Dud nations

[Tyrant]

Which, if any, nations do you think are "duds"- underpowered and/or too narrow to make a go of it in a competitive game without alot of luck or diplomatic success?

My list:

EA Ulm- a bad army and average casters, I just don't see anything to like. Half cold resistence, two move, forge bonuses and some stealth are all nice, but crome rims and a bad engine still make a bad car.

MA Ulm -Dom3 is a magic game with armies, not the other way around and MA Ulm is just a kinfe fighter in a gunfight. The heavy armor is halfway negated by the high encumbrance and costs so many resources that i seldom see much Black plate, people just build slightly more regular plate. The PD seems designed for a civil war as the fine arbalasts are just the thing for shooting your own super armored guys in the back and fire too slowly to be good against more the more lightly armored enemy. The national MR penalty is just insulting, not to mention seemingly unthematic. Shouldn't the anti-magic guys have extra MR? That's the way it always in in fantasy books. The forge bonus is great, but compared with so many of the other nations they seriously lack an excellent leader to put them on. Knights are ok, but don't have enough HP to be real thugs.

Despite all that, I have seen Ulm do well, and this one's the most debatable of the three.

MA Argatha- The other two Argathas rock, but this one seems to lack both a good army and good casters. There's decent capitol only unit and caster, but that's it and that don't cut it in the Middle Age. In DomII Golem Cult was perhaps the best theme, but are big stone things really sufficient to conquer the world without some very lethal backup? They can hold the line, but something has to kill the enemy, and I don't know what they have that can do that.

[Evilhomer]

I would add the early age water nations, in particular EA r'lyeh and EA oceania - having all your decent troops and mages stuck in the water is just not a good thing. Looking at EA r'lyehs mages in comparison to MA r'lyeh there is just so much thats worse (only 2 misc slots, water only, less random paths), and this in an age where most nations are stronger than in MA.

[Meglobob]

I have played alot of nations now and everyone of those nations has had something about them that I like or could be useful in winning a game. So for me I have yet to come across a 'dud' nation.

I totally disagree on MA Agartha, that nation has 2 capital only recruitable SC's, a warrior and a mage. Few other MA nations have that. It has the golem cult. Also umbrals, stealthy, etheral only cost 2D gems. Its sacreds are pretty good troops with a strong bless. Its mages are perfect for casting magma eruption which is a hugely devestating battlefield spell, other spells like earthquake, destruction, bladewind, invulnerability, ironskin, stoneskin, weapons of sharpness etc are all good.

It also has a 5E gem/turn income from the word go, a good strategy with this nation could be research to earth deep blood well, cast that. Then research constuction to the forge of ancients and get that up with your now huge earth income. Then go onto unique artifacts to grab as many as possible.

Finally, MA Agartha has access to skull mentor and lightless lantern, so is a decent research nation.

All in all pretty good if you ask me.

I have never played EA or MA Ulm so cannot comment on those. I have seen both do well in MP.

If I had to put forward a 'dud' nation it would be LA Atlantis, I have never played it but I looked at it once and it struck me as very mundane. Can anyone convince me, why I should give LA Atlantis a go? A shame because EA Atlantis is one of my favourite nations.

[Salamander8]

I'm currently trying LA Atlantis in an SP game for the first time and so far they aren't bad. The lack of long range missle troops stings of course, but many of the rank and file have magic weapons and the Assartut's weapons also cause weakness. So far the only thing I have any real problem with is that the Angakots are only recruitable at home.

I have not tried EA Oceania, but I just finished a very long SP game as EA R'Lyeh. I had to heavily rely on indy troops when out of the water. The Gibodai and Giboleths are great in the water, but you can't take them out like you can Ilithids and this is a major obstacle to early land colonization. The lack of magic item slots on the Aboleths and Mind Lords, on top of the fact that 1 of them has to be an amulet of the fish to take them on land, also makes them less useful than the Ilithid commanders that only lack feet. Also as MA R'Lyeh (I haven't tried LA R'Lyeh yet), you can get the free hybrids in coastal forts and build various hybrids in any land fort whereas EA R'Lyeh is stuck with whatever land troops you can find. The free Polypal spawns that the Polypal Mothers and the Polypal Queen give you are stuck in the water too. I enjoy playing R'Lyeh, but it took me several false starts to get a victory as EA R'Lyeh.

[johnarryn]

I am playing EA Ulm in one MP game (War is Hell) and actually doing very well... I will put in the caveat that I was lucky in my starting placement and was able to gain a large number of provinces very quickly.

That being said, I feel EA Ulm has alot going for it. Their troops are rather good, I feel. Warrior Maiden, Steel Maidens and Shield Maidens are all cheap, stealthy and quite decent. With a good fortress you can recruit many in one turn. The forge bonus is very nice, especially once you forge hammers.

Yes, Ulm's mages are weak, but they do make up for this somewhat in versatility. Access to Death, Earth, Fire, Nature, Air and Water is nothing to sniff at... especially given that in EA you have a decent chance of finding some indy mages to help you out. That being said, Ulm is probably weaker than most in the Late Game, but i wouldnt write them off completely.

[Micah]

EA Ulm is doing extremely well in both games I'm in. Their troops are probably the best non-sacred troops in EA...a bit resource heavy, but most of them are still a 1:1 gold/resource ratio. Their mages aren't obviously powerful but they work very well as (de)buffers...Flaming arrows, strength of giants, legions of steel, destruction, etc. and can then go to town with some basic-but-functional evocation spells. The cold resistance is a bonus, not a feature, and it lets them take a cold-3 scale a little bit more easily since they won't have penalty fatigue from cold...and everyone loves more pretender points.

I haven't played as them myself, but I did watch their basic troops butcher one of my kitted out niefel jarls in a single round of combat. They're not at all weak.

[Xietor]

Meg,

(i only play ma, so all of my comments by default, are limited to ma).

it depends. MP if you are argatha and start out next to vanaheim on a smaller map, and the person playing vanaheim is your equal, you can forget about reaching stage 2 of the game.

Ulm, I do think ulms low mr is backwards. And I do think they should should be able to produce heavily armored troops at a lower esource cost.

Ideally, Ulm is a warrior race, a race of steel. They should get mr bonus, and their troops morale should be high, not average. They should really have the best infantry in the game, but they have among the worst. Their description makes me think of Sparta, highly trained troops. But for some reason, arcosphale has better infantry, better armor, mr, morale.

I think ulm should have such good melee units, it does not need magic. But they are extremely vulnerable to magic, their troops take tons of resources to build, despite the forge bonus etc, they are slow, their supposed great strength and training still does not allow them to do more than plod under the weight of their armor, and their morale is a lowly 10 with no way to boost it(low priests, no standard bearer).

I have played ulm, and can do well with ulm sp. Good players can do well with any set of cards dealt. But I am disappointed from a role playing standpoint, that Ulm is not the master of melee combat.

Take away their spies, seige engineers, drain scale bonus, and make their troops the best the humans have to offer. If any race should be able to ignore research and march to victory based solely on its armies it should be ulm, not vanaheim!

[VedalkenBear]

For me, EA Ulm is one of the strongest, not one of the weakest, nations. They expand _very_ easily in the early game with their Axe Throwers. And their Magic isn't all that bad.

[PvK]

I think EA Ulm is strong. Shield Maidens are fast to recruit and can defeat most opponents without getting hurt. Their archers are also good. They can rush and defeat many opponents early without even needing magic, or just expand very quickly.

I've just spent the morning trying MA Agartha, and I think they're strong too. Their human troops are like a variant of MA Ulm, which can be quite strong when used well, and are good for steady expansion. Also they have armored amphibians, who can expand quickly against underwater independents. Then magic summons and not so bad mages, national summons, Golem Cult bonus... they seem pretty good to me.

MA Ulm is one of my favorites, but I agree they seem a bit weak, especially with competition like MA Agartha. I don't agree that the armor advantage is negated by the encumbrance, or that their morale is a problem - the counter to that is using a large enough army, at which point it survives, gains experience, and becomes a tough meat grinder when used correctly. I agree that I wish they had an MR bonus rather than a penalty, though they've always been that way, and they do now have a national spell to make up for that point. The knights can be used as thugs if you do it carefully and have the stomach for it. HP aren't everything. But in general ya, Ulm is in trouble because of all the easy-access powerful magic in Dominions, as it always has been. I would say though that they are the weakest of the three you mentioned. But I still really enjoy playing them, especially in SP.

[HoneyBadger]

I think EA R'lyeh (Aboleths) is difficult if you're inexperienced with them-and even if you are, but I certainly wouldn't call them a "dud-nation". Yes, they could use some help, but they're not wreaked, just challenging.