Dud nations

[Shovah32]

EA Rlyeh and oceania arent great. MA Mictlan isnt bad but is weak compared to its EA and LA counterparts.

[HoneyBadger]

EA R'lyeh needs better troops-most of the troops they get are lousy and unnecessary. The only ones worth anything that aren't Aboleths are the Shambler Thralls, and they aren't great.

If they got slave trolls-even as a national summon-and "rogue" mindlords *do* get them when you find Aboleths in neutral provinces, they'd be much, much better.

It wouldn't hurt if there were some kind of a sacred version of the Aboleth/Mind-Lord, too, since there are young sacred Aboleths.

I'd also really like to see some better Province Defense for these guys, too-because they're a particularly slow nation, and need it.

The biggest problem with Aboleths is that the only good units they get are Mind-Lords. They're great units, admittedly, but they can't be a nation by themselves.

[Salamander8]

HoneyBadger said:
EA R'lyeh needs better troops-most of the troops they get are lousy and unnecessary. The only ones worth anything that aren't Aboleths are the Shambler Thralls, and they aren't great.

If they got slave trolls-even as a national summon-and "rogue" mindlords *do* get them when you find Aboleths in neutral provinces, they'd be much, much better.

It wouldn't hurt if there were some kind of a sacred version of the Aboleth/Mind-Lord, too, since there are young sacred Aboleths.

I'd also really like to see some better Province Defense for these guys, too-because they're a particularly slow nation, and need it.

The biggest problem with Aboleths is that the only good units they get are Mind-Lords. They're great units, admittedly, but they can't be a nation by themselves.

All very good points.

The PD only worked for me when backed up by mobile forces or for piecemeal attacks. The morale of the non-lobotimised slave troops is nominally 8 and being that most of the PD are such slave troops that doesn't help. MA R'Leyh's PD at least gets the Lobo Guards which don't rout.

The Shambler Thralls I had posted about earlier. I like them overrall and only needing 1 resource and having 50 morale is great, but they get eaten alive by arrow fire, and they are mindless so accrue no xp. Once I had empowered more of my Mind Lords with air and summoned an Air Queen I had Arrow Fend up quite often to help with this.

Mind Lords are really nice except for the lack of magic item slots problem. I had a ton of amulets of the fish made up for these guys. I'd hate to try EA R'Lyeh without having access to air magic though. I had started my Polypal Queen with heavy magic, including some air and through an event acquired an indy mage with air that I empowered a bit to help with item creation too.

There are several ways to bring air breathers down below the waves, but barring the self-only amulet of the fish, there is no way to bring the water breathers out. That severely cuts the effectiveness of the Gibodais and Giboleths.

I don't feel that EA R'Lyeh is a straight-up dud, but they were much more difficult to win with than the other nations I have won Dom3 with so far (MA R'Lyeh, LA Argartha, EA Lanka, EA Yomi).

[Sombre]

Hmm. A good topic. I'm more interested in knowing which units and summons people think are duds, so I might make a new thread.

[SelfishGene]

No dud love for MA Mictlan?

I'm neither very fond of LA Ctis either.

EA Oceania and EA Ryleh make up for their weak amphib capacity by being much stronger underwater than EA Atlantis, and they should dominate the waves.

I would hesitate to call LA Arco a dud, but they do lose quite a lot of power and gain only a little variety in their troops. I like them in SP but i wonder if they're not rather weak in Multi.

As i've said before, Marverni is a very very weak nation as well that has all but one unit (the Druid) that you must base your whole strategy around. Their basic troops are worse than indie Barbarians. Good luck surviving without an Awake pretender.

I actually think EA Arco might be rather weak in all honestly, although i can see players doing well with them. If you play them thematically (3 magic/3 sloth), and make best use of philosophers, your still sort of stuck "rolling" for good randoms on your Mystics. Depending upon what randoms you get your game could be very strong or very weak.

[HoneyBadger]

I wouldn't by any means call EA Oceania weak. They have the single *best* sacred troop in the whole game, and Triton Kings with 4 water right off the bat.

Run well, they should be the Helheim of the ocean.

If they were amphibious, they'd be the best nation in the game, in my opinion.

R'lyeh Aboleths is easily the weakest of the bunch.

EA Atlantis could really use more national summons-especially weird, squishy/flappy ones, to go along with that whole Lovecraft jones-overall, though, I'd say they're the most balanced water nation.

[DrPraetorious]

I tend to agree about ME Agartha.

I should note that ME Agartha does *not* get skull mentors. Those guys have a whopping 2.5% chance of DD, and they're capital only.

This also means that, unlike every other era of Agartha, you can't cast darkness, which is your killer ap. This isn't to say that ME Agartha doesn't have some strengths. Those statues really are quite excellent.

Ulm may be slightly underpowered (Master Smiths should probably have 100% on that random), but not hugely so.

EA Ulm gets superior troops and doesn't pay more gold for them. They're also only resource heavy if you want them to be. They max out at 2 in most paths, but they get every element, nature and death.

EA Arco is not weak - it is *difficult*. It can produce more research than any other nation, and it has a great variety of magic (every element, astral, nature) incl. the ability to form communions. Your military kinda bites but not so badly that it can't be salvaged.

EA Marverni, on the other hand, has an utterly dreadful military, and no research bonus. That's a weak nation. If they had philosophers they'd be fine, but they don't - which means they're stuck with magic that-will-eventually-be-great but you-won't-survive-to-use-it. I've never seen Marverni survive the initial rush of wars. Possibly this is just because experienced players avoid playing it.

The other nations that could use some help are ME T'ien Ch'i and Bandar Log. ME T'ien Ch'i isn't terrible, but it gets none of the cool stuff available to the other eras of T'ien Ch'i. Bandar Log has the same problem as Marverni, although at least you get elephants.

Shinuyama is also kinda weak. You can do darkvision+darkness, which is cool, but all of your stuff is just overpriced.

[Xietor]

My issue with ME Ulm is more thematic. They are not the best race or even in the top 5, of sword and steel. that is their theme, but put one of ulms infantry up against one from arcos and they suck. Ulm's infantry should be the best, best armor, best morale, best overall, and it is not close.

Even Pangaea's infantry, not counting the recuperation, is much better. While not quite as much prot(16 is still good),
it has more hp and much much higher defense, mr, and more hps as well.

So my beef is that every race should fear Ulm's infantry, but in reality whose does? Very few.

[Sombre]

I don't really agree that the theme of Ulm ME is supposed to be ultra elite soldiers. They're an armour nation and they have some scary knights but nothing in the infantry descriptions makes me think anything other than standard feudal man-at-arms infantry. You compare them with Sparta, but I just don't see anything like that in the descriptions.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I don't have a problem with them not being Spartans, but I'd like to ask the question-provided they're not, then what *are* they? They started out Cimmerians, ended up Carpathians, what's in the middle? What qualities make them a distinct nation, rather than just a placeholder?