Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

I choose Tien Chi default because i just simply love Imperial Troops and Imperial Consorts; Marignon Diabolical Faith because of Goetics (and its wide variety of spies and assassins), and Man's Tuatha because, well, i always play them as 3-luck/3-magic and i like that extreme, unusual combination - though there is no good reason i can't pick those scales with another nation, its a bit of roleplaying mixed in with the Tuatha seemeing to be closest to 'good guys' in Dom2 as you can get. It seems my preferences have something in common - infiltration, spies, unrest, and/or assassination http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . I generally prefer attacking indirectly. Against the computer, 10 Consorts, 3 or so to each fort, will literally shut an empire down in a handful of turns, and cripple his economy. Spies tend to be uncovered somewhat more regularly - it takes a very large patrolling force to uncover +30 stealth units.

Imperial Troops are quite like Pythium's and Ermor's legions, in that they are moderately armed but highly skilled. Overall this is a better combination in practice than one extreme or the other - Ulm's troops have great armor but only average skills, terrible defense, and poor morale. Imperial Archers are well protected from counter-archer fire, which is rare for ranged.

Marignon's easy access to blood makes it easier to buff their assassins with contracts and weapons that any other although the Abysian Slayer is a better assassin overall, (and oddly ive never had any luck with Machakan Spider Warriors despite their high cost). Personally i think Marignon as a blood nation is just plain better than Mictlan because of the cost efficiency of Goetics and the fact Marignon's base troops don't suck. And eventually you can move to Succubi assassin builds.

With the Tuatha i don't find much to be excited about, but i seem to play them frequently. I generally find Man to be dull, but something about the Tuatha keeps me coming back for more.

I've been having more and more fun with R'yleh recently. I haven't really found a set of scales and magic paths that just fire me up, but for some reason Meteoric armor and hybrid troopers are just interesting enough to keep me coming back. The Traitor Prince and Illithid Lord are both very powerful thugs.

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

Mood Nations.
The only reason I have multiple Favorites is because I have multiple moods. Some of these nations DEFINATELY fit certain moods that I might want to play. At least for solo games.

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Great point, and good concept.

I am a big SP fan as well, too (I am not good enough for competetive MP), and moods can take full reign there, yesindeed.

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

Hey thanks so much -- 85 people have participated! (How many people visit these Boards regularly, do you think?)

I know too litle about statistics to draw any conclusions about the game from this anyhow, but it seems that there are very many reasons for choosing just about anything, and that the game does in fact offer many options for choosing a playing style that its players like.

The only conclusions I think I can draw from this is about the players (or the players who participated anyhow). And it seems to me that this poll shows a very large "fun" aspect of the game that goes way beyond other forms of motivation found in other games (e.g. the treadmill of RPGs or the pure fun of beating others in other strategy type games). Yey for Dom2!

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

As i am a newbie who hasent even played any MP, i can only share my SP experiences. Before i start a game, i pick a completely random race with a couple dice. So i have played nearly all the races. For the poll, i picked the 5 i enjoy playing most. Probably my absolute favorite is pythium, because i enjoy watching my hydras destroy the AI's massed armies of crap. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Do you prefer Serpent Cult Pythium with their blessable hydras, or do you prefer the regular Pythium?

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

Another question here:

Although I didnt vote for them (I restricted myself to 3), I really like Van Helheim, for many reasons. I like Van Default quite a lot, but find Helheim even sexier. Sure, the dwarves are less variable -- but they are dark and nasty necromancers! And now the my top-notch mage becomes less of a bloodhunter and more of a... big scary necromancer! And I can still recruit those groovy dark vans... Ja, I like em!

So my question is: Why do I appear to be alone here? It is because Helheim isnt as competetive as Default Van? (or is it because you cant get those cute little pigs anymore?) Are Svartalvs really so much less sexy than Dwarves? Your honest opinion is appreciated!

[ July 15, 2004, 15:41: Message edited by: tinkthank ]

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

Got 3 Favorites races.

The first one is C'tis - Miasma, Dominion strength 8, Combat Pretender: Green Dragon with 6 green magic. Heat:3, Luck:2, Magic:2. Dark citadel.

The secound is Man - No theme, Dominion strength 4, Magic Pretender: Druid on unicorn with 4 air magic, 4 nature magic, 2 water magic. Cold:1, Luck:2, Magic:2. Fortified City.

The third is Caelum - No theme. Dominion strength 4, Combat Pretender: Ice Dragon with 6 Astral magic and 6 water magic. Cold:3, luck:2, Magic:2.


best regards
Thilock

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I ticked helheim. I think my four selections were Arco base, and all three Vanheim themes. Hangadrotts are second only to Tuatha in the recruitable SC class... and they forge their own wraith swords. in addition to Soul Vortex, they can sit back and drain/raise with the best of them. Lack of a cheap random pick is their only real drawback. You gotta drop 400 gold to get a random-one, so it's really up to your pretender to forge any jade armor or whatever. Their research abilities are dubious, so finding sages is really important. Helheim + indy mages is a beatdown. If you don't find them, life can be rough.

Re: Your favorite nations / themes -- and why! please participate!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As a commited arco player, I hate this.