Need opinions on MA Nation power

hEad · #1 May 16th, 2009, 01:49 AM

As it is an era i am reasonably unfamiliar with, I am trying to get an idea of what consensus has been reached (if any) on the power nations in MA and the turkeys - essentially, who are the top 5 and who are the bottom 5?

Ashdod and Jotunheim must be up near the top and Man and Oceania at the bottom... opinions?

Omnirizon · #2 May 16th, 2009, 03:01 AM

I think it's the usual suspects

Ashdod, Jotunheim, Mictlan, Ermor, and Pythium at the top
Man, Oceania, Argatha, Machaka, Ulm? at the bottom

However, MA has the least variance in power between nations. Certain nations here have a lot of potential with powerful mages and very few "capital only" limitations (Shinuyama and C'tis spring to mind).

hEad · #3 May 16th, 2009, 03:51 AM

Ok then,

I'm dipping my head into a bit of modding and was just tying to get an idea of who has enough and who doesn't. Obviously Ashdod does and Man and Oceania don't, so thats a start... thanks mate!

chrispedersen · #4 May 16th, 2009, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

I think it's the usual suspects

Ashdod, Jotunheim, Mictlan, Ermor, and Pythium at the top
Man, Oceania, Argatha, Machaka, Ulm? at the bottom

However, MA has the least variance in power between nations. Certain nations here have a lot of potential with powerful mages and very few "capital only" limitations (Shinuyama and C'tis spring to mind).

I wouldn't put ulm at the bottom at all. Otherwise I agree.

Agema · #5 May 16th, 2009, 06:52 PM

Pythium and Ashdod are certainly very strong. I'm not inclined to think Mictlan is a particularly big hitter in MA personally. Ulm, Man and Oceania generally have poor MA reputations.

Zeldor · #6 May 16th, 2009, 07:06 PM

Here is a small point ranking [1-10] made for Preponderance, which I don't agree totally [would value Vanheim lower, Pythium higher for example, but it was for team game with special settings too, so keep that in mind]:

Ma Pythium: 6
Ma Man: 3
Ma Ulm: 3
Ma Ermor: 7
Ma Arco: 6
Ma Marignon: 4
Ma Mictlan: 5
Ma Mackaka: 5
Ma Agartha: 2
Ma Aby: 4
Ma Caelum: 5
Ma C'tis: 4
Ma Pan: 4
Ma Van: 7
Ma Jotun: 6
Ma Bandar log: 5
Ma Shinuyama: 4
Ma Ashdod: 12+
Ma Eriu: 5
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 4

Huzurdaddi · #7 May 16th, 2009, 08:34 PM

I don't understand the love for Pythium.

Their infantry is solid: good morale, decent weapons, nice shield, decent training. This has not changed from Dom2 where Pythium was a real power.

What has changed is their magic power. Both of their combat mages are now old and their capital only mage is very old. This is somewhat limiting. Further, Pythium's greatest trick was communions. However communions are far more difficult to pull of in Dom3 as you have far fewer castles to recruit mages (and relief is no where near as powerful as before).

However, overall, MA is, IMO, the best balanced of the ages.

quantum_mechani · #8 May 16th, 2009, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huzurdaddi

I don't understand the love for Pythium.

Their infantry is solid: good morale, decent weapons, nice shield, decent training. This has not changed from Dom2 where Pythium was a real power.

What has changed is their magic power. Both of their combat mages are now old and their capital only mage is very old. This is somewhat limiting. Further, Pythium's greatest trick was communions. However communions are far more difficult to pull of in Dom3 as you have far fewer castles to recruit mages (and relief is no where near as powerful as before).

However, overall, MA is, IMO, the best balanced of the ages.

Pythium has a number of big boosts from dom2, though old age is a problem. The biggest boost is the angelic summons, which use the huge astral income Pythium had a very hard time leveraging until late game in dom2. Then there are the hydras boosts.

Some more subtle effects have also helped them out. Nerfing the magic scale and boosting gold income means they can afford to pump a theurg elder every turn, giving them a quite the comparative research edge.

Also, growth scale plus some astral healing field trips can save all but a very few mages from old age.

Jarkko · #9 May 17th, 2009, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

Also, growth scale plus some astral healing field trips can save all but a very few mages from old age.

Excuse me for going OT, but do I read this right, ie that Astral Healing remove old age afflictions? If so, then that is something I *relly* wish I had known before

Burnsaber · #10 May 17th, 2009, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarkko

Excuse me for going OT, but do I read this right, ie that Astral Healing remove old age afflictions? If so, then that is something I *relly* wish I had known before

Astral healing doesn't remove old age afflictions, but can restore the health of your mages back to maximum.

Hence you can use the mages until the eventual old age disease gives them feeblemind.