses (ETA: on indy 7 or 8 that is), if you even win, on turn 2 with most starting nations armies, but not Abysia. Abysia starts with 30 good heavy infantry and an assassin. Shinuyama, Bandar Log, Tien Chi, Mictlan, Machaka, C'tis, and to a lesser extent Arco, Man, and Vanheim all start worse armies as none of them start with heavy infantry but have ranged units, and most have less than 30 units. The rest of them either start with worse units or less of them, for instance Ulm has comparable units but only starts with 16, Marignon will probably do well too.

For simplicity though, Abysia has a really good starting army, agree or no?

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
For simplicity though, Abysia has a really good starting army, agree or no?



They have one of the best starting armies. Just don't let Caelum, Bandar Log, or Arcoscephale get near you with elephants.

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
Otherwise I would take somewhat the same thing save I usually end up taking the PoD, less death magic, dom 10, and skip the whole death scale altogether currently for Abysia.



I love the Moloch because his attack and defense stats become astronomically high once you give half-decent equipment. With Mictlan and construction 6, a F9 Moloch can get his attack and defense into the 30's. He's like an archdevil on speed.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:

dirtywick said:
For simplicity though, Abysia has a really good starting army, agree or no?



They have one of the best starting armies. Just don't let Caelum, Bandar Log, or Arcoscephale get near you with elephants.



Once I was playing Abysia on the Silent Seas map and had 3 provinces next to me. One was Militia and Elephants, one had a named Sorcoress "that radiates power" with like E3S4, 30 Gnome somethings (little earth elemental things), and some Fall Bears, and the other was Militia and Knights. I thought I had the best chance against the Sorcoress. I was really, really wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I'll have to try the Moloch next time I play Abysia, of course I'm going to put him dormant and add growth though.

[Agrajag]

PDF said:
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...


In my test game, with Growth-0 I had 1 mage diseased by the time I managed to forge boots for everyone. And a second mage mute.


Graeme Dice said:
I would never take a growth scale in any game unless I knew beforehand that the game was going to last for at least 100 turns. Otherwise the benefit is miniscule.
...
Order 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, drain 3 with a dominion 10, fire 8 Moloch will expand even faster, and still has good scales. Then you can be capturing three provinces per turn if there's room.


Maybe here lies the problem, you are too used to dom2's death scale, which was almost a no-brainer.
This here is dom3, a whole different beast.

[Graeme Dice]

Agrajag said:
Maybe here lies the problem, you are too used to dom2's death scale, which was almost a no-brainer.
This here is dom3, a whole different beast.



Other than the effect on old age afflictions, Dom3's death scale is identical to Dom2. A death 3 scale should be a no-brainer for Abysia, just like a heat 3 scale is, or a drain 3 scale is for Ulm. This is one of the nation's advantages to offset their use of the second weakest type of elemental magic and slightly overpriced troops.

[Graeme Dice]

Archonsod said:
Well, it's your choice whether to work around a nation's disadvantage or not. Abyssia is one of the few nations whose only real disadvantage is rather trivial to bypass.



A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.

[Agrajag]

Graeme Dice said:
Other than the effect on old age afflictions, Dom3's death scale is identical to Dom2.


But that's a serious effect, don't take it too lightly.


A death 3 scale should be a no-brainer for Abysia, just like a heat 3 scale is, or a drain 3 scale is for Ulm. This is one of the nation's advantages to offset their use of the second weakest type of elemental magic and slightly overpriced troops.


But that's more of a thematic problem than a balance problem. I don't think death should be a no-brainer for Abysia, nor do I think Drain is currently a no-brainer for Ulm (if you don't plan on using your national mages for research [which makes sense, since they aren't very good at it] it can really hurt)

[Graeme Dice]

Agrajag said:
But that's more of a thematic problem than a balance problem. I don't think death should be a no-brainer for Abysia, nor do I think Drain is currently a no-brainer for Ulm (if you don't plan on using your national mages for research [which makes sense, since they aren't very good at it] it can really hurt)



If you aren't planning to use Master Smith's for research, then what _are_ you planning to research with? And how are you going to pay for the almost required productivity 3 scale without taking drain 3? Even worse, your troops will be slaughtered by MR negates effects without the drain scale helping to protect them.

Death should certainly be an automatic choice for Abysia, or else their death scale resistance provides them with no actual benefit. Instead, they suffer worse from it than most nations thanks to their universally old fire mages. Or would you argue that Caelum should sometimes not take cold 3? If playing nations thematically isn't a powerful way to play them, then something is probably wrong with how they are balanced.

[dirtywick]

If in a future patch or mod the Blood spell Rejuvenate took away old age afflictions in addition to making them younger I'd consider the death scale a good choice. I also think, the way the death scale currently effects Abysia, that playing the death theme isn't a good idea. The effects of the death scale on Abysia specifically definately needs to be looked at and adjusted as I don't think the tradeoff is worth it.

[Agrajag]

Graeme Dice said:
If you aren't planning to use Master Smith's for research, then what _are_ you planning to research with?


The Master Smith. Right until the point I find an independant mage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NickW]

Graeme Dice said:
A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.



If you are buying mages in that much bulk you can afford to lose a few. Think of it as the expense for balancing out the free design point from a death-3 scale.

[Graeme Dice]

NickW said:
If you are buying mages in that much bulk you can afford to lose a few. Think of it as the expense for balancing out the free design point from a death-3 scale.



Why should there be any kind of balancing factor? Abysia was certainly not anywhere close to overpowered in Dom2, being a fire nation, so why was it necessary to nerf them, (And Marignon), so terribly in Dom3?

[Nerfix]

It's also a blood nation though. Blood is Good. But I do think that old age hit abysia too hard.

[mivayan]

Nerfix said:
It's also a blood nation though. Blood is Good. But I do think that old age hit abysia too hard.


Early and middle age abysia can only build blood hunters in capitol, so it's a pretty crappy blood nation.

LA abysia however trades battlemages for blood hunters in it's non-capital castles, so they can at least get a good blood income.

[Zebion]

Does no one think of poor marigon? My poor inquistors are all old men

[Archonsod]

Graeme Dice said:
A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.



Infinitely cheaper than those nations who are stuck with something they can't do anything about - miasma, death dominions, loss of power on land and so forth.

[Arameyan]

Archonsod said:
Infinitely cheaper than those nations who are stuck with something they can't do anything about - miasma, death dominions, loss of power on land and so forth.



What's so bad with miasma? they cant recruit sages or indeps but have many mages and summons immune to disease.

[Archonsod]

I wasn't saying miasma was bad. The point is you can't easily work around the detrimental effects.

[Arameyan]

ok

I'll read more carefully next time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NickW]

Graeme Dice said:

Why should there be any kind of balancing factor? Abysia was certainly not anywhere close to overpowered in Dom2, being a fire nation, so why was it necessary to nerf them, (And Marignon), so terribly in Dom3?



I think it was a nerf targetted at anyone who thinks Death scale is free points, which was a lot of Dom2 players.

Now any nation that has recruitable old mages, and there are plenty, has to think long and hard if they really need those points from death scale bad enough to live with the side effects.

[Zebion]

I'm guessing MA marigon is ignored in this subject on aging,considering that all their normal inquistors are old men,as well as their mages,if I remember correctly the youngest natural mage had old age as well,and unlike abysia,this nation does not have blood hunting capabilities like abysia to forge boots

[LeSquide]

I thought 100% poison resistance stopped Miasma?

[dirtywick]

LeSquide said:
I thought 100% poison resistance stopped Miasma?



I don't think so. A lot of PR pretenders get diseased by the second or third turn.

[Zen]

LeSquide said:
I thought 100% poison resistance stopped Miasma?



Swamp Survival stops Miasma. Nothing else. Though undead/demon get the Diseased affliction, it doesn't actually affect them.

[FrankTrollman]

Lifeless too. It doesn't do jack to Oracles.

-Frank

[Nerfix]

I thought that being Cold Blooded was the main way of stopping it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Foodstamp]

I believe Nerfix is right. According to the manual, cold blooded units do not suffer from the domain. More than likely, the "Swamp Survival" units are probably "Cold Blooded" as well.

It makes sense for demons, undead and lifeless units to not suffer from this as well. BTW, CTis Miasma is very fun to play =)

[FrankTrollman]

Creatures with Swamp Survival or Cold Blooded traits do not get diseases in Miasma dominion.

Lifeless, Demonic, and Undead creatures don't really care if they get diseases.

Regenerating creatures are highly resistant to diseases and will likely never die from one. Recuperating creatures are very likely to remove disease conditions before they become a serrious social problem.

Nonetheless, Miasma has access to pretender gods which are not cold blooded, don't have swamp survival, are living, aren't demons, and have no special healing capabilities.

Why?!

-Frank

[Cainehill]

Stupidity?

[Agrajag]

You could always just take death 2 on your god and beeline to twiceborn.

[Shovah32]

Or take an imprisoned god for some strange reason (amazing scales and dominion maybe?)

[HoneyBadger]

I like Abyssia, in Early Age. Sacred troops are very nice, and province defense is quite tough. Salamanders destroy indeps. Fire resistance is easy to counter, admittedly, so it's good to wean your Abyssians off of fire and into blood magic by mid-game. I like to use a jailed enchantress or cyclops with totally trashed scales and 9 death and either 9 fire, astral, or earth. I try to get a good stable of flying demon assasin commanders and then equip them very well. The assasins can be equipped with two blood thorns or a hellsword and shroud of sacredness, which will make them very survivable flying behind the lines. A ring of regeneration is nice if you can afford the nature magic, and an elixer of life is a good insurance policy, especially in late game. With Abyssia, you want to hit the independents hard, and get as many as possible working for you, since Abyssia is pretty much a 1 trick fire pony until you can get the higher up blood summons. The lack of archers for Abyssia is really minimal if you get a good ratio of salamanders and demonic commanders. I don't think the demon soldiers are worth investing in though, except as a good screen for your flying commanders. Even then, they're a waste, in my opinion, atleast after the first few years. All told, Abyssia isn't that great in multi-player if you play it straight, nation against nation, but you have an excellent capacity for getting around that by knocking out independents and holding onto them. Much better, in my opinion, than Niefelheim, with less weaknesses.

[Shovah32]

I would avoid giving bloodthorns or hellswords to the assasins, the lifedrain nerf means you should have better things to spend slaves on. For your slayers try:
boots of giant strength
bearclaw talisman
amulet of luck/antimagic/ring of the warrior/burning pearl depending on situation and avaliable mages/gems.

You will end up with a slayer who has 2, strongly poisoned daggers and a strength of 25(+ the daggers damage) and either luck/great mr/very high attack

[Teraswaerto]

All that seems a little excessive, there are better uses for gems IMO. Lifelong Protection is enough to kill human commanders and the assassin will have a hard time killing titans or monsters even with items.

Giving non-mage humans (or Abysians) lots of magic items always seemed like a bad idea to me since they are so frail physically.

[Shovah32]

But these arent abysians, these are demonbreds http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif. Flying, good health, nice stat assasins of doom http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Endoperez]

Teraswaerto said:
All that seems a little excessive, there are better uses for gems IMO. Lifelong Protection is enough to kill human commanders and the assassin will have a hard time killing titans or monsters even with items.

Giving non-mage humans (or Abysians) lots of magic items always seemed like a bad idea to me since they are so frail physically.



Lifelong Protection is an expensive magic item. 25 Slaves against 15 to 20 gems? Bear Claw Talisman: N1E1 so 10 gems, +5 Str and +3 Morale. Boots of Giant Strength, E1, give +5 Str. Thats's 15 gems for very nice damage. The other items increase either chances of survival (lcuk), or Attack (Burning Pearl, Ring of the Warrior), both very good effects for someone with two attacks and insane strength.

[Teraswaerto]

Gems and slaves are not quite the same thing, and Abysia wont typically have many gems other than fire.

It all depends on playstyle of course, and I haven't used the demonbred assassins much at all, so these are just general impressions.

[Endoperez]

Teraswaerto said:
Gems and slaves are not quite the same thing, and Abysia wont typically have many gems other than fire.

It all depends on playstyle of course, and I haven't used the demonbred assassins much at all, so these are just general impressions.



Even if Bear Claw Talisman was replaced by Girdle of Might (reinvig 3, Str +3) the strength increase would be very nice. Anointed of Rhuax have E1, and can get a second pick, so EA Abys should have some Earth income. Nature is rarer, especially N1E1. They'd need Witches or something for that.