Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[Aezeal]

I wonder why QM thinks niefelheim is 5-4-5.. I can see them starting very strong and getting less in the mid game.. but why 5 again in the end?

[quantum_mechani]

Well, as I was saying, late game rating is pretty purely theoretical. However, niefel's commanders contribute more to the late game than most nation's- mages resistant to artillery, free SC/thug chassis.

[Xietor]

For now I will only rate 3 of my top MA Nations. I am not rating ease of learning and ease of use, just the early, mid, and endgame strengths.(i will add others until it is complete)

Pythium 3 5 5
Ermor 5 4 4
Ryleh 3 4 5
Shinuyama 2 4 4
Ctis 3 5 3

[JimMorrison]

Take your tim Xi. It seems this will be a work in progress for some time.

And Jeff, I do agree with that somewhat. But some people's favorites, they will still tell you to *always* take an awake SC because their early troops are awful. I'm not looking for people to just pick nations to bash to round out the curve, just to look at things fairly so that the numbers have relevance. Truthfully, I would like to see very few nations at 1 or 5. But with a 5 point scale, that's kind of sticky, originally I was going to do 1-10, and I think a lot of people's 5's would end up as 8 or 9 if I had done so, but I was convinced this would get more input..... oh the humanity!

And Wrana, just bear in mind, a big part of that really is the Ease of Learning. Like Caelum for example, I think is very hard to learn how to use properly. At least for me, I tried them twice with such terrible failure, it took a third and very concerted effort, once I new the game a lot better, to finally tackle them and learn how to effectively leverage their strengths. And they're not even a nation like Yomi/Shinu where it's hard to discern where the strengths actually lie - you can see them, but making them effective is just not a simple thing.

[Wrana]

Agree. You can subtract 1 from "ease of learning" for nations which caused such controversy. Actually, I'd suggest you do it routinely for nations causing much discussion - if there is that much disagreement, than they are surely not so easy to learn after all!

[Gandalf Parker]

Good point. That is probably the best way for me to voice my pert peeve. Its not that the player is missing the point, its that the nation is not one of the easier ones to learn how to play.

Speaking of which....
in testing out things about PD I came across something I had not realized. Did you know that those stupid little monkeys that some people hate have a scout with +50 stealth? They are able to get thru PD of 125 (the max I can test easily by my present method). Most stealth troops are stealth of 0, most national scouts are stalth +10, Caelum scouts are +15, Pangaea +20, and Vanheim +35 (all early era).

For those who dont know, most of the things on a units info display will give more info if you click it.

[Ming]

I enjoy this thread very much but I also have difficulty myself in summarizing various nation's strength at different periods. I think there might be danger that different people mean very different things by their ratings.

For my part the greatest difficulty I have in rating these nations (aside from being relatively inexperienced in general and ZERO experience in MP) is that often one can make conscious trade-offs in the timing of a nations strength through different pretender designs.

Take Bogarus for example, most players will take an awake SC pretender to overcome its weak starting troops, at the expense of its late game strength - which it can probably manage without help from its pretender. On the other hand, few would take an awake pretender on nations with strong sacreds. So should one compare the early game strength of Bogarus with an awake Dom10 Wyrm with dual bless nations without the benefit of an awake pretender as opposed to a straight forward comparison?

It is even more complex for many of the nations in the middle. How one spend the design points and when the pretender awakes have major bearings on the strength of a nation at various periods and can be tailored by the player.

If the ratings are accompanied by some references to the Pretender choice it might clarify matters somewhat.

[Xietor]

The reason i gave top rating to Ctis in the Midgame, is their research and income are second to none. They should be the 1st nation to have banelords, constr 6 gear, shadow blast etc. to supplement their admittedly weak national troops.

Ctis mages are good early with skelly spam. Their main weakness is Wolven Winter that a prudent enemy casts before every battle with them.

Shinuyama is a 4 late game for me because they get every mage at every castle, and their mages can cast banefire, which has no resist. Ghost riders and earth attacks are easy for them as well.

[Endoperez]

EDIT: ninja'd by quantum, and I guess his reasons wrong as well.


MA Ulm:
Early: 2
Middle: 2
Late: 3
Learning: 3
Use: 2

You'll need clever tactics to get to late game, and need Blood Stones to survive late middle/all of late. This drops ease of use, because blood hunting is boring.

[Amhazair]

EA Ermor: 3 4 3 2 3 (Solid yet unspectacular early game with legionaries, nice communion battlemagic potential in mid game. Low max levels in S prevent it from being the late game powerhouse other S nations can be. Mastering communions and lots of low-level not easy to boost paths make it quite tricky to learn. )
EA Sauromatia 4 4 4 3 3 (Just plain solid nation, with a large variety of strong options in all stages of the game. It might be worth a 2 in ease of learning simply due to the large number of options available, but in the end went with 3 as whatever option you choose is bound to be at least decent. )
EA Helheim: 5 3 3 4 4 (Obvious early game power. They do have a good number of mid/late game options available (magma eruption, good A/D magic, powerful(flying) stealthy raiders, but a lot of it is capital only, lowering their rating a bit. )
EA Yomi: 1 4 3 2 2 (Easily the most difficult expansion of all nations I played so far. Mid game with recruitable Dai Oni and strong battlemagic is very solid. Mastering early expansion, figuring the best uses for the quite crappy military, and the many uses of Dai Oni make them quite hard to learn. )
EA Oceania: 5 1 2 3 3 (Amazing early game potential, but getting out of the water is an unbelievable pain in the ***. Their only saving grace past early game is easy clam-access. )

MA Ulm: 2 4 2 4 4 (Your troops are decent enough for expansion, but you have a number of vulnerablilities in early wars. Hordes of smiths spamming magma eruption behind a wall of steel make mid-game their day of glory. Late game their lack of magic diversity haunts them. The limited number of magic paths make them quite easy to use and script. )
MA Abysia: 3 4 3 2 2 (Solid and fire immune if expensive troops and fire evocations make for a decent enough early and mid game. Late game they can leverage the power of blood, but expensive & capital only bloodhunters and lack of other tricks limits them. Crippling capital dependance, old age issues, blood magic, and path boosting difficulties make this nation hard to play.
MA C'tis: 2 4 3 2 2 (Recruitable everywhere marshmasters with skellespam and poison tricks make for a very powerful mid game. Late game marshmasters remain top-class mages, and shaman/couatls allow communions and astral tricks. The miasma makes it difficult to diversify their magic though (bringing their lategame rating down a notch) and also explains the low learning/ease of use ratings. )
MA Jotunheim: 4 4 3 4 3 (Easily massable sacreds for a potentially strong early game, cheap researchers, thugs and body ethereal in mid game. Somehow, despite having astral, death and blood magic I feel they slowly peter out towards late game. )
MA R'lyeh: 3 3 5 2 3 (Nothing extraordinary about the early stages of their game, but nigh on unstopable as soon as you get your Starspawn & cheap communion slaves going. Learing how to get out of the water with chaffy troops and communions make them not the easiest nation to learn. )

LA Pangaea: 4 3 3 4 4 (Two very different but equally nice varieties of sacreds and minotaurs make early game a breeze. Mid game your Pans can buff your very solid military to greater hights. High hp mages and troops and high MR are great assets for late game, but you lack magical diversity. )
LA Utgard: 4 4 4 2 3 (A very solid nation all around. Good sacreds, strong thugs, amazing cheap mages, strong communions, very decent S/D magic, and good blood access.
LA Atlantis: 2 3 2 4 5 (Strong but resource heavy troops. Coupled with strong W/D mages and cold resistant troops they make for a decent mid game. Late game the mages high hp and high death magic are useful, but appalling lack of other options leave them rather weak. That same lack of options and obvious strengths make them easy to use though. )
LA R'lyeh: 4 4 5 2 1 (I agree with QM about giving LA R'lyeh a 6 for endgame strength. Masses of freespawn chaff make for good expansion, and proper use of illithids and mages make early/mid game solid enough. Late game is ridiculously powerful, combining MA's magical power with virtually limitless chaff hordes - who suddenly become a lot more fearsome when massively buffed by your communions. Freespawn requiring two kinds of leadership, madness and large communions makes playing them a micromanagement nightmare. )