Need opinions on MA Nation power

[Zeldor]

head:

That ranking is for CBM game [so standard mod], all-age game with almost no water and lots of special sites. And team game. So that's the reason why so low scores for MA - you have EA powerhouses that take 8-10 range. And yeah, Ashdod is so powerful that it does not fit in the scale.

I don't see any real reason why some people rate MA Agartha middle and late game so high. I agree that 2 may be too low for them [3-4 would be more realistic, closer to 3], but they are extremely weak early on, very boring and their national strength is not so uber [just bonus hp in your dom for lifeless units, like more HP mattered much later].

Pythium has huge diversity on their mages, which can be boosted by communions to extreme. Add unexplainable gem-income bonus from capital [and it's in S], powerful summons, hydras, heavy infantry... they are strongest MA nation if you ask me [except Ashdod that is].

MA is not really a bless age. You have Jotun with standard E/N bless, Mictlan with usually S9F9, Ermor with W9F9 and that's pretty much it.

[Tyrant]

If you are looking for nations to mod in MA, i'd say Man (though Xeiter did an MA Man balance mod awhile back) and Machaka need the love.

Man can often make a go of it in the early and mid game, but they are notorious for collapsing like a stuck balloon in the later game. So much so that their late game weakness is partially responsible for their early game success- people leave them for later 'cause they know they are easy prey.

I'm not really sure why Machaka never wins, they seem solid to me, but i have not played them since my very first net game of DomII and only fought them once in Dom3. Machaka's also pretty "vanilla." They have no national spells at all and lots of their stuff could be just be updated to the levels of more recent nations. Seems to me you could do all sorts of fun jungle stuff involving lions and creepy-crawlies of all description. I'm too lazy to mod, but i've thought about doing Machaka alot and they'd be my pick.

The other nations that have not won in MA are Bandar (everyone knows this is because of their horrible PD), Atlantis (can't hold their own underwater vs the other two water nations), Vanheim and Eriu. Haven't put much thought into it, but i suspect that the last two may suffer from being very capitol dependent in an age when that is not the norm. The two are quite similar and Vanheim used be considered a top nation.

As to strong nations, well, Pythium's won 7 of 43 game in the HoH, that's almost 1/6 and speaks for itself. People say angels, but i point out that Marignon has angels as well so it's more than that.
Pangaea also has a noticeable win total- 5.5 on the HoH. Personally, i think Ermor and Marignon are under appreciated powerhouses and Caelum is my least favorite opponent in any age.

[Huzurdaddi]

Originally Posted by Tyrant

As to strong nations, well, Pythium's won 7 of 43 game in the HoH, that's almost 1/6 and speaks for itself. People say angels, but i point out that Marignon has angels as well so it's more than that.

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

as has been said their win record kind of speaks for iteslf.

I have to agree with this final point. Although the sample size is not that large it does suggest that Pythium is still quite powerful (I would have expected Arco, Jotun, and Marignon, and Ashdod to have done somewhat better).