Weakest nation
 

what do you think the weakest nation is?

I think its MA Ulm. They don't get any sacred troops. Their troops have low magic resistence. And the only magic they get is 2 earth, and 1 fire.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Not to mention, their armor is a negative and not a positive, do to the heavy encumbrance.

Re: Weakest nation
 

they are certainly a candidate. but ea/ma agartha are candidates too. also ma man.

Re: Weakest nation
 

.

EA agartha gets either 3 earth, 2 fire, or 4 earth, 1 fire. Which is better than 2 earth, 1 fire. They also get water and death. They also get Umbrals, sacred troops, amphibious troops, and mages with a lot of hit points.

MA agartha get 3 earth, 1 death, along with 2 earth , 1 fire. They also get attentive statues, which are great for early game. And they get marble oracles and umbrals, which are great for late game.

MA man gets sacreds. And 3 nature, 2 air, is better than 2 earth 1 fire

Re: Weakest nation
 

Well, Ulm does get randoms and their mages are cheap and build anywhere so you have to count the randoms in. 10% (EFS and A?)

They also get the 25% Forge bonus and easy access to Hammers, which means everything they can forge is half price. With 5 gem boots and Summon Earthpower all battlefield mages will be 4E, which isn't bad for the price.

With the randoms (and some boosters from indies & the pretender) they can churn out a lot of cheap thug gear.

Certainly not a powerhouse, but not as bad as they appear at first glance.

If the heavy armor was made to be an actual bonus instead of a penalty, so they had a better early game, they'd be much nicer. Why couldn't the secret of black plate be that it's very strong for it's weight so they can make good less-encumbering armor?

Re: Weakest nation
 

But what are you going to do with 4 earth? Earth magic isn't very good. You need 5 earth for petrify.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Blade Wind and Magma Eruption for killing troops.
All the Earth buff spells: Legion of Steel, Strength of Giants, Weapons of Sharpness, Marble Warriors, Army of Lead/Gold
You'll have some with E3 from randoms, they'll be E5.

I'll grant they're best in the mid-game, when troops backed by mages still rule. They need a pretender to give them a late game. Though if they can plan a way to get Thug/SC chassis, they'll be the best and cheapest equipped thugs around.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Inspired by this thread I just started up a game as MA Ulm, and was surprised at the amount of castle building events I got early on. Does MA Ulm have a bias towards these type of events? Scales were Turmoil 3, Production 3, Luck 3 and Drain 3.

Oh also with the priests special ability that drain is like an extra 120 build points.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Heh? Earth magic isn't very good? How about army of lead, bladewind, invulnerability, reverse communions with earth spells, living statues, mechanical men? Petrify is only one part of earth magic. And in addition earth bless.

4E is more than sufficient for every other earth spell. Use an extra gem or two in battle.

ES magi make matrices. Then you communion up petrify.

EF make shields and brands. Cheap.

PS I got ninja'd

Re: Weakest nation
 

plus give them a gem and they cast petrify

Re: Weakest nation
 

earth buff spells aren't going to do you any good. With 9 encumburance they will pass out pretty quickly. And with low hitpoints and low MR, spells will slaughter them.

Re: Weakest nation
 

you are going to run out of gems real quick doing that

Re: Weakest nation
 

My take on MA Ulm:

+Sufficient E access for most useful spells, such as Army of Lead if they ever get there. Also magma eruption.
+Iron angels (seriously, no-one said them before this? They still need either 0.33..% chance random or pretender for them). If they ever survive so far. Probably not. Anyway, wonderful SC chassis.
+useful combat mages, once you get some evo researched.
+good forge bonuses (through empowerment etc. just e2f1 isn't sufficient for most things. Cheap gear for magi are always good anyway, like reinvig girdles)
+Guardians (vs. most sacreds)
+Good national evo(s), iron blizzard is one of the best bf evos available considering the casting requirements and the usefulness of the spell. Too bad cap only mages can cast it.
+Can take drain3 for +1mr and 120p without penalty to master smith/priest smith research rates (though black priests and indies that you REALLY need still have it).

-Have to take prod3 to expand/produce troops at all. There goes your drain3 bonus. Too bad.
-bad troops because of enc. Good armor protwise though, but it doesn't do much when critical hits start on like third-fourth turn of combat.
-pretty much requirement for any awake SC build to be competitive, or blood magic bootstrapping if not playing latest CBM.
-terrible diversity. Seriously, 3.3% chance of either e2f1a1/e2f1s1/e2f2 with added 10% chance for +e1 is not much. One of the worst diversity in the game, if not the worst.
-Bad starting gem income, even if it's thematic. E is good only for so much.
-No useful priests to speak of. h1 out of cap without any bonuses? At least make them inquisitor like LA Ulm and they'd have some use.


MA Ulm is one of the worst nations in the game. They can be played well with a bid of luck and diplomacy skills, but as a nation they don't really shine much. Overall bad magic and bad troops (that look good on the paper, but don't really work due enc and the lack of diversity in a normal setting game) don't combine well. The lack-of-magic nation combined with the low MR resistance doesn't really balance out either. There are other "bad" nations as well though, but MA Ulm really could use for some look into it, especially now without blood stones in (de facto standard) CBM mod games. LA Ulm is a really good nation due national blood access, good astral access and ubiquitous black priests, and due vampires, lategame D access is not very hard.

Cheers. Someone could do this same for EA Agartha and MA(/LA?) Man. And possibly MA Machaka.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Middle Age is pretty balanced. With the exception of Ashdod out-shining the other nations by a decent margin.
Ulm may not have any Sacreds, but Guardians will smash any sacred rush they will face early game. And Ulm's troops are more than good enough to expand without an awake SC. An early elephant rush is the biggest threat and depending on research level is countered easy enough. Ulm needs a rainbow for magic diversity and that is ok because of their other strengths.

Re: Weakest nation
 

I beg to differ with the balanced part. In MA Pyth, Ashdod (like you said), R'lyeh (vs other water nations), Jotunheim, Shinuyama and maybe to a bit lesser extent Ermor are way above other nations, while Ulm, Machaka, possibly Man (haven't really played them), BL, Atlantis and Agartha are quite a bit below the average.

Also, guardians are good, but expensive-ish and not that good against indies that you'd recruit them nonstop in the early game, but vs. at least Ermor/mictlan they'll work wonders if they're using sacreds like usual. And while the troops are not bad at expanding, you can't get enough of them unless you luck out with some really good mountain/forest provs with easy indeps next to your cap. And one rainbow mage (pretender) will not make the difference Ulm needs, while it does/would do help the problems they have with diversity.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Pretty sure I'd take MA Ulm over Agartha, especially before the last round of CBM buffs to Agartha. At least they have something to bring to the late-game table (forge bonus and iron angels) whereas Agartha just sucks beginning to end...the statues are decent, but have huge weaknesses as well, including being in a really bad research school. Marble oracles are also nothing to write home about.

They're both pretty terrible though.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Yeah MA Ulm, MA Aggy, EA Aggy, MA Atlantis and MA Oceania are all absolutely awful.

I think arguing about which is worst is a bit like taste testing dog turds.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Exactly.

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I had a lot of fun with MA Ulm in the past, but I used a lot of blood stones. If CBM eliminates them, then I suppose I'd be hard pressed to find a way to make them effective against my friends. Losing the extra earth gems is one thing, but losing an earth booster hurts all earth nations, with MA Ulm being the nation to take the brunt of that loss.

Re: Weakest nation
 

MA Argatha is definitely worse than MA Ulm. Troops are worse, they lack the improved HP and str and have similar enc for lower prot. Pale Ones and Ancient Ones are useless thanks to their atk score. No missiles in vanilla, xbows in CBM are 24 res which is the same as Ulm's arbalests. Stone Hurlers in CBM are useful if expensive, but they aren't in vanilla. No mounted troops, no niche troops like guardians. The E2 W1 F1 H1 mage isn't much good for anything, no astral access (2.5% in CBM) to make matrices, meaning they're difficult to boost in battle to take advantage of cold/fire/acid. You have E2 and E3 mages, which gives you E access about on par with Ulm's, but paying 400 for E3 (350 in CBM) is a huge rip-off. And no forge bonus, no iron blizzard (which is amazingly good), your statues are easy to counter and in a bad research tree for Earth, and the Marble Oracle doesn't compare favorably to the Iron Angel.

Oh and while the CBM changes help, no blood stones is a big blow to both nations, and IMO definitely offsets all the little advantages.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Hello I am new in the forums,and I am here to play online and to consult about the game...
I have some xp in the game,I even played it online (hot seat mode :D)
And i have to say that all nations have the its good values...
Argatah,half night vision,I can not now recall the name of spell,but the spell makes the world dark,and units with dark vision (abyss and argatah) becomes verry verry strong,ofcorse i also think that argatah is one of the awful nations in the game,u need to use much spells when in combat if u want to win,and that means a lot of gems needed...
I am interested in what do you think about Marigon I play with the nation so I am interested in your opinions...
PS
A lot of shortened words but I have managed to catch the big part of it...And i do not know do u ppl play with any patches,i still do not have any...

Re: Weakest nation
 

Marignon can summon angels, therefore they rock.

Re: Weakest nation
 

LA Marignon is very potent with its large potential in blood, the dominion game with sacrificing inquisitors, and good path spread.

MA Marignon isn't as good, due to their good mages being cap-only and because it lacks the versatility of the LA Marignon, some of the nations it competes against might also be stronger in this age (the giant nations for one, and some caster nations like Pythium and Caelum).

The Men-at-Arms are a quite powerful force for either age under CBM, where their gold cost has been greatly reduced.

Re: Weakest nation
 

attentive statues have 22 protection and no encumberance, they are a hell of a lot bette than Ulm's troops. So you are totally wrong there.

And you think a w1 mage is totally useless? I guess you never heard of frozen heart.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Mostly useless. Effective against thugs, but definitely not worth 200 gold, and probably not worth even 80 gold for a pure 1W mage.

Re: Weakest nation
 

I guess you didn't know that thugs dominate the end game. So a mage that can kill thugs is very useful.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Gotta survive long enough to reach the end game before that becomes an issue, and the nations we're talking about will be lucky to make it to the middle game. The EEF makes for nice magma eruptions then; the W doesn't contribute much at that point.

Re: Weakest nation
 

Except for rust mist. I suggest you try it out. It synergies well with those non-armored statues.

Re: Weakest nation
 

The Golem crafters are great battlemages. You need to develop them a bit, but then you have great potential. The water component is wonderful because it gives you access to the acid evocations, especially acid rain, which is perfect combined with statues. And also blade wind and magma eruption and some fire and water evos with some boosting. With breath of winter and fire resistance/fire shield they handily ignore heat and cold dominions, throw a minor earth bless and earth power on top and you've got serious endurance in any weather. If there is a minor bless they also make potent minithugs. Cheap and sacred makes them exellent researchers.

I find them absolutely wonderful.

Re: Weakest nation
 

I don't remember the name of the acid spitting lions.. manifest vitriol is it? I remember doing that with agartha, but I don't remember if I had a lot of struggling to do it or not.

Frankly, I think that most people play the agartha's wrong.
I don't think any amount of striving will really make them a military power. Their early game goto spell is Blight, perhaps topped off with pretender based locusts or Rain of toads.

Doesn't make them good.... but ...

Re: Weakest nation
 

I guess you've never heard of scripting 5 turns at the back. Limited range spells are of highly limited use against thugs when the opponent has a clue, especially since these guys have earth and fire and therefore the spellcasting AI won't be forced into frozen heart when off-script.

Attentive statues cost gems, so they are comparable not to troops but to similar summons. CBM is 2 for 4 (Vanilla 2 for 8), so at 2 gems each they would be comparable to trolls (1 for 1) or cave drakes (1 for 4) if you want a sturdy low-research summon. Comparing them to Ulm troops is lunacy given their cost in gems and magetime.

edit: Going to pre-emptively add that although Statues are research 0 in CBM, by the time you can spam enough of them you are going to be researching conj 3 anyway for earthpower, so there'll only be a few turns in which the low research makes them more attractive than other E summons, AND early gemuse has the opportunity cost of delaying hammers and delaying boots which you also need as soon as possible. It's good that Argatha has them and they are usable, but only marginally so over conj summons.

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Yeah, those are manifest vitriols. Those can be really painful to have to deal with.

Re: Weakest nation
 

The weakest nations by far are the Warhammer mod nations. They are all broken because you can't play them without downloading mods.

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yeah, and now that Sombre is gone who will continue to balance them? :\

Re: Weakest nation
 

You will! I see a volunteer in the making. Remember to watch sad movies first. You want to be the in the right mood (melancholy).