Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Squirrelloid wins!

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

well, i didn't even see this in time, obviously, but i didn't look any farther than my third nation and i have 2 interesting choices.

Yeah, I realized you hadn't had time to respond but didn't want to leave anyone out when I sent the nations and I figured you could do exactly what you did in order to limit your choices. Though I have to admit if I took that approach I would be very tempted to check the other nations after I chose, just to see what I might have missed out on...

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

I've been helping Elmokki with some of the balance formulae, so I can tell you that its kind of rough and unit synergies won't necessarily get factored in very well. So there is probably significant slop. Choosing 1 of 5 nations should let people account for this i would hope.

One area of synergies that comes to mind is hot/cold nations. You are unlikely to get an entire troop/commander lineup that is immune to an element. OTOH I find you frequently get better magic diversity than most of the base game nations since you don't have the common pattern of a nation's weaker mages having a subset of the stronger mage's paths. Now some of those magic paths will be low level but it's enough to site search and forge some basic items.

Originally Posted by Korwin

...What should I choose...

Harder than I thought...

I think this is a good sign. When I quickly looked over the nations before sending them out I didn't have any WTF reactions like when I first saw Hinnom. I'm not at all claiming there's perfect balance but I don't think any of these nations will warrant a dogpile just based on their lineup.