Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[MaxWilson]

Actually I find that slingers and such are pretty decent for expansion. Marverni's slingers have shields, which means they win missile duels. You'll still need ground troops (slingers are kind of like arty spells in that they have trouble finishing off the last few survivors) but missile troops are not bad at all for expansion. I haven't done this with Marverni slingers recently, but when I first tried LA Agartha I consistently had problems expanding until I forgot about my blessed blindfighters and did expansion with crossbowmen and cave drakes. Marverni slingers are ten times easier to mass than LA Agarthan crossbowmen. So anyway, I don't think massing up slingers is banking on the "worst unit in the game." Slingers are much better than Wind Riders, for instance. (Also note that if he "randomly loses a troop here and there", probably because someone doesn't get blessed or gets out of formation, it probably costs as much as "significant attrition" for me. 1 Helhirding = 9 slingers.)

Do note that missile troops scale better than melee troops. 5 F9W9 Helherdings would probably cream their gold-cost equivalent in slingers. That does tend to steepen the learning curve because you have to learn when you have "enough". One thing to do to get a feel for "enough" is to leave an PD 1 border territory so that when he attacks it, you can simulate a battle against his forces by Shift+U placing your own army's equivalent units directly on the battlefield. That's how I do most of my testing. It's not perfect but it's a lot less tedious than playing out test games.

One more note: Helheim is clearly stronger in the early game than Marverni. They have better troops, more strategic options (because of stealth), better intel (because of flying stealth troops), etc. I just don't think Helheim's troops deserves a 5 to Marverni's 1 or 2. Cost matters.

-Max

Edit: fixed math.

[thejeff]

The 5 F9W9 Helhirding beating their gold cost equivalent is the problem.

You're going to need 1 big slinger army to win and he's going to have 4-5 small stealthy Helhird forces that can slaughter everything but that big army.

[MaxWilson]

But if you catch one of his little stealthy forces by guessing where one of the 4-5 is going to go, you can annihilate it with your big army. That's 610 gold right there, assuming he's using a cheap commander.

Again, Helheim is clearly stronger, but Marverni's troops aren't bad. My original reason for mentioning the slingers was mainly just that I wanted to point out that going for elite troops like Ambibates vs. Helheim is a losing game.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

My point about the logistical difficulty with the massed slingers is just that, logistics. While every turn your enemy is probably putting out a death squad of 5 Helherdings with a blesser, a single turn worth of slingers in one province isn't going to do much, and is going to require a lot more leadership. If he has 20 sacreds in one force, the amount of slingers needed becomes very cumbersome to wield in the early game. Also if he were to go for W9/E9, you might find that the slings just don't accomplish much. And in the case of Marverni, if you are trying to combat melee troops, those shields may be more of a liability, by increasing cost, or reducing training rate.

[MaxWilson]

Yes. He could also research Const-3 and cast Legions of Steel, and/or Ench-3 for Strength of Giants. Helheim has great troops and yes, logistics matters.

Shields don't increase cost but they do affect resources. I think that's why Marverni's slingers cost 3 resources instead of 2.

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

Also, I actually consider f9w9 somewhat suboptimal for Helhiem. I'd rather e9f9 (often just e9 with an awake pretender), and I think the extra protection would significantly help them against slingers.

[Hoplosternum]

Thank you all for these. They are great. As I suspected Jomon should be down at the bottom and it is on quantum_mechani�s list. No one else has even thought it was deserving of a rating

In fact on quantum_mechani�s list it�s joint worst with MA Agartha. And while I know you can�t really get worse than worst, and I of course am no where near as experienced as QM, I have to quibble at his high rating of 2 for ease of use MP

I can�t think of a slower starter or a power that has more difficulties leveraging its advantages than Jomon. While Jomon�s shortcomings can be overcome in SP where the pressure to get off to a good start is less and you have a bit more time to develop its national summons (which have no synergies with its national mages � they can�t summon or even look for the needed gems for the decent ones).

Consider � your starting army is bad featuring just 20 units, 10 of which are the hopeless shieldless spear infantry the Ashigari. It will struggle to take a 5 strength indie province and likely to take serious losses doing so.

Your national troops are very resource intensive yet lack shields or especially high defence or protection. They do suffer from high encumbrance though They are, to be fair, fairly hard hitting. This combination means it is tough to even keep your weak starting army up to its original strength never mind expand it. Even if you splash out on Prod 3 - thus spending 240 more points than most of your opponents in this area - you are still struggling to build more than 5 not very good units per month at the start and perhaps double later on.

There is no bless strategy you can play as its Sacreds are Capital only, hard to mass (too resource intensive) and they are basically just encumbered, shieldless, heavy infantry whatever bless you add.

You have no synergies with most of your national troop summons or any of the Thug summons you get.

You absolutely need an awake SC and yet you need to add paths to any choice to have access to your national summons. Most SCs are expensive to add paths too. Plus the best fit choice � the Prince of Death � isn�t available to Jomon. You can give up on the summons of course but then your mid/late game suffers.

Your mages are good researchers / all rounders. But they need Communions to do much in combat. And Communion use is one of the harder Dom 3 skills to master. Plus they need to empower to be able to make the astral rings. They are not sacred either � not that you can afford a bless � but this also adds to long term costs and off sets the reasonable purchase price. None are specialised enough to create the better boosters or cast decent summons and global spells.

No blood or death and weak astral means you have to work hard to overcome this for the late game (and the need for an awake SC means you can�t easily use your pretender to get around this).

I am not saying there are no nice things about Jomon. There are. But I can�t think of a less easy to use power in MP. Quantum_mechani has rated it higher than LA Pythium for ease of use in MP. Yet they have Sacred Hydras for the early game, not everyones cup of tea, but they will get you through the early stages. Even if you don�t pay for a bless Hydras are still a decent, if expensive, build for early expansion. And as many of your mages are sacred even a moderate bless lives on after you have ceased to use the Hydras.

Meaning you have choices for your Pretender. You can take an awake SC for a quicker start or an Angel summoner for your fantastic (as opposed to Jomons decidedly average) national summons later. I know the last rating is not meant to be how good the powers are, but how can LA Pythium be considered more difficult to play in MP?

[thejeff]

Hmmm, haven't experimented, but the quickness gets them across the field a lot faster. This often makes a difference against missile, which are their main weakness.

The extra protection helps too of course.

[quantum_mechani]

Hoplosternum said:


In fact on quantum_mechani�s list it�s joint worst with MA Agartha. And while I know you can�t really get worse than worst, and I of course am no where near as experienced as QM, I have to quibble at his high rating of 2 for ease of use MP

Well, as I said in my notes, I rated ease of use for how difficult it is to get the most out of the nation- for some nations the most is not all that much. Mostly the low difficulty rating was because there is really only one troop you need to consider recruiting (longbow samurai).

[MaxWilson]

quantum_mechani said:
Also, I actually consider f9w9 somewhat suboptimal for Helhiem. I'd rather e9f9 (often just e9 with an awake pretender), and I think the extra protection would significantly help them against slingers.

I concur. E9 keeps them at zero fatigue which means they kill all the day long, and also boosts protection. I view W9 as counterproductive for elite units.

-Max