Balance on small 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.