Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[Wokeye]

A good idea, this - although I dont feel I've played enough different nations enough to rate the ones I have in relative terms to contribute.

[dirtywick]

It's been a while since I played...

MA Shinuyama 23432 : Just awful until you get a small economy going (easier said than done with their less expensive troops!), great summons mid/late but lack of astral hurts, can be difficult to survive at times. Really cool nation to play with though, one of my favorites.
LA Man 1??11 : I couldn't get anywhere with these guys! Just terrible I thought
MA Abysia 55334 : Strong early/mid, less so later, really easy to use, going to have to learn blood magic, not so much fun to micromanage that
EA Ulm 45224 : Strong early, best mid, not many options late, there's some small intricacies to use them to their full ability, but not hard to be effective until late game just massing troops

I have dabbled with others, but not enough to rate them.

[quantum_mechani]

I know the point of this thread isn't not to nitpick individual ratings, but it doesn't seem like some healthy discussion would do any harm.

MaxWilson said:

EA Ulm 4 3 2 4 ? (Piles and piles of excellent troops, have to learn to forge earth boots.)

I really don't see EA Ulm getting weaker with time. At the start they have the disadvantage of having some rather unspectacular sacreds for early era, and mages with no consistently devastating options (besides bladewind, a niche thier archers already have well covered). On the other hand, as the game drags on forge bonus on such versatile mages, and lack of reliance on the capital start to really give them a leg up. They can be a great nations if played right, I just don't find their early power at all comparable to the likes of Helhiem and Niefelhiem.

EA C'tis 4 4 5 4 ? (Excellent troops, pretty to learn some options for death mages. Have to learn to diversify in late game.)

Another nations with some definite perks later on (non capital only mages) but with a distinctly dicey early game. They have some tricks like skelly spam and shadow blast that help a lot early, but other nations have this _and_ many other options.

EA Marverni 4 4 4 2 ? (Not everyone sees the potential at first. Read Baalz's guide for pointers.)

I'm a huge fan of Marverni, I've played them in MP several times and even won with them, but if they are not a 1 or 2 at the start then no one is. They have some great spell options, but it takes time to research them and they are extremely vulnerable during that time.

dirtywick said:

LA Man 1??11 : I couldn't get anywhere with these guys! Just terrible I thought

I can understand the difficulty to play ratings - some nations just mesh better with some people - but I think the rating of one at the start is pretty unfair. I can't think of a nation with much stronger human troops.

dirtywick said:
MA Abysia 55334 : Strong early/mid, less so later, really easy to use, going to have to learn blood magic, not so much fun to micromanage that

They are no pushovers, but two fives seems a bit strong. Their sacreds are not all that impressive and they have some rather severe old age and capital only problems. They also have a rather serious liability to evocations like thunder strike and magma eruption.

Anyway, I hope no one minds a little commentary, feel free to pick at my ratings.

[dirtywick]

I don't mind at all.

EA Ulm has few options late game. Their mages can be difficult to get high paths for and they lack astral and significant death magic, and if your pretender can't summon anything powerful, those forged items don't really have a place to go. Their national summons are terrible IMO, and Troll King is about the best they can do without empowerment. I think they're a lot stronger mid game with huge stealth armies and good mass buffs on the battlefield.

Flaming Arrows and Wind Guide are both 4 level research spells, which I didn't think was early game. I don't think they have a lot going for them. They've got stealthy heavy infantry that's kind of expensive and can't be blessed (or maybe they can since a patch?) because they lack a stealthy priest. The crones are old. Their national troops are nothing to write home about either.

That's why I gave them a 1. You can average it out with somebody who thinks they're good

Maybe a little overboard with Abysia haha Demon Knights and their sacreds are pretty scary, and their assassins are pretty nice whether they're assassinating or just fighting. Limited paths on their mages and good fire boosters are a problem, of course. Yeah, probably too high.

[quantum_mechani]

dirtywick said:

I don't think they have a lot going for them. They've got stealthy heavy infantry that's kind of expensive and can't be blessed (or maybe they can since a patch?) because they lack a stealthy priest. The crones are old. Their national troops are nothing to write home about either.

You are speaking of MA man, LE has no crones. Late era is significantly better, they have astral (and a tiny bit of death and fire), decent battle mages recruitable everywhere, mages/spies recruitable without a lab, heavy duty infantry with crossbows, etc. About the only serious point against them is they have a nature gem income but no easy way to spend it.

[dirtywick]

Ah, could be! My fault then.

[MaxWilson]

QM,

I'll note up front that I waited until Jim lifted the "experience" restriction until I posted. There's a lot I don't know about the game. Nevertheless:

I see Ulm being quite strong early on because they have great troops, but as the game wears on that matters less and less. I'm less impressed than you are by Ulm's weak mages. Forge bonus is nice, but if you're just using that bonus to forge equipment to bring you up to the same level everybody else has naked I don't see that as much of an advantage. Ulm kind of peters out in my eyes as its troops become less relevant.

C'tis has a strong expansion story in the early game largely because of the Elite Warriors and the charioteers. I do have trouble with them if I run into cold scales, and maybe I should have rated them lower on the "ease of use" because of that. But the troops are very good, skelly spam is easy to research, and Sauromancers are cheap.

Perhaps I'm overestimating Marverni--it's been a while since I played them--but I quite liked their Ambibate Nobles and all the javelin-carrying troops. I thought they were pretty solid, especially after you cast Strength of Giants.

Basically, "early game" to me means "before mages are really relevant." So my early game ratings are mostly about troops.

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:
QM,

I'll note up front that I waited until Jim lifted the "experience" restriction until I posted. There's a lot I don't know about the game. Nevertheless:

I see Ulm being quite strong early on because they have great troops, but as the game wears on that matters less and less. I'm less impressed than you are by Ulm's weak mages. Forge bonus is nice, but if you're just using that bonus to forge equipment to bring you up to the same level everybody else has naked I don't see that as much of an advantage. Ulm kind of peters out in my eyes as its troops become less relevant.

C'tis has a strong expansion story in the early game largely because of the Elite Warriors and the charioteers. I do have trouble with them if I run into cold scales, and maybe I should have rated them lower on the "ease of use" because of that. But the troops are very good, skelly spam is easy to research, and Sauromancers are cheap.

Perhaps I'm overestimating Marverni--it's been a while since I played them--but I quite liked their Ambibate Nobles and all the javelin-carrying troops. I thought they were pretty solid, especially after you cast Strength of Giants.

Basically, "early game" to me means "before mages are really relevant." So my early game ratings are mostly about troops.

-Max

The problem is, your ratings seem to be largely based on the strength of Ea Ulm/Marverni/C'tis regular troops, when that tends to not be all that relevant when in an EA early game fight. You can have troops far better for the price as similar indies (ulm archers and c'tis elite warriors come to mind), but they can still be shredded by a few properly blessed helhirdlings or niefel giants. If you remove mages from the equation, these nations have almost no chance in such a situation.

I also strongly disagree about Ulm's forge bonus wearing down with time. The late game revolves around thugs and SCs for the most part, and while there is little worthwhile to forge early, you are pouring maybe even the majority of your gems into it by the late game.

[JimMorrison]

Ooohh, this is good, I like it.

You are free to debate these issues in this thread QM, it helps increase interest and overall accuracy. Just as long as you don't scare people off, but so far you come off as knowledgeable rather than arrogant (someone would have to be pretty thin skinned to make that leap with you, I think), then we're doing good things here. 8 )

[dirtywick]

quantum_mechani said:

I also strongly disagree about Ulm's forge bonus wearing down with time. The late game revolves around thugs and SCs for the most part, and while there is little worthwhile to forge early, you are pouring maybe even the majority of your gems into it by the late game.

The forge bonus is pretty significant throughout the game. You can reasonable afford to produce a lot of quills without a lot of air income, and forge a lot of earth boots (followed by dwarven hammers), girdles of might, and if you want to empower a smith, thistle maces among other things. E3N3 antlered shamans are a lot better than E2N2, and it's not a big investment at 50% the gems to do it often. Plus gearing up standard commanders with longbows of accuracy or scepters of fire isn't a big investment.

I don't know, I find it pretty useful in conserving earth gems at least. The earth boots are pretty popular items for my mages.