Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

The two polls that were conducted were for team name and associated theme (Blood, Death, Astral, Nature, animal nations, giant nations, nations with flying units, etc.), not necessarily specific nations.

I haven't decided to go with pre-set nations for each team. What I provided in the previous post was a hypothetical matchup. All I've done (in the preview file) and all I will do most likely is to provide each team with a list of recommended nations and pretenders that most fit the theme. Thus, I've provided the basis of what each team's ranked list might look like, but the order and priority is up to each team. One may meet the theme by nation or pretender choice. I would like players to do both, but at this point, I am not forcing any team who doesn't want to play along to do both.

As always I appreciate suggestions and comments and may incorporate them or not. The map has already been created, as have the starting locations, a preview of which was already published on the thread. It's in there among the thousand other posts. :D

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

This sounds really nice in theory, but it overlooks some rather important facts. Namely, nature magic doesn't offer a path to victory. At all.

There are four strategies that work in endgame: tarts, wish, angels, blood. That's it. Tarts are by far the most efficient, but clams make wish spam possibly competitive. And blood eschews efficiency because slaves are cheap. Most nations are going to access angels via wish, so we can collapse that down to 3 real options.

So, of those options, we'll note 1 death, 1 astral, and 1 blood.

Then we note that blood magic is really weak in MA overall, making the blood route much less appealing. And since everyone clams, and tarts aren't notably vulnerable to armageddon, tart spam will rule the game, especially since the death nations are already otherwise strong!

Hence death team > astral team > blood team, and that's just endgame. You'll note the death team also has an amazingly strong early and mid game.

So what does nature do? Other than die I mean. I can't see any real options. Their early game is pretty bad (mictlan is the only one with a good early game, Man's is ok, the other two suck). Their mid game is craptastic in vanilla (machaka might have the best one of them, but with dragonmaster at a ridiculous Ench 8 the usual fever fetish spam -> fire drake spam doesn't work quite so well, and Eriu raiders come online - but there's no muscle to back them up on the entire team). And their late game is nonexistent. No, seriously, they have absolutely nothing going on.

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If you must go with pre-set teams, these are better (although not perfect by any means):

Twilight of the Empire: Pythium, Ermor, C'tis, Arcocephale

Barbarians at the Gates: Marignon, Vanheim, Jotunheim, (Ulm/Man)

Partha Reborn: Caelum, Abysia, Bandar Log, Agartha? (or I suppose Machaka, but its not as nice a fit. Ashdod *could* go here, if they were remotely balanced for play.)

The Golden Horde: TC, Shinuyama, Pangaea (representing wild areas north or east of the black sea), ??? (Eriu would be ok, if not entirely thematic. Could justify Mictlan by arguing our mythical china was the first to discover the new world.)

Yes, that was entirely geographic. Its also remarkably closer to being balanced. Partha Reborn might be a little weak, and Twilight of the Empire might be a little strong, but it isn't nearly as overwhelming.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Squirrelloid, if you wish to divide it Geographically into 4 teams than I have an alternative for you:

Central Europe: Arco(Greece), Ermor(Rome), Ulm(Germany), Pythium(Byzantines)

Northern Europe: Eriu(Ireland), Man(England), Jotunheim(Norse), Vanheim(Norse)

Middle East: Ashdod(Israel), C'tis(Egypt), Pangaea(Iran?), Marignon(Turkey?)

Far Asia: Shinuyama(Japan), TC(China), Bandar Log(India), Mictlan(supposed to be Aztecs, so Mexico, but as far as Dominions go it's closer to the real "Asian" nations).

not really sure about the Middle East team, I stretched it a bit in there. also Ashdod is considered "OP", however the other nations on its team are rather underpowered so it should somewhat balance itself out. this team still does have potential through to the late game so it's not hopeless for all but Ashdod.

also these teams seem to be more diverse as far as magic go, and also relatively balanced Imho.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Classically, the mediterranean was a unifying feature (note expansion of the Roman Empire, which I use as one of my groupings), and Egypt had far more in common with Rome than it did with, say, Persia.

Caelum is based on zoroastrian beliefs, and is thus persian. Throw in Babylon (Abysia), and (Northwest) India (BL) and you have a fair representation of the Persian empire circa Darius II. Agartha seems suitable thematically because of all the mountains.

Also, Marignon is France/Spain. Isn't it painfully obvious? Pangaea is unspecified wilderness, presumably at the edge of greek wanderings (hence my placing it north of the Black Sea)

In the timeframe i chose, there were no 'germans' or 'english'. There were goths and celts (marignon, ulm, man, etc...), there was the roman empire in decline (incl. egypt, greece, italy, byzantium), there was Partha in the east centered in modern day Iran, and then the far east. This timeframe aligns with the MA nations passably well (ie, MA Ermor is clearly the Roman Empire in decline).

Despite being 'asian', there's no historical reason to put an Indian nation on the same team as a chinese or japanese nation. None. Trade was predominantly through Persian or the 'middle east' (actually called the near east until ~19th century) until the mongols. The chinese trade with the west went by way of the silk road - ie, across the steppes and north of the himalayas.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Squirrel, I think you may be overthinking this a little ;). If you want to come up with geographically based teams, that's fine. If you want to come up with politically based teams, that's fine. But this really doesn't need to be absolutely 100% historically accurate. All we really need are plausible reasons for having nations on the same team.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

well, didn't know Caelum was based on Zoroastrianism, still don't understand it since Zoroastrianism revolves around the sacred fire and Caelum is well, a Lightning nation... also didn't know that Abysia is supposed to represent Babylonia(again, how exactly...? :o).

now that you mention it, Marignon does fit better with France/Spain with the inquisitors and all, for some reason when I thought about "breaking from the Falling Roman Empire" I thought about the Byzantine era instead of classical Rome, hence my guess of Turkey and the Inquisitors in this case being the Muslims hunting down Christians(in Armenia and the Levante, against the Crusades).

and yes, India doesn't really fit with Japan and China, nor do the Aztecs for that matter ;) but since I didn't(and still don't quite understand) that Caelum and Abysia are supposed to represent the Mesopotamian area as well...

also time frames in Dominions are painfully mixed up as it is, so limiting it to both geography and time lines seems like a stretch. for example TC Imperial Bureaucracy refers mainly to the Tang-Sung Dynasties which will be around the 7th-12th centuries, a bit after the Roman empire, while in the time of France and England, and way ahead of the Persians. Shinuyama is ugh... Japanese Mythology perhaps? I'm not really sure, but seems more ancient than modern Imho... Bandar Log on the other hand(along with Kailasa, Lanka, and Patala, and any other monkey nation if I forgot any) already have a built in caste system, which was started by the British in the 19th century... however its roots are delved from the Vedas, which is ancient India...

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Arcomictpan... 2 hours from staling.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Bleh. you know the easiest slay of all....
is trying to get 3 turns in in 2 hours.

bleh.

edit: yep. that was painful.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

Well, squirrel, I've noticed your having access to Tartarians hasn't helped your team much against the Deva's. If it is the path to victory, I haven't seen it yet. In fact I might say that exploiting the Mysterios and Blessed might be ACGHHS true path to victory in this game.

I do have a soft spot for history, and the dominions nations are based loosely on it. Dominions seems to mix elements of fantasy with games like Rome Total War. The game also reminds me a little of an old SSG or SSI game called Warlords? Anyone remember it?

As I said, haven't said I will go with pre-set teams (why does that notion seem to stick in some players heads?). Your suggestion regarding geographic themes doesn't really satisfy my desire for specific team strengths and weaknesses as much the path based option. It also means pre-set nations, which reduces choice and freedom.

Most newer players don't necessarily play the way some veterans might, and not everyone plays the way you might. For them and for me it is exploring the game and the possibilites. And doing things that reduce the fun of the game to hoarding, or other such things, I just don't see the need.

Most of my games have never made it to late game anyway and are geared towards noobs. The veterans sole purpose in the games is to teach the noobs about the game in its entirety not just specific strategies that may apply to an endgame scenario which might never happen if teams are eliminated before then.

Of course if you wish to start a game that caters to the dueling crowd and/or some vets and the strategies they use, using those geographic themes you certainly can do so. There is so much more to the game than that in my opinion.

Regarding banning any nations, well have I ever banned a nation? That should give you your answer. If we were using the multi-age mod (a possibility I am looking into), yes I might consider it, as it stands, moving from one age to another to keep things simple, the most I might be persuaded to do is reserve Ashdod for the AI.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Running.
 

I would think monkeys belong in trees.

And of course, having the markata would instantly render the teams fair.