Nations under CBM 1.6

[GrudgeBringer]

I was thinking of starting a game and limiting it to perhaps the 8 to 10 weakest EA(land) nations under Cbm 1.6.

Since I haven't played it much I was hoping to get some opinions on who you thought where the weakest and a couple of reasons why.

I think it would be an interesting game.

Thanks

[Ink]

Ulm, Maverni, mmmmm... not too sure about others... maybe Yomi, Tir na n'Og, and Argatha.

[chrispedersen]

check out the cripple thread - they discuss this.
game was open only to nations that had not won in the hall of fame.

[Jarkko]

Machaka is by far the weakest nation in 1.6 CBM, if you ask me. The loss of fever fetishes hurts Machaka a lot, and they can not take much advantage of the new possibilities to enter underwater. In addition to that Flaming Arrows is a pain to cast in CBM, so Machaka has been slapped royally in CBM, and 1.6 was just the final nail in the coffin.

Ulm got slightly weaker with the lack of extra earthbooster (and no loss of the earth gem generator), but not in the same scale.

[Squirrelloid]

Hmmm... weakest 10 land nations in approximate order of weakness

1. MA Agartha
2. EA Agartha

The non-LA Agartha's are by far the weakest nations in the game, with or without CBM. Note that EA Agartha is probably worse than its MA version relative to its era, but when you're playing with other cripples EA is probably better...

3. (MA) Machaka

Loss of fetishes hurt, a lot. They're still better off than the above Agarthas, but not by much.

4. (MA) Eriu

Eriu has issues. Its research sucks. It has no endgame (at all). It needs early research. It needs a bless. It has no astral, precious little earth, and no death magic. The only thing it has going for it is arguably the best raiding thug in the game. This only gets it so far. By mid-game Eriu has generally moved from 'threat' to 'annoyance'.

5. LA Ulm

If you can survive long enough to get a blood economy going, you're probably ok. Surviving that long is *really hard*. Your national units are all typically overpriced in either gold, resources, or both. And most of them come with crippling encumbrance that makes them all but useless after a couple rounds of melee. And then your national mages top out at 3 total paths, making you the winner of the 'worst mages in the game' award.

6. MA Man

Similar problems to Eriu, except the research isn't quite as bad, your pretender isn't overworked, and you have good standard armies instead of good thugs. Good standard armies + a good buffing path (nature) means you make it to the end of midgame fine. (Then you hit lategame and realize you have none).

7. EA Abysia

Don't get me wrong, they have a recruitable thug/almost SC in their capital and excellent sacreds. The problem is that they only really do one thing well. Once someone counters your fire you're done. Since you also *predictably* do just one thing well, expect that to happen pretty fast.

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Those 7 are pretty indisputable, even if some of them miraculously didn't qualify for cripple fight. These are my picks for the next 3 in order.

8. (EA) TNN

Hire anywhere Bean Sidhes, A2 assassins, and better sacreds plus a good non-sacred option make TNN leaps and bounds better than Eriu. But its still not very good.

9. LA Caelum

For a nation with troops as bad as its are, LA Caelum finally rips the heart out of the nation by saddling it with crappy mages. Sure, your death magic improved, so your endgame might be really good. But how do you expect to get there? I suppose if you're playing against a bunch of n00bs that can't figure out how to counter mammoths you might do ok, but otherwise you're just hosed.

10. LA Atlantis

Sure, you've got great sacreds and decent cap-only mages. But your recruit-anywhere mages are pretty awful, and your UW recruit mages are really expensive for what they do. And while you have death and some astral (UW fortresses), your other magic paths are either uninspiring (water, oh yay) or too short to be useful (E,A,F only on randoms). And good cap-only sacreds only get you so far.

That said, there's a big difference between LA Atlantis and the other nations listed above.

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The following are often considered weak, although I have to imagine this is because many players can't figure out how to defend a rush with them. In no way would I consider them weak.

MA BL
Lots of astral power, earth via Rishi and national summons, great recruit-anywhere mages for communioning, and all its mages are sacred meaning really efficient research.

EA Marveni
No nation with a recruit anywhere E2S2H2 +210% EWSN mage can actually be that weak. Did i mention it can blood sacrifice as well?

EA Ermor
Similarly, F2S1D2 +110% FASD recruit anywhere mage is also pretty awesome, and they've even got good troops and respectable sacreds on top of that.

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The following is generally considered weak, although I think its probably underrated. But it arguably could replace LA Atlantis in the 10th slot:

LA Jomon - read the last few pages of the CBM thread already.

[Quitti]

I agree with Jarkko, Machaka and (MA) Ulm were probably hit the worst by CBM as, well, there's not much else to do with either nation than fever fetishes or bloodstones. But concerning EA nations, I'd say Marverni, possibly Agartha and Ulm. Vanheim is weak in late game due lack of diversity and research but their troops are good.

edit: Squirrelloid, you rank MA Ulm better than LA? Actually, I think you just forgot them

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Quitti

I agree with Jarkko, Machaka and (MA) Ulm were probably hit the worst by CBM as, well, there's not much else to do with either nation than fever fetishes or bloodstones. But concerning EA nations, I'd say Marverni, possibly Agartha and Ulm. Vanheim is weak in late game due lack of diversity and research but their troops are good.

edit: Squirrelloid, you rank MA Ulm better than LA? Actually, I think you just forgot them

Its possible I just forgot them.

One moment, I have to go actually look at what MA does again.

Ok, yes, but only quite marginally. Their mages are better and they have a more useful troop line-up, however small the margin.

That said, i'd amend them into 6, move the necessaries down 1, and remove LA Atlantis from the list.

[Quitti]

To be honest, they only do earth, and worse than agartha. Troops are not bad but enc is a killer. And that's it.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Quitti

To be honest, they only do earth, and worse than agartha. Troops are not bad but enc is a killer. And that's it.

Think 'forge bonus'.

They basically have to take a site-searching pretender to diversify their gems, and from that their magic. But they don't need their pretender to also sit around and cast vampire counts like LA does, which is something.

And you think their enc. is killer? They're travelling light compared to LA Ulm iirc. (or at least, they have decent melee options with 6 enc., which is unheard of in LA).

Edit: Also, Iron Angels

[Quitti]

Yes, forge bonus is one redeeming factor. And the black knights are awesome, but cost a ton. Full chain mail troops are not bad either, but require lots of resources per gold spent (though they do get resource bonus in forts, so it's not THAT bad). They are def 5 though, so not evading anything, and that's with prot17. Plate ones are def 4 with body prot of 21 and one more enc, and both plate and chain troops are map move 1. Their "crossbowmen" have arbalests, which while do good damage, fire only once per three turns. Sappers cost 1½x the gold and same resources, but are more viable to use due having normal crossbows and a very good siege bonus. Still, the lack of diversity in national mages is even worse than of EA/MA vanheim. One 3.3% s1 chance on your main researcher. Weak priests (h2 cap only that eats the recruitment time from other useful stuff). No blood, no death, unreliably (10%) access up to e3 from only useful mages is rather weak. Iron angels are good, but require either e+s random smith (0.33% chance to get to begin with) with RoW/Robe of Magi/similar to summon, or pretender designed to do that.

And LA Ulm does not need their pretender to stay and summon counts, one is enough as it can continue the process with boosters or summon up one vampire lord and it needs less boosters to do the trick. Of course this requires construction research and so on. And LA gets s2b1 mages right out of the box, which is quite awesome (for communions, against sc's and so on), and the troops are good even if a bit expensive resourcewise for expansion - but the trick is to just spam those delicious rangers and keep some guys tieing the other troops down. And certainly this again has a counter, like pretty much everything in dom3. Still, I would rank LA Ulm well better off than MA, due the access to blood and death and astral in reliable quantities (provided that you go towards the vampire counts).