Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[triqui]

LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; ...

They troops suck badly and they have no sacreds. The nation is nice, i like their magic versatility and with a good awake SC they are viable. But that does not change the fact that they initial expansion strength sucks, and they are vulnerable to early attacks. I think it has been done on purpose, actually, as a way to counterbalance their powerful research.

[Gandalf Parker]

Wow. Im having a blast with them.
It sounds like yet another case of "they suck" when it might better be said "They suck at playing my style". Im not knocking you. There are two common things I see in posts about things that are broken or out of balance with nations.

A) not understanding that nations do not balance to each other, the game is rock-paper-scissors balance

B) talking about nations without apparently having played to their strengths.

When you played LA Bogarus...
did you make use of their cavalry?
did you make use of Skopets and Khlysts?
did you make use of 5 Fold Angels?
did you make use of the Luck protection?

As an example; there is nothing wrong with LA Bogarus not doing as well as LA Ulm if they are both playd with LA Ulm tactics.

[quantum_mechani]

triqui said:

and they have no sacreds.

This is not the case, though they aren't especially awe-inspiring.

[Amhazair]

Wrana said:
Though relatively new, particularly in MP, I have something to say on the following nations:
EA Ulm 4 4 2 4 2 (as said, lack of uber-sacreds in EA, + low MR; no Astral, Blood, weakish Death. But troops are good enough & forge bonus quite good).
EA Helheim 5 4 4 4 2? (sacreds, though I don't use uber-bless, but common troops are strong, too; good Death magic, weaker Blood; in MP stealthy armies are more difficult to use properly)
EA Sauromatia 5 5? 5? 4 4? (strong overall, poison archers & Hydras can replace sacreds quite well; better Blood/Death than previous, + Astral)
EA Tien Chi 4 4 5 3 2? (good troops, great versatility of mages; good summons; learn to use any variation of mages can take a lot)
MA Tien Chi 4? 5? 5? 3 2? (as above except less mages variability & less summons)
MA Shinuyama 3? 4 4? 2 2? (no sacreds & difficult to get military machine going - need scales; variable mages can be a pain to learn)
LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; Dominion kill is an option I think they should excercise; plus ability to hurt enemy economy - this could make a strong mid to late game. I still think they should be 2 nations, though.)

Triqui has been focusing on your valuation of Bogarus early game, and while I generally agree with him, I think the "problem" with these grades is broader. I see generally very high scores here Only one 2 and one 3. I wonder if, when you graded the nations you were most familiar with (which is perfectly okay, I did the same) you considered the other nations of the same age. Remeber these grades are very relative. If for example MA T'ien Ch'i has lategame of 5 (and I'm not saying they do not) that means that there are only a few nations as strong as them in late game, while most are weaker, even much weaker. The same argument can be made for all points of course.

Remember that, as much as you might like to play all nations, some of them have to be 2's... (and lower)

[Zeldor]

Yeah. From those that wrana said I think it would be rather:

LA Bogarus - 1 for early game, you just cannot imagine worse troops. Even EA Marverni may be better. Being able to take awake SC does not cout
MA TC - 2, max3, you just cannot expand fast enough with your troops
MA Shinu - probaly even 1, for their age. Flaming arrows is mid-game already. They have very bad starting army and good troops are very expensive.

[JimMorrison]

Thought I'd give this a little nudge back to visibility. Personally, I'm becoming experienced enough to feel comfortable adding my own ratings - though perhaps not QUITE as extensive as QM's list.

Maybe some other people have more content to add? Would be nice to eventually actually be able to tabulate some sort of average.

[sector24]

Are there really not enough ratings to tabulate?

[JimMorrison]

Most people only submitted a small handful, other than QM. I haven't looked back in awhile, but as I watched the posts come in, it seemed like very few nations had 3 or more people rate them. You can average 2 numbers, but it's in no way representative of an actual statistical examination.

Granted, it'll be hard to get enough to really give anything excessively accurate - but it shouldn't be hard to get a lot more ratings than we've got so far.