Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[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.

[Zeldor]

Ming:

Of course not. We are talking about NATION strength. PoD will add +1 or +2 for early game for every nation. The fact that some nations must take one says a lot about their early game weakness.

JimMorrison:

Still, getting average rating seems like not a best solution. As I said we have many unexperienced players here. Some really outragous ratings should be ignored [or maybe even all ratings from people like that, so they stick to what they know], for example giving Bogarus anything over 3 for early game [even 3 is shady]. We want it to make guideline, especially for new people and we cannot pollute results like that.

[Amhazair]

Ah, but then who decides what is an outrageous rating? If you look just at the ratings that have been submitted so far you can see (for example) me giving EA Yomi an early game rating of one, and EA Oceania a mid game of one too, while QM gives both of those 3. I'd say the difference between average and abysmal is quite big and yet the veteran player and recognized balance expert QM soundly disagrees with my opinion. Now, I could go out on a limb here, and say that obviously QM had temporarily taken leave of his sences when rating those nations, but that seems a dicey supposition at best...

All right then, you might answer. There is indeed a big difference between 1 and 3, but let's rate it as 'barely acceptable' After all, we can hardly disagree with QM the balance guru, so I would like to discount your 1's, but you (that would be me, to keep things simple. ) are starting to build a bit of a reputation of your own, so I can't just discount your opinion like I'd do if you were a newer player.

So here we have it, everything between 1 and 3 is then an acceptable rating. But then comes along another guy and he claims *gasp* that Dai Oni with a right bless are awesome expanders, not much worse than the best this game has to offer, and he rates the Yomi early game a 4. Now me, having rated Yomi a 1 for early game would obviously think that this guy has been smoking to much crack lately, and might feel his 4 should be discounted. But, says you, QM felt them worth a 3. (we're talking about the great QM here, remember. (not that I want to make him feel uncomfortable or anything ) ) And if QM felt them worth a 3 it's only reasonable that some other random guy thinks them a 4, right? ...


I could go on being wordy for a while, but I think you might be starting to get my point by now...

[Zeldor]

Amhazair:

Well, one experienced player is not enough. I was rather talking about obvious examples. You just need a scale to fit all nations. And then you can discuss if that nation suckss or it can get to so-so or even average with appropriate tactic [no counting awake SC].

And if Yomi deserves 1 I don't know. You'd have to compare them to Marverni, I think they are the real ruler of 1 point for early expansion in EA. I don't have MP experience in that age, beside blitzes.

P.S. I should do smth else than spamming forums, heh, way too much free time recently.

[Gandalf Parker]

Just my own opinion, but based on previous discussions all the way back to Dom1 I would predict that the result would be "we cannot agree". Which to me, is one of the most wonderful things about this game. There is lots of discussions about whats good and bad, whats a killer strategy and whats a worthless one. We all seem to agree that there are some but even after years we cannot seem to agree on what they are.
Great game!

[JimMorrison]

Well the intent was to get a large enough body of results to let most discrepancies average themselves out.

Also, fairest way to deal with anything really strange (besides scrutinizing that poster as potentially insane) if there are enough ratings on that particular nation, is to use Olympic style scoring, and subtract the highest and lowest rating before taking the average. So if everyone rates at a 1-2, and a single person put 4 (even if it is the astute QM), then their score might be tossed along with the 1. Obviously this is only meaningful if the disparity is large enough, either 1/4, 2/5, or 1/5, a spread from 1-3, 2-4 or 3-5 is not going to break an averaging.

[triqui]

I agree with Zeldor. Bogarus with an awake dom10 wyrm spand faster than with a rainbow. Still, that does not change the fact it has a weak early game, it does indeed confirm it: it "needs" an awake SC to expand. In the mean while, a skinshifter vanheim with a Dom10 wyerm will still expand twice as fast if not faster.

I think Yomi is not that bad expanding as maverni. They have a very cost effective archer, which in EA is enough to take down most indis thanks to low level armor. However, _IF_ we rate "early game" as "expansion+rush or rush defense" then they probably deserve a 1, 2 at max. Becouse before you can cast Flame Arrow, bakemono archers wont stop a dual bless nation by any means.