Top 10 MP races?
 

I know this has been discussed before but I went back 15 screens and tried the search function and couldn't find it.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Caelum, Abysia, and Pythium are probably the top three. In what order is a bit open to debate in my book.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

I have played quite a bit of MP (though somewhat colored by being on smaller maps), and IMO, the top ten races would look something like this:

1. Caelum
2. Vanheim
3. Abysia
4. Pythium
5. R'lyeh
6. C'tis
7. Arco
8. Jotun
9. Mictlan
10. Machacka

Dead ermor is very hard to rate, as how well it does depends a lot on the other players.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Caelum on top. Always Caelum.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Caelum is clearly the best. You just need to find one indie site with random mages(preferably loremasters) and your nation has no weakness and tons of boni.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

What makes Caelum the best?

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Well you get lots of free picks due to +3 cold preference, your mages are the cheapest AND the best(for combat at least) of all nations. You will get the airqueens(best SCs), if you don´t make serious mistakes.
You can expand pretty well early on with blizzard warriors and mammoths and you SC pretender.
Other nations have a very hard time attacking you, because of the fatigue effect from cold3 and your fantastic mobility. Once you have evocation 6, you can destroy entire armies with a seraph + high seraph hit squad(seraph wielding staff of storms and ring of tamed lightning, set to retreat, high seraph casting wrathful skies/mirror image etc). Even better you can teleport that very cheap hit squad(cost 275 gold and 30 air gems) around with cloud trapeze.
Another advantage is that you can build clams as soon as you get construction2.
But mostly the cheap superior mages make caelum the top nation.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

What would you advise for a Caelum Sc Pretender?

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Prince of Death, Nataraja.

PoD fills in nicely the lack of proper thugs, by the time you can get air queens you can also get bane lords.

Nataraja just generally rocks. Just dont forget to give him cold resistance before sending him out. (breath of winter works nicely there...)

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

In my mp game I took the ghostking with earth 3 water 1 air3 death2 and superscales(order 3 productivity 3 growth 2 magic 3 misfortune 2 and cold 3). With alteration 3 he can take almost every indie province alone without equipment(provinces guarded by deathcasters or lots of flyers being the exception).

It probably would have been better to not take so much productivity and go for death 4 and air 5, but I managed to get all the airqueens anyway.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

All of this only holds true if your enemies aren't smart enough to put rings of tamed lightning on their thugs. Once they do that, Caelum's mages can be ignored, and you only have to worry about their pretender.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

you need cold resist as well. and the mages can still summon, and some will have interesting randoms.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Caelum is strong, but I think Pythium and Vanheim are better in most multiplayer games. Caelum is quite limited... I am abusing Caelum in a game of mine. He seems to be powerless against something as basic as Banelords with charcoal shields and copper plates. And the Tartarians are about to roll off the assembly line.

Yes, Caelum combines powerful research with combat mages that quickly come into their power... But Caelum players who don't look beyond that are easily overpowered. I guess I have been lucky enough to never face a good player using Caelum - is it me, or do the best players avoid Caelum?

As for the strongest MP races, in my book they are:

Pythium/Vanheim
Caelum
C'tis/Abysia
Arcocephale

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Nation Rankings

The following is based on a thread of 9/19/04 to 9/28/04, which investigated the general power rankings of the major nations [note: I can't find the original thread either--these notes were made at the time and are all the record I have].

The poll requested that Nations be divided into 3 tiers in the responses—Powerful, Medium, and Weak. In the event, not all participants followed the format, so some judgment calls must to be made to fit the responses into a three-tiered format. The original poll did not distinguish between default nations and themes.

My contribution is to run a quantitative analysis to generate concrete numbers from the poll, for those interested in such things.

In general, I divided the 17 default nations into an arbitrary 5-7-5 split. Responses that, for example, used four tiers instead of three, had their results parsed out as closely to this three-tier split as possible. No nation was put into the top tier unless it was in the first tier in the actual response (or top 2 tiers if these totalled 5 or less nations).

Poll Participants: Bleach168, Karacan, Archaeolept, Schmoe, Tuidjy, Cohen, Graham Dice, The_Tauren13, Pickles, izaqyos, alexti, JJ_Colorado, Boron_13.


Raw Vote Counts

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Nation Powerful Average Weak
Abysia 9 3 1
Arcoscephale 7 5 0
Atlantis 1 5 6
Caelum 10 3 0
C’tis 2 8 3
Ermor 3 9 1
Jotunheim 2 10 1
Machaka 1 7 5
Man 1 5 6
Marignon 0 8 4
Mictlan 4 7 2
Pangaea 1 6 6
Pythium 9 3 0
R’lyeh 1 12 0
T’ien Ch’i 0 0 13
Ulm 0 4 9
Vanheim 8 3 1
</pre><hr />
Footnotes:
One [serious? I don’t think so…] vote for Hoburg Alliance mod as most powerful. [but normal or SE?];
One vote for Ermor Broken Empire (default) being worst of all, bar none;
One voter did not rank: Atlantis, Arco, Man, Marignon, Pythium, Vanheim;
One vote for Jotunheim [Niefelheim theme] as powerful;
One vote for T’ien Ch’i [Spring &amp; Autumn theme] as the most competitive variation of the nation.

Calculation Process
Powerful = 3, Average=2, Weak=1. Multiply number of votes times Ratings and add. Divide sum by the number of votes received. This yields a rank between 1.00 and 3.00. The break for high power is 2.5, the break for average power is 1.5.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Abysia= 9x3 + 3x2 + 1x1 /13 = 2.62
Arcoscephale= 3x7 + 2x5 + 1x0 /12 = 2.58
Atlantis= 3x1 + 2x5 + 1x6 /12= 1.58
Caelum= 3x10 + 2x3 + 1x0 /13= 2.77
C’tis= 3x2 + 2x8 + 1x3 /13= 1.92
Ermor= 3x3 + 2x9 + 1x1 /13= 2.15
Jotunheim= 3x2 + 2x10 + 1x1 /13= 2.08
Machaka= 3x1 + 2x7 + 1x5 /13= 1.69
Man= 3x1 + 2x5 + 1x6 /12= 1.58
Marignon= 3x0 + 2x8 + 1x4 /12= 1.67
Mictlan= 3x4 + 2x7 + 1x2 /13= 2.15
Pangaea= 3x1 + 2x6 + 1x6 /13= 1.62
Pythium= 3x9 + 2x3 + 1x0 /12= 2.75
R’lyeh= 3x1 + 2x12 + 1x0 /13= 2.08
T’ien Ch’i= 3x0 + 2x0 + 1x13 /13= 1.00
Ulm= 3x0 + 2x4 + 1x9 /13= 1.31
Vanheim= 3x8 + 2x3 + 1x1/12= 2.58
</pre><hr />

List by Ranking
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>THE GREAT
Caelum 2.77
Pythium 2.75
Abysia 2.62
Arcoscephale 2.58
Vanheim 2.58</pre><hr />

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>THE GOOD
Ermor 2.15
Mictlan 2.15
Jotunheim 2.08
R’lyeh 2.08
C’tis 1.92
Machaka 1.69
Marignon 1.67
Pangaea 1.62
Atlantis 1.58
Man 1.58</pre><hr />

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>MY AGENT WILL CALL
Ulm 1.31
T’ien Ch’i 1.00
</pre><hr />

Final Note
It is most important to realize that these results do not reveal “which nation is best to play.” All nations are viable, and results, especially in Multiplayer, depend on board size and design, player interaction, and other factors.

The poll rather addresses “which nation do players think is most powerful” which is quite another thing.

Also, the number of responses (13) may be too small to be statistically significant, so the results might be considered anecdotal at best.

Toward More Accurate Polling
First, getting, say, a minimum of 50 responses is a desirable goal for future polls.

A future poll might be improved if anchored by some basic data, like:

How long have you been playing Dominions 2 (choose one)?
· Have played the demo only
· One month or less
· More than one month to six months
· More than six months to one year.
· More than a year
· I have been playing since Dom I

How do you play Dom II (choose one)?
· Exclusively Single Player
· Prefer Single Player
· Both Single Player and Multiplayer (no preference)
· Prefer Multiplayer
· Exclusively Multiplayer, except for sandbox testing in Single Player.

How many Multiplayer games of Dominions 2 have you played (count games you are currently in or have completed)?
· None
· 1
· 2-5
· 6-10
· 11+


The next poll might be a more ambitious three-part effort. The first section would deal only with the default nations, the second section only with themes, and the third section with only with mods.

DEFAULT NATIONS
In the first section, to the left of each nation would be three radio buttons (mutually exclusive) which read:
· I have played this nation 5+ times
· I have played this nation at least once
· I have never played this nation (this one locks the rest of the question)

Under each nation are two questions.

Question A (pick one answer)
· This nation matches my favorite playing style(s)
· I can play this nation OK, but it’s not a favorite
· This nation is not my style
· I can’t stand this nation, would not choose it for Multiplayer, and only rarely take it in Single Player mode.

Question B (pick one answer)
· This is the top nation—other things being equal, it will do best.
· I’d put this nation in the top five to have the best chance to win
· I’d put this nation in the middle of the pack
· I’d put this nation in the bottom five of worst chance to win
· This is the worst nation, with the hardest challenges to overcome.
· I have no opinion on this nation.


THEMES
In the second section, there is a bypass question
· I haven’t played any themes (locks this whole section).

Then for each listing, to the left of each theme would be three radio buttons (mutually exclusive) which read:
· I have played this theme 5+ times
· I have played this theme at least once
· I have never played this theme (this one locks the rest of the question)

Under each theme are two questions.

Question A (pick one answer)
· This theme matches my favorite playing style(s), even more than the base nation.
· I can play this theme OK, but it’s not a favorite.
· This theme is not my style.
· I can’t stand this theme, would not choose it for Multiplayer, and only rarely take it in Single Player mode.

Question B (pick one answer)
· This theme has about the same power level as the standard nation.
· This theme increases the nation’s power from low to average
· This theme increases the nation’s power from low to good.
· This theme increases the nation’s power from average to good.
· This theme decreases the nation’s power from good to average
· This theme decreases the nation’s power from average to low.
· This theme decreases the nation’s power from good to low.
· I have no opinion.

NATION MODS
The third section also has a bypass question
· I haven’t played any Nation Mods (bypasses section)

In the first part, to the left of each national mod would be three radio buttons (mutually exclusive) which read:
· I have played this nation mod 5+ times
· I have played this nation mod at least once
· I have never played this nation mod (this one locks the rest of the question)

Under each nation mod are two questions.

Question A (pick one answer)
· This nation mod matches my favorite playing style(s)
· I can play this nation mod OK, but it’s not a favorite
· This nation mod is not my style
· I can’t stand this nation mod, would not choose it for Multiplayer, and only rarely take it in Single Player mode.

Question B (pick one answer)
· This nation mod is so overpowered that it’s unfair to other players
· This is the top nation mod—other things being equal, it will do best in a tight game.
· I’d put this nation mod in the top five nations to have the best chance to win
· I’d put this nation mod in the middle of the pack
· I’d put this nation mod in the bottom five nations with the worst chance to win
· This is the worst nation mod, with the hardest challenges to overcome.
· I have no opinion on this nation mod.

I've been meaning to set this up as a poll, but haven't had the time yet. Anybody who wants to, feel free to take this particular ball and run with it--it really has been too long since the Last poll.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Surely it also depends on the map and game settings, and who else is in the game; the magic site vs. blood economy split being important, for instance.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Who can benefit the most from the super large maps? and the smaller maps?

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Ulm is obviously a better choice the smaller the map, and C'tis does somwhat better on smaller maps as well. Mictlan and water nations can really get scary if left alone on a very large map.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

The problem with Mictlan being they have pitiful defensive capabilities until they get a proper blood economy going, whereas the water nations can only be invaded by someone who really means it.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

and the larger the map the less important early game defensive capabilites are...

and, anyways, i've never had mictlan weak early. given 'em a bless and an SC; summon fiends if needed. Pow.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Abysia and Jotuns also can do quite well on small maps if setup properly; to a lesser extent, I think Vanheim and Man can as well.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

"All things being equal", my vote goes to Caelum hands down. Caelum is scary for yet another reason which no one has really mentioned yet, it has one of the single scariest price-value unit in the game: The Seraphine. On top of everything else that Caelum has and which has been duly mentioned, you get a 90-gold 25-commander *stealthy preacher* -- but not just any old stealthy preacher, a FLYING cold-immune stealthy LEVEL 3 Priest. Yikes. Caelum with Ceremonial Faith is just scary.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Actually, in one of my two MP games, I went to war with Mictlan some time around turn 10-12. He had a Ghost King SC and by turn 15 had Ice Devils coming into play. By turn 25-30 I had defeated him. We were both noobs though, so that might not mean much.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

The 'Power Ranking' thread can be read here:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&amp;Forum=f74

Thanks for the statistical analysis, RedRover. I am less grateful for showing
me that my own rankings from that thread reflect the final 'group think' ranking
almost to the letter... I never liked being one of the crowd.

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

Marignon = not so good

That really bothers me, that this is the consensus, Marignon is my favorite. I cannot explain why, maybe it is because it was the first nation I ever played with Dom I demo. Since Johan K says his location is Marignon and his avatar is the Baphomet, hopefully he will rectify this problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Top 10 MP races?
 

I'm not sure there is a big divide between 'good' and 'not so good'. For one thing, the above list dosn't account for themes, Black Forest Ulm is at least 'good', and CotS marignon is actually one of the top nations, IMO. While a few nations seem overpowered (Caelum, maybe vanhiem) and a few extra weak (T'ien Ch'i, base Ulm, NE Pangaea), the in between nations are really pretty even in the hands of good players.