Balance on small maps

[Twan]

Endo... Have you tried a non-blessed rush with these scales ? I've made a fast test solo. Small random map, 250% all, indie 7, easy research.

Maverni take an awake wyrm dominion 10, no magic, prod 1 ord 1.
Vanheim take an imprisoned pretender, dom 10, sloth 3, cold 3, drain 1, w9f9 bless

I think it's not far to be balanced...

turn 1 : vanheim make a prophet and can make 8 vanherses + recruit a van (or may take 1 province with starting troops if they are lucky in a blind attack) ; maverni make a prophet, take a province (except in case of very very bad luck), make 14 carnute nobles and a mage (or can take 2 provinces if they are very lucky with a blind attack, and recruit 13 nobles and a leader).

turn 2 : vanheim can take a province, and make 8 vanherses + recruit a van (or can make 9 vanherses) ; maverni take 2 provinces, make 17 eponi knights and a new 80 leader + a commander and 22 archers on the first province taken

turn 3 : vanheim can take 2 provinces and make 10 vanherses + 2 hirdmen, maverni take 3, make 22 eponi knights, a new leader, 2 new commanders, 22 archers, 14 indep heavy infantry

turn 4 : vanheim attack 3 provinces, maverni chose to take just 2 as a vanheim army is just 1 province away from the the wyrm (they know it as they have moved their scout since the beginning) ; 3 maverni armies (2x22 archers + starting maverning troops) with the wyrm encounter and defeat the first vanheim army in a neutral province, but suffer heavy casualties ; finally vanheim has just taken 2 provinces, and lost 8 sacred units + some of its starting troops (the prophet has escaped) ; the two nations continue to build troops (+ a mage for maverni)

turn 5 : the wyrm is now with a remaining pack of archers in a province neighbouring vanheim, they can probablty destroy vanheim province defense, except if the 2 remaining little vanheim armies move and patrol it ; the two nations continue to build troops (+ a 80 leader for maverni)

turn 6 : vanheim take 0 province as they must defend ; maverni take one, build troops everywhere (+ a mage), move one army with 17 cavalry to the province with the wyrm (neighboring vanheim capital) and add 21 pd to it

turn 7 : vanheim with all the troops on the capital has a good chance to take back the wyrm province (in my game they easily massacred province defense and killed the wyrm and some archers at this point suffering only 7 losses, but wiped as their leaders were killed by cavalry ; with bodyguards or more luck they should have succeeded ... But the wyrm may also have avoided them and attacked another province neighbouring Vanheim, or another one without risk to be killed by Vanheim forces, many possibilities at this point) ; anyway maverni is now building another castle, vanheim has 4 provinces to take before sieging the first one and maverni 3 times more troops + 3 mages researching (they know a school at 2 at this point)

PS : with death or misfortune 3 instead of sloth 3, vanheim may have more chances (4 more sacred units built in the first turns, 2 more in the army fighting maverni the 1st time) ; as well an heavy bless is far better on a slightly larger map (I think dom3minions server maps are a little bigger than the small random map I've used) , one more province between the capitals = 10 more sacred units recruited before being threatened (and a probable victory in the 1st encounter)

After all, imagining the same pretenders on a little bigger map, I finally agree with you, heavy blesses may be overpowered with most duel settings/maps.

[Endoperez]

Twan said:
Endo... Have you tried a non-blessed rush with these scales ? I've made a fast test solo. Small random map, 250% all, indie 7, easy research.

Maverni take an awake wyrm dominion 10, no magic, prod 1 ord 1.
Vanheim take an imprisoned pretender, dom 10, sloth 3, cold 3, drain 1, w9f9 bless

I didn't test with a SC.

If Vanheim takes additional Order 3 Death 2, and just Dominion 9 (still not quite what it would be in a MP), they can make 8 Vanheres every turn including the first, except if they recruit another resource-heavy commander before they've taken other provinces. In a small map against many AIs, on the second turn I took Sauromatia's capital, with high losses. The third turn, I destroyed Arcoscephale's whole army, with high losses, and let Sauromatia have their capital back. Fourth turn, I destroyed Caelum's 20 man army with 5 mammoths with heavy losses. Fifth turn, I moved into position and destroyed 20-strong Myrmidon army of Arcoscephale - this time without losses. Seventh turn, I took Arcoscephale's capital's PD and a province from Caelum.

The eight turn, Sauromatia's 150-strong army attacks me and kills 12 of my Vanheres, and killed about 40 units. I also defeated another Arcos army without losses.

Ninth turn, I defeated Sauromatia's 110-man army.

I quess I could play a better test, but I know I couldn't defeat this kind of nation if it came knocking on my gates on turn 9.

Oh, and I could recruit a mage every turn.

I recruited nothing but 9 Vanheres every turn, even if I could've produced e.g. several Mounted Hirdmen, or some Serf Warriors to work as arrow fodder, which would've made those horrible losses I suffered even in the battles I won much more reasonable. And of course, 2x the Vanheres are more than 2x as good, because the enemy infantry is killed/routs faster and enemy archers are killed/routed faster.

EDIT: "Second turn" etc are the turns I ordered the attacks from. It gets a bit confusing once it's enemy that attacks me, but the last turn was turn 10.

[WraithLord]

I have made a short experiment as follows:

Pretnders:
Arco:
Virtue, D-6, order 3, sloth -3, heat -0, growth -3, luck -0, magic -2. A6,E4. Awake.

Van:
Blue dragon, D-10, order 3, sloth -3, cold -3, death -3, misfortune -3, drain -2. W9,F9. Imprisoned.

Default settings.

Turn 1
Arco:
Recruit 9 peltast. Virtue to research. Myrmid. Champ prohpetize.
province count: 1.

Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse. prophetize vanherse.
province count: 1.

Turn 2
Arco:
Recruit Myrmid Champ and 2 peltast. Invade two provinces - 1 with virtue, 2 with first army.
province count: 1.

Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse. Prophet Vanhers invade one province.
province count: 1.

Turn 3
Arco:
Captured two provinces. one adjacent to Van. In this province set defense to 20 and move army. recruit in all provinces. Virtue to search province.
province count: 3.
Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse.
Capture province, plague strike and half pop. are dead.
Invade Arco province with main army and a lightly defended indie province with Vanherse and vanhere.
province count: 2.

on turn 4 Van army is defeated. The Vanherse survived but most of their troops died. Arco took medium casualties. In this battle the Virtue was untoucheble and killed Vans units with impunity.

Of course Van could have focused on defense but Arco would have invaded them with increasingly bigger armies.

Now, this experiment doesn't suggest that bless isn't useful. Only that even on small maps its possible to counter if one set in mind that he's going to face a bless heavy nation.

[alexti]

WraithLord said:
I have made a short experiment as follows:

Pretnders:
Arco:
Virtue, D-6, order 3, sloth -3, heat -0, growth -3, luck -0, magic -2. A6,E4. Awake.

Van:
Blue dragon, D-10, order 3, sloth -3, cold -3, death -3, misfortune -3, drain -2. W9,F9. Imprisoned.

Default settings.

You take unnecessarily bad scales with Van and it hurts you. Take Father of Winters, imprisoned, F9W9 Dom6, Order+3, Prod +1, cold 1, death 1, misfortune 3, drain 3.
Don't recruit vanherse on the first turn, you don't need extra commander yet, just vanheres (likely 5). Prophetise scout. Next turn add vaheres to starting army and send them together with prophet to conquer. After that you should be able to recruit 6 vanheres and 1 vanherse or vanjarl every second turn. You won't be losing any vanheres, only minor losses will come from your starting army. When you meet Arco, you'll defeat them easily, losing only your easily replaceable starting troops.

You can vary starting scales a bit. Dom 10 is a bad decision, at high end scale one extra vanhere doesn't worth 100 design points. Something in 6-8 range is reasonable.
If you don't play for uber-rush you can swap drain 3,cold 1 for drain 2, cold 2, for example.

[Sorlakind]

Arralen's post on this thread was spot-on and nobody seems to have replied to it, so i'll make the point again.

The growth scale has negligible effect so you can take death-3 to pay for your uber-bless strategies with no real harm. So basically, you can go and kill off your *believers*. By the tinker-bell effect, it stands to reason that your dominion should die off and yet it doesn't. In extreme cases, you could conceivably have your lands at dominion 10 and... empty of believers. Worse, if I take a growth scale and choose a thematically life-related god, I have not even a mildly effective way to counter and repopulate your laid-to-waste lands again, so why bother to even invade and defend them? This effect is more severe in small maps, but even in large-ish ones, the speed of your expansion and the devastating effects of your dominion can more than pay the loss of gold from your population dying.