Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I read this forum since more than a month, and most of the times pretender design is about bless strategy. Not simple ones but double ones like W9F9 or W9N9 or even with three kind of magic. So for a newbie like me, when I read this forum, it seems that these strategies are the best. I just hope I'm wrong because if the goal of the game is to get the bless friendly nations to win, it's just bad.

1- So, are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
2- What are the succesful alternatives ? Can you give me examples ?

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I find that heavy blesses are the best against the computer as the AI do not know how to counter. In large MP games I have seen bless strats fail more often then not. But then large Mp games are 60% diplomacy and 40% gameplay.

At the moment I'm strong in the Undertow game with a E3 wyrm. The other strong Pretender is Shinuyama, I do not know what he has but he does not use sacred troops.

I find that any strat will work if it allows you to exp fast (getting 2-3 provinces a turn before turn 10) in the beginning and allow you a broad spectrum of magic later on.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

No, bless strategies are NOT the best ones, especially if you want to win a MP game. That's the short answer.

This is however dominions, so there is always a but.

Essentially, it entirely depends what nation you are playing, for example EA T'ien Ch'i is a nation whose main strength is strong magic in many different paths. So you only want a weak bless, if any, good scales and a SC awake pretender may be your best option. MA Man is better off with a awake SC pretender and good scales and so on...

However, Mictlan of all ages is very, very well suited by a high bless strategy, 2 lvl 9 blesses or even 3, however the bad scales will cost you later on in the game.

Essentially, individual nation, map size (provinces per player), magic site % and difficulty of magic research should all be carefully considered before designing your pretender and wether or not to go with a high bless.

There is mounting and strong evidence to suggest on maps of 15 provinces per player or higher, 50% magic sites and normal research anyone with a double lvl 9 bless or more is at a disadvantage to win in MP. They get dragged down by the culmative effect of bad scales like death-3, misfortune-3 and drain-3.

One final thing to consider in MP, is do you really want to win or do you just want abit of fun and hopefully get knocked out before turn 50 or so when the turns become horrendous to do, taking 2 hrs or more. This effects wether you wish to go with a heavy bless as well, since you can have a extremly fun game of having a double or triple bless, crushing 1 or 2 other players and then being crushed in turn yourself and all before turn 40! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

For Undertow I went with scales and air/astral magic since Shin doesn't have access to them nationally...Imprisoned pretender since I was new and didn't realize how good SCs are for early expansion, likewise I took drain, which was a mistake. That being said I am SO glad I took those paths.

If I did it again I'd probably do something like an awake A4/S4/D1 ghost king with 5 dominion. Order 3, misfortune 2, magic 1, sloth 1, heat 1. Might blow another scale tip to pick up some earth magic for protection buffs and golem/coin forging later.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Thanx for your answers guys. This is the kind of answer, I wanted.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

It's also the incorrect answer. If you want to get a massive early game advantage over every other player, then the only way to do that is to use a dual-bless strategy. Unlike Dominions II where national troops took about 20 turns to become obsolete, national troops are obsolete from the very first turn in Dominions III, as dual-blessed troops can win with a third (or less) of the gold cost spent on them.

Their main strength before turn 20 is blessed warriors of the five elements. Before turn 20, which is when the eventual winner of the game is decided, magic plays virtually no role in Dom 3.

You have evidence? I'd love to see it.

This statement illustrates how little you understand about the game. Dual-blesses are not particularly expensive, and do not require large sacrifices to your scales. Niefelheim, for example, can have an E9N9 Cyclops with Dominion 7, order 3, cold 3, death 1, misfortune 2, and drain 2.

Death 3 has almost no effect whatsoever on your game, unless you are playing a weak nation like Abysia or Marignon that relies on fire mages. You will have lost 24% of your population in your home province by turn 50 with death 3, and less than that in other provinces where your dominion spent less time. If misfortune 3 is going to screw up your game, it will do so in the first five turns. After that, with a dual-bless strategy, you'll have so many provinces that the negative impact will be spread throughout your empire. Drain 3 is typically not needed for a dual-bless strategy, but if you do choose it over the no-brainer choice of drain 2, you can power through the penalty by spending extra gold on mages.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

on a purely personal note, I dislike bless strategies. I enjoy well rounded way more.

I generally play SP (so far I suck at my first 2 MP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. My fav so far is Tien Chi with a rainbow pretender and luck scales - full magic access (although I'll take a couple slots of blood I only use it late game for a few items when I can take the time out to hunt).

Enjoyment > optimization in SP for me

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

IMO it depends on the nation you are playing.

Essentially that means yes for some (as has been said, I can not even start to think about EA Mictlan without at least a dual bless) and no for others.

If a nation has good sacred troops most of the time they should be way better with a decent bless in the short run than with better scales.

In MP games with "graphs on" this will most likely paint a big bulleye on them...

In games without graphs it will more depend on "normal" diplomacy.

But overall those nations DO have an advantage IMO even in fairly large/long games unless they get ganged up upon. You should be able to preserve enough of your early game advantage into the mid-/endgame despite slightly worse scales.

CharonJr

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

[/quote]

I can agree that a bless strategy can win a game if used by a good player.

But i disagree that this is the only way to get an early game advantage. Building an awe/fear pretender helps a lot to expand from start on, too. You could combine him with a single bless 9 if you want.
The advantage of such a strategy is that you are not forced to use most of your money for sacred troops every turn and normally have better scales than a double bless. You can expand and have gold left for building castles very early.

I wouldn't say national troops are obsolete even by turn 20. What are the alternatives?

However for me its also no question that vanheim/helheim with glamour on sacreds needs some nerf. This in combination with double bless, a good player and neighbours who don't alliance against such a nation will be a powerfull threat for winning the game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I forgot to specify the question is MP games related. And I appreciate to see the debate growing and to read a variety of opinions.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Even with MP I would be leary of an absolute answer that didnt also mention map sizes, number of players, and victory conditions. Though it is likely that it would reflect small maps, under 6 players, and kill-all victory since those games play quick and therefore are the most common.

Have we had an extreme contest yet? In Dom2 I achieved all 4's with 2 or 3 9's while taking all harsh scales (no sleepers back then). It would be interesting to see how that works against a pretender with just 2 9's and scales that allowed stronger troop building

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Agree for the most part on most points save this one. I find once it gets past the nitty gritty early game, even dual bless nations use magics to augment their armies. For example, alteration tree for luck/body eth, summons such as jag fiends and river demons, etc. However, if your nation doesn't have strong expansion abilities (of which heavy bless strategies /is one/), it is harder to compete in a normal game without at least a good solid awe or dragon pretender. Effectively enough, good players who stumbles upon you early will recognize you have no real credible threat to them by choosing a "late game" path, and just attack you. Often it only takes 4-6 turns to meet your first neighbor, 8-10 roughly for borders to solidify. Once borders solidify, there are almost NO more expansion into indies. Which generally means at this stage, people start looking for "soft targets" to hit. You don't want to be one of them by having no bless, a human pretender and only average national troops. All the scales in the world won't help you then.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

So, why do people bother playing dominions if it is so formulaic? is winning MP games so important that people are willing to throw out the variety in the game to use the same duel bless strategies over and over?

I think you have a pretty cynical outlook on the game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

KissBlade,

What you say is true, however in larger games diplomacy can keep a soft target from getting into early wars. Granted, it's a gamble, and you're leaving survival up to things you can't really control.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

On larger maps most of that becomes untrue also. Drain? magic plays no role? Death has no affect? Im not sure if Victory Point games might also make a difference on some of it and since the devs love VP games I sure wouldnt write those off. And thats not to mention games that might crank up the magic, or crank down the resources, or boost magic sites.

Some people tend to play Dom3 with the same settings all the time. Same map size, same number of players, same victory conditions. That cant help but paint a "do this and always win every game" feeling.

Interestingly many of the same people tell Solo players that staying inside that limitation will get old and ruin the game for them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Magic plays a very large role if the game lasts to turn 40 or so. The drain scale, on the other hand, has almost no effect on the power of magic.

The death scale has precisely the effects I just listed. It reduces your population in your home province by 24% over 50 turns, and by a lesser amount in other provinces. Otherwise it has little effect on any nation other than those with mages that were made old arbitrarily (ie. the fire nations).

Victory points make games finish sooner, not later.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

If you are playing competitively, then play to win, and don't you dare complain when somebody else uses a more effective strategy than yours.

Yes, I do, but that's because it's balance took a giant step sideways, and another small step backwards from Dom 2. The devs balanced the game in a manner that's similar to throwing wet pasta at a wall. Some of it will stick (which is equivalent to what gets used by players), but the majority just falls on the ground and is ignored.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I agree with Teraswaerto here.

Also, the highly blessed nations after be very aggressive in the early part of the game, this is a disadvantage as it can lead them getting into multi front wars. Also you can easily end up with two players who have taken a high bless strategy (I define high bless startegy as 2 lvl 9+ blesses), fighting each another. Either of which suits the player who has a cheap dragon or wrym and good scales.

Like everything in MP its a caculated risk.

The player who takes a high bless is relying on capturing double the normal land and crushing 1 or 2 players in the first 30 turns without encountering serious trouble.

The good scales player is gambling on being left alone to develop for the first 30 turns and will give land, offer to forge items, supply/trade gems, offer non-aggression pacts here there and everywhere in order to achieve that.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I think that most of the Dom3 changes (from my point of view) were geared toward expanding solo play which makes up nicely for Dom1 and Dom2.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Well, when I'm playing, I try to pick up that pasta that other ignore and use it. Sometimes I'm surprised how well it actually works in combination with another piece none cares about.

For example, the "repel" ability that units with long weapons almost always get a chance to use seems to be something that people frown at. "Why buy these pikemen with lower damage when I can get these - though more expensive but holy - guys with broadswords instead?". Well, combine them with some simple spells like "Agony" and watch them work. And remember, you get a lot of these guys as they are much cheaper than most holy units; this wall of spears can actually rout a force much more costly, with better stats and blesses in combination with simple low level magic.
Agony = low morale
Low morale = More difficult to overcome repel
Possible outcomes in combat:
Totally repelled = no high level blessed augmented attack taking place
Overcoming repel = 1 hp damage on a now low morale unit
No repel = counter with more numbers and cheapo spells like earth meld/slime/entagle or why not extremely cheapo netters with spears?
Add to this ordinary attacks from the repellers + repellers outnumber the attackers = Less defense on attackers for each attack = more successful repels.
All those 1 hp damage + ordinary attack damage + low morale (agony) makes it more difficult to overcome repel - this makes them take a lot of morale tests. Combine them with some good fast units and/or holy blessed units attacking rear and you have a blast.
What if agony is resisted by all the units in its area of effect? Just throw it again and again and again. It is cheap.

Or why not iron/stoneskin/ethereal/etc one of your mages and send him/her into the fray with a group of units with guard commander command scripted. Let the mage cast a lot of those almost no fatigue close combat spells; they are extremely fatigue cheap, high damage, and some have a rather big area of effect. Use a lot of low magic mages why don't you? Take care of expensive blessed Vans with fatigue 5 burning hands. It does 13+ fire damage in the square next to the caster. 5 stoneskin + luck or whatever mages will take care of a lot of Vans. Why not combine them with repelling spearmen?

This game has way more possibilities than first meets the eye.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Have you actually tried these tactics? Against an actual heavy bless strategy, not the AI?
Those sacred troops tend to be high morale and get a boost to morale from blessing, so they mostly ignore the repels.
And you tend to be fighting on a front, so you don't get that many more attacks on each enemy (10xtroops doesn't mean 10x attacks per round, just that you have more reserves for the front line.) So you don't hit(if high defense sacred) or hurt (if high prot sacred). (And of course if they're berserkers forget it.)

Try 10 W9F9 Van against 60-70 pikemen (roughly the same gold cost, but a lot more resources). I bet the pikes get slaughtered without a kill.

And mages used in the front line die. If your mage doesn't attack with his dagger (50% chance), he might kill a Van or 2 if he casts first. If he uses the larger close area effect spells (Shockwave, flame blast, etc) he'll kill as many of his own troops.
Even with stoneskin/luck, one good (AP?) hit, and he dies. Human mages just don't have the hp to survive.

Of course, some of the non-human mages can do this. They've got the stats to function as mini thugs. Sometimes those close combat spells work better than regular attacks.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Sometimes you also get a nation with extremely weak Sacreds, and you just need to pass on the bless strategy. EA Ulm Steel Warriors, for example, are great fighters but poor chassis for turning into blessbombs. Using them to explosively expand is a very real strategy but much less so than several other nations. Depending on the MP game in question, several nations may simply be unable to do a blessbombs very well.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I have tested my theories a bit. Not to the extent that you suggest however, but I will, because to me it sounds very plausible, something that could actually work. I got some experience with Agony and pikemen playing LA Ulm, and it really does work, taking out strength 9 provinces early in the game without taking more than a lost pikemen or two at most. I also fought a big AI army with some blessed troops - but that is the AI of course.

Tomorrow I will conduct some tests on the matter.

Anything that:

1. Adds fatigue to enemies (by more encumbrance for example). This will make it easier for the repelling units to repel, as you have to hit your target to be successful. Most pikemen have 10 in attack, and with a long spear that will make it 11. Every 10 points of fatigue on an enemy unit will make them lose 1 defense point. There are several cheap and also more expensive spells that will achieve this. Also, if they have, say 40 in fatigue (-4 defense) when they join in combat with the pikemen, they will surely get more from the prolonged combat repelling units can put up with low defense units with not extremely high morale. After some rounds they will get really worn out and they are ready to be slaughtered by the flankers or whatever.
Slime is another cheap spell that you can throw at the approaching enemy, as their defenses and AP will effectively be halved.
This tactic is mostly water based.

2. Add attack to the pikemen. The only spell I found that does this is berserk and its variations, it adds attack, protection and strength and decreases defense. And this is really something interesting because pikemen does not really need defense, as they can repel instead. It is of course good to have defense if you fail your repel. Maybe this is something to use on those high defense, high protection Arcoscephale Phalanxes. This only nature based as far as I can see.

3. Attack enemy morale. Here the level 2 blood spell Agony really impresses. You can actually make standard morale (10) flee at once if you use 5-6 slaves. This is not really needed though, when you have repelling units. Just to get their morale down to 10 is to make them vulnerable to repel (at least in my earlier games). So not many slaves are needed, use more wizards instead. Or, if you really have a lot of slaves you can of course widen the area of effect with just one. This is one of the thing that makes this spell so great, it is so dynamic.
This is an all blood based tactic of course.

So lowered morale means fear of the pikes, and that means more fatigue and lowered defense and more hits by repellers and so on. So you don't really need all of the above to succeed, but the more the better obviously - it will surely cut down any losses.

Lots of more to try, but right now I'm going to bed.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Want some more? Here is my "I wonder if they tried everything" anti-Helheim list. It keeps growing every day. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So far the best thing seems to be investing all of one days gold into PD on some important chokepoint. Of course that doesnt help the small-map blitzers.

Aim boosting spells and Bow of War? (volley of arrows, area affect?)

Awaken Sleeper for a strong commander, give him Thunder Bow (that uses strength boost) and Eye of Void (to see thru glamour). Does giving that Eye of Aiming make him blind or would he still be able to shoot? He has pretty good precision. Adding strength boosters would speed up the kill with that bow.

Do spells like Eagle Eyes help?

What about attacking equipment like the dancing trident or that dove?

Slingers broken up into many small units.

Snake Bladder Stick

Hydras

equipment: Wall Shaker

elementals seem to do well

Spirits of the Wood? Watcher?

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

And some people don't even play multi-player games but still paint a "MP in dominions 3 is perfect" picture...

And I don't play blitz. I'm not sure why you assume that everyone who critques the balance of Dom3 only plays on small maps with a few people.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

For all the forum chatter about dual 9 bless i've so far only seen it twice in 6 net games. In both cases it was 9W9S. Once it worked great (MA Ermor), the other guy (Lanka) got clobbered straight away.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

It may be that the game simply does not take its main purpose for nation design tight balance for hyper competitive MP? Certainly, the manual itself suggests in the last paragraphs before the beginning of the Grimoire that there are units (and possibly even whole nations) that are in there to be neat, to provide fun and interest, rather than be min-maxxed into unstoppableness.

In this regard it is somewhat similar to many fighting games. There's usually about 20% of a fighting games roster that makes its way into serious tourney competition. The others are there for beginners, or for people who think that a character that looks cool or has an enjoyable theme is more important than frame advantage. Unless there is a much smaller ratio of actually usable characters, though, or one or two are massively overpowered, most in-the-know fans don't criticize game balance.

Edit: And I don't know crap about MP, but Lanka IMO is really better off with E9N9, not F9W9.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Heehee. Some probably do.
But I run most of the server MP games and have played in many MP games. Many of those with the beta-tester team (inluding the devs) which include many of the best players from the IRC channel. For a good year more than most others have had Dom3. I dont do all that badly in such games.
Dont think you can talk to me like Graeme or Quantum

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

!
Gandalf, regardless of MP ability, at least responds to ad hominum attacks with a measure of equanimity.

Of course, it's not exactly necessary to play the game with the intent of winning. As some of you might remember, I played Yomi so that I could send cryptic messages in Japanese to all the pretenders. I died by turn 30. And it was fun. Oh, and being backstabbed by the treacherous Lankan dogs was probably my favourite moment of Dom3 thus far. Call me a masochist.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Yes I agree, its perfectly ok for a person to join a MP game with no intention or expectation of winning. The aim should be to have fun, enjoyment and winning is just a bonus if it comes along.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Right. Only one person gets to win any given game, hopefully everyone gets to have fun. To achieve maximum fun, each person has his or her own balance between striving for optimal play and the best chance at victory on the one hand, and tinkering, fooling around, exploring, diplomacy, role-playing, doing whatever else there is to do that's *not* a min-maxed drive to victory on the other hand. This balance may well change from game to game, day to day, nation to nation, whatever, for a given person. Most people recognize this and accept it; sometimes it dictates what games a person joins, sometimes somebody gets frustrated at having joined a game in which a lot of people are playing with vastly different goals. Mostly, people are civil and have fun.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Actually in a multiplayer game, it is VERY frustrating when someone's not playing to win. You can end up having completely pushing over neighbors who have no intent to win and triple the size of your empire because of that and completely mess up a game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Yeah, that's most of what I was referring to about people getting frustrated. From my (admittedly limited) experience, that kind of thing happens more often when experience or skill levels are vastly different than it does when motivation levels are really different, though (by motivation, I mean motivation to win, not motivation to play, a lack of which is possibly the worst possible trait in a player).
But yes, I completely agree, it can really screw up a game when essentially people aren't even *playing* the same game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Yeah. I recall, I've been on both ends of this scenario too. There were at least two games I won where I got no real satisfaction from winning simply because half my neighbors just decided to stale out of the game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

If and when I play MP, I play to win, but that doesn't mean that winning is the be-all end-all for me. In the two games I took part in during the Dom2 days, I had tons of fun even though I finished fourth or so in the first and got totally clobbered in the second (which incidentally also resulted in several improvements on sections of the Faerun map as I saw firsthand some problems there that I had not originally noticed or paid attention to).

Of course, staling out of a game is unacceptable. Better to go AI than stale away.

Edi

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I always play to win, but I don't let that stop me from trying weaker nations or non-optimal pretender designs.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

If you enjoy competing you usually enjoy challenge too. Sometimes that means you enjoy putting some 'artificial' limitations on yourself - after all these limitations are really no different from the rules of any game.

I personally enjoy forcing myself to use a certain ratio of weaker troops, for instance.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Sometimes they aren't artificial limitations. The danger with falling into the "best strategy & counter" line of thought is that someone cropping up with a completely wild strategy, even if not usually considered a victorious one, can catch you completely off guard.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I don't have the vast experience some of you do, but it does seem to me that luck has as much to do with who will be the winner as skill. Don't get me wrong, a good player obviously has a much better chance of doing well, but as far as who is going to do good enough to beat everyone else in the game it's going to be the player that is good AND has the best luck. Factors you may or may not have much control over and may significantly effect your chances of winning:
1) What nation you're playing
2) Who your neighbors are (How aggressive/good are they). If you attack player A do players B and C take that opportunity to attack you, or are they fighting with each other?
3) What random events hit your capital during the early turns
4) Who you're able to ally with (this is as much a function of the situation as your diplomatic skills)
5) Who allies against you (if you take a strong early lead you're likely to be ganged up on. Taking a nation perceived to be stronger, or being perceived as a strong player is likely to have people gang up on you as well)
6) What type of provinces are close to your capitol (do you have resources for your resource intensive troops? Suitable blood hunting sites? Enough gold income?)
7) Are you able to trade for some good path boosters?
8) What indie mages are you able to recruit?
9) What magic sites do you find? Do you get the gem income that fits your nation? Any good ritual discounts?

etc. etc.

So, I guess my point is that you've got to "play to win" with a certain lack of intensity because if you're playing against any significant number of players remotely near your skill level you're probably not going to. There is enough variation from luck that many, many different strategies are competitive and offer a different play experience. Obviously Dominions isn't perfectly balanced, look at how hard it is to balance games like Warcraft and consider the difference in scope. So what if <nation 1/setup 1> is definitely stronger that <nation 2/setup 2>, I can take <nation 2/setup 2> and have almost as much of a chance of winning assuming I play a good game.

Graeme, your bleak depiction of the game doesn't correspond to my experience. Your implication is that you either don't know what you're doing or you're not playing to win if you do something different than the things you list as being optimal (dual bless, death scales, etc), and that the game is almost completely determined in the first 20 turns so the rest is just going through the motions. Perhaps that is the case if you're playing one on one competitively with the primary purpose to win, but that doesn't sound to me like you're playing a very fun game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

If you play optimally, and your opponent doesn't, then you will win, all other things being equal. The reason I refer to dual-blesses is because they are something that makes national troops completely obsolete from the first turn of the game. People complained that troops became obsolete too quickly in Dom2, yet Helhirdings make every other purchasable unit obsolete on the first turn. If your opponent comes at you with one of the effective types of dual-blessed sacreds, and you don't have at least a three to one numerical advantage in gold spent on your army, then you are almost certainly going to lose the battle.

Have you ever seen any games of Dom3 where the eventual winner was not one of the top nations at turn 20? Thee eventual winner of _any_ 4X game is decided in the early turns of the game.

It's not anywhere near as fun as Dom2. The neutering of magic, and presence of a morale system that's just as broken as Dom2's provides little reason to play the game.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

If that were true then there would never be games where Arcos won by holding out and researching heavy magic, or Jotunheim by taking the expand slow and defend strongly strategy, or Pangaea/Caelum/Man checkerboard strategy. Much less any of the water nations. Its a good thing that the game supports maps up to 1500 provinces and victory conditions other than rush-kill.

Ahhh that explains alot.
Thank you for sticking around to let us all know that.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I think I understand how to play the defensive and checkerboard strategies, but I've never had much luck with Arco. Could you say a little more about the research strategy for them?

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Actually, he was saying that a nation that was in a bad position at turn 20 couldn't win the game. By his theory, in, say, ten nations left in the game by turn 20, and 4 of them have conquered another nation and have two capitals. If magic resources including research, and the amount of military power left, and the composition of the armies, and the dominion strengths etc aren't rather extraodrinary, one of the four nations would win. Of course, strength of a nation isn't directly related to just the resources available to it, but let's use this as an example.

If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

However, if the four nations in good position are in the good position because they are controlled by the players with most optimized strategies, Graeme's description is totally accurate. The best players' skill shines through in the early game, and will let them control the late game against less experienced players (who learn from them and become more skilled).

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Really? Usually the checkerboard strategy takes explanation (skipping across dangerous indepts to get to an enemy without leaving an easy route back to your capital).

Arcos is usually accepted as being the most magically capable and research powerful nation. It appears central to their build. And very astral. They are one of the easier nations to build around for a research push into powerful end-game magic. Of course that tends not to work too well on small maps and quick games. That CAN hold their own fairly well in such armor-to-armor games but they have to drop the focus on a reasearch push.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Deleted.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Frank did this condition apply in your victory:

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

I find in veteran heavy games, the ones who command the largest early lead wins the game. In games where there are a mix of newbie, average and veterans, it's obviously just a toss up between which vets get luckiest.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Deleted.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

In most veteran filled games, the games have been consistently won by the best expander. There is the occasionally fluke here and there usually caused by the two most aggressive expanders butting heads.

Re: Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?
 

Well, yes and no. Yes, there is a definite advantage to having a larger territory and controlling a second capital, but at this point in the game there is also a growing advantage to having more of a long term focus rather than dual-bless-crappy-scales-no-research-expand-as-fast-as-possible. Its easily possible that one of the "smaller" nations has more income and more research than one of the "leaders" in this case. When you throw in the fact that the more aggressive (and nominally leading) players are more likely to have enemies and less likely to have strong alliances (people don't tend to support someone who seems likely to win) this skews it even more. Certainly it's possible to put yourself enough ahead to take the win with quick expansion, but I disagree that it is the only significant factor that decides who wins. Perhaps it is under certain conditions (few players, small maps, etc.), but as I said before that sounds like a fairly boring game, and doesn't sound like the game I'm playing which IS filled with diplomacy, alliances, effective surprise tactics, dark horse comebacks, counters and shifting strategies, and generally a lot of stuff that makes a whole lot of different play styles viable.