Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[Endoperez]

Gandalf Parker said:

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

Actually, he was saying that a nation that was in a bad position at turn 20 couldn't win the game. By his theory, in, say, ten nations left in the game by turn 20, and 4 of them have conquered another nation and have two capitals. If magic resources including research, and the amount of military power left, and the composition of the armies, and the dominion strengths etc aren't rather extraodrinary, one of the four nations would win. Of course, strength of a nation isn't directly related to just the resources available to it, but let's use this as an example.

If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

However, if the four nations in good position are in the good position because they are controlled by the players with most optimized strategies, Graeme's description is totally accurate. The best players' skill shines through in the early game, and will let them control the late game against less experienced players (who learn from them and become more skilled).

[Baalz]

Endoperez said:
If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

Well, yes and no. Yes, there is a definite advantage to having a larger territory and controlling a second capital, but at this point in the game there is also a growing advantage to having more of a long term focus rather than dual-bless-crappy-scales-no-research-expand-as-fast-as-possible. Its easily possible that one of the "smaller" nations has more income and more research than one of the "leaders" in this case. When you throw in the fact that the more aggressive (and nominally leading) players are more likely to have enemies and less likely to have strong alliances (people don't tend to support someone who seems likely to win) this skews it even more. Certainly it's possible to put yourself enough ahead to take the win with quick expansion, but I disagree that it is the only significant factor that decides who wins. Perhaps it is under certain conditions (few players, small maps, etc.), but as I said before that sounds like a fairly boring game, and doesn't sound like the game I'm playing which IS filled with diplomacy, alliances, effective surprise tactics, dark horse comebacks, counters and shifting strategies, and generally a lot of stuff that makes a whole lot of different play styles viable.

[Dedas]

I agree with Baalz 100%. This is what I am seeing in the games I play in, but then again I am not playing the aggressive facehugger in more than one.

I one of the games I even have something as rare as really trustworthy ally whom is helping me with everything I want to do. I only "gained" him because I invested time and a lot of resources in showing that I can be trusted when the enemy is knocking at his gates.
But of course you must be vary of signs that indicate that he is turning against you - as it will happen eventually anyway.
It is a fine line between trust and mistrust; and walking this line is actually something that I believe you must master to be able to do well in many MP games.