Advice on nation selection needed

[reverend]

I'm about to start a grand campaign: Oeridia, 65 AI players.

The setup is Single Age (complete), UWGI & CBM 1.6 - I've excluded all nations with a killing dominion or depending on blood sacrifices. The AI's are set to a style that I think 'suits' the theme of the nation, both in difficulty and attitude. On Oerida, that leaves about 19 dry provinces per land nation and 24 sea provinces per underwater nation. I fully expect the whole thing to end with my defeat after an embarrassingly short time.

The question I'm facing now, however, is which nation to choose for myself. Since I'll hopefully be playing this game for a while, I've narrowed it down to a few nations that I enjoy:

- EA C'tis
- EA Ermor
- EA Ulm

- MA C'tis
- MA Man
- MA Pythium

- LA Agartha

Basically nations with a good selection of normal troops, a basic, simple imperial theme (well, except Agartha) and some decent magic (except Ulm, but I lived there, I can't pass them up )

Any suggestions? Which one of these nations might be fun to play to the end? Which might become tedious too soon?

[chrispedersen]

Pythium and ctis have the strongest magic, necessary for endgame.
Ctis has miasma, right? which could be a nice asset against AI, but it iwll also restrict your pretender choice.

I'd go ctis....slissss!

[Rytek]

I have a facination with MAN right now. I tend to think of MAN as the basic unit of the game. It is the race at the most disadvantage due to the nature of the game. Giants, Apes, Vans, Abysians, etc. They are all races from fantasy or history which by their nature are superior. Now, some of the other nations are based "man" nations as well. EA Ermor, Marigon, Tien Chi, etc. But, MAN is the most basic.

My suggested build for MAN against the AI would be a sleeping Arch druid N5 A4 E4 S4 F3 W2 D2 B1
Any Scales will due. If you go with too much sloth you may have to cheese up and get a few of the mercs for early expansion.Even death scale is an option as it will not affect your old age witches too much with the strategy I will out line. Knights of Avalon are fun for early wars and expansion. A group of 10 will smash most independents and most early AI armies.

Early research needs to be like a laser to Alteration 5. The first year of the game you want to recruit daughters and mothers of Avalon, no witchs. After 1st late winter recruit noghting but withches. Every other turn make sure a daughter makes a quill for researching. You should target ALT 5 around the middle of year 2. Your pretender has awakened before then. Send him out searching sights. Mountains/Swamps/Deadlands and magic sights are a priority. The turn before ALT 5 arrives put your pretender in a lab and cast mother oak. Switch Research and laser right to Ench 5 for Gift of Health. You can get these 2 spells up beginning of year 3 even while fighting off a few computer AI's with knights and longbows. Once these 2 globals are up, well, you have beaten the AI. In your domininion your armies have gained huge hits. your next research goal is summoning 4. Summon up a bunch of Kithonic lions with that mother oak income. These are very hard for the AI to deal with. A few mages casting body ethereal, luck(if you have lucked into some lizards or crystal sorderess) and regeneration and they will destroy most everything the AI has.

[13lackGu4rd]

EA Ermor is a very versatile nation with pretty good recruit everywhere mages. it gives you access to all magic paths thus allow for a very interesting game. also since you're fighting the AI you don't have to worry too much about artifact and unique stealing, as the AI barely summons any uniques and only creates a handful of artifacts, and even those will come very late for the AIs... so, since you're in for a long game I'd say EA Ermor. MA Pythium is also an option, similar mages but a stronger nation thanks to hydras(awesome early expansion), a bit better national armies(being MA instead of EA) but having the totally awesome mages cap only. oh and if you like communions than MA Pythium is definitely for you, their communicants don't have magic paths at all but they automatically cast communion slave so they can be used to fuel up massive communions with very cheap commanders.

[Rookierookie]

For me, C'tis gives easy access to both GoH and Acashic Record, two of my favorite spells in SP. On the other hand I also like Earth-9 bless, so I might take Ulm just for that.

[reverend]

Well, I think I'll definitely want a rainbow pretender. It just looks the most versatile in the long run. EA Ermor looks good so far, a nice selection of troops and decent magic.

How does LA Agartha compare?

I think both EA Ermor and LA Agartha won an all ages mega MP game, so I'm looking more closely at those two.

[13lackGu4rd]

LA Agartha is a death nation more or less. yeah it has some variety but its main strength is death magic. EA Ermor is more versatile, has access to all paths so it has access to many of those nice cross path spells. if I were you I'd go for EA Ermor first, it gives you more options and also nice powerful Roman armies to play with.

[Thanatus del Dragos]

I love late age Agartha on a big map. They don't have any capital only units or mages.

[reverend]

I guess I'll try LA Agartha first - when that fails, EA Ermor is next.