Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[JimMorrison]

I would very much appreciate your help with this, please read on!

The rules for posting will appear below in the third post (second is reserved for future use). This post will be dedicated to the chart once results are compiled. Please read below, and then share your knowledge and experience so we can make this a useful tool for the continued growth of this community.

<3

[JimMorrison]

(Reserved for additional stats as needed, see post 3 for posting guidelines please.)

[JimMorrison]

It has come to my attention that there has been some slacking among the nations, some of them simply do not contribute enough to SP and MP gaming enjoyment. So to avoid downsizing, and make sure everyone gets the bonus that was promised, I would like everyone who is able, to provide evaluations of the available nations. The purpose of this is twofold, the first is to make an easy to use chart that new players can use to shorten their learning curve, and simultaneously hasten and ease their entry into MP games. The second is to compile the opinions of all of the more experienced players regarding relative strength and weakness of the nations, to highlight where IW could give a little love, in the interest of diversity.


Now, there are some rules, please read all the rules before contributing to the thread, though stray comments are of course welcome, evaluations need to adhere to these rules:

First, we are not ranking in any attempt to make a top 10, or any other sort of arbitrary listing. There is no harm in 5 nations being tied for top or bottom, there are no winners or losers here.

Second, I want informed perspectives only. Without a broad range of experience with different nations, you cannot expect to make accurate judgements about what weak and strong actually are. While we are not here to directly compare nations to eachother, the ratings are inherently relative, within the scope of the game. For this reason, I am asking that you not rate the nations of any given age unless you can rate at least one third of the nations within that age. Because of this rule, you are not expected to submit ratings for more than 1 age, if you are not comfortable doing so.

Third, you may post if you only play SP games, there is no problem with that. Simply do not include the MP score on the nations that you rate, I won't hold it against you. If, however, you are posting MP ratings as well, I would prefer that you have an adequate body of experience in MP. I don't feel comfortable quantifying this, but if you have completed several MP games (win or lose) in any given age, and you feel confident in assigning some ratings, then please do so.

Fourth, when I begin to compile the list from the posts (since I will be averaging results, I won't tabulate on the fly, there will be a window for posting, then I will compile the chart, with occasional updates over time), I will be looking for statistical deviations. I won't be looking for certain results, there are no right answers, but if someone posts nonsense ratings that don't coincide with anyone else at all, then their post will be disregarded.


Now, each nation will be rated in 5 distinct categories:

Early Game Strength
Mid Game Strength
Late Game Strength
Ease of Learning (SP)
Ease of Use (MP)


In each category, I would ask that you rate the nation on a 1-5 scale, such that:

1 = Weak
2 = Deficient
3 = Adequate
4 = Capable
5 = Strong

Feel free to post your rating in either 1-5 form, or using the first letters, W/D/A/C/S.

[Micah]

Late game strength is so subject to things like indy mage finds and how strong your early game has been...are we just assuming we only have access to national mages and a more-or-less even position with other nations entering late-game?

[chrispedersen]

damn thats a lot of work just to make an opinion.

Lanka EA 5 4 4 5 5
Tien EA 4 5 5 3 5
Hinnon EA 5 5 4 2 2
Niefel EA 5 5 4 3 3
Yomi EA 1 1 4 1 3

more late

[JimMorrison]

Micah said:
Late game strength is so subject to things like indy mage finds and how strong your early game has been...are we just assuming we only have access to national mages and a more-or-less even position with other nations entering late-game?



The rating is based on what you are guaranteed to have available via the provided units and spells, and a potentially competitive pretender design. You can't count on finding any specific sites, or being granted any particular hero in any given game, so it is not a quantifiable factor.

[JimMorrison]

Thank you for getting us started Chris. <3

I understand this process takes a lot of thought, and a bit of effort to contribute. But the benefit to the older players, is that if we get a good chart developed, rather than explain the same things to people in newbie posts all the time, you can direct them to this post for these comparisons. They'll get more information, and more accurate information faster, and save you forum posting time for more in depth questions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Meglobob]

Caelum is a nation you should avoid playing as your 1st or even 2nd/3rd nation. Hence low marks in ease of learning/use, this is mainly due to its flying units take some getting use to, the early game use of mammoths takes practice as well and learning just how good your troops are in cold 3 dominion.


EA Caelum

Early Game Strength 5
Mid Game Strength 4
Late Game Strength 3
Ease of Learning (SP) 1
Ease of Use (MP) 2

The great advantage EA Caelum has is Eagle Kings which is a excellent recruitable SC, with perfect paths for self buffing. It does however lack some magical diversity and requires luck in site searching unless you take a rainbow pretender.


MA Caelum

Early Game Strength 5
Mid Game Strength 3
Late Game Strength 3
Ease of Learning (SP) 1
Ease of Use (MP) 2

Ma Caelum is probably the weakest of the 3 ages, lacking the SC's of the EA and the better magical paths of the LA.


LA Caelum

Early Game Strength 5
Mid Game Strength 4
Late Game Strength 4
Ease of Learning (SP) 1
Ease of Use (MP) 2

I think LA Caelum is the strongest of all the ages, such a shame it shares the age with Ermor and Rlyeh. The Harab Elder is a fantastic mage with strong paths in A, E and D. This gives LA Caelum some serious power in the endgame which is lacking in the other 2 ages. The earth forging bonus is better than the MA's water forging bonus as well.

[Twan]

For the two nations I've writen guides.

Arco MA

EG 4 (elephants ftw, but you may have difficulties against some bless nations or awake pretenders)
MG 2 (no easy access to thugs or forge of gem-economy items, correct infantry but need a lot of indie archers and mages on the field)
LG 4 to 5 (depending of how many astrologers have survived, and if you have found indies mages completing the nation)

Ease of Learning (SP) :
5 (you just trample everything with ethearal elephants) or
3 (if you try to use something else)

Ease of Use (MP) :
2 (you need to master communions and script very carefully for each big battle, and diversify to summoning paths for late game ; gems may lack for that without some efforts to developp an economy)


Utgard LA
EG 4 with a good bless, 3 without (giants... but you won't have big armies of them)
MG 5 (recruitable thugs, cheap researchers, nationals can forge clams)
LG 4 (everybody have thugs or SCs now, and others have better MR than yours ; BUT you have access to the three most powerful paths for endgame to compensate, and probably an huge income from clams at this point) I would have said 5 without Ermor and Rlyeh in this age


Ease of Learning (SP)
4 (you just kill everything with ethearal double blessed giants, but the cost of the troops may be a problem, and the nation is not as good with a weaker bless)

Ease of Use (MP)
3 or 4 (not really hard to equip thugs and script mages to buff them ; but the transition to endgame may be painfull if you rely too much on your recruitables ones)

[Hadrian_II]

EA Kailasa

Early Game Strength 2: Your sacreds can do a lot of damage, but everything that has a bow is able to kill you. You have the worst PD in game, so it is of no use agains raiders.
Mid Game Strength 5: Ghandaravas buffed with celestial music, are able to kill everything that is around in the mid-game, kailasa is easily the strongest midgame nation.
Late Game Strength 4: Nice 4 armed SCs with good paths for buffs, access to air, earth, water, fire, death, astral and nature magic guaranteed by national mages or summons, but death and fire coming very late. SCs are lacking HP. Sacred troops still effective. Nice nation for clamming.
Ease of Learning (SP) 3: sacred nation, but you have to place your troops right and use archer decoys to minimize losses. pretty much fixed research paths conj 6 for ghandaravas kinnaras then ench for arrow fend.
Ease of Use (MP) 2: very versatile lots of possibilities strength is hidden.

[quantum_mechani]

EA Arco 2 4 4 2 2
Ea Ermor 3 3 3 4 3
EA Ulm 2 2 4 3 2
EA Marverni 1 3 3 2 2
EA Sauromatia 3 3 3 3 2
EA TC 2 3 4 2 2
EA Mictlan 5 4 5 3 2
EA Aby 3 2 2 4 4
EA Caelum 4 3 2 2 3
EA C'tis 2 2 3 3 3
EA Pangaea 3 2 3 4 3
EA Agartha 2 3 4 2 3
EA Tir na Og 3 3 2 4 3
EA Fomoria 3 4 4 3 2
EA Helhiem 5 5 4 4 3
EA Vanhiem 4 4 3 4 3
EA Niefelhiem 5 4 5 5 4
EA Kailasa 2 3 4 2 3
EA Yomi 3 3 3 3 2
EA Hinnom 3 4 5 4 3
EA Atlantis 3 4 3 2 3
EA R'lyeh 2 3 4 2 2
EA Oceania 5 3 2 4 3

MA Arco 3 5 4 3 3
MA Ermor 5 5 5 4 3
MA Pythium 3 5 4 3 2
MA Man 3 2 2 4 3
MA Ulm 2 2 2 4 3
MA Marignon 3 3 2 3 4
MA Mictlan 4 3 3 2 3
MA TC 2 2 4 2 3
MA Mackaka 3 3 3 3 2
MA Agartha 1 2 2 3 2
MA Abysia 3 3 2 4 3
MA Caelum 3 4 2 2 3
MA C'tis 2 3 3 2 2
MA Pangaea 4 2 3 3 3
MA Vanhiem 5 5 3 3 4
MA Jotunhiem 4 4 4 4 3
MA Bandar Log 3 4 3 3 2
MA Shinuyama 3 4 4 3 2
MA Ashod 3 4 3 3 3
MA Atlantis 2 3 3 2 3
MA R'yeh 3 4 5 2 3
MA Oceania 5 3 2 4 4
MA Eriu 3 3 2 3 4

LA Arco 4 3 3 4 3
LA Ermor 5 5 4 5 5
LA Man 3 4 3 3 2
LA Ulm 2 3 2 3 1
LA Marignon 3 4 4 3 3
LA Mictlan 5 3 4 2 3
LA TC 4 3 4 3 3
LA Jomon 1 2 3 2 2
LA Agartha 3 5 4 3 3
LA Abysia 2 3 3 3 2
LA Caelum 4 4 3 2 3
LA C'tis 2 3 3 3 3
LA Pangaea 4 3 3 4 4
LA Midgard 5 4 4 3 3
LA Utgard 4 5 4 4 3
LA Patala 2 3 3 2 2
LA Gath 3 3 4 4 3
LA Atlantis 2 3 3 2 2
LA R'lyeh 4 5 5 5 3
LA Pythium 3 4 4 2 1
LA Bogarus 1 3 4 3 2

A few notes:

*As Micah says, late era strength is rather arbitrary, it almost always comes down to how well the nations have done in the earlier stags, not theoretical late game nation power.

*Ease of learning is also a bit arbitrary, some nations are cakewalk if you know basic bless tacics, but extremely challenging otherwise.

*I assumed nation power relative to other nations in their era.

*I was extremely tempted to put 6 in for some categories with LA Ermor/Ryleh, because as it is, it implies some otherwise powerful nations would be a one on one match for them.

*I consider early game approximately pre-level 4 research.

[JimMorrison]

Dear lord Quantum, that is quite impressive, and at first glance looks very well thought out, THANK YOU!

If a few more of the oldbies can do lists like this, we'll be looking at a good base for the chart. Everyone else contributes a few here and there to flesh it out, there will be a powerful reference for new arrivals to the game and the forums.

And yes, before anyone says it, I know I am setting a bad example by not posting, but I started to get my thoughts together, and I realized that I've only gotten to the true "late game" a few times, out of literally hundreds of starts. Unfortunately I either find out too late that I've failed to pull my strat together, or I am just doing too well and get bored of stomping on the AI, so I start a new one.....

[Kristoffer O]

Interesting thread. Keep up the good work!

[Aezeal]

I wonder why QM thinks niefelheim is 5-4-5.. I can see them starting very strong and getting less in the mid game.. but why 5 again in the end?

[quantum_mechani]

Well, as I was saying, late game rating is pretty purely theoretical. However, niefel's commanders contribute more to the late game than most nation's- mages resistant to artillery, free SC/thug chassis.

[Endoperez]

EDIT: ninja'd by quantum, and I guess his reasons wrong as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


MA Ulm:
Early: 2
Middle: 2
Late: 3
Learning: 3
Use: 2

You'll need clever tactics to get to late game, and need Blood Stones to survive late middle/all of late. This drops ease of use, because blood hunting is boring.

[Amhazair]

EA Ermor: 3 4 3 2 3 (Solid yet unspectacular early game with legionaries, nice communion battlemagic potential in mid game. Low max levels in S prevent it from being the late game powerhouse other S nations can be. Mastering communions and lots of low-level not easy to boost paths make it quite tricky to learn. )
EA Sauromatia 4 4 4 3 3 (Just plain solid nation, with a large variety of strong options in all stages of the game. It might be worth a 2 in ease of learning simply due to the large number of options available, but in the end went with 3 as whatever option you choose is bound to be at least decent. )
EA Helheim: 5 3 3 4 4 (Obvious early game power. They do have a good number of mid/late game options available (magma eruption, good A/D magic, powerful(flying) stealthy raiders, but a lot of it is capital only, lowering their rating a bit. )
EA Yomi: 1 4 3 2 2 (Easily the most difficult expansion of all nations I played so far. Mid game with recruitable Dai Oni and strong battlemagic is very solid. Mastering early expansion, figuring the best uses for the quite crappy military, and the many uses of Dai Oni make them quite hard to learn. )
EA Oceania: 5 1 2 3 3 (Amazing early game potential, but getting out of the water is an unbelievable pain in the ***. Their only saving grace past early game is easy clam-access. )

MA Ulm: 2 4 2 4 4 (Your troops are decent enough for expansion, but you have a number of vulnerablilities in early wars. Hordes of smiths spamming magma eruption behind a wall of steel make mid-game their day of glory. Late game their lack of magic diversity haunts them. The limited number of magic paths make them quite easy to use and script. )
MA Abysia: 3 4 3 2 2 (Solid and fire immune if expensive troops and fire evocations make for a decent enough early and mid game. Late game they can leverage the power of blood, but expensive & capital only bloodhunters and lack of other tricks limits them. Crippling capital dependance, old age issues, blood magic, and path boosting difficulties make this nation hard to play.
MA C'tis: 2 4 3 2 2 (Recruitable everywhere marshmasters with skellespam and poison tricks make for a very powerful mid game. Late game marshmasters remain top-class mages, and shaman/couatls allow communions and astral tricks. The miasma makes it difficult to diversify their magic though (bringing their lategame rating down a notch) and also explains the low learning/ease of use ratings. )
MA Jotunheim: 4 4 3 4 3 (Easily massable sacreds for a potentially strong early game, cheap researchers, thugs and body ethereal in mid game. Somehow, despite having astral, death and blood magic I feel they slowly peter out towards late game. )
MA R'lyeh: 3 3 5 2 3 (Nothing extraordinary about the early stages of their game, but nigh on unstopable as soon as you get your Starspawn & cheap communion slaves going. Learing how to get out of the water with chaffy troops and communions make them not the easiest nation to learn. )

LA Pangaea: 4 3 3 4 4 (Two very different but equally nice varieties of sacreds and minotaurs make early game a breeze. Mid game your Pans can buff your very solid military to greater hights. High hp mages and troops and high MR are great assets for late game, but you lack magical diversity. )
LA Utgard: 4 4 4 2 3 (A very solid nation all around. Good sacreds, strong thugs, amazing cheap mages, strong communions, very decent S/D magic, and good blood access.
LA Atlantis: 2 3 2 4 5 (Strong but resource heavy troops. Coupled with strong W/D mages and cold resistant troops they make for a decent mid game. Late game the mages high hp and high death magic are useful, but appalling lack of other options leave them rather weak. That same lack of options and obvious strengths make them easy to use though. )
LA R'lyeh: 4 4 5 2 1 (I agree with QM about giving LA R'lyeh a 6 for endgame strength. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Masses of freespawn chaff make for good expansion, and proper use of illithids and mages make early/mid game solid enough. Late game is ridiculously powerful, combining MA's magical power with virtually limitless chaff hordes - who suddenly become a lot more fearsome when massively buffed by your communions. Freespawn requiring two kinds of leadership, madness and large communions makes playing them a micromanagement nightmare. )

[Sombre]

A 4 for MA Ulm in MP? I would think they're one of the hardest to learn to use effectively and require quite a lot of micro, with loads of forging, necessary troop buffs etc.

[Amhazair]

Nah, I don't feel that's the case. They don't need to forge more than other nations, they just do it a lot cheaper. Same thing with buffing troops. And you can give all (well, most) their smiths the same script and be effective. Nothing like the T'ien Chi hassle to optimize scripting for a gazillion different mages with 1000's of different possible spells to cast.

Incidentally Ulm was the first nation I played in MP. I used a rainbow pretender and got away with it. In the huge endgame battles against Calmons Ermor I first had to figure out what to do with the various indy/summoned mages, assign one smith to army of lead duty, and then just script 37x [summon earthpower, magma eruption x4] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That was the easy part.

[Twan]

MA Arco 3 5 4 3 3



Strange to give a better note for Arco's midgame than early or late. Especially a 5.

Arco is clearly weaker between the moment when elephants become obsolete (because ennemies use MR spells, thugs etc) and when the level 8-9 extremely powerful astral spells are researched (and diversification to death or other thugs summons achieved).

[Twan]

MA Ermor 4 5 4 4 3 (in early game Ermor has to use a lot of commanders to reanimate ; and the kind of armies Ermor has become weaker in late game + 8hp mages are easily killed by mass spells ; so I only give a maximum note for MA Ermor in midgame, even if the nation is always strong)
MA Pythium 3 4 5 3 2 (troops are expensive for early expansion, then Pythium rocks, best defensive battle magic for armies, angels summons etc.. make it one of the best endgame nations)
MA Man 4 1/3 2/4 5 3 (longbowmen/knights are excellent against both indies and AIs, but a weak army base against players as it's easy to counter them with decoys, I'd give MP midgame a 1 but a 3 against AIs ; as well in SP access to the fog warriors + rain of stones combo + air queen thugs are sufficient to make Man an AI destroying nation in late stage, but not at all to make it good against players)
MA Ulm 2 1 2 3 1 (one of the weakest nations in midgame due to poor magic, for early game troops are correct but not that good, and vulnerable against tramplers ; if Ulm happen to reach late game and access to good thugs/SCs, forge bonus may be a consequent economical advantage, so I give it a little better note for LG)
MA Marignon 3 2 3 3 4 (correct troops for expansion, lack of thugs or magical economy forge in midgame, angels and astral magic make endgame potential rather good)
MA Mictlan 4 4 3 2 3 (sacred for expansion, good magical diversity for midgame, but not the best paths for late stage)
MA TC 2 3 4 2 3 (mage based nation, troops are not great, profits a lot from high level research)
MA Mackaka 3 4 3 3 3 (good sacreds for early stage but a little too expensive, then fire and earth magic are very powerful in midgame, and the nation also has good research and access to fetish hoarding ; but in endgame the lack of astral is painful, having death is good but not sufficient)
MA Agartha 1 3 2 2 2 (fine knowledge of the national summons -some very interesting some extremely niche- is needed so I give it a bad note for learning/use ; the nation can be rather good in midgame and isn't completely desesperate in late game if they are well used)
MA Abysia 3 4 3 2 3 (good early expansion with heat aura troops, then don't underestimate midgame power of fire magic, or late game power of demons -but lack of other tricks is a problem- bad learning note due to age problems)
MA Caelum 4 3 3 3 (mammoths make for a powerful early games, mages for a rather good mid game and medium late potential -access to some of the best paths but with low levels)
MA C'tis 2 4 4 2 2 (troops aren't very good, but having mages as good as marshmasters recruitable everywhere, powerful death and access to astral + clams forging, qualifies Ct'is as a strong nation for mid-late game ; vulnerability to cold and dominion killing your indies recruit make the nation rather hard to play)
MA Pangaea 4 5 3 3 3 (good early game with a bless, excellent midgame with hordes of freespawns, high hp troops and some thugable chassis, medium late game, maenads are easily killed by mass spells and sacreds no longer important, but earth and blood aren't bad path)
MA Vanhiem 5 4 2 3 4 (bless nation, become weaker over time, blood-air is not that interesting as the combo don't give uniques like blood-fire or water)
MA Jotunhiem 4 4 4 4 3 (like Utgard except a little weaker in midgame due to price of mages)
MA Bandar Log (never played no opinion)
MA Shinuyama (never played no opinion)
MA Ashod (not sufficiently played to have an opinion, except national summons qualify for a 4 or more in late game)
MA Atlantis 4 2 3+ 5 3 (sea tramplers and access to the extremely good dagon chassis are excellent for expansion, but the price of non capitol mages is an handicap in midgame ; in late game correct astral levels and mages with sufficient hp to endure mass spells make Atlantis an above average nation ; excellent note for sp learning as AIs are unable to defeat sea nations, and Atlantis is the best to expand in both sea and lands)
MA R'yeh 3 4 5 3 3 (high level astral mages with high hp make the nation insanely good in late stage)
MA Oceania 5 2 3 4 4 (excellent for destroying other sea nations, then globally lacking, but massive clam hoarding can make it very powerful in late stage if diversification to astral can be achieved)
MA Eriu 3 3 2 4 2 (medium nation, without the good paths for late game, rather easy to play against AIs unable to counter glamour)

[Zeldor]

I would give MA T'ien Ch'i rather 2 3 3 2 2 [or even 1 for MP micro]. The only SCs and thugs they can really access are Golems. I think that their mages are hardest to script. IF you want to make use of research you need to use communions as all your mages are low level. You have insane amount of randoms on your mages. For some of them you need master matrixes. You need to do a lot of booster allocating and swapping.

[JimMorrison]

Thanks for the support, Kris! <3


Originally I had wanted to score on 1-10 for this, specifically so that LA Ermor/R'lyeh could have some 10's, and then most of the other powerhouses would really be in the 8-9 range. I was convinced to allow it all to come out in the averaging, and just simplify the rating system to encourage people to take the time to post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Anyway, good work so far guys, I really appreciate it. If any of you are dragging your heels, remember, it may take you 15-20 minutes to post, it's going to take me hours to organize the data. If you want to just get your favorites down first, that's fine, you can edit your post later if you wish, I'm not doing anything with the numbers just yet.

[quantum_mechani]

Twan said:
MA Arco 3 5 4 3 3



Strange to give a better note for Arco's midgame than early or late. Especially a 5.

Arco is clearly weaker between the moment when elephants become obsolete (because ennemies use MR spells, thugs etc) and when the level 8-9 extremely powerful astral spells are researched (and diversification to death or other thugs summons achieved).

I think it all hinges on where you call midgame. The elephants give them early stregth, but they really hit the peak of their power when they get mind hunt/soul slay/evocations. Normally, this power continues into the late game, but they have a fairly serious weakness there of fragile mages.

[Twan]

Hum yes I translated early game by expansion/rush (with say level 3 max magic researched). Midgame by when you have several schools at levels 4-6. Late when you have several levels 7-9. Also I value more mass astral spells than midgame ones, even if the two are powerful, my Arco's peak would be just in the beginning of late stage, when first level 8-9 battle magic (will of the fates, master enslave) is reached.

But my interpretation is probably not the best as I feel like a note is missing for after.

The end game (when you and all your opponents have most schools at level 9 and access to numerous tartarians able to cast spells like rain of stones) is very different than the beginning of late game, as human mages lose most of their offensive power. On the other hand calling "midgame" all the game between level 4-5 magic and the moment all magic is researched, would make hard to differenciate nations.

[JimMorrison]

Well the way I looked at it is this (and maybe I should clarify in the first post) - early game is mostly indies, unless it is a nation that can do viable fast rushes in the first year, then you score accordingly. Mid game, you've researched first few key schools, cons 4 for blood nations, maybe fire arrows, mistform for SCs, whatever, the point being you've only accessed the first 2-3 pivotal spells for your strat, and you may be going into a real war at this point. Late game is not end game for sure, but would be the point where people are getting to level 9 in 1-2 schools (depending on strat and magic scale), and are starting to deploy late game summons, and introduce powerful rituals and whatnot, though such things are not saturated, nor commonplace.

[JimMorrison]

I really appreciate the posts so far, but I'm going to keep this thread up top for a few more days at least. If you see the potential of this resource, poke your friends, they can post as few or as many ratings as they like, as long as they feed the beast. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[JimMorrison]

Rate some nations, you lazy sots! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I'm content to lift the restrictions on # of ratings. Just give me some. It's hardly a compiled average if most nations are only rated by 1-2 people..... Doing this will save you time and effort explaining to new players which nations to try in order to learn the game faster. Also, it will entertain you, I PROMISE. <3

[sansanjuan]

JM,
I've enjoyed reading the posts but don't have enough nations under my belt for useful rating context. Interesting thread though.
-SSJ

[MaxWilson]

Okay, in that case, with the understanding that the late-game numbers are quite fuzzy:

EA Agartha 2 4 3 3 ? (Have to learn national summons to play well.)
EA Ulm 4 3 <font color="red">3</font> 4 ? (Piles and piles of excellent troops, have to learn to forge earth boots.)
EA Helheim 5 4 3 3 ? (Easy to learn bless strats for the early game, harder to learn to use thugs and air magic. Poor research.)
EA Niefelheim 5 4 4 4 ? (Easy to learn bless strats and skinshifters.)
EA C'tis 4 4 5 4 ? (Excellent troops, pretty to learn some options for death mages. Have to learn to diversify in late game.)
EA Yomi 4 2 4 2 ? (Oni Kings are easy, have to learn to use everything else.)
EA Marverni <font color="red">3</font> 4 4 2 ? (Not everyone sees the potential at first. Read Baalz's guide for pointers.)
EA Ermor 4 4 4 4 ? (Excellent troops + battlemages, like C'tis but with better diversity.)
EA Lanka 5 5 5 4 ? (Early game bless is simple, blood magic more complicated later on.)

MA Ashdod 5 5 5 4 ? (Excellent battlemages, good troops and PD.)

LA Agartha 4 5 4 3 ? (Have to learn effective expansion strategies, and how to use national summons. Poor mapmove except for summons.)

The average is high because I've mostly played with nations that seem strong and/or interesting to me, and I didn't feel qualified to rate those that I haven't played with. Even the nations that are rated low could be quite powerful in the endgame if you have a good gem/gold economy or branch out to other magic paths via your pretender/certain indies.

-Max

Edit: Revised Helheim's rating downward. Revised EA Ermor early-game rating downward. Revised Ulm slightly upward.

[Wokeye]

A good idea, this - although I dont feel I've played enough different nations enough to rate the ones I have in relative terms to contribute.

[dirtywick]

It's been a while since I played...

MA Shinuyama 23432 : Just awful until you get a small economy going (easier said than done with their less expensive troops!), great summons mid/late but lack of astral hurts, can be difficult to survive at times. Really cool nation to play with though, one of my favorites.
LA Man 1??11 : I couldn't get anywhere with these guys! Just terrible I thought
MA Abysia 55334 : Strong early/mid, less so later, really easy to use, going to have to learn blood magic, not so much fun to micromanage that
EA Ulm 45224 : Strong early, best mid, not many options late, there's some small intricacies to use them to their full ability, but not hard to be effective until late game just massing troops

I have dabbled with others, but not enough to rate them.

[quantum_mechani]

I know the point of this thread isn't not to nitpick individual ratings, but it doesn't seem like some healthy discussion would do any harm.


MaxWilson said:

EA Ulm 4 3 2 4 ? (Piles and piles of excellent troops, have to learn to forge earth boots.)



I really don't see EA Ulm getting weaker with time. At the start they have the disadvantage of having some rather unspectacular sacreds for early era, and mages with no consistently devastating options (besides bladewind, a niche thier archers already have well covered). On the other hand, as the game drags on forge bonus on such versatile mages, and lack of reliance on the capital start to really give them a leg up. They can be a great nations if played right, I just don't find their early power at all comparable to the likes of Helhiem and Niefelhiem.


EA C'tis 4 4 5 4 ? (Excellent troops, pretty to learn some options for death mages. Have to learn to diversify in late game.)



Another nations with some definite perks later on (non capital only mages) but with a distinctly dicey early game. They have some tricks like skelly spam and shadow blast that help a lot early, but other nations have this _and_ many other options.



EA Marverni 4 4 4 2 ? (Not everyone sees the potential at first. Read Baalz's guide for pointers.)



I'm a huge fan of Marverni, I've played them in MP several times and even won with them, but if they are not a 1 or 2 at the start then no one is. They have some great spell options, but it takes time to research them and they are extremely vulnerable during that time.


dirtywick said:

LA Man 1??11 : I couldn't get anywhere with these guys! Just terrible I thought



I can understand the difficulty to play ratings - some nations just mesh better with some people - but I think the rating of one at the start is pretty unfair. I can't think of a nation with much stronger human troops.


dirtywick said:
MA Abysia 55334 : Strong early/mid, less so later, really easy to use, going to have to learn blood magic, not so much fun to micromanage that



They are no pushovers, but two fives seems a bit strong. Their sacreds are not all that impressive and they have some rather severe old age and capital only problems. They also have a rather serious liability to evocations like thunder strike and magma eruption.

Anyway, I hope no one minds a little commentary, feel free to pick at my ratings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[dirtywick]

I don't mind at all.

EA Ulm has few options late game. Their mages can be difficult to get high paths for and they lack astral and significant death magic, and if your pretender can't summon anything powerful, those forged items don't really have a place to go. Their national summons are terrible IMO, and Troll King is about the best they can do without empowerment. I think they're a lot stronger mid game with huge stealth armies and good mass buffs on the battlefield.

Flaming Arrows and Wind Guide are both 4 level research spells, which I didn't think was early game. I don't think they have a lot going for them. They've got stealthy heavy infantry that's kind of expensive and can't be blessed (or maybe they can since a patch?) because they lack a stealthy priest. The crones are old. Their national troops are nothing to write home about either.

That's why I gave them a 1. You can average it out with somebody who thinks they're good http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Maybe a little overboard with Abysia haha Demon Knights and their sacreds are pretty scary, and their assassins are pretty nice whether they're assassinating or just fighting. Limited paths on their mages and good fire boosters are a problem, of course. Yeah, probably too high.

[quantum_mechani]

dirtywick said:

I don't think they have a lot going for them. They've got stealthy heavy infantry that's kind of expensive and can't be blessed (or maybe they can since a patch?) because they lack a stealthy priest. The crones are old. Their national troops are nothing to write home about either.


You are speaking of MA man, LE has no crones. Late era is significantly better, they have astral (and a tiny bit of death and fire), decent battle mages recruitable everywhere, mages/spies recruitable without a lab, heavy duty infantry with crossbows, etc. About the only serious point against them is they have a nature gem income but no easy way to spend it.

[dirtywick]

Ah, could be! My fault then.

[MaxWilson]

QM,

I'll note up front that I waited until Jim lifted the "experience" restriction until I posted. There's a lot I don't know about the game. Nevertheless:

I see Ulm being quite strong early on because they have great troops, but as the game wears on that matters less and less. I'm less impressed than you are by Ulm's weak mages. Forge bonus is nice, but if you're just using that bonus to forge equipment to bring you up to the same level everybody else has naked I don't see that as much of an advantage. Ulm kind of peters out in my eyes as its troops become less relevant.

C'tis has a strong expansion story in the early game largely because of the Elite Warriors and the charioteers. I do have trouble with them if I run into cold scales, and maybe I should have rated them lower on the "ease of use" because of that. But the troops are very good, skelly spam is easy to research, and Sauromancers are cheap.

Perhaps I'm overestimating Marverni--it's been a while since I played them--but I quite liked their Ambibate Nobles and all the javelin-carrying troops. I thought they were pretty solid, especially after you cast Strength of Giants.

Basically, "early game" to me means "before mages are really relevant." So my early game ratings are mostly about troops.

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:
QM,

I'll note up front that I waited until Jim lifted the "experience" restriction until I posted. There's a lot I don't know about the game. Nevertheless:

I see Ulm being quite strong early on because they have great troops, but as the game wears on that matters less and less. I'm less impressed than you are by Ulm's weak mages. Forge bonus is nice, but if you're just using that bonus to forge equipment to bring you up to the same level everybody else has naked I don't see that as much of an advantage. Ulm kind of peters out in my eyes as its troops become less relevant.

C'tis has a strong expansion story in the early game largely because of the Elite Warriors and the charioteers. I do have trouble with them if I run into cold scales, and maybe I should have rated them lower on the "ease of use" because of that. But the troops are very good, skelly spam is easy to research, and Sauromancers are cheap.

Perhaps I'm overestimating Marverni--it's been a while since I played them--but I quite liked their Ambibate Nobles and all the javelin-carrying troops. I thought they were pretty solid, especially after you cast Strength of Giants.

Basically, "early game" to me means "before mages are really relevant." So my early game ratings are mostly about troops.

-Max

The problem is, your ratings seem to be largely based on the strength of Ea Ulm/Marverni/C'tis regular troops, when that tends to not be all that relevant when in an EA early game fight. You can have troops far better for the price as similar indies (ulm archers and c'tis elite warriors come to mind), but they can still be shredded by a few properly blessed helhirdlings or niefel giants. If you remove mages from the equation, these nations have almost no chance in such a situation.

I also strongly disagree about Ulm's forge bonus wearing down with time. The late game revolves around thugs and SCs for the most part, and while there is little worthwhile to forge early, you are pouring maybe even the majority of your gems into it by the late game.

[JimMorrison]

Ooohh, this is good, I like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

You are free to debate these issues in this thread QM, it helps increase interest and overall accuracy. Just as long as you don't scare people off, but so far you come off as knowledgeable rather than arrogant (someone would have to be pretty thin skinned to make that leap with you, I think), then we're doing good things here. 8 )

[dirtywick]

quantum_mechani said:

I also strongly disagree about Ulm's forge bonus wearing down with time. The late game revolves around thugs and SCs for the most part, and while there is little worthwhile to forge early, you are pouring maybe even the majority of your gems into it by the late game.



The forge bonus is pretty significant throughout the game. You can reasonable afford to produce a lot of quills without a lot of air income, and forge a lot of earth boots (followed by dwarven hammers), girdles of might, and if you want to empower a smith, thistle maces among other things. E3N3 antlered shamans are a lot better than E2N2, and it's not a big investment at 50% the gems to do it often. Plus gearing up standard commanders with longbows of accuracy or scepters of fire isn't a big investment.

I don't know, I find it pretty useful in conserving earth gems at least. The earth boots are pretty popular items for my mages.

[MaxWilson]

quantum_mechani said:
The problem is, your ratings seem to be largely based on the strength of Ea Ulm/Marverni/C'tis regular troops, when that tends to not be all that relevant when in an EA early game fight. You can have troops far better for the price as similar indies (ulm archers and c'tis elite warriors come to mind), but they can still be shredded by a few properly blessed helhirdlings or niefel giants. If you remove mages from the equation, these nations have almost no chance in such a situation.

I also strongly disagree about Ulm's forge bonus wearing down with time. The late game revolves around thugs and SCs for the most part, and while there is little worthwhile to forge early, you are pouring maybe even the majority of your gems into it by the late game.



That's why Helheim and Niefelheim are 5s in the early game. There really aren't many normal troops that can stand up to them at all--you NEED mages to fight them. <font color="red">Edit: I've revised my early-game rating of EA Ermor to reflect this. Their troops are solid but can't compete with Helheim and Niefelheim.</font>

Ulm's forge bonus is like a <font color="red">50%</font> boost in gem production relative to just hammers. That's non-negligible, but considering how little their mages can actually forge it seems more a midgame issue to me than a true lategame strategy. By the time people are throwing around Tartarians and Seraphs, how much does it really matter that Ulm can forge Earth Boots for 5 gems instead of 7? The lack of high-level mages and poor Astral/Death, unmitigated by access to good thug chassises, seems to me a serious weakness.

Not that that has to stop Ulm. As noted several times elsewhere (including by yourself), the endgame ratings are iffy anyway because there's a good chance you can leverage a strong beginning into a good ending, and you can diversify your magic with indies or your pretender.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Indeed, there's always the "can" and "potential" factors. It's interesting when you isolate them down to their core, the "ease of play" takes a severe hit when you start to see that pretender choice is severely limited based on the needs of the stock nation, and that not taking the right pretender, will ultimately leave you noncompetitive. By the same token, all of the severely path limited nations can benefit greatly from various mage recruitment sites, but you never know what you're going to find, and for example I find it disheartening and almost insulting (in a lighthearted way) when every game I play an aquatic race, I find one of the sites (or 2, or 3) that let you train water mages.

And by the same token, while you can assume that you will find at least ONE special site of some kind, maybe it's a Conj bonus site but you're a blood nation, or it just lets you train mages of a path you already have, there's so many variables.


Hopefully in the next few days, more people feel emboldened to post their ratings here. Remember there are no wrong answers, just maybe some that aren't thought all the way through, no one will hate for those, though they may ask you why you think that way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:


That's why Helheim and Niefelheim are 5s in the early game. There really aren't many normal troops that can stand up to them at all--you NEED mages to fight them.

Ulm's forge bonus is a 33% boost in gem production relative to just hammers. That's non-negligible, but considering how little their mages can actually forge it seems more a midgame issue to me than a true lategame strategy. By the time people are throwing around Tartarians and Seraphs, how much does it really matter that Ulm can forge Earth Boots for 5 gems instead of 7? The lack of high-level mages and poor Astral/Death, unmitigated by access to good thug chassises, seems to me a serious weakness.

Not that that has to stop Ulm. As noted several times elsewhere (including by yourself), the endgame ratings are iffy anyway because there's a good chance you can diversify your magic with indies or your pretender.

-Max

Well let me put it this way, if Marverni rates a 4 in troops, what could possibly rate a 1? I agree that helhiem and niefelhiem are in their own tier, but there is a whole range underneath them, largely revolving around the power of their sacred troops.


As far as the late game rating, the reason why for the most part I would not put much stock in it specifically because access to high astral/death is the sort of thing easily fixed by anyone. An additional 25% forge bonus (stacked with hammers and maybe even forge of ancients) on the other hand is one the very few things a nation can off that can't be reproduced. And it's hardly just earth boots, those smiths can get to probably half the most important bits of SC equpment- fire shields, marble armor, frost brands, boots of flying, resistance rings (also very important to protect against flames from the sky), etc. Anyway, my point was less how outstanding they are later, but just that they hardly go down hill.

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm. A fair point. 4 is probably too high for Marverni's troops considering the competition. "Adequate" = 3 is probably more appropriate, since their elites (Ambibate nobles) are not deficient but not unusual outstanding for elites.

Of course, that means Agartha has to go down to 2.

-Max

[Zeldor]

There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.

Marverni probalby scales 1-2 in troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That's as challenging as expanding with just LA Bogarus armies.

[Twan]

Some more :

LA Atlantis 4 3 3 4 3 (cheap sacreds and/or Dagon pretender + amphibiousity allow fast expansion in all directions, but nation become weaker in mid-late game due to weak mages and lack of diversity out of capitol, nation remain capable in endgame as capitol ones are tough and have correct death levels + access to interesting water-death summons)
LA Mictlan 4 3 4 1 2 (bad learning note due to the sacrifice dom ; nation is strong in early game due to its sacred and in late with summoned demon uniques and unlimited slave income ; nation is weaker in midgame as blood researchs/hunting take a moment to pay)
LA Patala 4 4 3 4 2 (elephants allow good expansion, mages are very powerful for late age, and magical economy is excellent, with easy forge of both hammers and clams - nation looks harder to play in MP due to the vulnerability of nagarishis against magic duel)
LA Arco 2 3 3 4 2 (heavy elephants slow your expansion compared to ME ones, they remain as useless in mid-late game due to poor MR and aren't really harder to kill or better as you will have a 2 or 3 time smaller number of them -except if you sacrify a lot of points in production, but so you'll have bad other scales-, correct other troops and very diverse magic allow a rather good mid-late game, but the nation is far to be dominating -the loss of one astral level on the best mages is an heavy price for more nature and a weak access to death ; also 8hp and low def sybyls are easily killed by a simple earthquake ; I prefer by far ME for Arco)
LA Ulm 2 2? 4? 1 ? (started several games with this nation which seem to have a rather good potential with its vampires and spawned wolfs, mix of heavy and stealthy troops, sacred and anti-sacred units etc... but I find it very hard to play, handicaped in research, and too much relying on its pretender)
LA Caelum 4 3 3 3 3 (a medium nation, with good mammoth based expansion, but the lose of astral access is a big price for more death, and the nation is more capitol dependant than in other eras)
LA Chelm 3 3 2 4 2 (longbowmen as less usefull in LA due to more heavy indies, rather good troops and diversified magic give the nation a good midgame potential, but mages are not really powerful especially for late game)

[MaxWilson]

By the way, a quick test shows 23 F9W9 Helhirdlings get consistently pwned by the equivalent gold-cost of indy slingers. Marverni's slingers are slightly more expensive but still work better than the warriors, so if you get in a war with Helheim go for the cheap troops.

-Max

[krpeters]

Sombre said:
A 4 for MA Ulm in MP? I would think they're one of the hardest to learn to use effectively and require quite a lot of micro, with loads of forging, necessary troop buffs etc.



I don't know about MP, but in SP, MA Ulm is very easy to use and very effective up to the midgame (which is as far as I play). Recruit a "wall of steel" (soldiers with tower shields), lead them with a dwarven smith, have him forge a pair of earth boots, script him to cast earth power, and watch him obliterate AI chaff armies with blade wind and magma eruption.

Compared to most other strategies this is positively easy!

[MaxWilson]

Zeldor said:
There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.




I tend to agree, but to a certain extent that's Jim's problem. I'm a "2" on experience at best and he's welcome to disregard my ratings.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Zeldor said:
There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.

Marverni probalby scales 1-2 in troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That's as challenging as expanding with just LA Bogarus armies.




My roommate actually devoted several days of spare time to playing around with Bogarus (he loves all things Russian). He got a pretty efficient system going for expansion after a few tries. In a sense, I would say some of these nations who are considered weaker, it's less a nation strength issue, and more of an "ease of learning" issue. Unfortunately, a low ease of learning is usually a direct effect of a particular nation having less viable strategy options, whereas one big reason a nation would rate highly there is not just because they are strong, but because they have the tools that you can do reasonably well plugging in YOUR strat, rather than having to learn exactly how that nation plays, in order to prosper.

And also bearing in mind that's why the ease of learning is referenced to SP (learning speed for beginners) while the "ease of use" is referenced to MP, where different factors come more into play. Taking that dual bless Helherdings vs indie slingers comparison, maneuvering small groups of extremely powerful units is much EASIER to do, than to effectively mount an army of hundreds of slingers. And while you are massing up the worst troops in the game, Helheim is taking territories to skew the balance of power. If you take territories with the slings, you will likely have significant attrition while he only randomly loses a troop here and there.

Perhaps it would be best if SP and MP had their own strength ratings in addition to the ease of learning and ease of use. But it would all get rather complicated, and it's hard enough to get people to submit ratings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif And besides, you long term vets who are hanging around here didn't peer pressure your old friends to submit ratings, so I had to solicit less informed players (like myself, I WILL post soon, it might wait til after my Luck tests though), and whose fault is that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[MaxWilson]

Actually I find that slingers and such are pretty decent for expansion. Marverni's slingers have shields, which means they win missile duels. You'll still need ground troops (slingers are kind of like arty spells in that they have trouble finishing off the last few survivors) but missile troops are not bad at all for expansion. I haven't done this with Marverni slingers recently, but when I first tried LA Agartha I consistently had problems expanding until I forgot about my blessed blindfighters and did expansion with crossbowmen and cave drakes. Marverni slingers are ten times easier to mass than LA Agarthan crossbowmen. So anyway, I don't think massing up slingers is banking on the "worst unit in the game." Slingers are much better than Wind Riders, for instance. (Also note that if he "randomly loses a troop here and there", probably because someone doesn't get blessed or gets out of formation, it probably costs as much as "significant attrition" for me. 1 Helhirding = <font color="red">9</font> slingers.)

Do note that missile troops scale better than melee troops. 5 F9W9 Helherdings would probably cream their gold-cost equivalent in slingers. That does tend to steepen the learning curve because you have to learn when you have "enough". One thing to do to get a feel for "enough" is to leave an PD 1 border territory so that when he attacks it, you can simulate a battle against his forces by Shift+U placing your own army's equivalent units directly on the battlefield. That's how I do most of my testing. It's not perfect but it's a lot less tedious than playing out test games.

One more note: Helheim is clearly stronger in the early game than Marverni. They have better troops, more strategic options (because of stealth), better intel (because of flying stealth troops), etc. I just don't think Helheim's troops deserves a 5 to Marverni's 1 or 2. Cost matters.

-Max

<font color="red">Edit: fixed math.</font>

[thejeff]

The 5 F9W9 Helhirding beating their gold cost equivalent is the problem.

You're going to need 1 big slinger army to win and he's going to have 4-5 small stealthy Helhird forces that can slaughter everything but that big army.

[MaxWilson]

But if you catch one of his little stealthy forces by guessing where one of the 4-5 is going to go, you can annihilate it with your big army. That's 610 gold right there, assuming he's using a cheap commander.

Again, Helheim is clearly stronger, but Marverni's troops aren't bad. My original reason for mentioning the slingers was mainly just that I wanted to point out that going for elite troops like Ambibates vs. Helheim is a losing game.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

My point about the logistical difficulty with the massed slingers is just that, logistics. While every turn your enemy is probably putting out a death squad of 5 Helherdings with a blesser, a single turn worth of slingers in one province isn't going to do much, and is going to require a lot more leadership. If he has 20 sacreds in one force, the amount of slingers needed becomes very cumbersome to wield in the early game. Also if he were to go for W9/E9, you might find that the slings just don't accomplish much. And in the case of Marverni, if you are trying to combat melee troops, those shields may be more of a liability, by increasing cost, or reducing training rate.

[MaxWilson]

Yes. He could also research Const-3 and cast Legions of Steel, and/or Ench-3 for Strength of Giants. Helheim has great troops and yes, logistics matters.

Shields don't increase cost but they do affect resources. I think that's why Marverni's slingers cost 3 resources instead of 2.

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

Also, I actually consider f9w9 somewhat suboptimal for Helhiem. I'd rather e9f9 (often just e9 with an awake pretender), and I think the extra protection would significantly help them against slingers.

[Hoplosternum]

Thank you all for these. They are great. As I suspected Jomon should be down at the bottom and it is on quantum_mechani’s list. No one else has even thought it was deserving of a rating http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

In fact on quantum_mechani’s list it’s joint worst with MA Agartha. And while I know you can’t really get worse than worst, and I of course am no where near as experienced as QM, I have to quibble at his high rating of 2 for ease of use MP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I can’t think of a slower starter or a power that has more difficulties leveraging its advantages than Jomon. While Jomon’s shortcomings can be overcome in SP where the pressure to get off to a good start is less and you have a bit more time to develop its national summons (which have no synergies with its national mages – they can’t summon or even look for the needed gems for the decent ones).

Consider – your starting army is bad featuring just 20 units, 10 of which are the hopeless shieldless spear infantry the Ashigari. It will struggle to take a 5 strength indie province and likely to take serious losses doing so.

Your national troops are very resource intensive yet lack shields or especially high defence or protection. They do suffer from high encumbrance though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif They are, to be fair, fairly hard hitting. This combination means it is tough to even keep your weak starting army up to its original strength never mind expand it. Even if you splash out on Prod 3 - thus spending 240 more points than most of your opponents in this area http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif - you are still struggling to build more than 5 not very good units per month at the start and perhaps double later on.

There is no bless strategy you can play as its Sacreds are Capital only, hard to mass (too resource intensive) and they are basically just encumbered, shieldless, heavy infantry whatever bless you add.

You have no synergies with most of your national troop summons or any of the Thug summons you get.

You absolutely need an awake SC and yet you need to add paths to any choice to have access to your national summons. Most SCs are expensive to add paths too. Plus the best fit choice – the Prince of Death – isn’t available to Jomon. You can give up on the summons of course but then your mid/late game suffers.

Your mages are good researchers / all rounders. But they need Communions to do much in combat. And Communion use is one of the harder Dom 3 skills to master. Plus they need to empower to be able to make the astral rings. They are not sacred either – not that you can afford a bless – but this also adds to long term costs and off sets the reasonable purchase price. None are specialised enough to create the better boosters or cast decent summons and global spells.

No blood or death and weak astral means you have to work hard to overcome this for the late game (and the need for an awake SC means you can’t easily use your pretender to get around this).

I am not saying there are no nice things about Jomon. There are. But I can’t think of a less easy to use power in MP. Quantum_mechani has rated it higher than LA Pythium for ease of use in MP. Yet they have Sacred Hydras for the early game, not everyones cup of tea, but they will get you through the early stages. Even if you don’t pay for a bless Hydras are still a decent, if expensive, build for early expansion. And as many of your mages are sacred even a moderate bless lives on after you have ceased to use the Hydras.

Meaning you have choices for your Pretender. You can take an awake SC for a quicker start or an Angel summoner for your fantastic (as opposed to Jomons decidedly average) national summons later. I know the last rating is not meant to be how good the powers are, but how can LA Pythium be considered more difficult to play in MP?

[thejeff]

Hmmm, haven't experimented, but the quickness gets them across the field a lot faster. This often makes a difference against missile, which are their main weakness.

The extra protection helps too of course.

[quantum_mechani]

Hoplosternum said:


In fact on quantum_mechani’s list it’s joint worst with MA Agartha. And while I know you can’t really get worse than worst, and I of course am no where near as experienced as QM, I have to quibble at his high rating of 2 for ease of use MP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Well, as I said in my notes, I rated ease of use for how difficult it is to get the most out of the nation- for some nations the most is not all that much. Mostly the low difficulty rating was because there is really only one troop you need to consider recruiting (longbow samurai).

[MaxWilson]

quantum_mechani said:
Also, I actually consider f9w9 somewhat suboptimal for Helhiem. I'd rather e9f9 (often just e9 with an awake pretender), and I think the extra protection would significantly help them against slingers.



I concur. E9 keeps them at zero fatigue which means they kill all the day long, and also boosts protection. I view W9 as counterproductive for elite units.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

I couldn't agree more max.

People widely consider slingers worthless, and airblesses as well. Vanheim's strength is its glamour ability

Slingers are one of the cheapest and most effective ways to get rid of that. Which is why I believe that air blesses, situationally, rock.

Especially since they are effective with a partial bless.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think this is a great post. Particularly for including difficulty of learning which is usually left out of such discussions. Nations are often loudly rated by people who love blitz games and strategy by massed armored troops. And for general impression that might be ok.

But some nations are obviously built around specific skills, and people tend to rate them low because they dont utilize those skills. One of my favorite topics are the nations built around sneak. If you have a nation with sneak leaders, sneak warriors, sneak priests, sneak mages, with special skills which can have very different when used with sneak.. then it can be obviously a problem if people rate them who didnt try to play with sneak tactics. Same with flight, or fire aura, or extensive bless. Playing all nations the same way in the same types of games does not do those nations proper credit.

I have no trouble with the ratings in general. After all, saying that such a race rates low isnt necessarily wrong. If most people playing that nation are likely to come out low then its a truthful statement. Im just glad that it can be balanced with a difficulty of learning rating.

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
Nations are often loudly rated by people who love blitz games and strategy by massed armored troops.

This comes off as a little derogatory towards people where prefer smaller and quicker games. Which is aside from the fact that almost any competent blitz player will tell you that relying on masses of armored troops is one of the classic missteps of people new to multiplayer.

[Gandalf Parker]

I suppose it does abit. I probably should be more lenient. After all, blitz games naturally tend to be the most numerous games so blitz opinions should probably carry the weight of a vocal majority. As long as it doesnt come across as the only answer.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think they are the most numerous games, SP games are. And certainly not even close to a majority of players. I would roughly guess only about about 10-20% of the total number of MP players play blitz games.

I'm also not sure there is a dichotomy between people who are good at blitzes and those good at long term games- almost everyone I can think of who plays blitz games plays other dominions multiplayer games as well.

[JimMorrison]

Well there again you'll find an interesting dynamic though. Blitzes will rely more on early game strength. Smaller maps with less than 15 provinces per player and less than 10 players will shift more towards mid game strength being of primary importance in victory. While finally, larger and longer games is where the late game strength will more often be the deciding factor. (though any game that is mid-late game focused will still be affected by the earlier stages of course, just that late game strength is meaningless in a blitz game)

So theoretically, if there were an enormous amount of ratings submitted, MP Ease of Play would be skewed slightly towards early game strength, where a nation whose strength progression went 5-3-3 would tend be consider better for MP success than a nation who played as 3-3-5. But mainly because we're not differentiating between lengths of games, I thought rating in 5 different categories was a good compromise between detail of the data, and user friendliness of the chart. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Twan]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think this is a great post. Particularly for including difficulty of learning which is usually left out of such discussions. Nations are often loudly rated by people who love blitz games and strategy by massed armored troops. And for general impression that might be ok.

But some nations are obviously built around specific skills, and people tend to rate them low because they dont utilize those skills. One of my favorite topics are the nations built around sneak. If you have a nation with sneak leaders, sneak warriors, sneak priests, sneak mages, with special skills which can have very different when used with sneak.. then it can be obviously a problem if people rate them who didnt try to play with sneak tactics. Same with flight, or fire aura, or extensive bless. Playing all nations the same way in the same types of games does not do those nations proper credit.




I think you should give notes, if you think some nations are over or undervalued in this thread, as the goal is to take into account as many players opinions possible before giving a final note.

Anyway I also think according to your post that you'd value too much some situationnal abilities or ignore their drawbacks.

Sneaking is a good example. With stealth armies you lose one turn or more before the moment you effectively take an ennemy province. It's not a bad skill, but a secondary one, if you use stealth with all yours armies you'll just be beaten by nations able to do normal moves and take your provinces (or re-take in one turn the provinces you reached in 2 or 3 with your stealth forces). It has nothing to do with blitzes, it's even more true for big games with good number of provinces, where economy matters. Having stealthy units may worth +0,5 point for midgame note, as having a sneaky raiding potential with nationals is good, but doesn't worth one / five by itself (except if you have really good high stealth thugs or sacreds, probably with glamour).

Flight is different, as it allows to strike every turn, and behind ennemy lines it's a real advantage. But the quality of flyers is often problematic to the point flyers nations often prefer to use them only as support for their non flying troops. I probably value caelian fly one point, but caelum also lose one for the global quality of troops (out of mammoths justifying a good early game note).

Blesses are always assumed in early game notes for bless nations I think (at least in my notes ; many nations having 4 or 5 in EG would desserve a 2 or 3 without bless). Some other nations may succeed with a bless but it hasn't to be valued as what they can do with an awake pretender or good scales is about the same (ie : I assume that LA Atlantis will have an awake pretender + a simple bless, or an inferior/non-awake pretender + a strong bless, or good scales instead of a bless allowing to recruit more ice armor troops, in the three cases the nation desserve about the same good early note).

[JimMorrison]

Twan said:
Blesses are always assumed in early game notes for bless nations I think (at least in my notes ; many nations having 4 or 5 in EG would desserve a 2 or 3 without bless). Some other nations may succeed with a bless but it hasn't to be valued as what they can do with an awake pretender or good scales is about the same (ie : I assume that LA Atlantis will have an awake pretender + a simple bless, or an inferior/non-awake pretender + a strong bless, or good scales instead of a bless allowing to recruit more ice armor troops, in the three cases the nation desserve about the same good early note).



Absolutely! That's exactly what I was trying to say. Rate them according to what you can expect them to have, which includes what YOU give them. If your whole strategy is banking on finding a territory you can recruit Cavemen (RANDOM example! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif), then your rating of 5 can't account for how uncommon it is to fulfill your expectations. &gt;.&gt;

Though I find particularly interesting the few nations that can be played as peak competitors either with a strong dual bless, or without a major bless at all, like Hinnom. But that goes more to boosting Ease of Play, than the actual strength rating.

[fantasma]

Regarding Marverni against small elite armies:

Marverni has - besides slingers - cheap javelin throwers. There is the spell farstrike at zero research for druids and early thaumaturgy research has good anti elite spells, I think.

The best bet Marverni has is to come out with fast expansion and lots of gold and diplomacy to demonstrate that you will make the attacker pay hard for an early attack. If you have to dedicate mages to counter rushes you have partly lost already, but the attacker will not get far either.

I would rate Marverni as 3 4 4 but very difficult to learn.
What you field with what orders depends so much on the opposition. You have to learn communions to be effective. You need to research extremely fast, building lots of forts.
It's endgame really depends on what you do about SCs. Your only thug is the golem.

[Fal]

Having played Tir na n'Og in several MP games...

Early Game Strength 3 (poor infantry selection, no calvary, poor ranged troops, taking SC pretender is a bad idea)
Mid Game Strength 5 (Ri, Rain of stone + Fog warrior, many powerful battlefield spells)
Late Game Strength 2 (lack of powerful summons due to early focus on battlefield magic, lack of astral and death)
Ease of Learning (SP) 3 (not that difficult to learn, but takes skills to learn it right)
Ease of Use (MP) 2 (I find it hard to use this nation in MP, even harder to win with it).

[Gandalf Parker]

Twan said:Anyway I also think according to your post that you'd value too much some situationnal abilities or ignore their drawbacks.


I do have a leaning in my own evaluations. I tend to play really large games, large maps, solo. And I tend to play more tactics than strategy. In other words, not so much pre-planning as counting on and being able to react favorably to random changes in the game.


Sneaking is a good example. With stealth armies you lose one turn or more before the moment you effectively take an ennemy province. It's not a bad skill, but a secondary one, if you use stealth with all yours armies you'll just be beaten by nations able to do normal moves and take your provinces (or re-take in one turn the provinces you reached in 2 or 3 with your stealth forces).


Not necessarily. Some of the best strategies for stealth armies involve splitting an enemies forces so that they cannot hit you with one massive army on one front. Forcing an enemy to invest more in defense than they normally would. Hiding your buildups, and even the locations of your castles. The strong ability to ally by being able to buildup in a safe corner and yet move thru your neighbor to assist them. Forcing an enemy to expend more on combat than you to reach you if you create a "moat" of strong independents. Not to mention the ability to play 3rd party by hiding a large army in the area where two other players are fighting in order to take advantage of a weakened position after one has expensively beaten down the other.

Also, there would be the strategy of guerrila rebels. Even after losing your home castle and provinces you can still be a strong enough player to affect the outcome of a game.

Also, the use of Pans wandering thru provinces dropping maenads each turn can be very effective. There is no "waste of a turn" there. Without ever becoming visible they create combats each turn testing the defenses of their opponent, forcing expenditure in defense, slowing the movement of armies, and gaining extremely detailed information on the enemy.


Flight is different, as it allows to strike every turn, and behind ennemy lines it's a real advantage. But the quality of flyers is often problematic to the point flyers nations often prefer to use them only as support for their non flying troops. I probably value caelian fly one point, but caelum also lose one for the global quality of troops (out of mammoths justifying a good early game note).


That would be a different strategy than one which is built entirely around the ability to fly. Such as early detection of everyones location. Being able to "checker jump" to them. That would be taking every third province between you and them. Building up independents in only those sporadic locations. Hitting the enemy early, making it more expensive for him to reach you than it is for you to reach him (forcing him to fight thru independents such as jumping over all knight provinces as you approach him), being able to build up your army near him until you feel ready to take out all of the indep locations. Granted, this is a large-map strategy but it shows that every nation and every skill does have some use in some games.

Also, again, there is the ally benefit with a flyer nation. Being able to work around the limitation of "I cant move my armies thru his area to help him" by negotiating the taking of stepping-stone provinces thru his area.


Blesses are always assumed in early game notes for bless nations I think


What you say is definetly true. And would excellent for players to take into account depending on their playing style. Part of MY problem is that Im a very old-school hacker. I automatically tend to seek playing styles different than whatever most people are using.

Blessed nations are often played without a full strategy built around blessings. Not figuring in dominion is the largest lack I see. Particularly in charging forward beyond the range of their dominion (Im not saying that you do, just that I see it often). Altho people tend to rate it as a combat strategy, I tend to see it better used to bolster defensive armies. Particularly in a waiting game where the nations main strategy is research. Again, probably best in large games. Possibly mega-games where just getting past the "hump" of the initial build-up-and-charge players is an important part of your goal.

IMHO of course.

[thejeff]

Gandalf Parker said:
Also, the use of Pans wandering thru provinces dropping maenads each turn can be very effective. There is no "waste of a turn" there. Without ever becoming visible they create combats each turn testing the defenses of their opponent, forcing expenditure in defense, slowing the movement of armies, and gaining extremely detailed information on the enemy.



You've suggested this before and I still can't see how it's effective. The maenads lack a leader and thus autoroute. 1PD is enough to beat them. So there's essentially no defense expenditure, it doesn't slow army movement. You do get detailed info, but 300+ gold is a lot for an improved scout.
And the trail of maenads lets him know where your Pan is going. It should also only work in turmoil, or do they still get a few in enemy order dominion?
What am I missing?

[Gandalf Parker]

They still get a few. And granted it does work best in areas where you can move in and out of a players territory to avoid laying TOO exact a trail. Even in a players territory since it happens each turn, its still hard to gauge where the attack will occur next. The best tactic against it was to crank the PD in sporadic provinces in the area to try the level of being able to catch scouts.

Granted I havent tested this since the latest changes in maenads (I hate the new look) but it used to be that the berserker did have some balancing benefit against the autorout. On some random rolls it used to be that you could win. Sometimes both sides routed at the same time.

[thejeff]

Ok, I can see that. Against weak PD with archers or fliers, early hits could berserk a few maenads who might then beat the PD.

[DonCorazon]

I find it quite difficult to rate nations - there are too many variables.

1. I haven't come close to playing played every nation in MP and I think that is the real testing ground. Hard to imagine many people have played every nation in MP, given how long an MP game takes. But I suppose once you know how MP works you can study a nation's units and extrapolate as to how they will perform.

2. Some of those MP games have been with pros, some with noobs, others a mix. Doing well in a noob game may give you a false sense of confidence about how powerful your nation is.

3. A lot of how any game turns out will depend on pretender design, scales, finding indie mages, random events, diplomacy, a neighbor going AI, etc.

That said, the commentary on nation strength is quite interesting. My sense though is you can win with almost any nation using a mix of skill and luck as long as you have access to diverse magic. Magical diversity is the key as magic provides the tool box of counters, and counter-counters that help make the game fun and give it such a steep learning curve.

[Gandalf Parker]

I once posted a timeline something like this...
1) get Dominions, play the tutorial, play some solo games.
2) post that xxxxx nation is obviously way too powerful (ermor? ctis? ulm?)
3) play more nations and discover the misleading rock-paper-sissors balance of the nations
4) play all of the nations and discover that one of them kicks ***
5) post that nation xxxxx is way too powerful because you always win with it
6) try a multiplayer game and discover that everyone ended up with the same answer, but strangely with different nations. For some reason they play those other nations differently, and rather effectively.
7) eventually iron out the best stategies for you playing with your favorite nation. Back to kicking ***.
8) wander into a multiplayer game of an era different than you usually play, and lose badly
9) iron out the variables for your favorite nation in each era.
10) eventually discover that you really can kick *** with your favorite nations
11) stray into a multiplayer game of a totally different size or parameters
12) discover that map size, map styles, number of players, settings, etc all have quite abit to do with your ability to kick ***. SIGH and realize that it will take years more time for you to explore all of the possibilities

[Zeldor]

Gandalf Parker:

Well, no matter what you say some nations are overpowered. And devs are not doing much to change it. And that are not only nations, it is more about magic paths, huge domintion of astral, death and blood magic over other paths. Of course some people can win with MA Man against MA Arco, but chances are same like Liechtenstein beating Brasil in soccer.

[Kristoffer O]

The only nations I would agree are too powerful are LA R'lyeh and LA Ermor. They are the only nations that have game mechanics that alter the game progress in a game. Their very participation makes other players behave differently in order to cope. In the case of Ermor this bothers me less, since they are supposed to be a world threat and they are central to the development of the dominions series. R'lyeh is a bit of a bother since they share some game mechanics with Ermor, but has more options and diverse powers.

I will not consider a nation overpowered unless it can beat two other nations ganking up on the strong one. That is what MP is all about. It is the responsibility of the neighbors to know the main strengths and weaknesses of a nation. The forum, playtesting and in game diplomacy should give anyone the tools to evaluate a nation and make sure it is destroyed before it gets too successful.

I do understand that some nations are more powerful than others, but the nice thing about MP is that balance develops during the game. A nation that is unable to take advantage of game settings, map features, sites and such is too weak. A nation that is always successful regardless of game settings, map features, sites etc is probably too strong.

I do not consider MA Man too weak. Boring perhaps, but not weak.

There are more than fifty nations in the game. Of course some are more powerful. Since we have ordinary day jobs, and divert most of our developing time to our other project there will obviously not be changes to every nation (since every nation needs changes).

I do get annoyed when you say we don't do much to change it. You have probably reduced the chances of having MA Man getting a fix. Machaka feels more interesting now.

Hmm, sorry about that Zeldor. It was not intended as an attack on you or Man, but I do actually dislike to work with nations when I remember people complaining about them. It gives me a sour feeling, and since I work with things that makes me happy I avoid working on nations which make me feel unhappy.

Things that makes me happy are when people say they like the feel and mood of a nation and that they feel that it is sad that it is not more strong in this department or that area. This gets me inspired and makes me think more about the nation instead of less, and will probably have the result that I will add stuff.

A discussion on how cool KoA are will likely make me feel that they are cool, look at them and think that they are too uncool in the game. A discussion where someone complains about the fact that they cannot move about and are underpowered compared to dada.. will just make me leave the discussion and look at a thread talking about how cool bane spiders are, even if they can only be recruited at home. I will then silently agree and think about what can be done to the banespiders, including new graphics and a set of new and cooler powers to compensate.

Sorry about the rant. I had too much coffe last night and woke up after four hours of bad sleep. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zeldor]

Kristoffer O:

Yeah, Machaka! I knew you are secreatly working on EA and LA version.

I simply made really bad idea of playing MA Man in MP some time ago. And I like complaining too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I will try to limit that or find a way to do it in more sublte way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oh, there is just one really tiny thing you could look at - cost of Mind Hunt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DonCorazon]

I agree with Gandalf. The good thing is even if you play a perceived weak nation, you can design a pretender that helps compensates for you nation's weakness, like taking the Enchantress with an Astrally challenged nation. Use her gems for Arcane Probing and with any luck, you will have some nice indy Astral mages. In MP like KO says, use your nation's reputation of weakness to avoid getting ganged up on. Play the role of the henchman in the shadows, but working every turn to strengthen your weaknesses. With trading and luck you can hang in there with the big boys. Certainly there are nations that are easier and stronger,it would be impossible otherwise, but I think there are enough variables in a game that most anything is possible.

[MaxWilson]

Kristoffer O said:
Since we have ordinary day jobs, and divert most of our developing time to our other project



Every time you mention this I get excited. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Kristoffer O said:
...A discussion on how cool KoA are will likely make me feel that they are cool, look at them and think that they are too uncool in the game ... and look at a thread talking about how cool bane spiders are, even if they can only be recruited at home. I will then silently agree and think about what can be done to the banespiders, including new graphics and a set of new and cooler powers to compensate.



I do love you sir. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I will bear well in mind that you are more responsive to positive critique, and work to inspire you on any problem areas that I may discover in my ceaseless analysis of this incredible world and game which has been miraculously spun for us to enjoy.

I think it's an important and valuable part of this community, that our gods in fact retain their mortality, and meddle in the affairs of men, and sometimes..... but sometimes, hear our prayers. &lt;3

[Kristoffer O]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Meglobob]

Kristoffer O said:Since we have ordinary day jobs, and divert most of our developing time to our other project



Excellent! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

This should be your no. 1 priority, you would not believe how eager I am to part with my cash for another Illwinter product. I really hope its every bit as addictive, fun, enjoyable as dominions.

Really, we have had loads of patches giving us huge amounts of extras to Dom3. Just work on Dom3 when you are burned out from doing your other, 'project' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and of course school work etc... that you do.

I agree with everything you say in your rant, Ma Man thematically is a excellent nation, its based on Robert Jordans books I believe. I like the nation, even if it does not translate to a powerful Dom3 MP nation. The bards are a great unit and overall Ma Man only needs a few slight changes to its national units to be a great nation.

But like I said new game, new game, new game.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Endoperez]

Meglobob said:
I agree with everything you say in your rant, Ma Man thematically is a excellent nation, its based on Robert Jordans books I believe. I like the nation, even if it does not translate to a powerful Dom3 MP nation. The bards are a great unit and overall Ma Man only needs a few slight changes to its national units to be a great naation.



Feudal system, longbowmen (yeomen), the traditional three witches (daughter, mother, crone), Tower and Forest of AVALON, questing Knights of X (stone, round table, whatever), Green Knight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Knight) - it's pretty strongly Arthurian legends influenced by feudal Britain. It's nice that you like the nation, but I can't see any connection to Wheel of Time.

[Gandalf Parker]

I guess it could be. Depends on what books you have read. But yes all of the nations have a theme. It might be hard for some of us to spot some since few of us would have read all of the books that Kristoffer has (tying in with his real daytime job)

[quantum_mechani]

Endoperez said:

Meglobob said:
I agree with everything you say in your rant, Ma Man thematically is a excellent nation, its based on Robert Jordans books I believe. I like the nation, even if it does not translate to a powerful Dom3 MP nation. The bards are a great unit and overall Ma Man only needs a few slight changes to its national units to be a great naation.



Feudal system, longbowmen (yeomen), the traditional three witches (daughter, mother, crone), Tower and Forest of AVALON, questing Knights of X (stone, round table, whatever), Green Knight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Knight) - it's pretty strongly Arthurian legends influenced by feudal Britain. It's nice that you like the nation, but I can't see any connection to Wheel of Time.

I'm pretty sure KO said at some point that the wardens/witches thing was inspired by the Wheel of Time.

[Endoperez]

quantum_mechani said:
I'm pretty sure KO said at some point that the wardens/witches thing was inspired by the Wheel of Time.



Oh, that. Hmm. I always thought of them as some kind of an experiment, not as elite bodyguards like the guys in Wheel of Time were. And it seems they're even called Warders in English.
The all-witch magic could also be Jordan-inspired, since there isn't even a Merlin hero. It's strange, though, because Bards surely didn't come up with LA Man's magic. Some kind of MA Man mage that could work in the transition after they lost the Nature magic would be nice.

[Xietor]

I want to add a balance of power rating for the middle era, as it the only one I feel qualified to do. But it will take a bit of work, and I am not up to it yet.

But, I will add a few thoughts:

Tartarians were effectively nerfed, which means that MA Pythium and Marignon's endgame rating has been boosted.

I agree with KO that Man is playable. They are not a broken race. They could be improved, but so could other nations. I do feel that MA Ulm was broken, and am grateful KO fixed them.

When you have people messaging you at the start of Perpetuality for a MA Ulm sighting, then you know that race was broken. It was often a race to MA Ulm's capital, which of course, to some degree, highlighted their deficiencies.

I also like the fact that not all races and spell lines are equally powerful. WOW recently bowed to its vocal minority and gave the evil races "paladins" just so everything could be identical. Identical is boring.

It requires no challenges. LA Ermor and LA Ryleh were not excluded from Kingmaker because they were unbalanced, but because of the unit cap. If there was no unit cap, they would have been viable race selections.

It is the players' fault that LA Ermor and LA Ryleh were allowed to ascend to world domination in perpetuality. Petty bickering should have been set aside, and those races should have been terminated by group effort in the beginning phase.

[thejeff]

Not to go into the full Man is broken argument, but part of the reason you see people begging for an Ulm location and not Man is that Man is actually decent at the start, though not strong enough to rush, but lacks in mid/late game power, while Ulm was weak along, but especially vulnerable to an early rush.

Longbows &amp; lightning do fairly well against elephants and some sacreds.

[Xietor]

I am glad KO is not fooling with Man. Hopefully I will get motivated and finish my Kingdom of Avalon Mod and actually get
someone to test them in a mp game setting.

Sort of a beta test to some of the numerous suggestions. If the changes stand up to a good mp test, maybe some could be considered.

[Gandalf Parker]

I totally agree on the "same is boring". I hate games that balance the multiplayer aspect by creating matching armies that simply wear a different colored coat.

Hence the problem with some "fix" requests. Saying that a nation needs xxxxx for a fix might be considered step one. Then comes the problem of creating that fix in a way that fits the nation in question. If we just wanted to toss units around between the nations then we can do that easily enough with mods. Kristoffer isnt likely to do that without his usual amount of heavy researching. If he cant find a thematic match, then Im guessing the "much needed fix" is unlikely to occur.

Lesson to be learned: dont just say it needs it. Make an effort to pitch it thematically. And along the same lines, remember that you are making a request, not placing an order. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Xietor]

One reason people want Ulm and Man to be decently strong, is we identify with those races.

Most players' 1st races are Ulm and Man. We grew up with Robin Hood, King Arthur, and Knights, so it is natural to gravitate to those when you start playing.

Until you meet a banelord. oh, love at 1st sight!

[thejeff]

I completely agree that "same is boring". It's however annoying when any suggestion of balance issues is met with dismissal by such arguments. Especially when no one has suggested making all the nations the same.

A bunch of thematic suggestions were made in the last thread this came up in. No need to hijack this thread further by repeating them here. It sounds like Xietor trying to incorporate some of them into a mod. I don't play with mods much, there's too much in the base game I haven't really seen yet, but I look forward to this.
There were several mods improving Ulm before the patch changed them. Most of the changes didn't come from them though.

[Wrana]

Though relatively new, particularly in MP, I have something to say on the following nations:
EA Ulm 4 4 2 4 2 (as said, lack of uber-sacreds in EA, + low MR; no Astral, Blood, weakish Death. But troops are good enough &amp; forge bonus quite good).
EA Helheim 5 4 4 4 2? (sacreds, though I don't use uber-bless, but common troops are strong, too; good Death magic, weaker Blood; in MP stealthy armies are more difficult to use properly)
EA Sauromatia 5 5? 5? 4 4? (strong overall, poison archers &amp; Hydras can replace sacreds quite well; better Blood/Death than previous, + Astral)
EA Tien Chi 4 4 5 3 2? (good troops, great versatility of mages; good summons; learn to use any variation of mages can take a lot)
MA Tien Chi 4? 5? 5? 3 2? (as above except less mages variability &amp; less summons)
MA Shinuyama 3? 4 4? 2 2? (no sacreds &amp; difficult to get military machine going - need scales; variable mages can be a pain to learn)
LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; Dominion kill is an option I think they should excercise; plus ability to hurt enemy economy - this could make a strong mid to late game. I still think they should be 2 nations, though.)

[JimMorrison]

Xietor said:
I also like the fact that not all races and spell lines are equally powerful. WOW recently bowed to its vocal minority and gave the evil races "paladins" just so everything could be identical. Identical is boring.



Since I used to be addicted to that drug, I have to comment, for sake of veracity. The Horde (evil WoW races) did NOT want paladins. Facing the wall of rejection and ignorance they were getting from the devs, eventually the pleading did change to "fine, then just give us paladins.....". But what the Horde wanted, was simply for shamans to not suck horribly compared to paladins in the same raid encounters.


Taking the analogy back here again, I don't think anyone here wants all the nations to be vaguely similar. There is just a feeling that some weaknesses and drawbacks are more crippling than others, and some strengths and bonuses are less useful than others. One of the points of this thread, was to help highlight problems. So rather than people running around smacking about "MA Man is weak", and yada yada, if 10 people all rated MA Man at 4/4/2 for the power ratings, or 4/3/2 or whatever, then this would directly show that there is a widely accepted problem in their late game specifically.

By pinpointing the weak areas of the weaker nations (and conversely, any nation rating too highly, might use a small tweak down in some way), allows the discussion to then become more focused, and useful. So if we say MA Man has late game issues, then we can start to look for late game specific solutions, such as new national summons, perhaps a special nation specific Nature evocation of some sort. Also I had the thought that if they are seen as great woodsmen and "rangers" as a whole, their national troops could thematically receive a mobility increase, specifically boosting all national units +1 to their map move, and being more liberal with FS/MS so that later in the game as mobility becomes ever more important, their less relevant troops can at least be present.

Let's not ask that MA Man play like any other nation, but request it be added to in a meaningful way that makes it a stronger opponent in the late game. Then let's take that philosophy and extend it to other nations.

A theoretical example - nations who are weak in the early game might benefit from adding +1 DEF to their national troops, or +1 PRE for their ranged units. It's not that you just grab them and say "what are they weak at, let's fix it", but rather to ask what are they strong at, and see if that can be turned into something that can be relied upon more. One thought I had for early game weakness, is to give a potentially useful low level summons. EA Agartha has Rhuax Pact for example, which gives them 5 Magma Children for 2 F gems, and only takes Conj 3. These units are not singularly powerful, and don't make an "I win" strategy alone, but they are a powerful tool in their arsenal - and they are one of the only nations that gets an early national summon worth burning gems on. A number of nations could get their early game improvement simply by buffing the low level summons that they already have, preferably not by making them stronger (too easy to make them too strong), but by increasing the number per cast, or gem cost efficiency to make them a viable option.

[Tifone]

A really nice and important post JimMorrison. Even if my opinion surely doesn't count, I'd like to express my agreement with every single word you said http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[Hoplosternum]

I agree a good post JimMorrison.

I don't think many people are calling for nations to be made all alike. Or even that they are all balanced.

But tweaking a few things. Be they minor cost or stats changes or a minor but useful national summons or spell hardly does this.

[Zeldor]

JimMorrison :

I will repeat myself - many nations are unbalanced because of unbalaned magic paths. Take look at some:
Astral:
- Mind Hunt to kill non-S nations unless they are lucky and diversify
- Magic Duel to kill low level S nations or non-S that get lucky and diversify into some S magic
- precision 100 spells that are not affeced by many things like Darkness
- Enslave, Master Enslave
- Communions
- Wishing
- Teleportation
- Golems

Death:
- all undead spam
- life after death
- tartarians and other good SCs/thugs
- Darkness

And what other paths get?
Nature:
- Charm: ha, ha, with that range? If you mass huge amount of probably cap only mages you can stop 1-2 SCs if he isn't expecting that
- Mass Regen: to die slower? in end-game battles end fast anway

Earth, Fire, Air get some nice spells. But how many nations can really cast them? Well, astral nations mostly. You just get communion and cast them. Other nations need expensive boosters, putting additional gems, wasting turn to cast a buff like phoenix power... I don't think anyone would complain if Man had N6 mages, well, probably even N20 mages wouldn't make it powerful enough. Nut at least crones wouldn't massively die of old age every winter with growth3.

[JimMorrison]

I don't know what you're repeating Zel, but I didn't state that I felt that "all nations are differently created equally". What I did say, was that I feel that arguments that lean towards suggesting something like giving all nations access to Astral, are not a productive line of reasoning.

As I was saying, since the consensus is that MA Man starts out strong, but has no strong options in the late game, that we understand the basic problem. You can enumerate all you want on the relative benefits of other paths, but you're not suggesting a solution, unless it is to give them access to Astral or Death, which is the sort of request I was specifically trying to avoid.

Now, if high end Nature magic had a couple of choice spells/summons added, or perhaps there were a couple of options added just as nationals for Man, it could go a long way to bridging the gap. Also, pursuing the line of reasoning I had about adding FS to all Man troops, they could be given a top end BE, some sort of Grasping Weeds or something that causes a small amount of damage each turn, and impedes the movement of any unit which lacks FS.

Obviously it can be stated that for various reasons, Nature is one of the weaker paths in late game. Fine, we get that. Just try to come up with some creative solutions to the problem - creative, thematic, easily implemented solutions. The Grasping Weeds spell I just described could help, but obviously it's not enough to compete meaningfully with the other options, so more is needed. Our Devs thrive on inspiration, not on argument. We're simply past the stage of "proving" a disparity, the point is made, now find something that will spark interest in getting the problem actually solved.

Personally, I'd prefer to put some more effort into getting help for the nations who are soft in the early game. There will always be more creative solutions to a late game weakness, than an early game weakness. But this forum has been stuck on MA Man for over a month now, let's get something solid and put that puppy to bed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Tifone]

Excuse me if I say that, Zeldor. You are clearly a much more expert player than me, for your grade and your deep knowledge of the paths mechanics.

But I don't like the tone of your participation. You are not saying - that is cool and I think I have ideas of how to improve it. You are just pointing out things it seems you think have been done wrong with a rude sarcasm that put me somehow in discomfort.

I'm not attacking you, I don't know you and possibly you are a very kind and moderate person. And I'm not some kind of "politically correctness" tyrant. I just want to say I hope people use more moderate tones towards the work of the devs to create this huge game world with dozens of nations and thousands of spells... mostly because I respect and really like their work, and secondly and in minor part, because it would be easy to make them feel underappreciated and lose their support for the game... and I don't think you will find another game so wide and unique around http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Peace ^_^

[Zeldor]

Oh, I was not attacking anyone. Sorry if someone understood it that way. I totally agree with JimMorrison that nations should be different and play differently. But it is strategy game and we'd all like to start with our favourite nations with as equal chances as possible. It is unfair to suggest someone to play other nation because the one he likes just sucks in late game.

The thing I said was that instead of trying to balance many nations we should balance magic system. Because magic is what matters later. And you simply need astral and death [at least a lot of astral] to have any chances. Nature can get everyone with common indies. Giving some nation N10 recruitable mages wouldn't really change much, people wouldn't fear them. And imagine someone getting S10 or D10 mages.

And Tifone, I am in favour of removing Mind Hunt and Magic Duel totally from the game, or at least really nerfing them. That probably goes for horror spam too. There are many overpowered [well, simply too easy and cheap] tactics in that game. Luckily CBM makes it a bit better and gets better with every version.

[Gandalf Parker]

Tifone said:
I'm not attacking you, I don't know you and possibly you are a very kind and moderate person. And I'm not some kind of "politically correctness" tyrant. I just want to say I hope people use more moderate tones towards the work of the devs to create this huge game world with dozens of nations and thousands of spells... mostly because I respect and really like their work, and secondly and in minor part, because it would be easy to make them feel underappreciated and lose their support for the game... and I don't think you will find another game so wide and unique around http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Peace ^_^



BINGO, and excellently put.

[Xietor]

It is actually true that the vast scope of this game cannot be realized by the players at all. You get a sense of it when you try to mod. And even with a simple mod like Epic Heroes, which is tiny in scope, it is hard to balance, and a few months after I stop working on it, I cannot recall all of the abilities each Hero has etc.

Unless KO has a photographic memory, then there is no way he can remember all of the spells, units, items effects.

It is amazing that the races are as balanced as they are, even with the limitless diversity.

It is also true that no matter how much work KO devotes to tweaking the races, even if he did it for 12 hours a day until the day he last drew breath, would a game of this scope be "perfect."

Something could always be found that could be tweaked. Which is why 99 percent of games that have no monthly fee to play just fix a glaring bug or 2, and that is that.

The online games that continue to tweak the game, develop new content etc, as you may have noticed, all charge a monthly fee.

Lastly, I do disagree that all magic paths should be equal
in power. And besides s and d, which Zeldor mentioned, Earth and Blood are also very powerful. Ask all of the astral nations that fell to Pangaea in Alpaca!

[Tifone]

Xietor said:
It is also true that no matter how much work KO devotes to tweaking the races, even if he did it for 12 hours a day until the day he last drew breath...



Ahah, "last breath"? Don't you know man? KO can cast Phoenyx Pyre whenever he wants, and always has Life After Death on him so he can return as an Undead Priest to Reanimate Longdeads who will work on the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

And about JK, i don't really need to remind you about Rejuvenate and Youth Boots... Sacrificing virgins pays http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[triqui]

LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; ...



They troops suck badly and they have no sacreds. The nation is nice, i like their magic versatility and with a good awake SC they are viable. But that does not change the fact that they initial expansion strength sucks, and they are vulnerable to early attacks. I think it has been done on purpose, actually, as a way to counterbalance their powerful research.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wow. Im having a blast with them.
It sounds like yet another case of "they suck" when it might better be said "They suck at playing my style". Im not knocking you. There are two common things I see in posts about things that are broken or out of balance with nations.

A) not understanding that nations do not balance to each other, the game is rock-paper-scissors balance

B) talking about nations without apparently having played to their strengths.

When you played LA Bogarus...
did you make use of their cavalry?
did you make use of Skopets and Khlysts?
did you make use of 5 Fold Angels?
did you make use of the Luck protection?

As an example; there is nothing wrong with LA Bogarus not doing as well as LA Ulm if they are both playd with LA Ulm tactics.

[quantum_mechani]

triqui said:


LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; ...



and they have no sacreds.

This is not the case, though they aren't especially awe-inspiring.

[triqui]

I did not say Bogarus suck. Actually, i did say i like the nation.

But they troops suck. From a basic stat comparison. Their stats are weaker than anyone else (And that includes most indis) Their missile weapon is a *short bow* in *late era*, which they couple with precision 8. And it happens to be the good part of his army, go figure.

The nation is good. Just that its strength is not the troops. And that is exactly what this thread is for: to find out each nation strength and weaknesses.

I know Bogarus should not play as Ulm, becouse Ulm has good starting troops and Bogarus... well, does not. I would rate Bogarus higher than Ulm anyday, though.

EDIT: as already said for Maverni. Fine, if Bogarus troops are "good", then which ones are "bad"? Which nation troops will you rate weaker than Bogarus in Late Age? Becouse if Bogarus is a 4/5, then everybody else is a 5/5 and Uttgarde or Vanheim are 8/5.

[triqui]

This is not the case, though they aren't especially awe-inspiring.



True. "they have no sacreds worth mentioning" is more accurate.

[triqui]

A) not understanding that nations do not balance to each other, the game is rock-paper-scissors balance



Actually, I think I remember to have read from K.O. that the game is not balanced, nor it is intended to. I remember him saying that the game supposes that 2 weaker nations will cooperate against the stronger ones, and that LA ermor and LA ryleh fail to this "balance" becouse they can win 2vs1.

[Gandalf Parker]

My rating of a strong or weak nation would be based quite abit on my style of play. Which is heavily into stealth, surprise tactics, and basically luck. So in many cases, what other people consider underdog nations are my favorites.

I only have a problem when people list what they feel are bad things about bad nations when they obviously are not the type of player to play to that nations built-in strengths. I think that instead of complaining about a nation and wanting to change it into another nation, its more fun to try and figure out how its meant to be played. But thats probably just the basic hacker in me.

[triqui]

Gandalf Parker said:
My rating of a strong or weak nation would be based quite abit on my style of play. Which is heavily into stealth, surprise tactics, and basically luck. So in many cases, what other people consider underdog nations are my favorites.
Fine, you are wellcome to rate Bogarus (or any other nation) differently. However, if you rate Bogarus Early Game (that is, bassically it's troop strength) highly and it's Middle and Late Game (where I value things like magic diversity, research power and access to Astral) lowly, they I will use my right to disagree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

quote]I only have a problem when people list what they feel are bad things about bad nations when they obviously are not the type of player to play to that nations built-in strengths. I think that instead of complaining about a nation and wanting to change it into another nation, its more fun to try and figure out how its meant to be played. But thats probably just the basic hacker in me.

[/quote] I'm not complaining about Bogarus *at all*. I'm complaining about the previous poster ability to find Bogarus built-in strengths (which have plenty), and it's (in my opinion) misdirecting post, which might make some new player to conclude that Bogarus is a good "rush nation" based on its 4/5 (that is, near perfect) score in "early game". That would make it to be on par with nations like Uttgarde, Pangaea or Arcoscephale, which have been rated (rightly imho) that way already in this post, and have MUCH stronger base troops.

The entire point of this post is to rate the nation built-in strengths (and therefore weaknenesses). You have your right to disagree with me and to think that one of Bogarus strengths is its troops, and then we will debate about it if you please. But answering "have you tried 5fold angels" will not show how their archers and cavalry is on par with Man. If it's not (and i think it's not), then if Bogarus Early Game is 4/5, Man is 5/5. That would imply Pangaea is 6/5 and Vanheim is 7/5, which kinda screw the entire purpose of having a score based on 5 points.

I agree with you that style of play will make players to gravitate toward one or another nation. Players that tend to play in very big maps with a lot of players ussually will preffer late game powerhouses (such as Bogarus) over short term potences like vanheim. But that should not modify their own ratings of the nation. Bogarus still deserve a 1 or 2 in early power, becouse it is a bad nation for blitzes and early game, even if you like it becouse you like long term nations. Then rate it 2/5 EG and 5/5 late game or whatever. Not doing so, and allowing "general likeness of the nation" to permeate it's ratings will make some people who came here looking info, to try and choose the "wrong" nations for it's playstyle. Becouse if someone who likes what you have named "ulm style" tries to play Bogarus based on its alleged "4/5 early game score", he will be dissapointed. As much as a player that like magic, research, long term goals and late game will be if he tries Ulm based on some one's score of "ulm late game 5/5".

[Endoperez]

"Early Game" wasn't defined in this thread, I think.

Some people think it's the ability to rush and stop rushes directed at you (triqui?). Quantum mechanic said he thought early game happened before level 4 in research. Some people may think it's ability to conquer independents in an empty map quickly.

I don't think a nation has to be a good rusher to have strong early game.


I agree that 4 for early game strength may be too much for Bogarus, but that's why JimMorrison wishes to get more votes. It will average out. Give your own opinion about Bogarus, preferably about all the LA nations.

"Bad votes" are a necessity, because the community is so small. They can't be fixed afterwards, because that'd screw up JimMorrison's calculations. With enough votes, it will even out any way. One high vote might mean that Bogarus has early game strength of 2.45 instead of 1.45, but that still shows it's weaker than Vanheim or Man or whatever.

[triqui]

Endoperez said:
"Early Game" wasn't defined in this thread, I think.




Fair point. We should ask JimMorrison to define it then, becouse it will be a bit absurd if someone rate "Bogarus Early game" based on rush (or rush survival) potential while other base it on indi expansion rate and some other base it on cuteness of their sprites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

Whatever definition JimMorrison want to use is the one we would use. If he chooses to rate "early game" by "graphics cuteness" then i will rate Bogarus 5/5 :p

[JimMorrison]

triqui said:

Endoperez said:
"Early Game" wasn't defined in this thread, I think.




Fair point. We should ask JimMorrison to define it then, becouse it will be a bit absurd if someone rate "Bogarus Early game" based on rush (or rush survival) potential while other base it on indi expansion rate and some other base it on cuteness of their sprites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

Whatever definition JimMorrison want to use is the one we would use. If he chooses to rate "early game" by "graphics cuteness" then i will rate Bogarus 5/5 :p



I actually did somewhere, but I type a lot. Let me reiterate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Early Game- Initial expansion phase of the game. This phase is overall dominated by the ability to rapidly and efficiently harvest indie provinces, and preferably to do so without overlooking the things normally associated with moving into Mid Game, like a couple of castles, and a bit of research ability. Indeed, without research capacity, there is no mid game, as I'm looking at it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif Rushing ability is definitely one potential component of the early game - but it can be especially misleading for the newer players that I am hoping gain the most benefit from this chart (if it ever gets enough input to be feasible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif).

Mid Game- Development of first advanced strategies. You can look at it as 4 in a particular school, though for some nations and with some research goals, it may not be until 5 or 6 in a path, or 4 in two paths, or it may hinge primarily on your ability to shift production from cheaper troops to something more exotic. In any case, it's the point in the game where your strategies involve more than "Attack Rear". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif It also tends to directly imply the first real wars in the game, where people are not raiding or rushing, but taking these first big tools, and assuming that they will be enough to take someone else in a toe to toe fight.

Late Game- Well, I think this is the most straight forward, as the most confusion really is just where the breaking point is between Early-Mid. But just to clarify, this is when people start casting globals in earnest, summoning SCs, forging artifacts, exploiting (pun intended) Battlefield Enchantments, and generally just pushing the entire game to the limit. By this point everyone has at least 1-2 schools at 8-9 research, and they are rapidly filling out the others to diversify capabilities beyond what they already focused on as their intended strategic focal point. That is to say, most people have reached the fruition of the primary strategy that they wish to employ to win the game - the rest is just insurance.

[triqui]

I preffer to set the "early" and "middle" game as hard-set turn limits, ie: first 12 months, or 18 months, etc. Becouse stating it as "when you reach lvl 4 in research" might mean that some nations or strategies have a very short "early game" (EA arcos focusing on buiding castles and philosphers with an awake Sage will be there faster than you can say "middle game", while a drain 3 pangaea might need 2 years). You might not "rush" into Middle game, but that does not mean the other players would not either. And that you dont have a single school of magic with level 4 does not mean the game is not in Middle Game status. Earth in Modern Era, even if some Amazonian Tribes are still in stone age. Those tribes would painfully discover so when they try to destroy a M1-Abraham tank with an AtlAtl.


However, i would use your recomendation and will rate a few nations myself, to contribute to what i think it is one of the best threads nowadays in the forum.

[triqui]

Early Age.

Tien Chi: 4-5-3-2-3. Strong expansion with either Dual Blessed W5E, or simply with very good Composite Archers (that dominate EA indy). Strong middle game (one of strongest imho) due to wide broad of choices in magic (that allow tailor-made strategies versus different enemies) and very good summonable sacreds. It's late game is not bad thanks to magic diversity, but it does lack true power on Blood, Astral or Death, they dont have access to good Thugs or SC and 9hp mages tend to die fast versus global damaging spells. Broad selection of choices make them hard to learn (and easy to make wrong decissions)

Lanka 5-5-4-4-4. A real powerhouse in the expansion phase with very potent sacreds and good archers. Middle game they have strong and easy "out of the box" thugs, they have worldwide recruitable potent sacreds, access to good middle game spheres (air, death) and excelent national summons. Late game they have powerful blood second to none, and enough death and nature to make them "natural" Tartarian makers, plus their own national blood SC. They are easy to learn to play correctly, and they do a lot of things and almost all of them very well done.

Niefelheim: 5-4-4-5-5. They can expand against regular indies using armies of ONE single sacred. They couple that with skinshifters and Jarls for one of the best expansion rates in the game. Middle game they have a wide magic selection (everything but earth and fire, most of it strongly tied), recruitable Super Combatants, strong troops, good stealthy thugs (the scout http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif) and access to powerful communions for evocations. Late game they have Blood, Death and some Astral, as long as 30 hp mages and recruitable SC. Their Astral might not be that high, but it is good enough to get started.

Middle Age:
Ermor: 5-4-5-5-5. Yep, they are that good. Powerful bless expansion with ethereal sacreds, powerful middle game with competent mages, decent infantry and excelent units, and awesome late game machine with high Astral and Death. I simply love this one.

Late Age
Marignon: 3-4-5-3-2. They have decent human troops with good morale, good missile and good cavalry. Coupled with properly done Awake pretender they can do nice enough in the expansion phase. They get a quantum leap as soon as they reach lvl 4 (flame arrow), and from that point forward, they only get better: Full access to all magic but nature (which is easy to get from indis), cheap and powerful blood, good national thugs, and the best SC chasis there is as a national summonable. They are trickyier to play properly than most nations though. My favourite nation in flavour so far.



Will add a few more later.

[Amhazair]

Wrana said:
Though relatively new, particularly in MP, I have something to say on the following nations:
EA Ulm 4 4 2 4 2 (as said, lack of uber-sacreds in EA, + low MR; no Astral, Blood, weakish Death. But troops are good enough &amp; forge bonus quite good).
EA Helheim 5 4 4 4 2? (sacreds, though I don't use uber-bless, but common troops are strong, too; good Death magic, weaker Blood; in MP stealthy armies are more difficult to use properly)
EA Sauromatia 5 5? 5? 4 4? (strong overall, poison archers &amp; Hydras can replace sacreds quite well; better Blood/Death than previous, + Astral)
EA Tien Chi 4 4 5 3 2? (good troops, great versatility of mages; good summons; learn to use any variation of mages can take a lot)
MA Tien Chi 4? 5? 5? 3 2? (as above except less mages variability &amp; less summons)
MA Shinuyama 3? 4 4? 2 2? (no sacreds &amp; difficult to get military machine going - need scales; variable mages can be a pain to learn)
LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; Dominion kill is an option I think they should excercise; plus ability to hurt enemy economy - this could make a strong mid to late game. I still think they should be 2 nations, though.)

Triqui has been focusing on your valuation of Bogarus early game, and while I generally agree with him, I think the "problem" with these grades is broader. I see generally very high scores here Only one 2 and one 3. I wonder if, when you graded the nations you were most familiar with (which is perfectly okay, I did the same) you considered the other nations of the same age. Remeber these grades are very relative. If for example MA T'ien Ch'i has lategame of 5 (and I'm not saying they do not) that means that there are only a few nations as strong as them in late game, while most are weaker, even much weaker. The same argument can be made for all points of course.

Remember that, as much as you might like to play all nations, some of them have to be 2's... (and lower)

[Zeldor]

Yeah. From those that wrana said I think it would be rather:

LA Bogarus - 1 for early game, you just cannot imagine worse troops. Even EA Marverni may be better. Being able to take awake SC does not cout http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
MA TC - 2, max3, you just cannot expand fast enough with your troops
MA Shinu - probaly even 1, for their age. Flaming arrows is mid-game already. They have very bad starting army and good troops are very expensive.

[Wrana]

Of course, you are perfectly free to post that Bogarus has 1 for early game. Though it would be nice if you also posted other stats for it... Maybe even with longer comments? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Considering Bogarus army I should point out that while their voi infantry are unimpressive - but these are MILITIA! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif In stats and cost both. And on militia duty, i.e., to absorb damage they perform admirably due to better armor. Their cavalry, on the other hand is something else again. Actually, they are the only nation afair that has horse archers with Pre 10... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Once you have massed these, the early expansion against indies is piece of cake. Rushing is something else again, surely, but to stop the rush, the same horse archers can be applied and their mobility allows to concentrate them. Maybe their early game isn't 4, but I already saw it being assessed too low... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Considering MA Tien Chi - I actually had the largest territory in the current game during initial expansion. Of course, part of it was due to SC Pretender, but few turns ago I have actually put him on research duty just to have something to do with my other armies... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif So it seems that I at least can expand with those troops fast enough. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
Shinuyama has excellent Kappa which can be massed fast and excellent Dai Bakemono. Bandits/Bakemonon-Sho are excellent in absorbing enemy fire/lances. What else do you need? With Kappa I expanded through independents with hardly a scratch - and they can cripple enemy elites to stop rushes as well. THey are costly, of course, and Dai Bakemono, as I said, require time to amass.
To Amhaizair:
Yes, of course, I assessed the nations I'm better familiar with, including the ones I'm trying MP with currently. I'm not familiar enough with late game which is the reason for ?? there. As an aside, I would probably assess Agartha - especially MA - as 1-2 for early expansion, but I did not play it so may not know some tricks...

[Zeldor]

Wrana:

We are talking about certain age. Do you think there are worse expanders than Bogarus in LA? IF not they deserve 1, someone should get there so we can put others in 2,3,4,5. We cannot give every nation 3, and some others 4 and 5. Of course they can expand, but they are worst at it.

[JimMorrison]

Indeed. If the lowest score you give for anything is a 3, you may as well score on a 3-7 scale and I'll just manually subtract 2 from all your scores. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Not that it has to average out, that for every 5 there is a 1, that would be silly - but it IS a curve, 1 is the worst, 5 is the best. Everything else, falls in between. I think 5 is a bit restrictive, as there is a lot of grey area between "average" and "WOW" for 4 to cover, but it's all we have for it, so of course some will go in 5 who aren't quiiiite as strong, and some will go in 3 that are just a touch above the average.

Please also remember not to focus TOO much on whether or not they can defend against a rush, or how hard it is to play them to their strengths - MP readiness and SP intuitiveness are taken care of by the other 2 ratings, and people need to keep that in mind.

[thejeff]

Do bear in mind that it may be perfectly reasonable for someone to not give low ratings in a specific area. Most here aren't rating all nations, just those they're most familiar with, so if they prefer to play nations with a strong early game, it's not unlikely all the nations they know well enough to rate will get a high score.

[Wrana]

Well, it's possible, of course, that I rate some nations too high if I get the inpression I know how to play them. But I think that the nations I assessed are a good example of the "area between "average" and "WOW"" that you mentioned.
And I said that Agartha is an example of early game rating of 1-2 with their Pale One troops. Maybe EA Marverni is another such - I didn't play them and when I met them in MP, I advanced against them quite successfully despite being new in it. About EA Arcoscephales I don't know currently (didn't try them in MP - their infantry is worse than hoplites, but they have chariots, so maybe 3 for early game... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
And if you want an algorythm to change my assesses, than it would be more like "subtract 2 than multiply by 2, subtract 0-1 randomly" - or you would get Helheim early game at 5, which is definitely NOT what I meant! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Xietor]

For now I will only rate 3 of my top MA Nations. I am not rating ease of learning and ease of use, just the early, mid, and endgame strengths.(i will add others until it is complete)

Pythium 3 5 5
Ermor 5 4 4
Ryleh 3 4 5
Shinuyama 2 4 4
Ctis 3 5 3

[JimMorrison]

Take your tim Xi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif It seems this will be a work in progress for some time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And Jeff, I do agree with that somewhat. But some people's favorites, they will still tell you to *always* take an awake SC because their early troops are awful. I'm not looking for people to just pick nations to bash to round out the curve, just to look at things fairly so that the numbers have relevance. Truthfully, I would like to see very few nations at 1 or 5. But with a 5 point scale, that's kind of sticky, originally I was going to do 1-10, and I think a lot of people's 5's would end up as 8 or 9 if I had done so, but I was convinced this would get more input..... oh the humanity! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

And Wrana, just bear in mind, a big part of that really is the Ease of Learning. Like Caelum for example, I think is very hard to learn how to use properly. At least for me, I tried them twice with such terrible failure, it took a third and very concerted effort, once I new the game a lot better, to finally tackle them and learn how to effectively leverage their strengths. And they're not even a nation like Yomi/Shinu where it's hard to discern where the strengths actually lie - you can see them, but making them effective is just not a simple thing.

[Wrana]

Agree. You can subtract 1 from "ease of learning" for nations which caused such controversy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Actually, I'd suggest you do it routinely for nations causing much discussion - if there is that much disagreement, than they are surely not so easy to learn after all! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

Good point. That is probably the best way for me to voice my pert peeve. Its not that the player is missing the point, its that the nation is not one of the easier ones to learn how to play.

Speaking of which....
in testing out things about PD I came across something I had not realized. Did you know that those stupid little monkeys that some people hate have a scout with +50 stealth? They are able to get thru PD of 125 (the max I can test easily by my present method). Most stealth troops are stealth of 0, most national scouts are stalth +10, Caelum scouts are +15, Pangaea +20, and Vanheim +35 (all early era).

For those who dont know, most of the things on a units info display will give more info if you click it.

[Ming]

I enjoy this thread very much but I also have difficulty myself in summarizing various nation's strength at different periods. I think there might be danger that different people mean very different things by their ratings.

For my part the greatest difficulty I have in rating these nations (aside from being relatively inexperienced in general and ZERO experience in MP) is that often one can make conscious trade-offs in the timing of a nations strength through different pretender designs.

Take Bogarus for example, most players will take an awake SC pretender to overcome its weak starting troops, at the expense of its late game strength - which it can probably manage without help from its pretender. On the other hand, few would take an awake pretender on nations with strong sacreds. So should one compare the early game strength of Bogarus with an awake Dom10 Wyrm with dual bless nations without the benefit of an awake pretender as opposed to a straight forward comparison?

It is even more complex for many of the nations in the middle. How one spend the design points and when the pretender awakes have major bearings on the strength of a nation at various periods and can be tailored by the player.

If the ratings are accompanied by some references to the Pretender choice it might clarify matters somewhat.

[Xietor]

The reason i gave top rating to Ctis in the Midgame, is their research and income are second to none. They should be the 1st nation to have banelords, constr 6 gear, shadow blast etc. to supplement their admittedly weak national troops.

Ctis mages are good early with skelly spam. Their main weakness is Wolven Winter that a prudent enemy casts before every battle with them.

Shinuyama is a 4 late game for me because they get every mage at every castle, and their mages can cast banefire, which has no resist. Ghost riders and earth attacks are easy for them as well.

[Zeldor]

Ming:

Of course not. We are talking about NATION strength. PoD will add +1 or +2 for early game for every nation. The fact that some nations must take one says a lot about their early game weakness.

JimMorrison:

Still, getting average rating seems like not a best solution. As I said we have many unexperienced players here. Some really outragous ratings should be ignored [or maybe even all ratings from people like that, so they stick to what they know], for example giving Bogarus anything over 3 for early game [even 3 is shady]. We want it to make guideline, especially for new people and we cannot pollute results like that.

[Gandalf Parker]

Early vs Late game comparisons also come into play in other ways. Some of the MPers live almost entirely on small-map few-player blitz style games. While this can be a way to get a quick rating of whose strategy can beat whose, it can give a very focused view of nation ratings.

Even in test-games for the beta group this became apparent. Testing the AIs. I would run games with all of the nations on AI and auto-process a turn every few minutes for days. And then run the same games over and over to take into account factors such as which nation landed next to which other nation, and special events early in the game affecting outcomes. Eventually I could give a general answer as far as early death, early game leader, mid-game leader, late game leader. But map sizes (tiny, small, mid, large, huge, epic) also had a drastic impact. Not to mention other settings people like to alter in a games parameters.

[Amhazair]

Ah, but then who decides what is an outrageous rating? If you look just at the ratings that have been submitted so far you can see (for example) me giving EA Yomi an early game rating of one, and EA Oceania a mid game of one too, while QM gives both of those 3. I'd say the difference between average and abysmal is quite big and yet the veteran player and recognized balance expert QM soundly disagrees with my opinion. Now, I could go out on a limb here, and say that obviously QM had temporarily taken leave of his sences when rating those nations, but that seems a dicey supposition at best...

All right then, you might answer. There is indeed a big difference between 1 and 3, but let's rate it as 'barely acceptable' After all, we can hardly disagree with QM the balance guru, so I would like to discount your 1's, but you (that would be me, to keep things simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) are starting to build a bit of a reputation of your own, so I can't just discount your opinion like I'd do if you were a newer player.

So here we have it, everything between 1 and 3 is then an acceptable rating. But then comes along another guy and he claims *gasp* that Dai Oni with a right bless are awesome expanders, not much worse than the best this game has to offer, and he rates the Yomi early game a 4. Now me, having rated Yomi a 1 for early game would obviously think that this guy has been smoking to much crack lately, and might feel his 4 should be discounted. But, says you, QM felt them worth a 3. (we're talking about the great QM here, remember. (not that I want to make him feel uncomfortable or anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) ) And if QM felt them worth a 3 it's only reasonable that some other random guy thinks them a 4, right? ...


I could go on being wordy for a while, but I think you might be starting to get my point by now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Zeldor]

Amhazair:

Well, one experienced player is not enough. I was rather talking about obvious examples. You just need a scale to fit all nations. And then you can discuss if that nation suckss or it can get to so-so or even average with appropriate tactic [no counting awake SC].

And if Yomi deserves 1 I don't know. You'd have to compare them to Marverni, I think they are the real ruler of 1 point for early expansion in EA. I don't have MP experience in that age, beside blitzes.

P.S. I should do smth else than spamming forums, heh, way too much free time recently.

[Gandalf Parker]

Just my own opinion, but based on previous discussions all the way back to Dom1 I would predict that the result would be "we cannot agree". Which to me, is one of the most wonderful things about this game. There is lots of discussions about whats good and bad, whats a killer strategy and whats a worthless one. We all seem to agree that there are some but even after years we cannot seem to agree on what they are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Great game!

[JimMorrison]

Well the intent was to get a large enough body of results to let most discrepancies average themselves out.

Also, fairest way to deal with anything really strange (besides scrutinizing that poster as potentially insane) if there are enough ratings on that particular nation, is to use Olympic style scoring, and subtract the highest and lowest rating before taking the average. So if everyone rates at a 1-2, and a single person put 4 (even if it is the astute QM), then their score might be tossed along with the 1. Obviously this is only meaningful if the disparity is large enough, either 1/4, 2/5, or 1/5, a spread from 1-3, 2-4 or 3-5 is not going to break an averaging.

[JimMorrison]

Gandalf Parker said:
Just my own opinion, but based on previous discussions all the way back to Dom1 I would predict that the result would be "we cannot agree". Which to me, is one of the most wonderful things about this game. There is lots of discussions about whats good and bad, whats a killer strategy and whats a worthless one. We all seem to agree that there are some but even after years we cannot seem to agree on what they are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Great game!



I agree.... hah! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

But seriously, I do agree with your basic point, but that's why this is not a search for democratic consensus, but merely an attempt to statistically show a number that will be closer to most people's perception of each nation, than any other possible number. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Then a brief disclaimer at the top, and the average reader can peruse the list confident in the knowledge that they are less likely to be significantly dismayed with the rating than potentially any other method of finding out which nations will suit their playstyle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

With the side benefit that I didn't think of originally - people can say for example, "I really like EA Abysia", and then skim through the rest of the thread, and find the people who rated that particular nation the highest, and assume that there is a preferential bias, and see what other nations that they liked, with the assumption that there may be playstyle similarities they will appreciate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Wrana]

Well, you can consider to take weighted mean, for example. I.e., if somebody had consistently won with the nation in question, his estimate of it could be taken, e.g., double before averaging. Or, say, one more time for each time he won in MP with it (which can be checked in Hall of Fame). This will make more experienced players' opinions count for more (but if there are significant discrepancies with other estimates, you can lower their "ease of learn/use" score).

[Kristoffer O]

Amhazair said:
Ah, but then who decides what is an outrageous rating? If you look just at the ratings that have been submitted so far you can see (for example) me giving EA Yomi an early game rating of one, and EA Oceania a mid game of one too, while QM gives both of those 3. I'd say the difference between average and abysmal is quite big and yet the veteran player and recognized balance expert QM soundly disagrees with my opinion. Now, I could go out on a limb here, and say that obviously QM had temporarily taken leave of his sences when rating those nations, but that seems a dicey supposition at best...

All right then, you might answer. There is indeed a big difference between 1 and 3, but let's rate it as 'barely acceptable' After all, we can hardly disagree with QM the balance guru, so I would like to discount your 1's, but you (that would be me, to keep things simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) are starting to build a bit of a reputation of your own, so I can't just discount your opinion like I'd do if you were a newer player.

So here we have it, everything between 1 and 3 is then an acceptable rating. But then comes along another guy and he claims *gasp* that Dai Oni with a right bless are awesome expanders, not much worse than the best this game has to offer, and he rates the Yomi early game a 4. Now me, having rated Yomi a 1 for early game would obviously think that this guy has been smoking to much crack lately, and might feel his 4 should be discounted. But, says you, QM felt them worth a 3. (we're talking about the great QM here, remember. (not that I want to make him feel uncomfortable or anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) ) And if QM felt them worth a 3 it's only reasonable that some other random guy thinks them a 4, right? ...


I could go on being wordy for a while, but I think you might be starting to get my point by now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Recently beaten by Amhazair as Yomi, I can agree that they are perhaps not very strong (when confronted with LA black centaurs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ). The kingmaker setting might be a problem since LA nations are not supposed to meet EA one. But centaurs are there in both eras. I might blame my scales as well. I imagine they were not optimal. I dislike optimal scales. But i got some early money events that enabled me to get additional dai onis. Dai Onis are good vs indeps, but not that strong vs high morale blessed troops. I imagine it would have gone better if I had not chosen to attack Amhazair. My other choice was ashdod, and I didn't want a giant-daioni matchup, and I dislike peace http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I would probably place Yomi 2 early game, since they are a bit unflexible at start. They have the dai oni, but everyone knows that and they can be countered by clever players. Troops etc are also inferior vs human players. Banishment is not used by indeps to the same extent.

[Gandalf Parker]

I was surprised to find that Yomi scouts are stealth 0.
The only stealth zero scout Ive found so far.

[triqui]

I agree with Zeldor. Bogarus with an awake dom10 wyrm spand faster than with a rainbow. Still, that does not change the fact it has a weak early game, it does indeed confirm it: it "needs" an awake SC to expand. In the mean while, a skinshifter vanheim with a Dom10 wyerm will still expand twice as fast if not faster.

I think Yomi is not that bad expanding as maverni. They have a very cost effective archer, which in EA is enough to take down most indis thanks to low level armor. However, _IF_ we rate "early game" as "expansion+rush or rush defense" then they probably deserve a 1, 2 at max. Becouse before you can cast Flame Arrow, bakemono archers wont stop a dual bless nation by any means.

[Wrana]

And marverni has slingers for the same purpose! So what?

[triqui]

So slingers have a much shorter range than shortbows and are a much weaker weapon?

[Zeldor]

triqui:

I can somehow maybe agree to put flamin arrows use into early game if they have natural F3 mages, not small cahnce to get them. But even with that, Flaming Arrows are enchant4, a bit far...

[Tifone]

Yep usually when you get to 4 in some magic school, you start to consider yourself in mid-game, as you can start putting on the battlefield some real magical tactics to support your troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And triqui about slingers I heard many say that they are useful against some kind of troops, I don't think I can give you a complete answer about what those troops are, but I can tell you as the sling takes only one hand, some slingers have slings in addition to a melee weapon and a shield! If set to fire archers or attack archers, they can shoot them with their slings, suffering much less from the return fire of archers' arrows as they can parry them with the shield, and when they end ammunitions or reach them just start bashing the archers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[chrispedersen]

Slingers are useful against trrops with glamour, just like markatas are.

You don't care (so much) about glamour. You want a cheap and effective way to get rid of glamour - and a hit - any hit will do it.

You want to divide your resource allocation between cheap troops that can dispell the glamour - and reasonably troops that can, one the glamour is gone, kill them.

All at a cost equal or less than the unit cost for vanheim's/tir's troops.

[triqui]

Zeldor said:
triqui:

I can somehow maybe agree to put flamin arrows use into early game if they have natural F3 mages, not small cahnce to get them. But even with that, Flaming Arrows are enchant4, a bit far...



Yep, that's why i said they have low early game, because i think flame arrows is middle game (and therefore it's not useful against an early rush). They have a very strong middle game, and their army is not bad in their middle game (thanks to massive armies of flaming archers). In early game they tend to suffer against rushes, just like maverni does. However, they expand faster than maverni, becouse Shortbows bakemono archers expand nicely (in Early Age at least)

[triqui]

Tifone said:
And triqui about slingers I heard many say that they are useful against some kind of troops, I don't think I can give you a complete answer about what those troops are, but I can tell you as the sling takes only one hand, some slingers have slings in addition to a melee weapon and a shield! If set to fire archers or attack archers, they can shoot them with their slings, suffering much less from the return fire of archers' arrows as they can parry them with the shield, and when they end ammunitions or reach them just start bashing the archers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Slingers have their niche. However, they are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than short bows, specially for early game expansion.

Yomi Short bows also happen to have stealth, which means they can set up some kind of decent raiding ability

[triqui]

chrispedersen said:
Slingers are useful against trrops with glamour, just like markatas are.

You don't care (so much) about glamour. You want a cheap and effective way to get rid of glamour - and a hit - any hit will do it.

You want to divide your resource allocation between cheap troops that can dispell the glamour - and reasonably troops that can, one the glamour is gone, kill them.

All at a cost equal or less than the unit cost for vanheim's/tir's troops.

Markata are quite useless against most units with glamour. You dont need a hit, you need a hit that *does damage*. and with a whooping 5 damage weapon you will have a hard day to properly remove glamour.

[Herode]

Kristoffer O said:
I would probably place Yomi 2 early game, since they are a bit unflexible at start. They have the dai oni, but everyone knows that and they can be countered by clever players. Troops etc are also inferior vs human players. Banishment is not used by indeps to the same extent.


Agreed. I'm far from being an experienced player and I did'nt play even half the EA nations, not speaking of the other eras. But I've been playing now Dom3 for a year and I tested Yomi 2 times in MP and 2-3 times in SP games. Compared to the other EA nations I tried, I would rate Yomi something like 2 - 1 - ? - 3 - 2 (never played late game here...).

Why is that ? Dai Oni are good thugs and Hannyas are good battle mages.

But Dai oni are really expensive. They have to be equiped. They are capitol only. As thugs, they suffer from encumberance and a not so high MR. To equip them with the goos stuff is not absolutely straightforward, at least for a non expert player like my humble self.

But Hannyas lack 1 level in nature magic (for Haruspex and nature gems gathering at least).

Moreover, the standard troops (bandits &amp; archers) are OK vs. indies but do not match a human player army at all. They sneak but do not hurt so much.

I think playing Yomi is an interesting challenge.
But difficult http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif
But interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Wrana]

Agree. Slingers with shields I think better for straightforward expansion. And common slingers are cheap as dirt which eases their massing. But Bakemono archers with stealth have other uses and they are also cheap enough.
Markatas, though... they S*CK. Actually, I think something should be done with monkeys - they have good line-of-battle troops in Bandar, but their stealthy units lack any kind of punch. If you mass Markatas enough, they will lose they stealth advantage. And they die like flies. Atavi archers get no stealth bonus and if you mass them they will be easily caught. And they lack the punch to beat anyone by themselves. Atavi infantry... they just lack either the punch or staying power. So they can't capitalise on any advance their archers could make. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif Either I'm missing something, or the player should restrict himself to Bandar. And while it's appropriate from an Indian caste system's point of view, I personally would like to have some way to use monkeys of lower castes other than as arrow/lance fodder. By the way, that's another nation I wouldn't give that much early game score... if not for Elephantes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[chrispedersen]

Flame arrows.

5/1 markatas doing 6+6 ap damage.

9/3 stealth markatas doing 10+6 ap

Bandar infantry, having sticks and stones doing 16+6ap damage.

Everything on the battlefield gets +6 damage for 1 fire gem. Mix in 50 morale undead (which they can summon)- essentially 10 undead for every 100 troops will prevent morale failures (until they get turned).

Take those two easy steps and you've just tripled the effectivness of monkeys.

[Amhazair]

Units with unbreakable morale are not counted when averaging out the total morale of a squad. Thus, mixing in undead with the monkeys does nothing to help keep them from running away.

[triqui]

Amhazair said:
Units with unbreakable morale are not counted when averaging out the total morale of a squad. Thus, mixing in undead with the monkeys does nothing to help keep them from running away.

and will make them charge to the front becouse they cant use "fire" as squad order.

Besides that, is quite probable that the glamour units will be knocking your door before you have flaming arrows as Lanka or Kailasa or Bandar log, which dont have fire as national path http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Even then, it's the flaming arrow, and not the markata what keep the glamour army at bay. Markata is only useful to die in piles as cannon fodder.

[JimMorrison]

triqui said:

Amhazair said:
Units with unbreakable morale are not counted when averaging out the total morale of a squad. Thus, mixing in undead with the monkeys does nothing to help keep them from running away.

and will make them charge to the front becouse they cant use "fire" as squad order.

Besides that, is quite probable that the glamour units will be knocking your door before you have flaming arrows as Lanka or Kailasa or Bandar log, which dont have fire as national path http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Even then, it's the flaming arrow, and not the markata what keep the glamour army at bay. Markata is only useful to die in piles as cannon fodder.




Not true at all, I group ele/mammoths with archers all the time. Sometimes it causes small placement issues with the big beasts placed behind the archers in the squad formation, but otherwise it's basically 90% effective.

And if you don't like Markata as missile troops, it must be because you use the archers which should never be purchased. The other Markata have Sticks and Stones which get 2 attacks per round. As long as you have a line in front of them, they can barrage an enemy line - and if you did actually do a Flaming Arrows strat, you should see impressive results for your investment.


I still think there is an overabundance of confusion as to what the ratings system actually means. Or at least, a bit much personal bias from most players.

I will continue to look into what can be done about that, and can only encourage people to continue to provide whatever input they can. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[chrispedersen]

Nonsense. I do it all the time. And the markatas fight to the last monkey.

[Herode]

I still think there is an overabundance of confusion as to what the ratings system actually means. Or at least, a bit much personal bias from most players.



That's an inherent drawback of those open/subjective questions. The point is : some nations can be powerful and easy to use once you know how to do it (== once you are experienced) but still be difficult and weak in the hands of most (== standard) players.

Then, how will you rate this : after the guru's results or after the crowd's results ?
Essentially, this is a philosophical question : is a thing defined by its essential perfection or by its most common and impure manifestation ? Are you essentialist or phenomenologist ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Now, your first 3 ratings (early/mid/late game power) can be computed without a poll. If the hosts agreed to deliver some stats on the games they are hosting at defined schedules (let's say turns 25/50/75 or whatever to be tuned by experienced domguys after the initial settings of the game), then you could collect amounts of empirical and objective data.

Also, it could be very interesting if you were able to mix this with additional data about the players themselves (basically, how many MP did they play before the current one as a measure of their experience). Though informations about players themselves may be more difficult to obtain, it should be straightforward to collect the data for or all games running with stats on (provided the hosts collaborate, of course).

[Gandalf Parker]

While I would not want to consider it as absolute "fact",
there is a sticky thread in the MP forum to list winning nations. Has anyone done some numbers on that? Just for curiosity sake?

[Amhazair]

Every so often that list comes up in discussions about this nation or that. Last time I checked the only really significant number was that almost half of all the LA games had been won by Ermor or R'lyeh.

[Gandalf Parker]

That makes me feel better. Anytime a discussion pops up here where various experts proclaim some nations worth or worthlessness I get concerned. But luckily, it tends to actually average out that no matter how strong the opinions are that fly around, the saving grace is that they dont seem to agree with each other.

I am still amazed at how rare that is. Ive been gaming for decades and on internet for as long as its been internet. I can remember many many games where 1 month to 1 year was just about the whole life of the game because some ultimate strategy was developed and posted. Or great games that I found out about too late because by the time I got there the expert players had their tactics so down perfect that you couldnt last long enough in a game to learn the game.

Call me a fanboi if you want but any game that can keep me trying new things years after its release is well worth it.

[triqui]

Gandalf Parker said:
That makes me feel better. Anytime a discussion pops up here where various experts proclaim some nations worth or worthlessness I get concerned. But luckily, it tends to actually average out that no matter how strong the opinions are that fly around, the saving grace is that they dont seem to agree with each other.




However, the "winning thread" shows an "evidence" (if you can call "proof" to such low number of data to make an statistic). There are "first class" and "second class" nations. There is not a "absolute and clear winner" (Except for the admitedly superior Ermor and Ryleh in LA). But some nations get 4 wins, while some others havent won once. Some nations are stronger (or "easier to play and win with" if you preffer) than some others.

Which is not a bad thing, by the way. I used to play a Table Top game named Empire in Arms, about Napoleonic Wars. It was not its intention to create "balanced" nations: France was MUCH better than Otoman Empire. This is not chess, where everybody has exactly same army (and even in chess, whites win much more than black). However, that should not delude ourselves to say that every nation "is balanced out". Some people has been saying so since 3.0. However, each patch some unit get a cost increase (like jaguar warriors), which is a proof that the developers think it was too powerful, while some others get a price reduction (as Onis) or some "nation love" like MA ulm, which is a proof that developers perceived it as weaker than average.

Probably some of the nations that people claim now that "are balanced" will get a nerf or buff in next, or a future, patch. This will discredit the affirmation that it was balanced.

[thejeff]

Well, the problem with relying on a list of games won to determine balance issues is that there are so many other factors - player skill, alliances, location and neighbors, size of game, simple luck, etc - that even blatantly more powerful nations don't always win and our sample size simply isn't large enough to be significant for anything but the most overpowered nations.
If one nation has won twice out of 20 games is it twice as powerful as a nation that has only won once? Or even twice as likely to win?

[Gandalf Parker]

Good points. And this is the MultiPlayer notes which only reflects part of what the game is.

Some of my favorite nations probably rate low in wins but I love them because they are more FUN to play (at least in solo games). Or because, in MP games they are excellent as allies so that can be a selling point for me. I tend to do better as an ally than in trying to conquer the world.

[Tifone]

Gandalf Parker said:
Call me a fanboi if you want...



FANBOY!!
FANBOY FANBOY FANBOY!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Joking, you're true. 2 games unplayable for new players were i.e. starcraft and warcraft. lots of game gurus destroying you in a matter of seconds, you just weren't able to understand what to do. Oh well, at least those weren't my kind of games, I have yet to realize how to enjoy a game in which i have to control every single worker, every singl building, every single unit, every single active ability of every single unit... what the hell am I?? That's not being a general, that's being crazy!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif No fun for me there.

Surely an expert player of dom3 can destroy me easily. But the strange thing is that it would not frustrate me. Really. I have yet to try an MP game, but seeing the tactics of experts would just amaze me. That's the main reason for me not complaining about unbalanced nations - I can choose them for flavour and well, if the game went bad, it went this way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Maybe even because while a warcraft is just a matter of numbers (time, damage dealt per second and lots of other things), well in dom3 there are lots of numbers too, you can study them and put on a great strategy, but you can even send them all to hell and just enjoy the theme of your, and your enemies', nations. ^_^

[Amhazair]

thejeff said:
Well, the problem with relying on a list of games won to determine balance issues is that there are so many other factors - player skill, alliances, location and neighbors, size of game, simple luck, etc - that even blatantly more powerful nations don't always win and our sample size simply isn't large enough to be significant for anything but the most overpowered nations.
If one nation has won twice out of 20 games is it twice as powerful as a nation that has only won once? Or even twice as likely to win?

Aye. That's actually what I meant by my previous post. There are nations without a win yet, but is that significant if there's only ~30 games total played in the era, many of which won't have had all or even nearly all nations in them, regardless of all those other factors? Marverni is widely regarded as one of the weaker nations in MP, and yet they have 2 wins, putting them squarely in the middle. Is this significant? Or pure coincidence? Around the time when everyone was claiming Helheim was overpowered they hadn't recorded a single win yet - which some people thought intresting. Yet a short time later there suddenly were 3 Helheim wins in a short time, putting them near the top. I doubt it was because Helheim suddenly got stronger. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (In fact it was just after Helheim got significantly weaker, though all 3 those games were started before the nerfs. )

Basically, all what Thejeff says.

[JimMorrison]

Herode said:
Now, your first 3 ratings (early/mid/late game power) can be computed without a poll. If the hosts agreed to deliver some stats on the games they are hosting at defined schedules (let's say turns 25/50/75 or whatever to be tuned by experienced domguys after the initial settings of the game), then you could collect amounts of empirical and objective data.

Also, it could be very interesting if you were able to mix this with additional data about the players themselves (basically, how many MP did they play before the current one as a measure of their experience). Though informations about players themselves may be more difficult to obtain, it should be straightforward to collect the data for or all games running with stats on (provided the hosts collaborate, of course).




Actually I think that would reflect more on the 5th rating, than anything. Multiplayer Usability. But even then, there are so many other factors - most of the people that I've seen eliminated early in MP games stated that either a) they did something really stupid or experimental with their build, or b) they were just minding their own business and (insert nation here) dual blessed troops landed on their capital with no warning. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Wrana]

Oh well, at least those weren't my kind of games, I have yet to realize how to enjoy a game in which i have to control every single worker, every singl building, every single unit, every single active ability of every single unit... what the hell am I?? That's not being a general, that's being crazy!!! No fun for me there.


Agree wholeheartedly. Micromanagement can be fun, but in small dosage. And furthermore, games such as you mention often compress time to the point where whole cities are built in minutes, which is crazier still... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
Considering using wins' numbers - there are generally two facts which make these non-relevant: first, that we have too little numbers for meaningful statistics here; second, that we have no controlled environment for such statistics. They can be used, as I said, to weight players' opinions against, but that's all...

[Tifone]

JimMorrison said:
a) they did something really stupid or experimental with their build, or b) they were just minding their own business and (insert nation here) dual blessed troops landed on their capital with no warning. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



I can sense a disturbance in the Force http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif I feel that one or another or even both of these possibilities will likely happen to me in my first 10/12 MP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif Destiny or plain intuition?

[Herode]

Considering using wins' numbers - there are generally two facts which make these non-relevant: first, that we have too little numbers for meaningful statistics here; second, that we have no controlled environment for such statistics. They can be used, as I said, to weight players' opinions against, but that's all...


Agreed. That's why I suggest to use full stats and not only wins' numbers. I mean : being second, third, last one, eradicated on turn 20 or still alive on turn 75 also means something, doesn't it ? Of course, only numbers of stat files could give a reliable idea and this idea will not be context sensitive (unless proper data collection &amp; processing). But neither are the ratings we are giving to Jim. These numbers, once compiled, will "just" be rough statistical evaluations.

[Zeldor]

There are just few games submitted to hall of fame. And many many of them are newbie games, there are also team games, etc etc.

[Wrana]

Team games COULD be used to look for survivability, etc. But yes, prime reason this can't be enough is that there are just too few of them...

[triqui]

thejeff said:
If one nation has won twice out of 20 games is it twice as powerful as a nation that has only won once? Or even twice as likely to win?



No. But if you find that the 4 nations that win more total 50% of the victories, and happen to be 4 nations with strong sacreds, and that most of the nations that has never won dont have strong sacreds, or sacreds at all, that might be a trend.

2vs1 is not relevant. 4 vs 0 is a bit more (even if not deffinitive)

[thejeff]

Agreed. I think it's clear to all that LA Ermor and R'lyeh are powerhouses.
The other eras are closer.

And it's very hard to draw any conclusions about the low end. Where there are multiple nations that haven't won at all.

[Tifone]

But they're just so thematically KOOOOOOOL!!!!

[triqui]

Some of the strong nations are as well thematically cool (ermor MA is a good example imho). Some nations that are very low end are not the "coolest" ones thematically as well. So that's not a cause-effect relationship.

[Endoperez]

triqui said:
Some of the strong nations are as well thematically cool (ermor MA is a good example imho). Some nations that are very low end are not the "coolest" ones thematically as well. So that's not a cause-effect relationship.



But then, some of the low-end nation are very cool. EA Agartha is awesome...

[triqui]

To add an extra evaluations:

MA Shinuyama: 2-5-4-2-2. (weak army for early expansion, lack of sacreds and low morale make them attractive nation to be rushed. Later, they have access to very strong army buffs and one of the best, if not the best, and more cost effective mages in the game which happen to be non-capital. Late game they have strong Death which means strong thugs and Tartarian factory, and easy access to game-winning BE like Army of Gold+Heat from hell)

[Wrana]

Bump?

[JimMorrison]

This thread kind of bobs up and down a bit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I really should edit those first posts to reflect my easing of the restrictions for posting ratings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I guess I just overestimated the number of oldtimers who would find this interesting enough to take the time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Hmmmm, maybe this will finally get me to drag myself into IRC and bug some people there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[Omnirizon]

I think it's just too hard to really quantify the nations.

there are some obviously powerful nations.
but I can think of ways to counter certain of them with what are considered very weak nations in the same age.

I would almost say that
powerful = obvious and easy to use powerful strategy

that said, some nations are overpowered, but by and large, most of them have options available which makes them all scary in the hands of a crafty player.

[JimMorrison]

Well this is absolutely true. But to the more experienced player, "power" is relative to the amount of options, so if one tactic fails or just isn't applicable to a particular foe, you have something to fall back on.

This is why nations such as Ulm and Abysia should tend to rate consistently low, as they are more 1 dimensional than other nations, and are more easily defeated. But by the same token, since Early Game has much to do with expansion against indies, they'd do well there, since they have cheap and heavily armored troops, but then their relative "power" begins to drop off somewhat compared to other races who can more easily change gears to counter an unexpected threat.

[JimMorrison]

Thought I'd give this a little nudge back to visibility. :p Personally, I'm becoming experienced enough to feel comfortable adding my own ratings - though perhaps not QUITE as extensive as QM's list. :D

Maybe some other people have more content to add? Would be nice to eventually actually be able to tabulate some sort of average. :D

[sector24]

Are there really not enough ratings to tabulate?

[JimMorrison]

Most people only submitted a small handful, other than QM. I haven't looked back in awhile, but as I watched the posts come in, it seemed like very few nations had 3 or more people rate them. You can average 2 numbers, but it's in no way representative of an actual statistical examination. :p

Granted, it'll be hard to get enough to really give anything excessively accurate - but it shouldn't be hard to get a lot more ratings than we've got so far. :D