Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

The reason i gave top rating to Ctis in the Midgame, is their research and income are second to none. They should be the 1st nation to have banelords, constr 6 gear, shadow blast etc. to supplement their admittedly weak national troops.

Ctis mages are good early with skelly spam. Their main weakness is Wolven Winter that a prudent enemy casts before every battle with them.

Shinuyama is a 4 late game for me because they get every mage at every castle, and their mages can cast banefire, which has no resist. Ghost riders and earth attacks are easy for them as well.

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Ming:

Of course not. We are talking about NATION strength. PoD will add +1 or +2 for early game for every nation. The fact that some nations must take one says a lot about their early game weakness.

JimMorrison:

Still, getting average rating seems like not a best solution. As I said we have many unexperienced players here. Some really outragous ratings should be ignored [or maybe even all ratings from people like that, so they stick to what they know], for example giving Bogarus anything over 3 for early game [even 3 is shady]. We want it to make guideline, especially for new people and we cannot pollute results like that.

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Early vs Late game comparisons also come into play in other ways. Some of the MPers live almost entirely on small-map few-player blitz style games. While this can be a way to get a quick rating of whose strategy can beat whose, it can give a very focused view of nation ratings.

Even in test-games for the beta group this became apparent. Testing the AIs. I would run games with all of the nations on AI and auto-process a turn every few minutes for days. And then run the same games over and over to take into account factors such as which nation landed next to which other nation, and special events early in the game affecting outcomes. Eventually I could give a general answer as far as early death, early game leader, mid-game leader, late game leader. But map sizes (tiny, small, mid, large, huge, epic) also had a drastic impact. Not to mention other settings people like to alter in a games parameters.

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Ah, but then who decides what is an outrageous rating? If you look just at the ratings that have been submitted so far you can see (for example) me giving EA Yomi an early game rating of one, and EA Oceania a mid game of one too, while QM gives both of those 3. I'd say the difference between average and abysmal is quite big and yet the veteran player and recognized balance expert QM soundly disagrees with my opinion. Now, I could go out on a limb here, and say that obviously QM had temporarily taken leave of his sences when rating those nations, but that seems a dicey supposition at best...

All right then, you might answer. There is indeed a big difference between 1 and 3, but let's rate it as 'barely acceptable' After all, we can hardly disagree with QM the balance guru, so I would like to discount your 1's, but you (that would be me, to keep things simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) are starting to build a bit of a reputation of your own, so I can't just discount your opinion like I'd do if you were a newer player.

So here we have it, everything between 1 and 3 is then an acceptable rating. But then comes along another guy and he claims *gasp* that Dai Oni with a right bless are awesome expanders, not much worse than the best this game has to offer, and he rates the Yomi early game a 4. Now me, having rated Yomi a 1 for early game would obviously think that this guy has been smoking to much crack lately, and might feel his 4 should be discounted. But, says you, QM felt them worth a 3. (we're talking about the great QM here, remember. (not that I want to make him feel uncomfortable or anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) ) And if QM felt them worth a 3 it's only reasonable that some other random guy thinks them a 4, right? ...


I could go on being wordy for a while, but I think you might be starting to get my point by now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Amhazair:

Well, one experienced player is not enough. I was rather talking about obvious examples. You just need a scale to fit all nations. And then you can discuss if that nation suckss or it can get to so-so or even average with appropriate tactic [no counting awake SC].

And if Yomi deserves 1 I don't know. You'd have to compare them to Marverni, I think they are the real ruler of 1 point for early expansion in EA. I don't have MP experience in that age, beside blitzes.

P.S. I should do smth else than spamming forums, heh, way too much free time recently.

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Just my own opinion, but based on previous discussions all the way back to Dom1 I would predict that the result would be "we cannot agree". Which to me, is one of the most wonderful things about this game. There is lots of discussions about whats good and bad, whats a killer strategy and whats a worthless one. We all seem to agree that there are some but even after years we cannot seem to agree on what they are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Great game!

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Well the intent was to get a large enough body of results to let most discrepancies average themselves out.

Also, fairest way to deal with anything really strange (besides scrutinizing that poster as potentially insane) if there are enough ratings on that particular nation, is to use Olympic style scoring, and subtract the highest and lowest rating before taking the average. So if everyone rates at a 1-2, and a single person put 4 (even if it is the astute QM), then their score might be tossed along with the 1. Obviously this is only meaningful if the disparity is large enough, either 1/4, 2/5, or 1/5, a spread from 1-3, 2-4 or 3-5 is not going to break an averaging.

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

I agree.... hah! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

But seriously, I do agree with your basic point, but that's why this is not a search for democratic consensus, but merely an attempt to statistically show a number that will be closer to most people's perception of each nation, than any other possible number. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Then a brief disclaimer at the top, and the average reader can peruse the list confident in the knowledge that they are less likely to be significantly dismayed with the rating than potentially any other method of finding out which nations will suit their playstyle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

With the side benefit that I didn't think of originally - people can say for example, "I really like EA Abysia", and then skim through the rest of the thread, and find the people who rated that particular nation the highest, and assume that there is a preferential bias, and see what other nations that they liked, with the assumption that there may be playstyle similarities they will appreciate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Well, you can consider to take weighted mean, for example. I.e., if somebody had consistently won with the nation in question, his estimate of it could be taken, e.g., double before averaging. Or, say, one more time for each time he won in MP with it (which can be checked in Hall of Fame). This will make more experienced players' opinions count for more (but if there are significant discrepancies with other estimates, you can lower their "ease of learn/use" score).

Re: Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)
 

Recently beaten by Amhazair as Yomi, I can agree that they are perhaps not very strong (when confronted with LA black centaurs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ). The kingmaker setting might be a problem since LA nations are not supposed to meet EA one. But centaurs are there in both eras. I might blame my scales as well. I imagine they were not optimal. I dislike optimal scales. But i got some early money events that enabled me to get additional dai onis. Dai Onis are good vs indeps, but not that strong vs high morale blessed troops. I imagine it would have gone better if I had not chosen to attack Amhazair. My other choice was ashdod, and I didn't want a giant-daioni matchup, and I dislike peace http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I would probably place Yomi 2 early game, since they are a bit unflexible at start. They have the dai oni, but everyone knows that and they can be countered by clever players. Troops etc are also inferior vs human players. Banishment is not used by indeps to the same extent.