Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Hi everyone, I've beening playing this great game for about a week now, and browsed the boards a bit and saw a lot of bless strats and tried them out with a couple of nations. They are so good that they really turned me off. I'm wondering if there are any good nations that are non-bless based, as it seems that most nations work much better with a bless strat, even with horrible scales. I already tried MA Ulm, which sucked due to its lack of magic. Is there any other good non-bless nations? I usually play random large maps, with 4 AI or less, everything default, if that makes any difference. Also, is F9W9 the holy grail of bless combos? Thanks for your help.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

MA Ulm is probably the weakest nation of the game.


A few that come to mind:

Pythium is good. Great national troops, powerful mages with Astral and Air, and easy access to communion.

C'tis (particularly EA) is also good. Cheap, powerful death mages recruitable everywhere, and slave lizards are great against indies.

They wont be able to defend against an early rush of heavily blessed Vanir, but no one can really.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

There are plenty of non-bless strat nations. Particularly in your game, with such large maps, bless strats are overall weaker anyway. Except that I guess you are playing AI which cant compensate for that at all.

Why dont you try a really strong magic nation and try that out? Play Arco, Caelum, Pythium, or even Tien Chi. All of them have very good magic and not very good sacreds. See how the game plays when you are dependent on your mages for domination.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Hey, I like MA Ulm... but then, I like a challenge... and if you think MA Ulm stinks, you might not agree with my other opinions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I agree with the previous two though, and would add that if you're trying to have fun against the AI, maybe just look for nations that look like you'd enjoy playing or trying their style, and focus on that.

PvK

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

The various Shinuyama eras are also good for non-bless strats. And there's still Caelum, even if they're less powerful than in Dom2.
In fact 60%+ of the nations don't benefit much from a dual bless, either because of weak or capitol-only sacred (or both !).

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Thanks for the responses. I tried EA Tien Chi and EA Arco, I thought they had good bless troops, maybe you are talking about different era? I distinctly remember EA Arco having godly bless troops, or maybe I'm just off with my memory. And doesn't Tien Chi have good sacred summons? Anyways, I'll try C'Tis and Pythium.

Also, yeah, I don't play multi-player at all. I'm more of a single player person. I'v been playing mostly city builders, got bored and wanted to try something new. I'm Chinese so I like Tien Chi a lot, I like the Journey to the West summons, though I don't get why Sandy is a higher level summon than Pigsy. Pigsy should be higher! And where is my Monkey King! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Even the nations who work well with blesses can be fun without them, the added bonus is that by playing them you stop someone else bless-rushing you with them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

They all have something that can be built into a strategy but it might not appeal to you. Arcos for magic research, Ermor for pushing harmful dominion, Jotunheim for defensive strategy, Pangaea for stealth.

Presently Im having alot of fun with Pangaea
-3 order
-3 production
+3 luck
+3 magic
lots of dominion

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Aren't you always having fun with Pangaea? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Personally, I'd add in +3 growth to your stew, or atleast +1.
1) To slightly counteract the -income
2) I think some (most? all?) events that affect your population are affected by Growth, so more growth keeps your population safe, and works well with +3 Luck and -3 Order
3) Growth is, in the long run, the best scale for increasing cash-flow, especially so in your gigantic-normous-huge-mungous-colossus-al maps
4) It works well with Pangaea's 2B (though you'd probably only go "that path" in really long games)

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

1/ Man. Man is an air nation and has longbowmen, you don't need bless, just take a fire 3 prentender, learn "flaming arrow" and you are playing in easy mode.

2/ Abysia can be a very good nation with or without bless. You have fire immune troops with fire shield, you eat vanirs for breakfast.

3/ Machaka is a very good choice for magic oriented strategies, it's not "the reign of sorcerors" for nothing, Machaka mages really rock, you have choice and power, with 5 kinds of mages including non capitol only able to reach 3 in nature, and capitol only with very good survivability (they take spider form if heavily wounded).

4/ EA Ct'is (warning MA C'Tis is bugged and near to be unplayable, and LA C'tis weak without its missing sacred - LA C'Tis is actually a bless nation without sacred troops -)

5/ Pythium, if you like using the very strangely working (bugged?) communion system.

6/ Dom2 Arco was so good that the non-capitol mages were nerfed a lot. You can try MA Arco if you want a non bless nation with lots of useless 1/1 or 1/1/1 non-capitol mages payed as much as the 2/2/1 you try to get (Arco will make you hate the new magic randoms system).... And a nation described as mastering "the elements" but in fact knowing nothing about air. You still have good capitol only mages and priestesses able to heal, but Arco is no longer an above average nation.

edit : Caelum is good too

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Hello, Sokar. Welcome here.

Personnaly, I never play a bless strategy, and my Pretender is often a rainbow mage. Usually, I find the sacred troops too much expensive in money and ressources.
So, I garantee you that you could have fun without this kind of strat !!!

For now, I'm play Abysia with a rainbow mage as Pretender, and lot of basic troops (wich are all very good for Abysia, but expensive too ... Some kind of contradictions with my firsts sayings ??? ;o) supported by fire mages. Then, in late mid-game, I turn usually to blood magic (invocations, never battle blood magic : blood slaves aren't fireproff ;o) to finish the IA.

It is really fun and viable as a whole strategy.

[Note : I only play solo, not MP game. So, I don't know if it could stand against a veteran MP gamer]

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Add up (only MA SP):

- MA Ulm with a rainbow pretender. This was already mentioned but it's worth repeating. It may be one of the weakest nations around, but it's pretty easy to figure a general strategy for it. And even being one of the weakest you'll mop the floor with the AI's armies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

- MA Rlyeh. No sacred troops besides the starspawn priests and the void summons (which you cannot count on, because void summoning is iffy). But it is a very powerful nation, magically speaking. And you start underwater, which gives you some leeway for mistakes/learning/turtling. And you have assassins. And you can set up communions easily. And a Visitor with whatever Vastnesses you can gather positively rocks. And you can clam-hoard. And lots more.

- MA Tien Chi. It has the (big) problem of its best mages being vulnerable to magic duel - and since they are expensive you come out losing. But you have nice troops including crossbows and good cavalry, consorts to disrupt an enemy's economy to a crawl and a wide magical flexibility.

- MA Man. Massive armies of longbows backed up by wind guide and mage artillery. Stealth armies of wardens backed up by Call of the wild. Massive seeking arrows to kill enemy leaders. Bards to disrupt the enemy's economy. The very useful Man's songs that mitigate somewhat their weak priests. Stealth monks to preach in enemy territory. Elite cavalry in the knights of Avalon.

Best regards,

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

EA yomi can be played very very well sans bless strat. (especially since most of their sacred troops are summons.)

like nifelhiem they have a purchasable SC chassis, so you can play to the benefit of that over the benefit of sacred troops.

Large map, more players
 

If there are many more opponents (AI or not) and much more space, a bless strategy will likely become less optimal as the game will last long for (a) capital-only sacred units to become a smaller part of your military, and (b) nasty scales like death/misfortune to take effect (while growth and fortune players start accumulating pop and free gems, heroes, et al).

Anything with only slow capital-only sacreds is a particular case of this -- ex. LA Man Rangers are not a particularly great pick in a large map; even though they're stealthy, they're resource-intensive, capital-only, and worst, they're map-move 1, and the Wardens can't bless them unless you make one a prophet. OTOH, your broad selection of well-equipped troops and the fairly wide variety of magic you get (perhaps lessening the need for a rainbow pretender) suggests a scalemonster.

LA Jomon also comes to mind; you have a pretty good selection of skilled, well-equipped troops, and you can go pretty far with a mix of archers, naginatas, cavalry, and some Death summons.

TC... Celestial Soldiers *are* good (I've used them more than I've used the sacred fliers... because I also tend to mass archers whenever possible, and that significantly increases the mortality rate among any fliers), but a scalemonster build seems viable enough if you want to crank out the Imperials.

But there are some nations that seem basically built for bless; so far, I haven't really worked out a good non-bless build for Mictlan. That's a bit of a pity from my perspective as I dislike using ugly scales with living empires for thematic reasons (namely, I -like- prosperity and growth, after I crush the last breath out of all enemies, so I abhor the Order/Misfortune combo and the Death scales).

Re: Large map, more players
 

Mictlan doesn't need a huge bless, just a leg to stand on until the blood starts really flowing. I'll take devils over jaguar warriors any day.

Of course, you'll always want some kind of bless with them, but it doesn't need to be one that leaves you with catastrophic scales.

Re: Large map, more players
 

But then, I'd rather have F9/W9 Jaguar Fiends over both devils and Jaguar Warriors.

Re: Large map, more players
 

That'll work, sure. Probably better than devils. My point was merely that Mictlan can be played without an all-out bless strategy.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Pythium. They have very strong non-sacred units, and greater gem income to jump start a magic strategy.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Agree with both points. Ulm truly is crap and is in need of more help than just about any other nation.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

Isnt bless-strategy best as a rush strategy? Small maps?
All the bless troops in the world wont be much good without the priests.
I would think that you could create an anti strategy around Mictlans titan/assassin god.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

EA Ermor and Caelum are good nations for non-bless strategies and non-bless strategies are arguably better for them than bless ones.

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

LA Agartha is a good non-bless nation. Go for really good scales order 3, prod 3, luck 3. There massed crossbows behind heavy protection infantry backed with death/fire/earth/astral magic the nation has, makes for a powerful nation with lots of options. There national spell are excellent as well.

This nation is kind of like Ulm with heavy armoured units but backed with some serious magical power.

There only drawback is there slow movement but you can grind enemies to dust...

Re: Any Good Non-Bless Strategy Nations
 

I'm relatively new, so I speak from less perspective. That said:

I bought the game for R'yleh and Ermor, who play nothing like anyone else, so if you're sick of blesses give them a try.

LA Ermor is totally unique: you have no need for resources or supplies and minimal need for gold, and once you get your magic flowing your best troops are all recruitable anywhere you can plunk down a Dusk Elder and a Lab (empower or item up some S3 Dusk Elders to teleport into new areas to help your spread). Easy access to Skull Mentors means loads of research, allowing you to unlock a lot of their fantastic no-friendly fire spells (Darkness, Wind of Death, and Rigor Mortis for the battlefield, as well as the globals listed in the manual) and summons. I'm currently into a Master Lich with A/F/N 2 E/W 3 S5 D6 for a Pretender - LA Ermor really needs good site searching early since they are so magic dependent, and if you're thinking of an early Burden of Time you'd like your pretender to be Undead. Add Luck 3 to the scales recommended in the manual and you can't go wrong.

LA R'yleh is similar in some ways. It has the additional advantages of being the only late age nation to start under water, and its best mages can start with astral 5. Once you empower one mage to 6, you set of a whole chain of Wish possibilities (Wish for magical power, Wish for Blood Slaves, Blood empower, robe of magi, now you can item other starting S5 mages up to Wish without needing to Empower them) which will eventually leave you with numerous commanders capable of casting Master Enslave. On the downside, a lot of your commanders will end up insane, which leads to even more micro.

The only other army I've toyed around with much is Shinuyama. Lots of unique troops, assassins, and some slick national summons make for great play - also, I like their mixed options for incredibly inexpensive to deluxe troops. And, as the manual notes, their immortal Bakemono pretender is pretty neat.