Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I'm setting up an early game with six players. Two of them are very skilled, one of them is medium skilled and three of them are unskilled (one is a total newbie). Could you hint me the nations to ban to the skilled players so to slightly balance the game? I think about the -heims, Hinnom, Lanka. Do you think there are some other to ban (Caelum, Fomoria, Tir na nog)?

Thanks

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Restrict them to Yomi and Marveni. :)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Sauromatia,TC, Mictlan

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

It would be funny and challenging for them IMHO if you make them play only the nations with 0, 0.5 or max 1 MP victories in the list of the "Victorious Nations/Hall of Honor" thread (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=33275) ;)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Yes, agree with Tifone.
Well, I just read the list, Mictlan didn't win any game but still is a powerful nation to play by someone with experience.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Sauromatia. At least until poison archers bug will be fixed.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

What bug?

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I won a game as Yomi (3 way tie). They can do some damage once you get off the ground.

And marveni is also a serious powerhouse once it gets going

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I'm quet happy for you. Now tell me what chances does unexperienced Marveni player have against, say, experienced Helheim one?

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Arrows poison even if the arrows are parried by shields. Shields are the simplest counter to hordes of archers.


Unexperienced loses vs experienced. However, there is a good guide for Marverni, which covers early game tactics against different enemies, magic research for early game and how to utilize teleporting battlefield mages.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

About the same as an unexperienced Helheim player does against an experienced marveni player.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

This will not be settled easily Id guess.
There are always discussions about too powerful, or too easy, or automatic win, etc etc. But when it comes down to selecting, no one seems to agree on what ones they were talking about. So I tend to disregard such conversations.

IMHO any experienced player with the nation of this choice would fall into the category you want. And any inexperienced player wont matter what nation they get.

Some options that have been used are:
randomly assigning nations
randomly building the gods, scales, and then randomly assigning nations
having everyone turn in a god build then redistributing them

Or lately there have been two mods created which allows everyone to play against each other using exactly the same nation and god choices. A single nation cloned many times.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

sum1lost
I give up, you are right.
My point was if an experienced player is in the game with newbies, he shouldn't choose the rush nation, but the nation it takes some time to bring to power.

I thought it was a feature. :) Poison cloud making arrows.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Make 'em play aboleths, that'll teach 'em.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Personally I'd say the Heims, Sauromatia, Hinnom and Lanka and maybe mictlan. If the other players (the nubs) then take one of the nations above and read the respective guides well it might be a game with a somewhat even start. (though experience will be the deciding factor in mid/end game.. I'd advice the nubs to go pretty heavy on a bless and then pretty heavy on a rush on their most experienced neighbour :D)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

It's a feature, all right. LA Ctis has something similar, only they are slingers.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I'd say let them have any nation they want, but start the newbies off with an extra SC and some magic items. The newbies will probably lose eventually just because the experienced ones know more tricks but they'll have fun being powerful at the beginning, and will be more willing to play again so they can use the tricks themselves. All you really want to avoid is the newbies getting steamrollered early on, and that means they need an SC or a bless or both.

-Max

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

You could also use pretender points for handicapping. Something like: the 2 experienced guys have to have 200 points left over at pretender creation time, the experienced guy needs 100 left-over points on his god, and the newbs get to use all the points. That might not be enough though.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I don't think there's that much you do to stop an experienced player absolutely trouncing an inexperienced one, but Max and VFB's suggestions look pretty good to me. I might lean to Max's, because the inexperienced ones should learn a lot and as that disadvantage declines, their start-game advantage will become progressively less useful.

But yeah, restricting a few nations for the experienced ones might be a good idea as well.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

To Gandalf:
It's popular point of view, of course. But nevertheless, there are nations that are much easier to learn than others. Probably, experienced players should be banned from them to free these for new players.
And I also think that MaxWilson's suggestion has merit.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Or you might restrict the pretender choices to arch mages (for the experienced players). That way they won't get very powerful blesses as easily, nor have a pretender that can take provinces on their own. Thus less initial steamrolling.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Personally I would love to see a game where the experienced player has volunteered to BE the game. They could be a "better AI". Something like a "coalition to free the world from Ermor" or "The Inquisition is coming for YOU (Marignon)".

The betterAI player would not have to hold back. They could play as rough as they want, make and break treaties, role play the villain. Let it be known from the very beginning that they arent (enter forum name here) but are playing the role of (enter game-god name here). Maybe even two, or three. Or one expert player could play 2 or 3 nations allied. Given extra points if need be. Then the noobs could all ally against the "bad guy".

You could ask on the IRC channel for someone to do this.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Except poison slings are specifically intended to be poison cloud weapons. They work quite differently from poison arrows. See their shorter range, lower accuracy, lack of real mundane damage, poison cloud secondary effect, lasting cloud, description in the unit description etc.

KO said the arrows were intended to poison only on dealing damage. The description on one of the poison archers talks about this too.

I don't really see there's a discussion here.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Neither do I, poison arrows are WAD.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

More like WATW :)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Working As They Work?

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

With Sombre.
That's been discussed ad nauseam already. I know you guys love to play Sauromantia but that's good as a blizzard in the summer holidays.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Here's the fix for the scenario you describe (assuming the players are there for a friendly game) - just have the two skilled players start the game at war with each other and can never agree to peace or work together. Wouldn't work all the time, but the specific game you mention has just the right balance that this should work fairly well, even if the 2 skilled players are not equally skilled. It'd probably play out with the skilled players trying to court the less skilled (and likely smaller) players to help them out rather than their opponent, while anybody being gobbled up by one of the skilled players could expect direct and indirect help from the other one (including strategy advice).

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I like that! Which superpower will you ally with, the freedom-loving democratic Arcosephaleans, or the communist Red Abysians?

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Freedom loving? With slaves to serve the nobles?

Communists? Led by H3 priests? :D

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

thejeff: yep :)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Things should work the way they work, because it they weren't, that would be really odd

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

The "Cold War" suggestion is actually great for role-play too, which might make it more fun for the newbs.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Damn the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers for using poison arrows!!! :rolleyes:

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Just make it so they can't pick blesses or SC Pretenders. Problem solved.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

That's not enough. They should have no bless, no awake pretender, no non-human pretender, and no positive scales.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

It's also probably best if they're not allowed to spend gold on anything but monkey PD.

-Max

P.S. In seriousness, I think giving bonuses to the weaker players is more likely to lead to a good game than forcing the stronger players to play crippled. Otherwise you're just annoying the stronger player and asking for them to game the system (no bless and no SC? Fine--play Hinnom with a scales strategy, or play Caelum and abuse mammoths). I did like the suggestion of banning alliances between the strong players but whether it would work in practice depends on your players.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I think the easier way to go about this would be to restrict the experienced players to a short list of crappy nations- Arco, Ermor, Ulm, the monkeys, or water nations perhaps. I believe that there is a little more agreement about which EA nations are weak than about which are strong, especially since "strong" begs the question of strong in the early , mid, or late game.

Also, it's worth noting that the way to improve your play is to get beaten by a better player.

Finally, a roomier map and/or a mandatory 20 turn peace might make it better for the newbs.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I think I disagree with EA Ermor being crappy. =) (unless they got a nerf somewhere along the line when I wasn't looking)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Ive said before, I dont think there are crappy or powerful nations. There are players who have found the nation which matches their playing style, and those who havent. Match yourself to a nation and any of them do pretty well IMHO.

Some people play all nations the same way and make their judgements based on that. Most people who have decided that a nation sucks, when they are questioned, it seems that they dont make use of any of that nations theme-based pros and cons.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Well gandalf that is just plain not right... there are clear differences between the power of nations where if you pick 2 nations played by players with lots of experience with their own nation one nation will certainly win 90% of the matches.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Well, I would say that gandalf is at least partly right, a player that understands well how to use one nation to its fullest will do well against most or all other nations by understanding how to play up its strengths and cover for its weaknesses. Whereas with a different "strong" nation that they don't understand how to use as well they may do well against some people but not do as well overall.

I think though, especially in the early to mid game before you have diversified much magically, that a significant part of the equation is the comparison between the two nation's inherent capabilities. As a completely random example, niefelheim is considered one of the strongest ea nations... one of the strongest nations period, even. But one of the nations they are worst equipped to fight, imo, is ea Yomi, considered one of the weakest nations in the game.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

One of the great things about the game is that nations are not balanced against nations. Its a rock-paper-scissors form of balance.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Could you elaborate, please?

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Fire and poison tossing troops and easy access to many cheap archers easy to "flaming arrows" up, I suppose ;)

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

Some of my personal complaints are Caelum and Pangaea. People often declare them weak but when you talk to them they are playing it likes its Ulm. Trying to build big armored armies to march across the map.
I have nothing against that playing style. It perfectly fits some nations. That person would do great with those nations.
But how can you declare Caelum weak if your strategies do not include the advantages of flying armies?
How can you declare Pangaea weak if you dont use stealth armies?
Its usually easy to read a nations description and see what has been built into its basic theme. Any effort to declare a nation as great or worthless needs to take those things into account InMyHumbleOpinion.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

In elaboration. Yomi has, as tifone said, fire and poison tossing troops (though I probably wouldn't rely on these), cheap archers and access to flaming arrows. They also have cheap, highly massable stealthy units to raid with.

They also have cold resistant multi-form blockers that turn ethereal when they die and do large amounts of damage, the earth mages to cast armor of achilles, destruction, earth meld etc, and to cast strength of giants. If you go the alteration route you also get blight, which they can natively cast, that you can use to increase unrest in their capital and kill off some of their population. In short yomi has access to pretty much every method I've heard mentioned that's helpful for killing niefel giants. If it's later in the game it's almost just better for you because you'll be able to combine more of the above methods, and maybe even add in weapons of sharpness.

Pretty much the only thing they don't have is cold immune thugs, unless you research conjuration for the ghost generals or trade for some rings. If you can manage to get cold immune oni generals/dai oni, you can spam hand of death at them.

Anyway this is all theorycrafting since I've never actually done it in practice, but I'm pretty sure it would work.

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

I suspect, Gandalf, that you would *LOVE* being Italy when playing Diplomacy. Lots of potential for poking your finger in other people's schemes. Caelum and Pangaea are great as allies.

-Max

Re: Some hint about early nations to ban to skilled players?
 

They play fairly well on really large maps also. They both have the ability to "checkers hop" across the map taking weak provinces and leaving strong ones in place as a buffer. They can attack an enemy fairly early. And then that enemy has to fight a string of both their provinces, and the stronger indepts that they jumped over to get there, in order to strike back.

And Pangaea can send an army to the backside of an enemy taking a province there and forcing them to split their forces to fight back. I know that Pangaea does not have the ability to meet an army head-to-head very well but it can put one of the most complete armies (priests, mages, infantry, longbows, mounted cavalry, blesseds) anywhere on the map which is usually quite capable against what most people put into back defense and PD.

But again, its for a player who likes to play those styles. Its best when the players style matches the nation. Ive noticed that my tendency to play diplomatic (including the dark side of seduce, spy, assassinate, CIA armies) shows up no matter what nation I get. When I get one of the "strong" nations I do horribly because I dont play to those strengths. Just not my style.