POLL: Nation Preferences

[sum1lost]

Lanka has the best late-game of any nation, IMO, and should have a very powerful early game, if played well. Their middle game isn't terrible, especially if played carefully.

[K]

sum1lost said:
Lanka has the best late-game of any nation, IMO, and should have a very powerful early game, if played well. Their middle game isn't terrible, especially if played carefully.

Heh. The Multiplay scores don't agree.

Sure, the "Victorious Nations/Hall of Fame" scores aren't a truly representative sample, but I've never even heard of someone winning a MP game with Lanka (other than me in a single Newbie game).

[sum1lost]

The multiplayer scores aren't a very good sample, either. Especially since Lanka hasn't been around as many of the other nations.

One thing about this game is that nations seen as strong get ganged up on, so their performance is hurt. But seen equally, lanka has a number of strengths over its opponents.

[K]

sum1lost said:
The multiplayer scores aren't a very good sample, either. Especially since Lanka hasn't been around as many of the other nations.

One thing about this game is that nations seen as strong get ganged up on, so their performance is hurt. But seen equally, lanka has a number of strengths over its opponents.

Is it their poor late-game magic, small numbers of expensive troops that die easily to magic, or their complete and utter dependence on province-destroying Blood Magic? Or is it that a person with a modest Pretender and decent research can summon better mages than they can ever make?

They have a great early game, but they just don't compete against a nation that has even a little research under their belt in either summoning or battle magic.

As someone who has played them a lot in both MP and
SP, I can vouch for that. Forgive me if this is rude, but most people who think Lanka is great are armchair quarterbacks who have played a game or two in SP on small maps and never had to deal with the problems of playing Lanka's late game against more than four players (human or otherwise).

I might be missing some killer late-game app, but for my money most EA nations are better than Lanka past turn 30.

[LDiCesare]

I tend to like Agartha EA. They can't hit an elephant in a corridor, but they have nice summons. I like the fire gnomes, earth elementals and umbrals a lot. Umbrals in particular.

MA is more mixed. I voted Arco though I play many and Pythium comes near too.

LA I like Atlantis a lot. It may not be powerful but it's easy to figure out. Death magic. Make everyone else age and die of old age. Probably not worth much in MP, though.

Marverni is definitely my worst. I played it once in a thematic MP game and it is the worst nation I ever played with. Ulm MA is weak too in the end game.

As for Lanka, I don't think it' that strong. I once tested a Kailasa vs Lanka 'Ramayana' game myself vs myself and the hyper strong demons just got banished (and otherwise killed) away by Kailasa's mage priests. I may have played it badly, but its mages and troops are probably far too expensive for an empire to produce as many mages as your opponents and the end game is not that easy because of that. Sure, they have nice summons, but it's not enough.

[Humakty]

I don't understand why Late ulm had so many votes for weakest.Do you have a problem with persons drenching their thirst with the blood of...hurm, no nothin' to say..
As for Lanka, I think that a wise player should go for the less rapid, but more reliable Kala-Mukha.
They have a good access to many paths.
Their only pbm is the fact everyone knows they are powerful, and that having 9F/9W on your god doesn't make for a great late game.(but maybe some people tried without?)
A big pbm with demons/undead is that by playing with a lot of them, you make your ennemy rentabilize is priests.(who are quite useless on the battlefield,apart from bless).I can imagine a ctis player would laugth a lot against a demon/undead storm.
As a rule of thumb, when you discover a good combo in this game, be prepared to the counter a 'minor' civ might have.

[Cor2]

LDiCesare said:

Marverni is definitely my worst. I played it once in a thematic MP game and it is the worst nation I ever played with. Ulm MA is weak too in the end game.

I am right there with you. Marverni+ MP = suck.