Balanced Nations

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by ano

I always wonder if anyone has really tried playing LA R'lyeh after the major nerf that occurred in one of the patches (Pop kill rate GREATLY increased). People seem to just be accepting the "uberness" of R'lyeh by default while in reality it is an absolutely worthless nation now. If someone once shows me how they can be played effectively, I'll be just happy as they're probably the only nation in all eras that I have nearly no idea how to play with a chance of success. That's why I would never ever pick them in MP now.

I'd definitely add Pangaea here and remove Marignon (although maybe Pangaea is too weak). Mari is a very effective nation with a little bit weak early game (actually, it depends on your build) but quite powerful later on. C'tis is also a very powerful nation and their only problem is probably, lack of good troops early on. But something like Caelum, Pythium, Atlantis may all be good options for this list.

All of the nations i listed had good mid games and good to great late games, with the possible exception of Man (whose lategame is kind of weak, but their early game is great). I don't see how Marignon is special in this regards.

I'd probably have rated Ctis the weakest of them.

[OmikronWarrior]

I just finished the first round of this Tournament, and want to start the second, which will occur in the middle era.

So, I am bumping to see if anyone has an opinion on the relative balanceness of these nations:

Man
Machaka
Marignon
Abysia
Tien Chi
Agartha

Right now, I think Tien Chi's incredible magic diversity means they outclass the rest of the list, and Abysia's inhuman infantry with strong bless potential mean they play rather differently than the rest of the stinkers. I think Ulm would make a great replacement for one of them, but cannot decide which, or if any other's need to be fixed to get a better balance in the middle era.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

I just finished the first round of this Tournament, and want to start the second, which will occur in the middle era.

So, I am bumping to see if anyone has an opinion on the relative balanceness of these nations:

Man
Machaka
Marignon
Abysia
Tien Chi
Agartha

Right now, I think Tien Chi's incredible magic diversity means they outclass the rest of the list, and Abysia's inhuman infantry with strong bless potential mean they play rather differently than the rest of the stinkers. I think Ulm would make a great replacement for one of them, but cannot decide which, or if any other's need to be fixed to get a better balance in the middle era.

This list is MA?

Agartha and Abysia are the low end of the powercurve. TBH, MA Agartha is pretty unplayable, having recently tried. Any astral nation shuts them down completely.

Abysia isn't quite as bad off, since at least they have a good early game. But their mid game will be worse than Man's. And no, MA Aby does not go for a bless, their sacreds aren't that good.

Machaka, Man, and TC are probably equally viable in CBM 1.6. I don't know about 1.7, i think TC got screwed more than the other two by the loss of hammers.

Marignon is the bless rush nation to worry about, if you're worried about differing play styles. I'm not convinced they outclass the other nations that badly though, but they're certainly the strongest on the list.

If we take Machaka, Man, TC, and Marignon as the basis of the nations, we're looking for nations with an emphasis on conventional forces (Machaka spider riders are conventional).

If it's CBM 1.7, Ulm *might* be viable enough, although i don't know how much the changes actually helped them.

I still think Arco is a good fit. Yes, they have elephants, but elephants aren't exactly hard to counter...

I'd also look at C'tis.

[Warhammer]

Is MA Marginon a strong bless nation? If they take a strong bless that benefits the knights, it does little for diversity or their mages, unless you take an E9 which I'm not sure is the best way to go. I agree though, if they can survive to mid-game, Marginon is pretty stout.

I'd agree with Arco, outside of the Elephants, their comparable. Plus, Elephants are pretty easy to counter.

What about Eriu or Caelum? Just a thought, I don't play much MA.

[13lackGu4rd]

a smart MA Marignon player will take a bless that benefits first and foremost his angels. the KotC are good with any bless you give them(even a rainbow) so you don't have to use something like F9W9 for them. also MA Marignon is perfectly fine without a bless at all, expanding with Royal Guards(cavalry with board sword+shield, that almost acts like infantry) and crossbowmen.

[OmikronWarrior]

The game is "tournament style," so no mods and specifically no CBM. Yes, I am talking Middle Era.

So, Agartha is out. I'll keep Abyssia, if for no other reason than its balanced. C'Tis is out, because it enjoys such a large defensive advantage over the rest of the list. I am an enormous believe in the advantage a strong defensive position provides a player who can establish any reasonable entrenched position.

I'll look closer at Arco, but tramplers do make me nervous, especially if I pick up Ulm.

Marignon can do a pretty powerful bless with KotC, but it leaves them so crippled in the Magic Diversity department I think thats a fine trade off.

I'm also considering Pan (which introduces another bless threat and keeps the theme of poor magic diversity, though introduces a stealth threat), and Erie (which I do not have a lot of experience with, any thoughts?).

[Squirrelloid]

Eriu plays totally differently from the rest of those nations, because its all about abundant thugs.

I really can't comment about the balance of various nations under vanilla, tbh. Pretty sure Marignon's position only gets better relative to the other nations though. (An ExNx bless on Marignon is great for its diversity, and it doesn't even have to be a large bless. E4N6 is enough to matter. You can even splash more minor blesses if you want more diversity. Regardless, with E/N all you're missing that you really care about is D for diversity. If you are going for an X9 bless, it should be E9)

I don't understand why 'tournament style' means no CBM. I accept that it isn't CBM, but your logic doesn't follow.

[Shadrach]

Eriu has poor magic diversity, no access to astral/blood/death, stealthy sacred thugs, and wants a bless even more than Marignon does. Like Man, they really struggle to stay competitive later in the game.

Magic diversity is important, but so is astral/death/blood access. T'ien Ch'i has great magic diversity (but low skill and no death or blood), Marignon has less diversity (but good astral), Machaka has reasonable magic diversity (but no astral or blood and death caps out at 2), and Abysia has limited diversity but good access to both astral and blood. Eriu (and Man) are the odd ones out because they have neither diversity nor access to astral/death/blood. Any of these nations can solve diversity problems with their pretender to some extent, but it's pretty bad when your national mages only have access to two relatively weak paths.

Is Pan really more of a bless threat than Marignon, or even Machaka or T'ien Ch'i? They all have good (and expensive) capital only sacred cavalry, but I wouldn't design a pretender around a bless for any of them. Pan has limited magic and expensive mages, offsetting some access to blood and a smidgen of death, and play somewhat differently than a lot of the other nations on the list.

Arco seems like a good fit. They have limited magic but pretty good astral, and yet another capital only sacred troop that isn't really good enough to warrant a bless. Elephants are nice, but not all that. Machaka has recruitable size six troops, and astral/fire have lots of anti-elephant tools from pretty early on, especially when combined with mass archers, so Marignon doesn't give a fig about elephants either and Abysia/TC have options.

Ulm is another one of those nations with only two magic paths, neither of which are astral/death/blood, and their troops aren't very good either (high encumbrance, low skill, poor magic resistance, map move one). Not much good against elephants, but not much good against anything else either. Definitely hugging the bottom of the curve and possibly worse than Man.

Mictlan might be worth considering, but I don't know much about MA Mictlan.

[Warhammer]

Don't forget this is a 6 player game, late game strats may not even come into play.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Don't forget this is a 6 player game, late game strats may not even come into play.

They will if its vanilla. Everyone will turtle and clam.