Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[Gandalf Parker]

Twan said:Anyway I also think according to your post that you'd value too much some situationnal abilities or ignore their drawbacks.

I do have a leaning in my own evaluations. I tend to play really large games, large maps, solo. And I tend to play more tactics than strategy. In other words, not so much pre-planning as counting on and being able to react favorably to random changes in the game.

Sneaking is a good example. With stealth armies you lose one turn or more before the moment you effectively take an ennemy province. It's not a bad skill, but a secondary one, if you use stealth with all yours armies you'll just be beaten by nations able to do normal moves and take your provinces (or re-take in one turn the provinces you reached in 2 or 3 with your stealth forces).

Not necessarily. Some of the best strategies for stealth armies involve splitting an enemies forces so that they cannot hit you with one massive army on one front. Forcing an enemy to invest more in defense than they normally would. Hiding your buildups, and even the locations of your castles. The strong ability to ally by being able to buildup in a safe corner and yet move thru your neighbor to assist them. Forcing an enemy to expend more on combat than you to reach you if you create a "moat" of strong independents. Not to mention the ability to play 3rd party by hiding a large army in the area where two other players are fighting in order to take advantage of a weakened position after one has expensively beaten down the other.

Also, there would be the strategy of guerrila rebels. Even after losing your home castle and provinces you can still be a strong enough player to affect the outcome of a game.

Also, the use of Pans wandering thru provinces dropping maenads each turn can be very effective. There is no "waste of a turn" there. Without ever becoming visible they create combats each turn testing the defenses of their opponent, forcing expenditure in defense, slowing the movement of armies, and gaining extremely detailed information on the enemy.

Flight is different, as it allows to strike every turn, and behind ennemy lines it's a real advantage. But the quality of flyers is often problematic to the point flyers nations often prefer to use them only as support for their non flying troops. I probably value caelian fly one point, but caelum also lose one for the global quality of troops (out of mammoths justifying a good early game note).

That would be a different strategy than one which is built entirely around the ability to fly. Such as early detection of everyones location. Being able to "checker jump" to them. That would be taking every third province between you and them. Building up independents in only those sporadic locations. Hitting the enemy early, making it more expensive for him to reach you than it is for you to reach him (forcing him to fight thru independents such as jumping over all knight provinces as you approach him), being able to build up your army near him until you feel ready to take out all of the indep locations. Granted, this is a large-map strategy but it shows that every nation and every skill does have some use in some games.

Also, again, there is the ally benefit with a flyer nation. Being able to work around the limitation of "I cant move my armies thru his area to help him" by negotiating the taking of stepping-stone provinces thru his area.

Blesses are always assumed in early game notes for bless nations I think

What you say is definetly true. And would excellent for players to take into account depending on their playing style. Part of MY problem is that Im a very old-school hacker. I automatically tend to seek playing styles different than whatever most people are using.

Blessed nations are often played without a full strategy built around blessings. Not figuring in dominion is the largest lack I see. Particularly in charging forward beyond the range of their dominion (Im not saying that you do, just that I see it often). Altho people tend to rate it as a combat strategy, I tend to see it better used to bolster defensive armies. Particularly in a waiting game where the nations main strategy is research. Again, probably best in large games. Possibly mega-games where just getting past the "hump" of the initial build-up-and-charge players is an important part of your goal.

IMHO of course.

[thejeff]

Gandalf Parker said:
Also, the use of Pans wandering thru provinces dropping maenads each turn can be very effective. There is no "waste of a turn" there. Without ever becoming visible they create combats each turn testing the defenses of their opponent, forcing expenditure in defense, slowing the movement of armies, and gaining extremely detailed information on the enemy.

You've suggested this before and I still can't see how it's effective. The maenads lack a leader and thus autoroute. 1PD is enough to beat them. So there's essentially no defense expenditure, it doesn't slow army movement. You do get detailed info, but 300+ gold is a lot for an improved scout.
And the trail of maenads lets him know where your Pan is going. It should also only work in turmoil, or do they still get a few in enemy order dominion?
What am I missing?

[Gandalf Parker]

They still get a few. And granted it does work best in areas where you can move in and out of a players territory to avoid laying TOO exact a trail. Even in a players territory since it happens each turn, its still hard to gauge where the attack will occur next. The best tactic against it was to crank the PD in sporadic provinces in the area to try the level of being able to catch scouts.

Granted I havent tested this since the latest changes in maenads (I hate the new look) but it used to be that the berserker did have some balancing benefit against the autorout. On some random rolls it used to be that you could win. Sometimes both sides routed at the same time.

[thejeff]

Ok, I can see that. Against weak PD with archers or fliers, early hits could berserk a few maenads who might then beat the PD.

[DonCorazon]

I find it quite difficult to rate nations - there are too many variables.

1. I haven't come close to playing played every nation in MP and I think that is the real testing ground. Hard to imagine many people have played every nation in MP, given how long an MP game takes. But I suppose once you know how MP works you can study a nation's units and extrapolate as to how they will perform.

2. Some of those MP games have been with pros, some with noobs, others a mix. Doing well in a noob game may give you a false sense of confidence about how powerful your nation is.

3. A lot of how any game turns out will depend on pretender design, scales, finding indie mages, random events, diplomacy, a neighbor going AI, etc.

That said, the commentary on nation strength is quite interesting. My sense though is you can win with almost any nation using a mix of skill and luck as long as you have access to diverse magic. Magical diversity is the key as magic provides the tool box of counters, and counter-counters that help make the game fun and give it such a steep learning curve.

[Gandalf Parker]

I once posted a timeline something like this...
1) get Dominions, play the tutorial, play some solo games.
2) post that xxxxx nation is obviously way too powerful (ermor? ctis? ulm?)
3) play more nations and discover the misleading rock-paper-sissors balance of the nations
4) play all of the nations and discover that one of them kicks ***
5) post that nation xxxxx is way too powerful because you always win with it
6) try a multiplayer game and discover that everyone ended up with the same answer, but strangely with different nations. For some reason they play those other nations differently, and rather effectively.
7) eventually iron out the best stategies for you playing with your favorite nation. Back to kicking ***.
8) wander into a multiplayer game of an era different than you usually play, and lose badly
9) iron out the variables for your favorite nation in each era.
10) eventually discover that you really can kick *** with your favorite nations
11) stray into a multiplayer game of a totally different size or parameters
12) discover that map size, map styles, number of players, settings, etc all have quite abit to do with your ability to kick ***. SIGH and realize that it will take years more time for you to explore all of the possibilities

[Zeldor]

Gandalf Parker:

Well, no matter what you say some nations are overpowered. And devs are not doing much to change it. And that are not only nations, it is more about magic paths, huge domintion of astral, death and blood magic over other paths. Of course some people can win with MA Man against MA Arco, but chances are same like Liechtenstein beating Brasil in soccer.

[Kristoffer O]

The only nations I would agree are too powerful are LA R'lyeh and LA Ermor. They are the only nations that have game mechanics that alter the game progress in a game. Their very participation makes other players behave differently in order to cope. In the case of Ermor this bothers me less, since they are supposed to be a world threat and they are central to the development of the dominions series. R'lyeh is a bit of a bother since they share some game mechanics with Ermor, but has more options and diverse powers.

I will not consider a nation overpowered unless it can beat two other nations ganking up on the strong one. That is what MP is all about. It is the responsibility of the neighbors to know the main strengths and weaknesses of a nation. The forum, playtesting and in game diplomacy should give anyone the tools to evaluate a nation and make sure it is destroyed before it gets too successful.

I do understand that some nations are more powerful than others, but the nice thing about MP is that balance develops during the game. A nation that is unable to take advantage of game settings, map features, sites and such is too weak. A nation that is always successful regardless of game settings, map features, sites etc is probably too strong.

I do not consider MA Man too weak. Boring perhaps, but not weak.

There are more than fifty nations in the game. Of course some are more powerful. Since we have ordinary day jobs, and divert most of our developing time to our other project there will obviously not be changes to every nation (since every nation needs changes).

I do get annoyed when you say we don't do much to change it. You have probably reduced the chances of having MA Man getting a fix. Machaka feels more interesting now.

Hmm, sorry about that Zeldor. It was not intended as an attack on you or Man, but I do actually dislike to work with nations when I remember people complaining about them. It gives me a sour feeling, and since I work with things that makes me happy I avoid working on nations which make me feel unhappy.

Things that makes me happy are when people say they like the feel and mood of a nation and that they feel that it is sad that it is not more strong in this department or that area. This gets me inspired and makes me think more about the nation instead of less, and will probably have the result that I will add stuff.

A discussion on how cool KoA are will likely make me feel that they are cool, look at them and think that they are too uncool in the game. A discussion where someone complains about the fact that they cannot move about and are underpowered compared to dada.. will just make me leave the discussion and look at a thread talking about how cool bane spiders are, even if they can only be recruited at home. I will then silently agree and think about what can be done to the banespiders, including new graphics and a set of new and cooler powers to compensate.

Sorry about the rant. I had too much coffe last night and woke up after four hours of bad sleep.

[Zeldor]

Kristoffer O:

Yeah, Machaka! I knew you are secreatly working on EA and LA version.

I simply made really bad idea of playing MA Man in MP some time ago. And I like complaining too

I will try to limit that or find a way to do it in more sublte way

Oh, there is just one really tiny thing you could look at - cost of Mind Hunt

[DonCorazon]

I agree with Gandalf. The good thing is even if you play a perceived weak nation, you can design a pretender that helps compensates for you nation's weakness, like taking the Enchantress with an Astrally challenged nation. Use her gems for Arcane Probing and with any luck, you will have some nice indy Astral mages. In MP like KO says, use your nation's reputation of weakness to avoid getting ganged up on. Play the role of the henchman in the shadows, but working every turn to strengthen your weaknesses. With trading and luck you can hang in there with the big boys. Certainly there are nations that are easier and stronger,it would be impossible otherwise, but I think there are enough variables in a game that most anything is possible.