Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[Gandalf Parker]

Twan said:Anyway I also think according to your post that you'd value too much some situationnal abilities or ignore their drawbacks.

I do have a leaning in my own evaluations. I tend to play really large games, large maps, solo. And I tend to play more tactics than strategy. In other words, not so much pre-planning as counting on and being able to react favorably to random changes in the game.

Sneaking is a good example. With stealth armies you lose one turn or more before the moment you effectively take an ennemy province. It's not a bad skill, but a secondary one, if you use stealth with all yours armies you'll just be beaten by nations able to do normal moves and take your provinces (or re-take in one turn the provinces you reached in 2 or 3 with your stealth forces).

Not necessarily. Some of the best strategies for stealth armies involve splitting an enemies forces so that they cannot hit you with one massive army on one front. Forcing an enemy to invest more in defense than they normally would. Hiding your buildups, and even the locations of your castles. The strong ability to ally by being able to buildup in a safe corner and yet move thru your neighbor to assist them. Forcing an enemy to expend more on combat than you to reach you if you create a "moat" of strong independents. Not to mention the ability to play 3rd party by hiding a large army in the area where two other players are fighting in order to take advantage of a weakened position after one has expensively beaten down the other.

Also, there would be the strategy of guerrila rebels. Even after losing your home castle and provinces you can still be a strong enough player to affect the outcome of a game.

Also, the use of Pans wandering thru provinces dropping maenads each turn can be very effective. There is no "waste of a turn" there. Without ever becoming visible they create combats each turn testing the defenses of their opponent, forcing expenditure in defense, slowing the movement of armies, and gaining extremely detailed information on the enemy.

Flight is different, as it allows to strike every turn, and behind ennemy lines it's a real advantage. But the quality of flyers is often problematic to the point flyers nations often prefer to use them only as support for their non flying troops. I probably value caelian fly one point, but caelum also lose one for the global quality of troops (out of mammoths justifying a good early game note).

That would be a different strategy than one which is built entirely around the ability to fly. Such as early detection of everyones location. Being able to "checker jump" to them. That would be taking every third province between you and them. Building up independents in only those sporadic locations. Hitting the enemy early, making it more expensive for him to reach you than it is for you to reach him (forcing him to fight thru independents such as jumping over all knight provinces as you approach him), being able to build up your army near him until you feel ready to take out all of the indep locations. Granted, this is a large-map strategy but it shows that every nation and every skill does have some use in some games.

Also, again, there is the ally benefit with a flyer nation. Being able to work around the limitation of "I cant move my armies thru his area to help him" by negotiating the taking of stepping-stone provinces thru his area.

Blesses are always assumed in early game notes for bless nations I think

What you say is definetly true. And would excellent for players to take into account depending on their playing style. Part of MY problem is that Im a very old-school hacker. I automatically tend to seek playing styles different than whatever most people are using.

Blessed nations are often played without a full strategy built around blessings. Not figuring in dominion is the largest lack I see. Particularly in charging forward beyond the range of their dominion (Im not saying that you do, just that I see it often). Altho people tend to rate it as a combat strategy, I tend to see it better used to bolster defensive armies. Particularly in a waiting game where the nations main strategy is research. Again, probably best in large games. Possibly mega-games where just getting past the "hump" of the initial build-up-and-charge players is an important part of your goal.

IMHO of course.