Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN

[Edratman]

At last, a MA thread complaining about some nation other than Ulm.

[KissBlade]

Believe it or not, if Bandar doesn't have elephants (a rather broken unit anyway), I think MA Ulm has a very strong chance of winning the matchup.

Also, I think Lord_Bob is making a different claim than what some people think. Essentially, if you look at it as IF Monkey nations had better PD, they would win MORE games. It doesn't look as properly constructed.

[thejeff]

Well yeah, but that's pretty much a truism.

If X had better Y, they would win more games. Isn't that true for any X and Y? (Though some things might be so trivial as to have no effect.)

[Lord_Bob]

Ok, let's take a basic scenario. You have main armies, each on the edge of the the nations border. Both can attack two different provinces of the other player. The player that is playing T'ien Ch'i buys 55 gold worth of PD in his two bordering provinces(a 400 gold army each) and then rushes one of the Patala provinces. The two worst cases for Patala are if Patala hops to the side and T'ien Ch'i charges, T'ien Ch'i takes a Patala province, and Patala takes nothing. If T'ien Ch'i attacks the other province, while Patala charges, then Patala still must face the 400 gold army, while T'ien Ch'i is unharmed by the Patala PD. Worse, now T'ien Ch'i's main army can now attack significantly deeper into Patala than Patala's main army can move to block. Every 15 soldier force broken off siezes a province, builds 10 PD(400 gold worth of soldiers) and then rejoins the main army the turn after. Should Patala break up it's soldiers to attack these province.. oh wait, it can't, because it needs at least an 600 gold army to dispatch 55 gold worth of PD without more casualities than the PD is worth. Of course, it CAN do this, but it is loosing money at it. Meanwhile, T'ien Ch'i occassionally loses a 150 gold force... but deprives it's enemy of far more income than those 150 gold of soldiers are worth. The best case that can happen for Patala is that it guesses right, but doesn't have to face T'ien Ch'i's main army with 400+ gold of PD tacked on. Basically, this will only happen 37.5% of the time. Of course, T'ien Ch'i can still win that fight.

Or T'ien Ch'i can send out a 150 gold raiding force, and sit in the province it is in, hoping to be attacked with the Dominion bonus it has and 400 gold of PD. If Patala fails to hop to the side, the next turn T'ien Ch'i's main army joins the raiding force... and maybe T'ien Ch'i buys a ridiclious amount of PD hoping that Patala attacks and maybe not.

[Valandil]

Lord_Bob said:
Ok, let's take a basic scenario. You have main armies, each on the edge of the the nations border. Both can attack two different provinces of the other player. The player that is playing T'ien Ch'i buys 55 gold worth of PD in his two bordering provinces(a 400 gold army each) and then rushes one of the Patala provinces. The two worst cases for Patala are if Patala hops to the side and T'ien Ch'i charges, T'ien Ch'i takes a Patala province, and
Patala takes nothing. If T'ien Ch'i attacks the other province, while Patala charges, then Patala still must face the 400 gold army, while T'ien Ch'i is unharmed by the Patala PD. Worse, now T'ien Ch'i's main army can now attack significantly deeper into Patala than Patala's main army can move to block. Every 15 soldier force broken off siezes a province, builds 10 PD(400 gold worth of soldiers) and then rejoins the main army the turn after. Should Patala break up it's soldiers to attack these province.. oh wait, it can't, because it needs at least an 600 gold army to dispatch 55 gold worth of PD without more casualities than the PD is worth. Of course, it CAN do this, but it is loosing money at it. Meanwhile, T'ien Ch'i occassionally loses a 150 gold force... but deprives it's enemy of far more income than those 150 gold of soldiers are worth. The best case that can happen for Patala is that it guesses right, but doesn't have to face T'ien Ch'i's main army with 400+ gold of PD tacked on. Basically, this will only happen 37.5% of the time. Of course, T'ien Ch'i can still win that fight. Or T'ien Ch'i can send out a 150 gold raiding force, and sit in the province it is in, hoping to be attacked with the Dominion bonus it has and 400 gold of PD. If Patala fails to hop to the side, the next turn T'ien Ch'i's main army joins the raiding force... and maybe T'ien Ch'i buys a ridiclious amount of PD hoping that Patala attacks and maybe not.

Err... so? Only relevant if both nations are equal in toher respects. If Tien Chi could never win a battle with Patala (not true, I know,) then, eventually, Patala would reach about as many provinces as armies. At the same time, Tien Chi would get the remaining provinces, and spend the gold on troops. Thse troops, however, would e absolutely useless because they could not win a fight. It would be like throwing stones across an ocean: number of stones doesn't make much difference.

Of course, that is an extreme example, but again, it demonstrates that nations are not balanced by PD alone. If you modified the original to something like: very weak PD has a disproportionate effect on nation balance, so much so that otherwise balanced nations such as kailasa become weaker than they should be, and in fact have difficulty winning games (maybe), then I MIGHT agree.

Although I'm still not sure that Kailasa eg. is actually a weak nation.

[sum1lost]

KissBlade said:
Believe it or not, if Bandar doesn't have elephants (a rather broken unit anyway), I think MA Ulm has a very strong chance of winning the matchup.

Also, I think Lord_Bob is making a different claim than what some people think. Essentially, if you look at it as IF Monkey nations had better PD, they would win MORE games. It doesn't look as properly constructed.

You may want to reread the title of the thread. "Why patala, bandar log, and kailasa NEVER WIN is pretty cut and dried in terms of meaning.

[Lord_Bob]

Yes it is.

I even posted an example, which, of course, hasn't been commented on.