Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations

[Gandalf Parker]

They all have something that can be built into a strategy but it might not appeal to you. Arcos for magic research, Ermor for pushing harmful dominion, Jotunheim for defensive strategy, Pangaea for stealth.

Presently Im having alot of fun with Pangaea
-3 order
-3 production
+3 luck
+3 magic
lots of dominion

[Agrajag]

Gandalf Parker said:
Presently Im having alot of fun with Pangaea
-3 order
-3 production
+3 luck
+3 magic
lots of dominion

Aren't you always having fun with Pangaea?
Personally, I'd add in +3 growth to your stew, or atleast +1.
1) To slightly counteract the -income
2) I think some (most? all?) events that affect your population are affected by Growth, so more growth keeps your population safe, and works well with +3 Luck and -3 Order
3) Growth is, in the long run, the best scale for increasing cash-flow, especially so in your gigantic-normous-huge-mungous-colossus-al maps
4) It works well with Pangaea's 2B (though you'd probably only go "that path" in really long games)

[Twan]

1/ Man. Man is an air nation and has longbowmen, you don't need bless, just take a fire 3 prentender, learn "flaming arrow" and you are playing in easy mode.

2/ Abysia can be a very good nation with or without bless. You have fire immune troops with fire shield, you eat vanirs for breakfast.

3/ Machaka is a very good choice for magic oriented strategies, it's not "the reign of sorcerors" for nothing, Machaka mages really rock, you have choice and power, with 5 kinds of mages including non capitol only able to reach 3 in nature, and capitol only with very good survivability (they take spider form if heavily wounded).

4/ EA Ct'is (warning MA C'Tis is bugged and near to be unplayable, and LA C'tis weak without its missing sacred - LA C'Tis is actually a bless nation without sacred troops -)

5/ Pythium, if you like using the very strangely working (bugged?) communion system.

6/ Dom2 Arco was so good that the non-capitol mages were nerfed a lot. You can try MA Arco if you want a non bless nation with lots of useless 1/1 or 1/1/1 non-capitol mages payed as much as the 2/2/1 you try to get (Arco will make you hate the new magic randoms system).... And a nation described as mastering "the elements" but in fact knowing nothing about air. You still have good capitol only mages and priestesses able to heal, but Arco is no longer an above average nation.

edit : Caelum is good too

[Sorlakind]

Add up (only MA SP):

- MA Ulm with a rainbow pretender. This was already mentioned but it's worth repeating. It may be one of the weakest nations around, but it's pretty easy to figure a general strategy for it. And even being one of the weakest you'll mop the floor with the AI's armies

- MA Rlyeh. No sacred troops besides the starspawn priests and the void summons (which you cannot count on, because void summoning is iffy). But it is a very powerful nation, magically speaking. And you start underwater, which gives you some leeway for mistakes/learning/turtling. And you have assassins. And you can set up communions easily. And a Visitor with whatever Vastnesses you can gather positively rocks. And you can clam-hoard. And lots more.

- MA Tien Chi. It has the (big) problem of its best mages being vulnerable to magic duel - and since they are expensive you come out losing. But you have nice troops including crossbows and good cavalry, consorts to disrupt an enemy's economy to a crawl and a wide magical flexibility.

- MA Man. Massive armies of longbows backed up by wind guide and mage artillery. Stealth armies of wardens backed up by Call of the wild. Massive seeking arrows to kill enemy leaders. Bards to disrupt the enemy's economy. The very useful Man's songs that mitigate somewhat their weak priests. Stealth monks to preach in enemy territory. Elite cavalry in the knights of Avalon.

Best regards,

[PDF]

The various Shinuyama eras are also good for non-bless strats. And there's still Caelum, even if they're less powerful than in Dom2.
In fact 60%+ of the nations don't benefit much from a dual bless, either because of weak or capitol-only sacred (or both !).

[QXel]

Hello, Sokar. Welcome here.

Personnaly, I never play a bless strategy, and my Pretender is often a rainbow mage. Usually, I find the sacred troops too much expensive in money and ressources.
So, I garantee you that you could have fun without this kind of strat !!!

For now, I'm play Abysia with a rainbow mage as Pretender, and lot of basic troops (wich are all very good for Abysia, but expensive too ... Some kind of contradictions with my firsts sayings ??? ;o) supported by fire mages. Then, in late mid-game, I turn usually to blood magic (invocations, never battle blood magic : blood slaves aren't fireproff ;o) to finish the IA.

It is really fun and viable as a whole strategy.

[Note : I only play solo, not MP game. So, I don't know if it could stand against a veteran MP gamer]

[Epaminondas]

Sokar said:
Hi everyone, I've beening playing this great game for about a week now, and browsed the boards a bit and saw a lot of bless strats and tried them out with a couple of nations. They are so good that they really turned me off. I'm wondering if there are any good nations that are non-bless based, as it seems that most nations work much better with a bless strat, even with horrible scales. I already tried MA Ulm, which sucked due to its lack of magic. Is there any other good non-bless nations? I usually play random large maps, with 4 AI or less, everything default, if that makes any difference. Also, is F9W9 the holy grail of bless combos? Thanks for your help.

Pythium. They have very strong non-sacred units, and greater gem income to jump start a magic strategy.