Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[triqui]

A) not understanding that nations do not balance to each other, the game is rock-paper-scissors balance

Actually, I think I remember to have read from K.O. that the game is not balanced, nor it is intended to. I remember him saying that the game supposes that 2 weaker nations will cooperate against the stronger ones, and that LA ermor and LA ryleh fail to this "balance" becouse they can win 2vs1.

[Gandalf Parker]

My rating of a strong or weak nation would be based quite abit on my style of play. Which is heavily into stealth, surprise tactics, and basically luck. So in many cases, what other people consider underdog nations are my favorites.

I only have a problem when people list what they feel are bad things about bad nations when they obviously are not the type of player to play to that nations built-in strengths. I think that instead of complaining about a nation and wanting to change it into another nation, its more fun to try and figure out how its meant to be played. But thats probably just the basic hacker in me.

[triqui]

Gandalf Parker said:
My rating of a strong or weak nation would be based quite abit on my style of play. Which is heavily into stealth, surprise tactics, and basically luck. So in many cases, what other people consider underdog nations are my favorites.

Fine, you are wellcome to rate Bogarus (or any other nation) differently. However, if you rate Bogarus Early Game (that is, bassically it's troop strength) highly and it's Middle and Late Game (where I value things like magic diversity, research power and access to Astral) lowly, they I will use my right to disagree

quote]I only have a problem when people list what they feel are bad things about bad nations when they obviously are not the type of player to play to that nations built-in strengths. I think that instead of complaining about a nation and wanting to change it into another nation, its more fun to try and figure out how its meant to be played. But thats probably just the basic hacker in me.

[/quote] I'm not complaining about Bogarus *at all*. I'm complaining about the previous poster ability to find Bogarus built-in strengths (which have plenty), and it's (in my opinion) misdirecting post, which might make some new player to conclude that Bogarus is a good "rush nation" based on its 4/5 (that is, near perfect) score in "early game". That would make it to be on par with nations like Uttgarde, Pangaea or Arcoscephale, which have been rated (rightly imho) that way already in this post, and have MUCH stronger base troops.

The entire point of this post is to rate the nation built-in strengths (and therefore weaknenesses). You have your right to disagree with me and to think that one of Bogarus strengths is its troops, and then we will debate about it if you please. But answering "have you tried 5fold angels" will not show how their archers and cavalry is on par with Man. If it's not (and i think it's not), then if Bogarus Early Game is 4/5, Man is 5/5. That would imply Pangaea is 6/5 and Vanheim is 7/5, which kinda screw the entire purpose of having a score based on 5 points.

I agree with you that style of play will make players to gravitate toward one or another nation. Players that tend to play in very big maps with a lot of players ussually will preffer late game powerhouses (such as Bogarus) over short term potences like vanheim. But that should not modify their own ratings of the nation. Bogarus still deserve a 1 or 2 in early power, becouse it is a bad nation for blitzes and early game, even if you like it becouse you like long term nations. Then rate it 2/5 EG and 5/5 late game or whatever. Not doing so, and allowing "general likeness of the nation" to permeate it's ratings will make some people who came here looking info, to try and choose the "wrong" nations for it's playstyle. Becouse if someone who likes what you have named "ulm style" tries to play Bogarus based on its alleged "4/5 early game score", he will be dissapointed. As much as a player that like magic, research, long term goals and late game will be if he tries Ulm based on some one's score of "ulm late game 5/5".

[Endoperez]

"Early Game" wasn't defined in this thread, I think.

Some people think it's the ability to rush and stop rushes directed at you (triqui?). Quantum mechanic said he thought early game happened before level 4 in research. Some people may think it's ability to conquer independents in an empty map quickly.

I don't think a nation has to be a good rusher to have strong early game.


I agree that 4 for early game strength may be too much for Bogarus, but that's why JimMorrison wishes to get more votes. It will average out. Give your own opinion about Bogarus, preferably about all the LA nations.

"Bad votes" are a necessity, because the community is so small. They can't be fixed afterwards, because that'd screw up JimMorrison's calculations. With enough votes, it will even out any way. One high vote might mean that Bogarus has early game strength of 2.45 instead of 1.45, but that still shows it's weaker than Vanheim or Man or whatever.

[triqui]

Endoperez said:
"Early Game" wasn't defined in this thread, I think.

Fair point. We should ask JimMorrison to define it then, becouse it will be a bit absurd if someone rate "Bogarus Early game" based on rush (or rush survival) potential while other base it on indi expansion rate and some other base it on cuteness of their sprites

Whatever definition JimMorrison want to use is the one we would use. If he chooses to rate "early game" by "graphics cuteness" then i will rate Bogarus 5/5

[JimMorrison]

triqui said:

Fair point. We should ask JimMorrison to define it then, becouse it will be a bit absurd if someone rate "Bogarus Early game" based on rush (or rush survival) potential while other base it on indi expansion rate and some other base it on cuteness of their sprites

Whatever definition JimMorrison want to use is the one we would use. If he chooses to rate "early game" by "graphics cuteness" then i will rate Bogarus 5/5

I actually did somewhere, but I type a lot. Let me reiterate.


Early Game- Initial expansion phase of the game. This phase is overall dominated by the ability to rapidly and efficiently harvest indie provinces, and preferably to do so without overlooking the things normally associated with moving into Mid Game, like a couple of castles, and a bit of research ability. Indeed, without research capacity, there is no mid game, as I'm looking at it. Rushing ability is definitely one potential component of the early game - but it can be especially misleading for the newer players that I am hoping gain the most benefit from this chart (if it ever gets enough input to be feasible ).

Mid Game- Development of first advanced strategies. You can look at it as 4 in a particular school, though for some nations and with some research goals, it may not be until 5 or 6 in a path, or 4 in two paths, or it may hinge primarily on your ability to shift production from cheaper troops to something more exotic. In any case, it's the point in the game where your strategies involve more than "Attack Rear". It also tends to directly imply the first real wars in the game, where people are not raiding or rushing, but taking these first big tools, and assuming that they will be enough to take someone else in a toe to toe fight.

Late Game- Well, I think this is the most straight forward, as the most confusion really is just where the breaking point is between Early-Mid. But just to clarify, this is when people start casting globals in earnest, summoning SCs, forging artifacts, exploiting (pun intended) Battlefield Enchantments, and generally just pushing the entire game to the limit. By this point everyone has at least 1-2 schools at 8-9 research, and they are rapidly filling out the others to diversify capabilities beyond what they already focused on as their intended strategic focal point. That is to say, most people have reached the fruition of the primary strategy that they wish to employ to win the game - the rest is just insurance.

[triqui]

I preffer to set the "early" and "middle" game as hard-set turn limits, ie: first 12 months, or 18 months, etc. Becouse stating it as "when you reach lvl 4 in research" might mean that some nations or strategies have a very short "early game" (EA arcos focusing on buiding castles and philosphers with an awake Sage will be there faster than you can say "middle game", while a drain 3 pangaea might need 2 years). You might not "rush" into Middle game, but that does not mean the other players would not either. And that you dont have a single school of magic with level 4 does not mean the game is not in Middle Game status. Earth in Modern Era, even if some Amazonian Tribes are still in stone age. Those tribes would painfully discover so when they try to destroy a M1-Abraham tank with an AtlAtl.


However, i would use your recomendation and will rate a few nations myself, to contribute to what i think it is one of the best threads nowadays in the forum.

[triqui]

Early Age.

Tien Chi: 4-5-3-2-3. Strong expansion with either Dual Blessed W5E, or simply with very good Composite Archers (that dominate EA indy). Strong middle game (one of strongest imho) due to wide broad of choices in magic (that allow tailor-made strategies versus different enemies) and very good summonable sacreds. It's late game is not bad thanks to magic diversity, but it does lack true power on Blood, Astral or Death, they dont have access to good Thugs or SC and 9hp mages tend to die fast versus global damaging spells. Broad selection of choices make them hard to learn (and easy to make wrong decissions)

Lanka 5-5-4-4-4. A real powerhouse in the expansion phase with very potent sacreds and good archers. Middle game they have strong and easy "out of the box" thugs, they have worldwide recruitable potent sacreds, access to good middle game spheres (air, death) and excelent national summons. Late game they have powerful blood second to none, and enough death and nature to make them "natural" Tartarian makers, plus their own national blood SC. They are easy to learn to play correctly, and they do a lot of things and almost all of them very well done.

Niefelheim: 5-4-4-5-5. They can expand against regular indies using armies of ONE single sacred. They couple that with skinshifters and Jarls for one of the best expansion rates in the game. Middle game they have a wide magic selection (everything but earth and fire, most of it strongly tied), recruitable Super Combatants, strong troops, good stealthy thugs (the scout ) and access to powerful communions for evocations. Late game they have Blood, Death and some Astral, as long as 30 hp mages and recruitable SC. Their Astral might not be that high, but it is good enough to get started.

Middle Age:
Ermor: 5-4-5-5-5. Yep, they are that good. Powerful bless expansion with ethereal sacreds, powerful middle game with competent mages, decent infantry and excelent units, and awesome late game machine with high Astral and Death. I simply love this one.

Late Age
Marignon: 3-4-5-3-2. They have decent human troops with good morale, good missile and good cavalry. Coupled with properly done Awake pretender they can do nice enough in the expansion phase. They get a quantum leap as soon as they reach lvl 4 (flame arrow), and from that point forward, they only get better: Full access to all magic but nature (which is easy to get from indis), cheap and powerful blood, good national thugs, and the best SC chasis there is as a national summonable. They are trickyier to play properly than most nations though. My favourite nation in flavour so far.



Will add a few more later.

[Amhazair]

Wrana said:
Though relatively new, particularly in MP, I have something to say on the following nations:
EA Ulm 4 4 2 4 2 (as said, lack of uber-sacreds in EA, + low MR; no Astral, Blood, weakish Death. But troops are good enough & forge bonus quite good).
EA Helheim 5 4 4 4 2? (sacreds, though I don't use uber-bless, but common troops are strong, too; good Death magic, weaker Blood; in MP stealthy armies are more difficult to use properly)
EA Sauromatia 5 5? 5? 4 4? (strong overall, poison archers & Hydras can replace sacreds quite well; better Blood/Death than previous, + Astral)
EA Tien Chi 4 4 5 3 2? (good troops, great versatility of mages; good summons; learn to use any variation of mages can take a lot)
MA Tien Chi 4? 5? 5? 3 2? (as above except less mages variability & less summons)
MA Shinuyama 3? 4 4? 2 2? (no sacreds & difficult to get military machine going - need scales; variable mages can be a pain to learn)
LA Bogarus 4 4 4? 2 ? (their troops are actually not bad and mages give good versatility; Dominion kill is an option I think they should excercise; plus ability to hurt enemy economy - this could make a strong mid to late game. I still think they should be 2 nations, though.)

Triqui has been focusing on your valuation of Bogarus early game, and while I generally agree with him, I think the "problem" with these grades is broader. I see generally very high scores here Only one 2 and one 3. I wonder if, when you graded the nations you were most familiar with (which is perfectly okay, I did the same) you considered the other nations of the same age. Remeber these grades are very relative. If for example MA T'ien Ch'i has lategame of 5 (and I'm not saying they do not) that means that there are only a few nations as strong as them in late game, while most are weaker, even much weaker. The same argument can be made for all points of course.

Remember that, as much as you might like to play all nations, some of them have to be 2's... (and lower)

[Zeldor]

Yeah. From those that wrana said I think it would be rather:

LA Bogarus - 1 for early game, you just cannot imagine worse troops. Even EA Marverni may be better. Being able to take awake SC does not cout
MA TC - 2, max3, you just cannot expand fast enough with your troops
MA Shinu - probaly even 1, for their age. Flaming arrows is mid-game already. They have very bad starting army and good troops are very expensive.