Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

As it is an era i am reasonably unfamiliar with, I am trying to get an idea of what consensus has been reached (if any) on the power nations in MA and the turkeys - essentially, who are the top 5 and who are the bottom 5?

Ashdod and Jotunheim must be up near the top and Man and Oceania at the bottom... opinions?

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

I think it's the usual suspects

Ashdod, Jotunheim, Mictlan, Ermor, and Pythium at the top
Man, Oceania, Argatha, Machaka, Ulm? at the bottom

However, MA has the least variance in power between nations. Certain nations here have a lot of potential with powerful mages and very few "capital only" limitations (Shinuyama and C'tis spring to mind).

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Ok then,

I'm dipping my head into a bit of modding and was just tying to get an idea of who has enough and who doesn't. Obviously Ashdod does and Man and Oceania don't, so thats a start... thanks mate!

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

I wouldn't put ulm at the bottom at all. Otherwise I agree.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Pythium and Ashdod are certainly very strong. I'm not inclined to think Mictlan is a particularly big hitter in MA personally. Ulm, Man and Oceania generally have poor MA reputations.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Here is a small point ranking [1-10] made for Preponderance, which I don't agree totally [would value Vanheim lower, Pythium higher for example, but it was for team game with special settings too, so keep that in mind]:

Ma Pythium: 6
Ma Man: 3
Ma Ulm: 3
Ma Ermor: 7
Ma Arco: 6
Ma Marignon: 4
Ma Mictlan: 5
Ma Mackaka: 5
Ma Agartha: 2
Ma Aby: 4
Ma Caelum: 5
Ma C'tis: 4
Ma Pan: 4
Ma Van: 7
Ma Jotun: 6
Ma Bandar log: 5
Ma Shinuyama: 4
Ma Ashdod: 12+
Ma Eriu: 5
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 4

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

I don't understand the love for Pythium.

Their infantry is solid: good morale, decent weapons, nice shield, decent training. This has not changed from Dom2 where Pythium was a real power.

What has changed is their magic power. Both of their combat mages are now old and their capital only mage is very old. This is somewhat limiting. Further, Pythium's greatest trick was communions. However communions are far more difficult to pull of in Dom3 as you have far fewer castles to recruit mages (and relief is no where near as powerful as before).

However, overall, MA is, IMO, the best balanced of the ages.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Pythium has a number of big boosts from dom2, though old age is a problem. The biggest boost is the angelic summons, which use the huge astral income Pythium had a very hard time leveraging until late game in dom2. Then there are the hydras boosts.

Some more subtle effects have also helped them out. Nerfing the magic scale and boosting gold income means they can afford to pump a theurg elder every turn, giving them a quite the comparative research edge.

Also, growth scale plus some astral healing field trips can save all but a very few mages from old age.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Excuse me for going OT, but do I read this right, ie that Astral Healing remove old age afflictions? If so, then that is something I *relly* wish I had known before :doh:

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Astral healing doesn't remove old age afflictions, but can restore the health of your mages back to maximum.

Hence you can use the mages until the eventual old age disease gives them feeblemind.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Crikey! Ashdod a 12+? Agartha the turkey of the age, Worse than Man?

So an average of 4.68 if you don't include Ashdod

The reason why i asked this is because i'm mucking around with a little mod to add a bit more thug action to the game and trying to work out a balance.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...369#post691369

Continuing on this thread, what are the classic blesses for each bless nation in so much as, what are the typical path choices for a pretender? i.e Water and Nature for Pythiums Hydras... A rainbow or SC for Ulm etc

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Ma Agartha IS NOT a 2, nor a turkey. The nation is a powerhouse in middle to late game, it has some of the best national summons in the game.

It is however, 'weak' in the early game, so the problem is surviving and prospering to the middle to late game. Even so, overall its more powerful than Oceania, Machaka, Man and Ulm.

Ashdod is merely a 10/10 nation, perhaps useful for new Dom3 players to play?!? It does stick out like a sore thumb in Ma.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

head:

That ranking is for CBM game [so standard mod], all-age game with almost no water and lots of special sites. And team game. So that's the reason why so low scores for MA - you have EA powerhouses that take 8-10 range. And yeah, Ashdod is so powerful that it does not fit in the scale.

I don't see any real reason why some people rate MA Agartha middle and late game so high. I agree that 2 may be too low for them [3-4 would be more realistic, closer to 3], but they are extremely weak early on, very boring and their national strength is not so uber [just bonus hp in your dom for lifeless units, like more HP mattered much later].

Pythium has huge diversity on their mages, which can be boosted by communions to extreme. Add unexplainable gem-income bonus from capital [and it's in S], powerful summons, hydras, heavy infantry... they are strongest MA nation if you ask me [except Ashdod that is].

MA is not really a bless age. You have Jotun with standard E/N bless, Mictlan with usually S9F9, Ermor with W9F9 and that's pretty much it.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

You seem to be cherry picking here, and over stating the effect of some of the boosts Pythium has gotten.

1. The really useful angelic summons were already in Dom2 (although I do not recall if their stats were as good, IIRC, the harbinger, the real workhorse got his air boosted from 2 to 3 which is very nice).

2. Whether the hydra modification was a boon or a bane is an open question (it really depends upon the foes, mundane troops do far better against the new hydras, save-or-die spells much worse).

3. The ability of pump more Arch Theurgs (although I like calling them elder theurg's just due to their very substantial old age) is an interesting advantage. While they are not efficient researchers it is true that there are few 9RP/turn mages in the world. I do think this is a very thin advantage unless you are relying on a one to two turn advantage to getting that all important buff for your SC.

4. As for astral healing, that is a comical and expensive, way to deal with old age. Comical in that all old age mages get teleported to the front lines. However, expensive in that you would figure that 3 gems on the ubiquitous shroud would be better spent (note: you do not have the gems for hammers, so it could cost 5, which is pricey).

I did not even go into the subtle changes which have affected Pythium. The one that leaps to mind is the change to quickness. While this affected a good number of nation it was a massive nerf to those nations (it was justified in my mind, but still it must be considered when comparing Dom2 to Dom3 nations).

Anyway, I think that the love for Pythium (my Dom2 favorite, or at least one of my Dom2 favorites!) is a holdover from the old days when they were one of the elite nations.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

If you are looking for nations to mod in MA, i'd say Man (though Xeiter did an MA Man balance mod awhile back) and Machaka need the love.

Man can often make a go of it in the early and mid game, but they are notorious for collapsing like a stuck balloon in the later game. So much so that their late game weakness is partially responsible for their early game success- people leave them for later 'cause they know they are easy prey.

I'm not really sure why Machaka never wins, they seem solid to me, but i have not played them since my very first net game of DomII and only fought them once in Dom3. Machaka's also pretty "vanilla." They have no national spells at all and lots of their stuff could be just be updated to the levels of more recent nations. Seems to me you could do all sorts of fun jungle stuff involving lions and creepy-crawlies of all description. I'm too lazy to mod, but i've thought about doing Machaka alot and they'd be my pick.

The other nations that have not won in MA are Bandar (everyone knows this is because of their horrible PD:smirk:), Atlantis (can't hold their own underwater vs the other two water nations), Vanheim and Eriu. Haven't put much thought into it, but i suspect that the last two may suffer from being very capitol dependent in an age when that is not the norm. The two are quite similar and Vanheim used be considered a top nation.

As to strong nations, well, Pythium's won 7 of 43 game in the HoH, that's almost 1/6 and speaks for itself. People say angels, but i point out that Marignon has angels as well so it's more than that.
Pangaea also has a noticeable win total- 5.5 on the HoH. Personally, i think Ermor and Marignon are under appreciated powerhouses and Caelum is my least favorite opponent in any age.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Many of the angelic summons were already there in dom2... but not only did they get boosted but now Pythium is one of the few nations that have access to them.

It's true the hydras changes can be debated, but having them somewhat worse vs normal troops (which they are still quite a good against) in exchange for making most counters to them extremely difficult is seems a more than fair trade.

The astral healing trick is only a big expense if you don't take into account how useful they are on the front lines anyway. Anyway, it's kind of overblown how big a deal old age is, with growth 3 you end up with only 1-2 diseased arch theurgs out of 12.

Oh and I forgot one of the largest boosts, shield mechanics were totally redone, making Pythium's tower shields a near immunity to arrows.

I actually doubt much Pythium love is a holdover... as has been said their win record kind of speaks for iteslf.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

I would totally rate TC higher than 4 (5-6, its a very solid nation), and absolutely rate Eriu lower than 5 (4 seems about right).

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

MA TC is weakest from all TCs. Eriu is surely better than TC. Almost every nation can be +- 1 point, it all depends on mods, map size, other nations in the game etc etc. TC surely isn't at the level for let's say Arco though.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

MA Oceana had an interesting thread suggesting mod additions. Here's the link in case you find anything inspiring:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...ghlight=Oceana

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

I have to agree with this final point. Although the sample size is not that large it does suggest that Pythium is still quite powerful (I would have expected Arco, Jotun, and Marignon, and Ashdod to have done somewhat better).

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

for win records, I do not think MA Van has a single win, yet Zeldor's list puts at a '7', and no one objected. I think in general people feel Van is a powerhouse, yet its win records speaks otherwise.

funny.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Weakest of all TCs doesnt mean 'weak', not at all. And how come Eriu is 'surely better' than TC? No death, no blood, no astral; expensive capitol-only mages with high encumberance; quite average troops (fir bolgs with their low protection arent that good in MA). Yes, recruitable cloud-trapezing stelathy thugs, really nice - but thats the only good thing about Eriu.
Perhaps it was rated that far because Eriu can be a good support in a team game. Otherwise, TC is much better in my opinion.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Not true. Don't get me wrong, their lack of access to B/D/S hurts quite a bit, but its very untrue they don't have anything else going for them. Firbolgs are very cost efficient indie clearers and start looking a whole lot more competitive when you consider the ubiquitous magic support they should be fielded with. Arrow fend & wooden warriors/mass protection are available fairly early and turn them quite fierce with their 15+ defense and cheap price tag. Not too much of a stretch to drop earth buffs on them as well and leverages their sweet base stats nicely. Spears don't seem to do too much damage, but clever players can pull a nasty swap with mass protection + iron bane against heavier opposition. They can also almost match Caelum for lighting spam, you've no excuse for lacking a punch. They do tend to struggle into late game, but you're also looking at adding fog warriors, mass flight, mass regeneration & weapons of sharpness to your firbolgs (those stats look very, very nice for the price now) and supporting your lightning carnage with rain of stones & foul vapors, and having a virtually unlimited supply of anti-thugs ready to cloud trapeze in and decapitate tartarians wherever you need them. Doesn't look to me like they've got nothing else going for them.

Re: Need opinions on MA Nation power
 

Same goes for TC, and easier. TC also has windguide + flaming arrows, cheap and evil communions etc.