Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

thejeff · #1 July 17th, 2008, 12:40 PM

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 · #2 July 17th, 2008, 01:07 PM

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.

Amhazair · #3 July 17th, 2008, 01:41 PM

Quote:

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.

(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.

triqui · #4 July 18th, 2008, 05:05 PM

Quote:

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 · #5 July 18th, 2008, 05:29 PM

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 · #6 July 18th, 2008, 09:24 PM

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

triqui · #7 July 19th, 2008, 01:44 AM

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 · #8 July 19th, 2008, 03:34 AM

Quote:

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 · #9 July 19th, 2008, 08:06 AM

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)