Baalz' guides
 

My list of guides is now too long to fit in my signature, so this is a meta guide thread linking to my works. Feel free to comment on my guides in general or request future guides, comments about specific guides should go in their respective threads.


EA Mictlan
MA Atlantis
Eriu
Sauromatia
Marverni
HINNOM
LA Atlantis
Bandar
MA Ulm
Machaka
Helheim
Niefleheim
EA Caelum
MA Oceana
EA Ulm
EA Arco
MA Argatha
LA Pangea
MA T'ien Ch'i
MA Abysia
EA Atlantis
EA Pangaea
Shinuyama
LA Marignon
LA Pythium

Communions
Zen and the art of thuggin
Vampires
Blitzing

Re: Baalz' guides
 

An idea I had some days ago - as I re-read your Helheim I suspected that much of its initial details at least will also work for Yomi. What do you say?

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I for one will just say I really love your guides and the way you explain very well orchestrated strategies. :)

And you're very vain asking!! :down::D:up:

Re: Baalz' guides
 

YOMI!!! or EA Arco! I love both, but I really am not sure what to do w/Yomi besides the predictable Dai-Oni SCs + GG thugs. Arco is more varied, but it still doesn't really have a guide I think.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Many kisses from Sweden to Baalz! :)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Ulm! ULM! My favorite nation of all time.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I believe the following nations are without a guide yet:

Early Age

• Ermor
• Oceania
• Tir na n'Og
• Ulm
• Vanheim

Middle Age

• Machaka
• Man
• Marignon
• T'ien Ch'i
• Vanheim

Late Age

• Agartha
• Arcoscephale
• Caelum
• C'tis
• Gath
• Mictlan
• Pangaea

I'd say that the most interesting would probably be guides for EA Ermor, EA Ulm, Machaka, LA Arco, LA C'tis and LA Pangaea.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

You missed the Machaka guide I already wrote. ;) Linked in the first post.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Hmmm, actually I revise my request order to EA Ulm, Yomi, EA Arco.
Ulm because playing a nation of lumberjacks with nothing but maidens is silly
Yomi because Dai-Oni SCs are obvious, and because thats all Yomi can do besides bakemono shortbows + FA
Arco because I like them and 1 of the guides is more for newbs, while the other doesn't really have that much meat on it. No offense Juffos ;)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Yomi actually got a guide recently. Baalz and kissblade together I think did a pretty respectable job of covering Yomi. Unfortunately a lot of the advice they gave wasn't really applicable to a game I'm playing as yomi right now, just due to the way my opponent is fighting me.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

EA Ulm, of course!
Tir-Na-Nog and Vanheim are at least workable using your famed Eriu guide. ;)
A question on Yomi was just that - I don't like the nation that much, it's just that I noted a similarity and in a quick test it seemed to work somewhat...

Re: Baalz' guides
 

EA Arco (or all ages) I think it has a lot of potential (not to mention my favorite era all around) just not for someone who knows how to lead in troops graphs and reseach blindly!!!

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I thought LA Pangaea had a guide written? Well, if not, just PM me and I'll tell you how to play them. I'm not much for writing guides.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

EA Ulm!

Re: Baalz' guides
 

That reminds me, I really should get back to my LA C'tis testing, I have the seeds of something wonderful, but they still need water.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Thanks a lot for all these guides Baalz ;) They're very useful for pointing out things that I usually miss while looking at a nation.

I'd like to hear a bit about your thoughts on EA Vanheim also...

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Soon, all nations will have a Baalz guide, and we will all be able to bask in their glory, and the world of dominions will finally be safe from n00bishness.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

And then Baalz will start writing a SECOND guide to every nation. Can you imagine "Hinnom 2.0, the improved version"? :eek:

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Tifone, Champion of the N00bishness, will defend everyone's (and expecially himself's) right to play as a n00b forever!! :D

Re: Baalz' guides
 

EA Vanheim can work somewhat under Eriu guide - or just as a scales-based nation (I used something similar as Helheim and if not for Sauromatia, would probably won)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I think your Zen and the art of Thugging should be listed in your original post, Baalz.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Ah, thanks I missed that one.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I'd love to see Gath get the Ballz treatment. I'm currently in love with Blood magic right now after reading your EA Mictlan guide over again and Gath is one of the several blood nations I've not stuck my toe in yet.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Does anyone else feel that having these awesome guides written by top players like Baalz robs a bit of the joy of discovering how to play a nation oneself?

Of course, no-one forces us to read them, but it is near irresistible to do so. I really like to play a nation differently than I've seen/heard it played, and I'm quickly running out of ideas with the profusion of guides!

Please don't write an MA abysia guide anytime too soon, I don't want my new strategy savaged by a better one ;)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

No, Baalz' guides and other guides are very valuable to the game. With so many nations, and so many strategies to learn, it is invaluable to have guides like these to help you out.

In fact, I used one of Ballz's guides, his guide to communions, to hold him to a standoff in a recent war between us in an MP game.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I don't think they're really limiting. Yes, as a newer player, you may think, "wow, I can't possibly do better than that", but that will be especially demoralizing if his strategy doesn't work out for you. :p Strategies are ultimately very personal things, and as you get more experienced, you will find that you rarely just emulate a full strategy as you read it here, but you take from it what works well for you, and you add things not mentioned, and you hopefully come up with something that works as well for your style as the posted strategy works for the poster.

Ultimately, much of the game comes down to improvisation and creativity within the moment anyways. The faster you learn more tricks, and more techniques, the better you will do in any particular game that you join.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

EA Ulm and Machaka down from my list on page 1, now I am eagerly awaiting EA Ermor, LA Arco, LA C'tis and LA Pangaea. :D

Re: Baalz' guides
 

One thing I've always wondered about the guides:

What are the game settings they supposedly work on? Because they seem to assume independent strength 5, normal or easy research and a LOT of available gems. Having a standardized base setting defined for Baalz guides would be very useful for comparisons.

I've run the numbers on a few games I've played and in most of them, getting things done per these guides would not have been an option. Indies at 7, magic sites at 25-30 percent and hard research throws many, many things out the window or reorders probabilities and priorities to such a degree that only parts of the suggested strategies would work. Note that I mostly play SP or cooperative hotseat games, not standard MP.

For example, in a current game, my friend controls an entire corner of the map and soon around one quarter of the whole map. He has done all searches save fire and blood and he has a whopping 2 nature sites, one of which is Gateward Valley (no gems). He has had similar luck with death sites. No more than two or three and total income of both gem types is around 2-3 per turn.

Granted that that's unusual, but there you go. Makes for a whole different game and you need to throw a lot of things out the window and be really miserly with what you do.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Sorry, my guides are all based on default settings, where noted (all the recent ones) using CBM. I'd also like to reiterate that I'd be a bit surprised and disappointed if people took what I wrote and tried to just apply it verbatim with no discovery of their own. People are always asking if its CBM or not, what the settings are, and pointing out that there's not enough points for the very specific thing I just laid out (because of a typo or an oversight on my part which doesn't really impact the idea). Thing is, each game (particularly MP!) is going to vary so much that a formulaic approach certainly won't work. I don't in any way attempt to give an exhaustive analysis of a nation and all the different ways it could be played with all the different settings in all the different scenarios you'll find yourself in. Obviously playing under hard research is going to impact some of the suggestions I make, sometimes it's just the luck of the draw and despite your best efforts you can't find the gems you need for what I suggest and instead have a pile of some other gem you'll have to decide how best to use. Sometimes, trying the same strategy you're going to blast through indies and pile up gold, sometimes you're going to be surrounded by heavy cavalry and dark vines and have a stunted growth, sometimes your capital is in high resource mountains, playing with indies at 9 will change stuff as well. Despite the fact that I often write from a perspective of "you'll do this then that" by necessity it's intended to really be suggesting fairly general patterns which are useful in different situations while illustrating some common situations through the usual span of a game. As is obvious from the response there are often dramatic different and effective angles on nations which didn't occur to me. Think of it, kind of like observing one specific game played by me with a running commentary of what thoughts were going through my head as I made my decisions - even I wouldn't be able to exactly duplicate that in another game.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Thanks for the prompt reply. :)

I didn't mean to suggest that your guides are The One & Only, Infallible Way of Doing Things. I have always treated them as suggestions (very good ones), but the writing style may sometimes give a little bit stronger impression of something than may be warranted by the specific circumstances.

The question about the default settings was just something that I figured suited this thread best of all, because all the guides are linked from here. And now everything can be compared to what the actual settings are on any given game. Such as the example of my own defaults, with indies 7 and magic sites reduced 1 or 2 steps from default most of the time.

Thanks again for all the effort you've put into the guides.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Note: this post applies to guides in general.

I like guides mostly for specific synergistic tactics that can often be applied to any nations. Sometimes they just remind me of things I know but forgot, like using Transformation on high cost mages - I saw Cleveland do that it in a game about a year ago, but forgot about it in a game I am playing.

It would be foolish to treat the guides as a how-to manual – I mean, if they really were prescriptions to victory, those authors would have numerous victories playing the nations they wrote about. The MP graveyard is full of players who tried to follow guides rotely. In fact, tactics and strategy often are trumped by luck and diplomacy and what works in some games vs. some opponents won’t work in others. Guides are useful as a base to expand on and a primer on units/spells/combos.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to write a guide or throw out ideas. I know what you mean though Dragar that sometimes its nice to experience the adventure of unexplored wilderness. Just have faith that these guides are not complete explorations but tattered maps with lines like “Here there be Dragons”

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I really like guides, personally.

I just find them exceptionally useful when I look at a nation, and I can't think of anything useful to do with them. Often times one of the more experienced players can tease some nuggets of gold from even the worst nations.

Jazzepi

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I'd be surprised if anyone would write guides for anything but Default settings, without explicitly stating such. Independent settings especially really tamper with the precision often layed out for your first year of expansion - even bumping to 6 can have a profound impact on what you can or cannot do efficiently - and pushing it higher can totally marginalize some tactics altogether. I think that most guides are written from an MP perspective, where time and efficiency are critical, and settings do not vary wildly except in the more exotic setups - extrapolating them to SP means that you have to adjust to your own world, but gives you more flexibility, as you are under less of an "X provinces by turn Y or lose" sort of pressure.


Well CBM can dramatically change things. For example, in my Fomoria guide, my Lady of Springs went from 2W/1N for 125 points, to 1W/1N for 0 points. It's a large change that yields up additional options. I think most strats depend less on the vanilla/CBM distinction once in game, but pretender builds will vary greatly between the two environments.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Oh I never take a guide as a prescriptive method of how to play, and I certainly appreciate all the work that goes into the guides, of which I have read most and borrowed heavily from. It was just a comment that sometimes when I read a guide and someone has gone through a large number of strengths, niches, options etc for a nation I feel that there is less for me to discover. I pretty much select nations now on those with the least information published :)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

The guides are all very valuable, especially from someone as expert as Baalz. If for no other reason, you can see tactical ideas that can be applied generally by many nations, and they're generally well optimised and brimming with ideas.

There's one very important thing to be careful of with guides, however: everyone can read them. That means not only have you seen tactics that can work for you, but your opponent probably has (and certainly should have). For nations that are highly versatile, say able to switch from thugging to powerful armies or with a wide range of good magical paths available, this isn't such a big deal. However, for more one-trick pony nations, you really need to plan something useful outside the guide. Otherwise you'll head off to battle with your opponent knowing almost exactly what's coming his way, and that's a recipe for defeat.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Awesome, my list has been pretty much annihilated. I guess now I'd like to see Tir, EA Ermor, and LA C'tis, though not in any particular order. Keep it up!

Re: Baalz' guides
 

How about MA TC? There isn't a guide for that (that I know of).

Re: Baalz' guides
 

True. It seems like TC is pretty similar in just about all ages though... I dunno.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

There are gross similarities, but very significant differences, as well. All of their mages are actually quite distinctively different, per age, except the constant of the Master of the Way.

Warrior of the Five Elements is a great special purpose cap only Bless troop, but Ancestor Vessels have altogether different usages, and the MA Sacred cav may well not be worth investing in a Bless for at all.

Not as different as say the 3 ages of C'tis, but I absolutely love EA TC, and I can't play either of the other ages the same way.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Let's not forget Conscription. An inexpensive way to amass PD.

But yes, they don't really carry on at all. There are some basic strategies that do remain the same, but for the most part, they each need different strategies.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

My bad then. I've never thought conscription was that good, but then again, the AI doesn't use scouts to take undefended provinces.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Conscription has it's uses. It's minor, but it does. They also don't use Call of the Winds or any of that very often either. :p

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Conscription doesn't help in that at all, anyway. Conscription only gets to work in provinces where you have a minimum of 1 PD, AFAIK, which will already be enough to thwart scout takeovers.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Not true. I and others have noted that a freshly conquered province in friendly Dominion will often have 1 PD before you have the chance to assign any. Not that the savings of 1g is anything to brag about, but it does work, so in many cases in MP you could afford to never touch the PD screen until you are invading foreign Dominion.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Then that might be a bug that 0% of something is still being rounded to 1 in Dom3, while the intention was that a mimimum of 1 PD has to be available. I'd appreciate it more if you could go from zero PD to other PD values, though.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I'm working on a MA Man guide. But considering MA Man, the provisional subtitle is at its most optimistic going to be "Making the best of a bad deal".

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Conscription seems very good to me. When I play I like to put 5 PD into a province. With conscription (if you can keep hold of that province for 2 or so years) that can mature into 20+ PD.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Why do you put 5 pd in? Seems like a number that costs more than 1 but isn't really any more useful for the most part..

I think conscription is nice, but fairly weak. Nothing to base a choice or strat around

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Probably because it's cheap, I'm guessing, and it gets you to a useful level of PD faster.

Also 5 to 10 PD can beat ghouls/birds/wolves, but 1PD won't cut it.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

As VFB said.

1PD can be taken out with no real effort at all. Black Servants, tough scouts (eg. the Jotun ones) or assassins could take a 1PD province with no special equipment. 5 PD costs just 15 gold, and means your opponent has to put at least a bit of gems or gold effort in.