Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[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 & 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 & 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 & less summons)
MA Shinuyama 3? 4 4? 2 2? (no sacreds & 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
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?
Considering Bogarus army I should point out that while their voi infantry are unimpressive - but these are MILITIA! 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... 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...
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... So it seems that I at least can expand with those troops fast enough.
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.

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...
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!