Balanced Nations
 

I am thinking about starting a tournament style of dominions games of which a key feature would be randomly assigned nations. I want the pool of assigned nations to be as balanced against each other as possible. To keep it simple, I plan on using the Six Lands map and only require six nations for each age.

So, I am seeking suggestions. Keep in mind that nations are ideally blanced at all stages of the game. The balance does not have to be perfect, but pairing a heavy rush nation like Vanheim with a late bloomer like Pythium is bad balance (for my purposes). Also, no underwater start nations.

I am looking for suggestions for any ages. Explanations for why you chose the nations you did are also appreciated.

To get started:
Mictlan
Niefleheim
Vanheim
Lanka
Fomoria
Sauromatia

I chose these EA nations because they are for the most part the bless powerhouses. This should result in a lot of combat right from the getgo in which nations can participate on relatively even footing depending on their bless. Thoughts?

Re: Balanced Nations
 

Vanheim and Fomoria really don't fit with the other 4. you should probably add Hinnom as the 5th and I'm not sure about 6th. Kailasa would fit the whole bless thing but is rather underpowered compared to the giant 5. Vanheim in EA doesn't even have Vans like MA and Midgard, so bless rush sort of out of the option for them, not to mention they're underpowered themselves when compared to the giant 5.

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Yeah, Hinnom is probable the strongest EA nation. Fomoria is at least one league lower than top5 nations. It's much weaker cousing of Niefel, with so many weaknesses... which are even worse on such a small map.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

Tien Chi
Marverni
Ermor
Ulm
Arcoscophele
Not sure about the 6th one, maybe TnN

All of them are human nations. All of them do not get any freebie points for temp scales. Ulm gets no S mages but make up for it with access to death and forging bonus. They all have decent Sacreds, but nothing you would really build a strategy around.

TNN is the only one who has a different power curve than the others. Ramping up in the midgame with recruitable thugs and then tapering off late game with no death or Astral.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I'd pick T'ien Chi over Vanheim if you want to mix in bless nations. And I disagree with Rytek in that you can build a belss strat on TC's sacreds. Wot5E are very good for rushes, and although they are capital only, TC makes up for that with other tools (sacred summons, good magic diversity) later on.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

i would switch vanheim with helheim, to have 6 heavy bless nations agains each others.

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Im not sure what the goal is but..
there have been discussions about perfectly balanced games decided only by strategy.

The basis usually involves one of the chess-nation mods. Such as the one that gives everyone Ulm to play. And a mirror-balanced map. Low events. And possibly NI-ing the map or giving all provinces the same generic poptype. Thats all I remember at the moment.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

That is a little to balanced. I am not looking for "perfect balance," but just six nations that no player would feel slighted getting one of.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I think Rytek's list is probably the better direction to head in. There's no way you're going to find 6 nations that are balanced around the most powerful.

(I'd say Lanka is the most powerful EA nation, fwiw.)

Settings sort of matter here. Is this easy research? Standard research? Something else?

Other suggestions for Rytek's list:
Aby - it has a powerful early game, but no more so than EA TC. In fact, it might displace EA TC because its otherwise much more limited. (and unlike EA TC, armor of achilles totally destroys its bless rush strategy).

C'tis (as #6 instead of TNN) - mage-based like the rest of the nations, with pretty sad troop line-up like most of the rest of the nations.

Maybe also consider Kailasa. Its much more sacred dependent, but its on the right level of power.

Considered but not recommended:
Agartha - too pathetic to compete. Even against those nations. 'Bad troop lineup' takes on a whole new realm of meaning - everyone else's troops look *spectacular* by comparison. And its useful mages are capital only and hugely overpriced.

Oh, I'm assuming CBM 1.6, fwiw.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I was thinking more about it and I think Ctiss is a better fit than TNN. I would keep TC over Abysia. I think Abysia is a much stronger early nation than TC. TC has good bless troops but they are vulnerable to archers, slingers and javelins which the other nations have an abundance of.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

EA Aby is not stronger in the early game. I've fought EA Aby to a stalemate in the early game with EA TC. Both have great capital-only sacreds they're going to hang their early game on.

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That's not really a great argument, squirrel, as abysia doesn't have any archers and his entire point was archers>W5E.

That said I still agree with you.

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Alright, I think Rytek's list with TC and C'Tis hits about the right notes. Feel free to keep ideas for EA flowing, but I want to try to create lists for the middle and late eras as well.

Middle:

Man
Marignon
Machaka
Agartha
Shinuyama
Abysia

Man is probably the stinker here, but with the exception of Shin, these nations favor heavy map move one infantry and limited magic diversity (but what magic they do they do very well). I don't want Arco or BL due to the presence of tramplers, and C'Tis's miasma is a non-starter for me. Thoughts?

Re: Balanced Nations
 

Shinuyama blows the rest of those nations out of the water. Trivially. (With the possible exception of Marignon, who isn't totally outclassed, just mostly outclassed).

MA Agartha actually has abundant mm3 infantry, just no good way to move them that fast until ench 6ish. All those statues are mm3.

That said, it probably wouldn't be too hard to find 6 balanced nations in MA, but these aren't them as a set. Lets try for middle-of-the-road nations, since they're abundant in MA.

With only 6 nations, Man isn't actually noticeably disadvantaged. Lets look at:

Man
Mictlan
TC
Machaka
Caelum

That's probably a decent set of nations. Remember, with only 6 players there isn't going to be much endgame, so Man's typical weakness disappears. Machaka also has a great midgame and so improves because of the smaller game size. This list just needs one more nation.

Also considered
Arco - worried they're too weak
BL - worried they're too weak
Marignon - worried they're too strong
Eriu - totally different play dynamic, might not fit well or be unexpectedly strong.

Edit: don't get me wrong, i'd totally play BL against that field, but i'm not most people.

Edit2: oh, you don't want tramplers. Well, boo.
FWIW, Man totally focuses on cavalry and archers, so mm1? ha! Marignon can also focus on cavalry. Machaka can play for spiders. And are shinuyama's actually mm1? pretty sure dai-bakemono are mm2. So your theoretical theme totally breaks down in practice.

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shinuyama is much much more powerful than anything else on that list. ulm or tc maybe

Re: Balanced Nations
 

EA TC is much stronger than EA Abysia in my experience. I walked over EA Aby as TC in a game even though I didn't want to fight them in the first place and had recruited troops to fight another kind of enemies.
TC is very flexible. It's got good capital only sacreds that will eat Lanka's sacreds for dinner, and those of Abysia too. Won't be as useful against Niefelheim but still. Then it's got composite bows. If people bring in archers against TC, they're likely going to lose the archer vs archer combat so the vulnerability of sacred troops vs archers is not really a problem, particularly since they can bring in a few well-shielded decoys to help.

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I've never played TC. Are W5E really that good? Their damage of 16 seems kind of low against Lanka.

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W5E are very good. They have low damage but two attacks and good att/def scores, are quite cheap for sacreds. Their downsides are weak armor, low hp in the bad season (but then in spring/summer they have more), and being capital-only. Double bless them, double bless lankans and pit them against each other. W9 is particularly good for W5E as 2 attacks * speed means a lot of hits and some of these will be lucky/critical.

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Ok, lets try Late Age. This one was a bit of a head scratcher for me. I know I didn't want Ermor, and still don't want tramplers, but there remained a ton of odd ball qualities to the nations remaining.

Still, how does...
Man
Ulm
Agartha
Atlantis
Bogarus
TC...

Sound?

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I think bogarus would quite easily dominate that group played properly. Their one weakness is they are vulnerable to rushes... and there are no rush nations on the list.

They have the mages to exploit ulm's MR weakness , the druzinha can compete well with tien chi cavalry. H3 priests and ease of access of penetration boosters means they can combat ktonian undead/vampires/ancestor ghosts/general undead. They *will* have far superior research and though starets arent sacred you've got a hell of alot of rp for 250 gold so you'll have a huge research lead by the time upkeep creeps up on you. Then you have some great magic diversity to put the research to use...including blood which makes you the only blood nation there bar ulm who can compete with you at all in other magic areas.

Never thought I would ever say "bogarus would quite easily dominate" but putting em up against other nations considered "weak" and they seem to really shine for me. I actually don't believe they fully deserve the reputation they've gained.

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That's funny because I was thinking Agartha looks like the powerhouse on that list :).

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Actually properly played Bogarus can rush anyone (well, almost anyone). :)

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I would love to hear how to pull this off.

Now, I understand that Bogarus has good mages and good research, but their troops with the exception of their cavalry are just a good scare from fleeing or dieing. So, they either go SC Pretender and have weak scales (which means very limited cavalry). They can get ahead on research, but not to the point where they can dominate armies before its time to go to war with neighbors.

So, a good fit with the rest of bums I picked out, but it has been a while since I've played LA.

simple, only use voi archers and cavalry. No need for an awake SC take productivity scales and the cavalry expand perfectly well even against the usual feared provinces filled with heavy cav and crossbows.

with a rainbow sage (not necesarry, they'll do fine without an awake pretender) they can get conjuration 2 researched in 2 turns, that means simargls which means high tax + patrolling flying patrol bonus dogs = money = forts = more Druzinha. And with that same rainbow sage chassis you've got conj 4 (minimum) and a couple of site searching starets by the start of year 2.

I don't understand why everyone is so critical about the troops, yes they are crap, so don't try to use them. How come people can look past machaka's weak troops to go all out spiders (+archers) early game but can't do the same with Bogarus? The way I look at it bogarus is like machaka with a late game and faster research.

Dominate was probably not the best choice of word, though I honestly think they'd have the advantage...played right.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

Actually, LA TC is the powerhouse on that list, followed by Agartha. LA TC is probably the 2nd most powerful LA nation, after Mictlan.

That said, i don't have the best feel for the quality of enough LA nations to really choose out 6 of them that are balanced. Possibly:

Ulm
Marignon
Bogarus
Abysia
Man
Ctis
Patala

Choose 6

At least, it looks plausible at first glance.

Of course, most of these nations play totally differently from each other.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I'll be honest and say that I haven't played much LA TC, and fiddling with them today I must concede that yes they are the most powerful on the list.

As for Agartha I tend to have trouble playing them. Though I can see where their strengths are I guess the playing style just doesn't mix with me.

I will still maintain that I believe Bogarus is underrated, however I wouldn't want to turn this thread into a "bogarus debate".

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You would put TC and Agartha ahead of R'lyeh and Ermor in the LA? They are my 1 and 2 respectively. Of course, maybe that was one of those things that go without saying.

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R'lyeh and ermor are most powerful, but probably too powerful. That and their dominions mean they are very likely to be ganged up on. Still I would say they d still hold the advantage.

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I always wonder if anyone has really tried playing LA R'lyeh after the major nerf that occurred in one of the patches (Pop kill rate GREATLY increased). People seem to just be accepting the "uberness" of R'lyeh by default while in reality it is an absolutely worthless nation now. If someone once shows me how they can be played effectively, I'll be just happy as they're probably the only nation in all eras that I have nearly no idea how to play with a chance of success. That's why I would never ever pick them in MP now.

I'd definitely add Pangaea here and remove Marignon (although maybe Pangaea is too weak). Mari is a very effective nation with a little bit weak early game (actually, it depends on your build) but quite powerful later on. C'tis is also a very powerful nation and their only problem is probably, lack of good troops early on. But something like Caelum, Pythium, Atlantis may all be good options for this list.

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LA R is a middle-of-the-road nation at best. They have bad expansion and quickly run out of cash to buy the mages which you run on. Then ~1/3 of their freespawn is absolutely worthless tritons. Oh yeah, and did i mention that their freespawn costs money in upkeep? With their population dying like flies, its really hard for LA R to keep a steady income to supply their mage needs. LA R is not powerful.

LA E isn't that powerful. They're only powerful if you play with a bunch of n00bs. They've got a weak early game, and they have a hard time keeping up with mages because they have to spend gems for all their mages, and their mages aren't even notably efficient in cost. LQs provide more RPs per gem than Dusk Elders or even Spectators. For comparison, a Mg0 LQ is as efficient (gems/RP) as a Spectator under Mg3. So LA E just loses the research war. Then pop Solar Brilliance and watch ermor's armies disintegrate. LA E is only overpowered when it can break combat mechanics by having too many units. Of course, Flames from the Sky fixes that problem, as will Solar Brilliance given enough time. (Kill enough units and the over-abundance of units will cease existing and stop breaking combat). And undead are not exactly good units, so you have time. Oh yeah, and should ermor happen to rout, all those undead remaining go poof.

LA Mictlan and LA TC are vastly more powerful than LA E. Its not even close.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

All of the nations i listed had good mid games and good to great late games, with the possible exception of Man (whose lategame is kind of weak, but their early game is great). I don't see how Marignon is special in this regards.

I'd probably have rated Ctis the weakest of them.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

I just finished the first round of this Tournament, and want to start the second, which will occur in the middle era.

So, I am bumping to see if anyone has an opinion on the relative balanceness of these nations:

Man
Machaka
Marignon
Abysia
Tien Chi
Agartha

Right now, I think Tien Chi's incredible magic diversity means they outclass the rest of the list, and Abysia's inhuman infantry with strong bless potential mean they play rather differently than the rest of the stinkers. I think Ulm would make a great replacement for one of them, but cannot decide which, or if any other's need to be fixed to get a better balance in the middle era.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

This list is MA?

Agartha and Abysia are the low end of the powercurve. TBH, MA Agartha is pretty unplayable, having recently tried. Any astral nation shuts them down completely.

Abysia isn't quite as bad off, since at least they have a good early game. But their mid game will be worse than Man's. And no, MA Aby does not go for a bless, their sacreds aren't that good.

Machaka, Man, and TC are probably equally viable in CBM 1.6. I don't know about 1.7, i think TC got screwed more than the other two by the loss of hammers.

Marignon is the bless rush nation to worry about, if you're worried about differing play styles. I'm not convinced they outclass the other nations that badly though, but they're certainly the strongest on the list.

If we take Machaka, Man, TC, and Marignon as the basis of the nations, we're looking for nations with an emphasis on conventional forces (Machaka spider riders are conventional).

If it's CBM 1.7, Ulm *might* be viable enough, although i don't know how much the changes actually helped them.

I still think Arco is a good fit. Yes, they have elephants, but elephants aren't exactly hard to counter...

I'd also look at C'tis.

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Is MA Marginon a strong bless nation? If they take a strong bless that benefits the knights, it does little for diversity or their mages, unless you take an E9 which I'm not sure is the best way to go. I agree though, if they can survive to mid-game, Marginon is pretty stout.

I'd agree with Arco, outside of the Elephants, their comparable. Plus, Elephants are pretty easy to counter.

What about Eriu or Caelum? Just a thought, I don't play much MA.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

a smart MA Marignon player will take a bless that benefits first and foremost his angels. the KotC are good with any bless you give them(even a rainbow) so you don't have to use something like F9W9 for them. also MA Marignon is perfectly fine without a bless at all, expanding with Royal Guards(cavalry with board sword+shield, that almost acts like infantry) and crossbowmen.

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The game is "tournament style," so no mods and specifically no CBM. Yes, I am talking Middle Era.

So, Agartha is out. I'll keep Abyssia, if for no other reason than its balanced. C'Tis is out, because it enjoys such a large defensive advantage over the rest of the list. I am an enormous believe in the advantage a strong defensive position provides a player who can establish any reasonable entrenched position.

I'll look closer at Arco, but tramplers do make me nervous, especially if I pick up Ulm.

Marignon can do a pretty powerful bless with KotC, but it leaves them so crippled in the Magic Diversity department I think thats a fine trade off.

I'm also considering Pan (which introduces another bless threat and keeps the theme of poor magic diversity, though introduces a stealth threat), and Erie (which I do not have a lot of experience with, any thoughts?).

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Eriu plays totally differently from the rest of those nations, because its all about abundant thugs.

I really can't comment about the balance of various nations under vanilla, tbh. Pretty sure Marignon's position only gets better relative to the other nations though. (An ExNx bless on Marignon is great for its diversity, and it doesn't even have to be a large bless. E4N6 is enough to matter. You can even splash more minor blesses if you want more diversity. Regardless, with E/N all you're missing that you really care about is D for diversity. If you are going for an X9 bless, it should be E9)

I don't understand why 'tournament style' means no CBM. I accept that it isn't CBM, but your logic doesn't follow.

Re: Balanced Nations
 

Eriu has poor magic diversity, no access to astral/blood/death, stealthy sacred thugs, and wants a bless even more than Marignon does. Like Man, they really struggle to stay competitive later in the game.

Magic diversity is important, but so is astral/death/blood access. T'ien Ch'i has great magic diversity (but low skill and no death or blood), Marignon has less diversity (but good astral), Machaka has reasonable magic diversity (but no astral or blood and death caps out at 2), and Abysia has limited diversity but good access to both astral and blood. Eriu (and Man) are the odd ones out because they have neither diversity nor access to astral/death/blood. Any of these nations can solve diversity problems with their pretender to some extent, but it's pretty bad when your national mages only have access to two relatively weak paths.

Is Pan really more of a bless threat than Marignon, or even Machaka or T'ien Ch'i? They all have good (and expensive) capital only sacred cavalry, but I wouldn't design a pretender around a bless for any of them. Pan has limited magic and expensive mages, offsetting some access to blood and a smidgen of death, and play somewhat differently than a lot of the other nations on the list.

Arco seems like a good fit. They have limited magic but pretty good astral, and yet another capital only sacred troop that isn't really good enough to warrant a bless. Elephants are nice, but not all that. Machaka has recruitable size six troops, and astral/fire have lots of anti-elephant tools from pretty early on, especially when combined with mass archers, so Marignon doesn't give a fig about elephants either and Abysia/TC have options.

Ulm is another one of those nations with only two magic paths, neither of which are astral/death/blood, and their troops aren't very good either (high encumbrance, low skill, poor magic resistance, map move one). Not much good against elephants, but not much good against anything else either. Definitely hugging the bottom of the curve and possibly worse than Man.

Mictlan might be worth considering, but I don't know much about MA Mictlan.

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Don't forget this is a 6 player game, late game strats may not even come into play.

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They will if its vanilla. Everyone will turtle and clam.

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Hah, game automatically ends on turn 65, or maybe sooner, with cumulative VPs being counted from round to round. Hence, the guy who takes a lot of provinces early, and holds them, is going to get a lot more points the guy who started small and did a sudden surge at the end. Of course, diplomacy plays a role to balance all other things.

Clamming is certainly a viable strategy, but the guy building clams is not going to have a lot of time to use them, and will not be scoring points in the interim.

As for my earlier tournament=no mods comment, you are right that the two our not NECESSARILY equivalent, logically. However, I see CBM like playing poker with marshmallows, still fun but not the way its meant to be played. Unmodded Dominions is more straightforward and retains a classic "feel." It doesn't hurt that I disagree with the direction originally took to balance gameplay, to say nothing of the much more drastic changes in getting rid of gem generators that occured more recently.

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The balance in vanilla is actually quite good for shorter games. Clamming has pretty high opportunity cost. It takes something like 15 turns to get even for one clam. 30 turns to give u 100% profit. And you need a way to turn those gems into power. That usually means wish which also has opportunity cost. In long game it will brake the game. In short games u will probably want kitted bane lord or two instead.

The problem with hammer is that usally the gems saved with hammer are used with hammer. In a way u get double bonus. 30 gems = 6 frost brands. 30 gems + hammer = 10 brands. Thats 2/3 more brands. From 25% forge bonus :D

One of the options for balanced nations is to go for those high power nations. Like Pythium, Acro, Tien chi, Marignon, Jotunheim, Ermor... Ermor has quite difrent way of playing then others thou. If ermor is not wanted then the last one is harder question. Bandar and Pangaea both have good sacreds. Eriu and Vanheim both play pretty difrent than others. Ulm and agartha are both way too weak. Maybe machaka or man would be best? In my opinion they both are weaker than others in the list.

Playing vanilla dosen't mean no house rules. If u want no clamming in bigger game that can be the solution. I haver played some games where all players are allowed only 5 gem gens. It makes u think do you want to have clams or blood stones. House rules usually work well when u just make sure everyone knows what are being used. And make sure no player is called norfleet :D

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You might find 1.5 to be a happy medium. I really think that CBM1.5 or 1.6 (with gemgens) is the sweet spot for CBM.