Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[quantum_mechani]

Gandalf Parker said:
Nations are often loudly rated by people who love blitz games and strategy by massed armored troops.

This comes off as a little derogatory towards people where prefer smaller and quicker games. Which is aside from the fact that almost any competent blitz player will tell you that relying on masses of armored troops is one of the classic missteps of people new to multiplayer.

[Gandalf Parker]

I suppose it does abit. I probably should be more lenient. After all, blitz games naturally tend to be the most numerous games so blitz opinions should probably carry the weight of a vocal majority. As long as it doesnt come across as the only answer.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think they are the most numerous games, SP games are. And certainly not even close to a majority of players. I would roughly guess only about about 10-20% of the total number of MP players play blitz games.

I'm also not sure there is a dichotomy between people who are good at blitzes and those good at long term games- almost everyone I can think of who plays blitz games plays other dominions multiplayer games as well.

[JimMorrison]

Well there again you'll find an interesting dynamic though. Blitzes will rely more on early game strength. Smaller maps with less than 15 provinces per player and less than 10 players will shift more towards mid game strength being of primary importance in victory. While finally, larger and longer games is where the late game strength will more often be the deciding factor. (though any game that is mid-late game focused will still be affected by the earlier stages of course, just that late game strength is meaningless in a blitz game)

So theoretically, if there were an enormous amount of ratings submitted, MP Ease of Play would be skewed slightly towards early game strength, where a nation whose strength progression went 5-3-3 would tend be consider better for MP success than a nation who played as 3-3-5. But mainly because we're not differentiating between lengths of games, I thought rating in 5 different categories was a good compromise between detail of the data, and user friendliness of the chart.