Re: Most powerful nation
 

Fair enough.

Fortunately I think it is getting fixed in 3.08!

Re: Most powerful nation
 

If one 50 gold priest could banish 1 demon sacred per battle, it might be worth it as a counter. But the priest isn't useful against much else, where the Lankan sacred is useful in a lot of different situations. By building loads of priests looking to counter the demons, you'd basically be weakening yourself against all other non undead non demon strats. Let's say the Lankan player just switches to Kala sacreds - they aren't that much worse. Priests are now pretty useless.

That's assuming H1 priests can actually do that and are a legit counter to lankan demons, which in my opinion they aren't. I've never seen banishment from H1s do more than make nature blessed lankan sacreds go berserk. I'd guess enough of them could kill quite a few sacreds, but you can't mass as many priests as they have sacreds and if you did, you'd have invested lots of resources in an easy to dodge counter.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

My votes for Lanka for EA, Ermor for MA, Ryleh for LA. This is assuming that we aren't claiming as a disadvantage that those nations will usually draw attention from other players for being strong picks. That argument never made too much sense to me since such factors rarely influences diplomacy in my experience and usually these nations tend to get more ganged after they've swept away their share of nations due to their OPness.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

This is a 4X game in a sense, so those who are strong expanders will tend to have stronger armies, more gems and more money means more magic in the late game, etc.

The sea nations are a special case, as their strength depends entirely on how much water people think is "fair". With that much variability between maps, I don't think you can give a general answer for the water nations.

I do not, myself, think that the strong nations are enough stronger than the regular nations that it is a problem - but I have an accepting attitude towards the fact that players are often eliminated by a strong bless rush.

The *weak* nations are something of a problem, however. I'd say that Marverni and the Ulms tend to be serious underperformers, although how much of this is reinforced by our expectations, I couldn't say.

EA - Niefelheim is nearly as fierce as Lanka out of the gate and in the midgame, and has much better magic diversity for late game craziness. Neither position has good researchers; I was terrified of Lanka when it first came out but, for the reasons that K specified, am less impressed by it now. Niefelheim is also my pick for overall strongest nation - if you started with equal-sized empires at turn 30 this would not be the case, but that's not how the game works.

MA - Ermor, as much as it pains me to agree with QM and KtB, MA Ermor is a great expander with a very strong (and diverse) military and great combat magic. What else could you ask for?

LA - This is harder, but I'd say LA Mictlan.
Most late age nations have weaker magic than other eras; LA Mictlan is basically an EA nation transplanted into the late era.
I don't want to rehash this old argument, but I am very much of the "LA Ermor is just okay" school of thought.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Since we are all one big happy family, we should strive to refrain from personal attacks.

K is a nice enough guy, and he edited his posts. Hopefully there can be some more editing so the focus can be limited to in game discussions.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Well said. It seems to me that there has been an increase in uncivil posts of late. I may be wrong, but that is the impression that I have.

This is the nicest, most polite and helpful forum that I have participated in. I think this is why a few rude and/or attack postings stand out like a sore thumb.

I silently applauded K for deleting his postings when I first saw them as deletions few days ago. We are all gamers here and should remember that. In the big picture, being the best Dom3 player in the world really isn't going to put a lot of groceries on the table.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Forgive my inexperience, but how is Lanka's 110 gold 6rp recruitable anywhere mage not a good researcher? He isn't sacred, but at 110 for 6 rp do you need him to be?

Re: Most powerful nation
 

It is possible to start with more than one province - wouldn't this tend to tone down the "monster expander because it easily massacres indies with 0 losses" nations, as well as reduce the number of tedious (especially in MP where they aren't even fast) early turns where not much happens?

Personally, I'd like an option to give every nation X free research points (where the game creator can choose X on a slider) on the first turn, in addition to the option to start with multiple provinces; in combination these would not only tone down the explosive-expanders, but also significantly reduce the effectiveness of some cheesy rush tactics.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

I've played on such "accelerated start" games, Chris. They are quick and pretty fun. We accelerated the research by giving everyone a dozen sages in their capitol.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...;Number=504610

Re: Most powerful nation
 

DrPraetorious, about the weak nations, I know this has been argued before, and I can't defend Maverni, but I do really like Ulm. MA especially.. although I've tried early age Ulm as well and they seem to be pretty decent. They lack some of the strengths of MA Ulm but make up for it with stealth and some better magic diversity.

I've never played LA Ulm, but as a blood hunting nation I can't imagine they could be that bad.

Without getting into specifics (which have been covered before), I can say that when I play MA Ulm, I get this giddy feeling of power that I don't feel with other races. Probably it is a product of the fact that I've played MA Ulm far more than any other race, and I'm unfamiliar with how to really max out other races.

(edit: while I'll admit, that some races you don't even have to know how to max out, such as Nefelheim, and you can still whoop some serious butt)

Re: Most powerful nation
 

This sound almost like playing singleplayer, but in multiplayer the slow armies of ulm tend to be blasted by fireballs and killed before they can reach the enemy. (or by lightning). Later on the lack of magic diversity and strong mages becomes a huge handicap.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Slow units (especially strat move-wise) and poor magic diversity are certainly weaknesses. Balanced nations should have weaknesses.

However, Ulm's forge ability is unparalleled. It's very similar to having the Forge of the Ancients global active from turn 1, assuming your pretender can forge the necessary magic boosters (i.e. all of them).

Re: Most powerful nation
 

For my money, the most powerful EA nation is Niefelhiem. Those giants are brutal, and they've got 5/8 magic paths as well.

Lanka I'm not so sure about. I fought against them in the Blood Bath MP game as EA Ulm, and defeatedly them quite handily. My Steel Warriors proved more than capable of holding the line against the Palankashas.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Using Palankashas against Steel Warriors seems like a pretty horrible idea though. Their protection value isn't really meant to take the beating dished out by a strong enemy with a 2-hander, and they're too expensive to use in a phyrric battle. The longbow apes with a screen of the Bandar warriors backed with wind guide (they have godawful base precision) would be a much better choice for dealing with Steel Warriors, at least from the looks of it. The Asaras also look like a better match, since their initial javelin volleys would do extensive damage, and they'd get to lob both of them before melee with their crazy 20-square range (beats prot by 11 points vs a unit with no shield. Ouch.) They'd have trouble against lots of other units (especially Ulm's archers), but again...monkey screen of arrow catchers. And arrow fend later.

I haven't played Lanka though, so this is just on paper, I could be mistaken. Just seems like you benefited from really good unit matchups in your example.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Hmm... Once upon the time, in the dark days of Dominions II, someone
claimed that "Ulm isn't all that bad". I challenged him to three games
using a one on one rush map chosen to give Ulm an advantage and tore him
up with the race he thought had the least chance... no blesses or tramplers.

Now, who was that...

Re: Most powerful nation
 

By the way, I love Ulm as well. But I do not think that MA Ulm has a real chance
without turning his forging capabilities into a diplomatic advantage. Being
someone else's smith-for-hire is not my idea of fun.

Hmm... this feels like the right time to plug Sombre's Ulm Reborn mod.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Which is wonderful, and not at all underpowered.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm has no redeeming qualities in mp whatsoever.

Master Enslave ftw midgame, Elephants ftw early. Resource hogs with low mr. Soul slay spam and black knights go down like snap crackle pop. Smites-same deal.

MA Ulm would need something really good to offset their vulnerability to the powerful Astral races. Any spell which "magic resistance negates" is bad news for Ulm.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Tuidjy - I have learned a lot since then!

Um... yeah.

I like forging items for other people and being a merchant in multiplayer games, to each his own, I guess.

Xietor - no redeeming qualities whatsoever?? Surely that can't be right. We are derailing this thread though, perhaps I should try to defend MA Ulm in another thread?

Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm is horrid, but earth magic and the forge bonus are certainly redeeming qualities. Destruction, blade wind, summon earth power and magma eruption are all excellent battlefield spells. Their PD is also excellent.

OTOH being someone's forge-chump is just a way to lose slowly instead of quickly, their magic diversity is complete crap, their troops are too resource-intensive to make many expansion groups early, their morale is atrocious (especially since they have such bad combat movement that they die in droves while fleeing). The 1-space mapmove further cuts down their already-limited options, and they can't easily get the thugs or SCs that would benefit from their cheap item-forging. I think it would give them a huge boost to have some lightly-armored crossbows that didn't cost a billion resources...Marignon has em in MA, so I don't think it'd be a problem on any level to give them a useful, cheap troop. Go ahead and make them cap-only so they're not the only thing Ulm builds though. Giving them some more early expansion potential will help counteract the weakness of a schizophrenic pretender, and maybe give them the momentum to make it into late-game with some sort of hope.

Their pretender is hamstrung by having to take production-3 and no free temperature picks. The free drain is tempting, but giving up the bonus RP from a magic scale hurts them quite a bit. Plus even though the drain doesn't hurt their national mages, it means the tribal shaman they'll want recruit to get some N access will be worthless researchers. They really need an awake pretender to help them expand, especially the first turns to get resources into their cap, but they need some way to increase their magic diversity too, and it's much too expensive to do both.

And to tie it back into the thread topic: The best nation is whichever one is currently dueling MA Ulm. =)

Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm really does need a boost. I'm pretty sure that if a poll was taken of MP players of the worst nation MA Ulm would be in the bottom three nations - if not the very bottom.

I think simply making them have excellent MR and morale stats (instead of the the crappy ones they have now) would even things out dramatically and even work thematically. It'd be kinda cool to see a nation that produces troops with a very high natural MR.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

The developers have said, repeatedly, that Ulm's low magic resistance is here to
stay. A friend of mine says that Ulm is the way someone is working out his
frustration with Germany and Germans :-) MA Ulm needs help, more than anyone else.

Here is what I would do, and I am not sure it would be enough, anyway.

1. A boost to some basic stats - strength, hit points, morale, and endurance.
The last means low basic encumberance - they're hardy and carry their armour well.

2. A bonus to the specific Ulm equipment. Lighter armour, more damage to weapons.

3. Recruitable troops that are not burdened by heavy equipment.

4. All restrictions lifted from the extra magic pick. Let them have everything but blood.

5. An extra 10% earth pick.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

They could lose the old age on their mages too.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Am I the ony one that thinks Bandor Log (MA)is seriously under rated?

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Bandar Log is my favorite MA nation. Great troop diversity, great troop cost/resource options, recruitable anywhere sacreds, good magic paths and good magic diversity for MA nation. Troops also have good movement. The only negative is weak priests, but no nation is strong in every single catgory.

I've always been surprised that Bandar Log has not been more highly regarded in the forum. Of course I am SP only and it is obvious from the forums that there is limited correspondence between SP and MP. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Bandar Log is a nation that looks mediocre on paper and turns out to be quite strong.

I think that the way to fix Ulm is to give them national spells that play to their existing strengths - and to the weaknesses of existing enemies, especially astral nations and sacred troops, which, since their official job in life is to hate magicians and priests, works fine.

I put together a list of them for my spells mod, and added more - they made Ulm decently fierce, at least in tests.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Not quite the only negative: MR is a serious problem for most of their recruitable troops.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

I find Bandar Log to be quite strange. They have longbows that don't fit well with their low prec.
Anyway I always thought that Indian archers used to pull even greater bows, using their feets. Changing this could give them a great strategic diversity(and specificity), bad shooters being at worst dangerous for your own low prot, low shield troops(and at best not justifying their cost). Another point that renders most of their units pointless : what is the use of a 20 gold maceman ?
Hard to mass, ill equipped people haren't a great army.
I find them to lack all that gives Lanka it's power.
If you nonetheless survive to mid game, you can always cast gift of health, so you can reppel ennemies without too much looses.(I think astral/nature are good long term magics)

Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm is a good candidate for the turmoil/luck trick since their troops cost so little (taking 3order/3prod with Ulm give you an almost unlimited supply of gold). Turmoil/luck provides hundreds of extra gems over the course of a game, and getting 30+ a turn is not uncommon.

Taking 2 Drain, 3 Prod, 3 Turmoil, 3 Luck, and making a powerful SC pretender with many paths, should cover most of your bases with Ulm.

I'm a fan of 9-Path Titan pretenders, but only when you're not sacrificing too much long-term magical diversity. Since Ulm's problem is almost by definintion magical diversity, your Pretender has to take up the slack, and there aren't any sacred troops to bother with anyway.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

About the various "fixes" proposed for MA Ulm.. Well first of all I don't agree that Ulm is broken, or that it needs any sort of fix. Ulm is my favorite, and I think it is a decent nation, with strengths and weaknesses as are appropriate. Ulm has already been upgraded from Dom2 -- the random picks on master smiths are a godsend.

But, at the same time, even I admit that Ulm is not among the top tier of nations by any means. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif So, some small improvements aren't a bad idea.

1) The idea about cheap Marignon-style x-bows.

This would help early expansion for MA Ulm, and I think it's a great idea. Certainly not unbalancing, and it would provide a boost. However, I should note that the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game, and the cheap x-bows probably wouldn't be used much outside of the first 5-10 turns or so.

2) "A boost to some basic stats - strength, hit points, morale, and endurance."

Not a bad idea, but their troops are already very good. Improving this sort of thing doesn't address Ulm's weaknesses, so I don't see much of a reason to do it.

3) "A bonus to the specific Ulm equipment. Lighter armour, more damage to weapons."

Same as above.

4) "Recruitable troops that are not burdened by heavy equipment."

Same as above.

5) "All restrictions lifted from the extra magic pick. Let them have everything but blood."

Sounds absolutely delicious. This would address a basic weakness of Ulm, which is magic diversity. Wouldn't be overbalancing (because the random is only 10%). Let's do it!

6) Give a +10% chance at a random earth pick.

Same as above. With these last two things, Ulm would clearly become at least a middle-tier faction (especially with the cheap x-bows too), imo, because their forging would go for merely excellent to absolutely out of control good.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

Someone could easily make a mod that addresses these changes.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

Arbalests sound great, but I've never found they work well in practice. They fire once at extreme range and hardly hit anything, then fire again 3 rounds later, by which time your troops have closed and you start taking friendly fire.

Since they do high ap damage, even Ulm's heavily armored troops take damage from friendly fire.

Sappers, or even indy shortbows, work better. Higher rate of fire and even when firing into melee Ulmish armor means your own troops are relatively unaffected.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

> the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game

> their troops are already very good

CUnknown, this is simply not true. It's a common misconception, but Ulm's troops
suck, period. And they suck mostly because of the high encumbrance, indifferent
morale, and total lack of synergy.

You will make me dig out our little duel. Or we can play again. Unless my memory
is going, one of the battles involved principles vs arbalests and heavy infantry.
After some ineffective swinging at each other (high armour vs high defense) Ulm
routed, and was slaughtered while retreating. The infantries were matched, I
had a preacher of courage, and you had arbalests, I think.

But anyway. I am not familiar with the new races, but I'll take any of the old
races (C'tis, Pythium, Man, Ermor, Arco, Vanheim, etc...) vs MA Ulm, and expect an
easy victory. Despite the improvements to Ulm's magic. And I am in only one
undecided game at the moment, so consider this an official challenge.

Oh, no blood races for me. I'm just weird like that.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

The lack of synergy is, I think, Ulm's big problem.

So Ulm should be given national spells that enable Ulm to force his enemies to fight Ulm in manly combat, with steel and sinew and human know-how, and which buff up his heavily armored troops. More so, I should say, than they do at present.

So -
1) Reinvigoration spells.
2) Haste spells.
3) Spells that enable you to recruit more troops (a national version of Wizard's tower is the only way to do this right now).
4) Spells to prevent fear and magic (already have some of these, but they are not good enough.)
5) Spells to counter (but probably not kill) enemy supercombatants, sacred units and mages. Ideally, the enemy would be somehow robbed of their bonuses, or immobilized, so that your sword-wielding national troops could come in and kill them.

With these five things, Ulm will be able for force her enemies to fight with troops. Ulms troops, which, under the right circumstances, are superior, can fight toe to toe and hopefully prevail.

Tada, Ulm becomes viable as a MP proposition - and it is still your steel and sinews that win the day, not magic, which you use only to level the playing field.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

Nah, spells aren't thematic with Ulm.

What Ulm needs is some kind of sacred antimagic troop, immune to all elemental attacks and with a magic weapon. Maybe make them lifeless recruitable units?

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

I think that this MA Ulm discussion has reached a boiling point; it is scattered along many threads and all have something to say on the issue. This derails threads and makes following the over-all discussion difficult.

I thought this thread was about what is the most powerful nation, not about Ulm?

I can't force you to do so, but I think it would serve the community's best intrests to move this discussion to a single thread;

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

That is exactly what Ulm does *not* need.

Ulm is a nation of men, with human failings (and then some, but that's a distinct question), fighting against hordes of magic wielding demons, evil animated statues and malevolent warlocks, with only steel and sinew, and some magic available in a limited, supporting role. If you give them killer robots, yeah, they might then be a competitive nation - of killer robots.

And thence I will continue in the new thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif