Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Let me see.... em, we have new GE for agar, song of power for tir, amphibious for Aboleths in ea rly, forge bonus and new heros for muti nations, etc......

So what about Fomoria, it smaller than other giants, and most of it's people got afflication. It has some good units , but it all cap-only!!!

Well, so please please please make some change for this miserable nation, give them some buff, at least let the Nemedian people not Cap-Only, otherwise there are fewer and fewer people used fomo in muti games, and it seemed unfair for such a cute nation.:angel

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

This has got to be a troll post. Kind of like the jomon nerf thread. go look at formoria and then tell me they are weak. they rock dude

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Picard face-palm worthy!

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

How about we buff ashdod, mictlan and niefelheim while we're at it

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

You know, I have found in my recent games that jaguar warriors are a tad underpowered. I mean, you need almost twenty of them to kill a decent sized army!

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

They are the weakest of the giants. Thats why nobody ever plays them . I don't understand all the sarcastic remarks.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Well he has a point. Instead of buffing, removing capital-only status from fomorian giants would fit the bill.

Also, instead of eating population, Hinnom giants could kill population when food wouldn't be enough. Why eat people if the territory has 1000 supply? Human meat is the worst thing anyway. Laden with toxins and stringy!

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Ooh, and lets nerf Machaka, Arcocephale, and Ulm. Also, we should probably ramp up Pythium a bit, all they have are astral mages, and astral is underpowered. Plus, their national summons are crap, I mean Seraph, really?

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Why are you all leaving Sauromatia out of these discussions? I'm not suggesting unit buffs. Just remove the cap restrictions.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Good point. That said, hydras are a bit overpriced. Maybe drop them down to, say 100 gold?

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Whoo the discustion is hot!! And i see all you guys got your points.

Yeah the fomos are the weakest of the giants, and the cbm gives other giants an giant spear, but NOTHING FOR FOMO!

So i still strongly recomaned to delete the cap-only status for nemdians, and make it more like ...um..i don't know...a cbm

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Dont forget to buff LA Ermor as well. All they have is some weak, vulnerable freespawn, they have to pay gems for their mages and they have very small gold income. Clearly a weak nation!

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Tell me why van, why hel, why tir and why eriu....

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

It's all about multiplayer. It's quite different in multi than against the AI, obviously. Fomoria, while lacks a non-cap mage (occasional goat druid can spam frozen heart, but that's about it), has some decent troops and, most of all, a sacred recruitable SC with strong air magic and these Morrigans.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Morrigans are good(they are in conj 6) and also the fomo kings, but there lots of better ones in 500 club.

the bigest weakness point of fomo is most of their good unit are cap-only, so in a muti-game, if some player cast hurricans on fomo's capital just for 3 turns or more, then doom is certain.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

What things are better, in your opinion?

And dont forget to protect your capitol with domes, it's quite simple in CBM.
Some fomorian non-cap infantry is also decent, btw. Afflictions or not. I like their javelineers.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

i totally agree :)

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Well ok it s a nation strong enough, with weakness, but i m sad too see Ermor has lost his Censor (not the commander but the troop, don t remember the name) as well as the very rare spawn of willing lady with CBM.
Ermor could use them especially after some anti undead spells have been improved. (like the very low cost of cleansing water)

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Don't know what you're referring to Bullock.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Well I have to say I can't find any reason to reduce the cost of glamour troops and commanders of those....faerie nations-they are powerful enough to crush most nations in first or second year,even giants and SC-pretenders could fall if they have high bless, reducing cost would only make them even more unstoppable....

True, their advantage diminish when time passes and researches of other country achieve their goals,so reduce the cost of their non-caponly commander, give them extra pick of path and give dwarf/bean sidhe forge bonus are all part of improve their end game survive capacity, but isn't that too much? 25% forge bonus WAS privilege reserved for ea/ma ulm,but see how poor their pathes are. Now dwarves would do much better than these smithes and so what is the advantage left for ulm? Blacksmith everywhere? honestly, who would need "that" much smithes for forge? Same reason for bean sidhe versus la ulm black priest. I agree that reduced cost for non-caponly mage and additional pick of magic are good or even essential buff for these nation, though.


And fomoria, yes, they are not even close to weak at endgames- presumely you have well settled diversity problems that did not trouble other giant nations. But too many caponly units are still annoying, who would train nemedian commanders after sencond or third year?

BTW, some nations, like ma tianchi or la bogarus really need some buff, especially for early game, rather than van or tir. And anybody feel strange to see fishes crawl the earth with no need to return to water? Apart of "imba or not" argument, it is just too unthematic. Perhaps treat them as Catfish and make them wither and die when leaving water like naiad away from their home province(if that is modable)? At least it might be painful for those abolith troops.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Lictor and wailing lady spam? Don't you need the soul gate up for that?

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Best to put this stuff in the CBM thread really, it's a bit confusing to have the discussion split here as well.

Tir na n'Og, Eriu and Vanheim were genuinely really weak under CB1.84. Did you try to play them? Vanheim in particular. TNN were powerful because of the Awe on Ris, but didn't have many other choices.

The gradual-death-on-land idea for R'lyeh is very interesting. R'lyeh's situation is an odd one. Purely aquatic giboleths are interesting in theory but don't make for good gameplay in practice. Once R'lyeh conquers the seas it has no choice but to abandon all its key national troops (giboleths and relatives) and rely almost entirely on indies and summons to conquer the land. Any giboleths etc left over from the wars for the sea become just upkeep-consuming dead weight. The trouble is that it's not just difficult to get them up onto land, but actually impossible.

They are not actually fish anyway. They are just monsters which spawned in the deeps.

I would have liked to go with a theme of the Mind Lords and Aboleths having such power that they were able to bring a bubble of water up with them onto the land by telekinesis. The trouble is that that doesn't actually solve the problem of the troops, and it's not credible that polypal spawn have enough psionic power to carry water with them. So instead the theme has to be just that they are straightforwardly amphibious.

But as I say the gradual-death-on-land idea is interesting. I might look into using something like that. The concern is that it would just generate infuriating micromanagement, trying to constantly cycle all the giboleths back into the sea every few turns. An alternative might be for all the giboleth things to be weaker on land, or have Exhaustion or something.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Ps, I did some testing, and can confirm that the soul gate does not summon lictors or wailing ladies under cbm 1.91. Dunno if it did so before.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

You do realize that the whole "Nerf Arcocephale, buff Sauromatia and Ermor" bit was thick with sarcasm right?

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I think EA has nations more deserving of a buff than Formoria, while Formoria imho could use a slight one.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Fomoria is crap imo. Only usable unit is that other sacred giant, unmarked?
The sacred giants are basically huge militia. They win battles because nobody can kill them with a nature bless not because they can kill anyone. Neif giants have cold and better stats too I think, while Hinnoms are just ****ing brutal and can't be overcome by any unit.
Any other unit besides the unmarked is hardly worth mentioning, mages also. Speaking of actual giants here.
Fir Bolgs are immensely better than any Fomorian unit, which I find weird since they're supposed to be something of a lesser race?

One unit that should definitely see more action are the Nemedian warriors but with two other and sacred cap only troops you're just never gonna buy them. And by the time you run out of money for giants and decide to switch to them, you can't produce any meaningful number.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I just don't care about the others !
I want the rare free spawns of Ermor back !

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Is Fomoria that much different in CBM than in vanilla? Kings and Morrigans are hot ****!

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I am definitely of the opinion that Fomoria could use a little help. Their capital dependence is crippling. Not only is this a major vulnerability, it dramatically reduces their competitiveness in large maps.

Unmarked Champions are an excellent unit for the price. But, you can't really recruit them as you are so weak in research you can't afford to recruit anything outside your capital but the otherwise nearly useless Fomorian Druids.

Here are the changes I would propose. They are nothing dramatic. There would still be plenty of more powerful nation choices for EA in my opinion. But, it would go a long ways to broaden the options for playing styles.

* Give the Fomorian Druid a Leather Hauberk and Shield
* Give the Fomorian God King pretender chassis N1 in additional to his current base paths, W1 and D1.
* Make the Fomorian Giants, Fomorian Kings, and Fomorian God kings fully amphibious and give them at least 50% darkvision. They came from the depths of the sea for goodness sakes.
* Give the Fomorian Druid a 10% random AWDN pick.
* Make the Unmarked Champion capital only. I know this is a bit of a contradiction in my stated goals for these changes, but it really wouldn't hurt Fomoria much at all with a better armored Druid. Besides, its odd that Unmarked troops are cap only but their champion is not.

As requested, I'll post this in the CBM 1.92 thread as well.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Sorry, that should be W1 and D2 on the Fomorian God King.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Is CBM even used that much? I should do another poll.

I don't think Fomoria is changed much by CBM, maybe just some summon prices.

Morrigans are hot! But I found a big problem with summoning them in MP games. They need Fomorian Kings to be summoned (either that or boosted D random Fomorian Druids) and you can only summon one at a time. :(
Frankly I don't remember anyone using them in MP. Tho I find using small raiding groups led by Nemedian Champions lovely! But than again you're unlikely to produce Nemedian Champions for more than the first few turns when you can't afford the Kings, and even than you're more likely to buy the Nemedian sorceress, which I guess is fine but they aren't priests. Don't know what to make of it all, and that damn sacred icon on Morrigans just angers me since the needed bless hardly applies to them. :mad:

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Yes, Morrigans are kinda hard to get, especially without Hammers for cheaply giving Death Staffs to D1 Druids.
What you can do is supporting those few Morrigans with Valkyries, which most Kings can summon quite easily.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I have seen largish number of morrigans used on 2 occasions in MP games, and let me tell you they are perfectly fine with being summoned 1 at a time and a slight bottleneck in casters. Both times I seen them Fomoria positively kicked @$$ and take names with the handful of morrigans. They are in the same class as green lions easily, better in fact without even considering a bless, which brings it from top contender for best summoned troop to a level where nothing even comes close. I would lol if they were made easier to summon and to stealth fly lead around.

The trade off in bless is also ingenious frankly, and direly integral to the national balance.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Oh, I agree they are perfectly good with only 1 at a time, that high defense and glamor really increase the survivability rate, not to mention their life drain attack and they're only 2 gems.
I just find them hard to summon cause the Kings, which are meant to summons them, are always tied up fighting somewhere, at least in my case, never was one to idly sit by...

As for Valkyries, probably the best spell Fomoria has in their arsenal. A few Kings can summon quite a bunch of them.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Well, if using a standard W9F9 blessing,EA vanheim can still definitely rush 1 or 2 nations, at the cost of late games of cause, but those unlucky enough to be rushed have no late game at all:D. So why not increase the cost of sacred troops AND decrease the cost of normal troops? Give those unlucky a chance:angel

Purely aquatic giboleths versus purely aquatic knight of the deeps, thats not really different when already dominated the oceans, except ea oceania have a higher chance to face such condition...... Anyway, its just weird to make a totally underwater nation amphibious, so some restriction, Exhaustion or gradual-death-on-land would be nice:)

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I doubt CBM changed that. I don't think that this is even possible. But if it is, it could have been a mistake.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

F9W9 is not a standard Van bless. It used to be but since the nerf to glamour I've seen it used exactly once. I'm not saying you couldn't stage an early rush with EA Van but it's not worth that bless. CBM makes anti-rush counters available earlier and you're still only dealing with 15 HP units. You'd be better off with a light (thug focused) bless and just try to add more units to your rush attempt. And, you could just as easily pull off a rush with Mictlan or Niefel (both of whom have better late games) so I'm not really sure what makes Van so exceptional in this regard.

I understand a new release of CBM will prompt discussion of the changes but until some games are actually played it's mostly speculation. But it's worth pointing out that even before the they were hit so hard by recent CBM changes (which the 1.9 release addresses) glamour nations weren't exactly dominating.

I realize the HoF isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of each nation's power but if you look at the top winners in each era I think most people would agree that they are strong nations.

So, looking over the glamour nations, TNN/Eriu rank low (no surprise there). Comparing TNN CBM 1.6 vs. 1.9 I'd say they're about the same level of power, maybe a bit of a boost. Eriu is I think in a considerably better position thanks to recruit everywhere bean sidhe, but they were also the most hapless of the glamour nations and in the most need of help.

Helheim has a solid four wins. This sounds good but I'll wager most, if not all, of those wins were pre-glamour nerf, which not only nerfed glamour but made svartalfs cap only. Basically the Helheim that won those games is not the same as the Helheim we have now.

EA Van I think may also have won pre-glamour nerf and with 1.5 wins they were hardly dominating even then.

MA Van is unusual; three wins but at least two of those only came in the past year or so. Post glamour nerf I always thought they were the strongest glamour nation (I'm excepting Midgard from this as I don't really consider them a glamour nation - it's more like Fomoria, with some cap only glamour units as an option) and was surprised when they qualified for the first Cripple Fight game a few years (participants were nations from all eras that didn't yet have a win).

Again, the HoF isn't perfectly representative of each nation's power but I will say those stats largely match my experience both playing and observing them. I just haven't seen any sign that glamour nations are dominating the game. If that changes and Van starts winning all the time I'll be the first to advocate nerfing them, as I really don't like OP things. But it seems to me there should be some evidence of this before people talk about nerfing them before games have even been played with the current CBM release. And as an aside, Jotun ranks high in wins in every era and can be just brutal to face late game so why isn't the conversation about nerfing them?

Moving on to Fomoria, I'm in the camp that thinks they are a solid nation. I don't think anyone would say they are Niefel level but I also don't think we want that to be the standard to balance nations against, or to say that there's a separate (higher) level of power that giant nations should balance against. It's also interesting that they rank third in wins in the EA. I think the HoF can be inaccurate in that strong nations may not have many wins because they so frequently get dogpiled but it doesn't seem likely to me that weak nations are somehow just stumbling on to a series of wins. So I think Fomoria is ok, but I will say if llama decides to make some changes that Samhain's list is very good - reasonable, targeted changes that actually stay within the theme (though I wouldn't make Unmarked Champions cap only - it's a nice unit that would never get recruited if it were cap only).

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Morrigans are only 2 D gems in CBM? Good grief, I really should not play vanilla (where they are 4D per pop) ;)
Although the real Morripwnage starts with Dance of the Morrigans + Fog Warriors + some other mass boosts.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

2nd Valerius.

Two smallish comments:
- F9W9 for heims will force you to trash prod. scale and CBM 1.9 will punish you severely for that. For the later vans you're likely better off with skinshifters and good scales/RBW/SC god.
- Morrigans, awesome,on the verge of OP (only saving grace is they are not that commonly cast). I saw them used in YARG2 and they kick ***.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

The main thematic problem for Fomoria is the lack of non-sacred giant troops worth recruiting. Give the Militia and the Javelinist a shield, they would be somewhat less vulnerable - the PD would still be worse than Niefel's.
Maybe use the Fomorian Warrior template for slightly fewer afflictions.

Granted, only two prec 8 missile attacks, but with a strength of 20 it would do some damage.

And that precision could be increased from 8 to 9/10, most of them should have both their eyes.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Actually, I like your modification better than what I proposed. It would be neat to see Fomoria actually field armies of Fomorians besides some Unmarked.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I'm shocked to see people complain about Fomoria. Every game I have seen them in, they have kicked butt. In smaller games, unless other players are taking powerful nations themselves, they will stomp on the competition.

The access to both high air and high death is a huge advantage. Plus, their national spells with morrigans and Dance of the Morrigans is another huge advantage. I would easily put them up in the top 5 EA nations.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Also, that once would be me, and i did it for the lulz

Of course, i also scored a win as Fomoria using a scales + Nemedian Warriors strategy. Clearly Fomoria doesn't have to rely on blessing its giants. (Nemedian warriors are awesome, screw this 'no money' 'big bless' giants nonsense).

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Fomoria, the dullest Dominions nation of them all...

Regarding the HoF.
I'd say player skill trumps nation choice, that's why HoF doesn't give any meaningful data regarding nation powers. Simply put, the fact that Fomoria is 3rd is the HoF means nothing really.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

I beg to differ: top nations in the HoF do show the metagame.
When you (a vet) stomp some newbie, of course natons dont matter much, you're going to win. But when two equally players meet (which is, of course, an assumption) details matter more... such details as your nations power, for example.

Dull Fomoria may be, but it has got brutal power. As long as you can kill stuff, nobody cares if you do it with finesse or just drop tons of SCs and spam Morrigans till you win.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Well many things need to be taken into account there:

- The amount of games the nation has, it's logical to say that a nation that is played more is more likely to win a game.
- Player skill behind the nation. The better the player in control of a nation the better the changes to win.
- Player skill behind other nations. The better the competition the harder to win, or vice versa.
- Amount of nations in the game. The fever nations there are the fever players you have to fight against (fever neighbors that start next to you, lower change of getting dog-pilled, in all less variables) ergo better chances of victory.
- Other nations. A strong nation with a bunch of crappy one is more likely to win. Say Mictlan versus Agartha, Man, Oceania... you get the point.
- Diplomacy. No matter how good you are, or how good a nation you have diplomacy can always bring you down or put you on top, depending just how manipulative and silver tonged you are ( Yes, I mean you WL :) ) But to be honest diplomacy is usually tied to the player behind the nation not the actual nation (except in cases of Hinnom, Ashdod and such immensely OP nations, and in cases clear graph leader.)
- Etc...

So it's my personal opinion that you can't reliably represent nation winnings to power levels.
Mictlan for example has 3.5 wins while Fomoria has 6.5 I pitty the fool who thinks Mictlan is the lesser nation.
Sauromatia has 9 HoF wins while TC only has a single. Sauro is a better nation but not that better. I'd personally put TC very close to Sauro power vice.
Sure, there are powerful nation in the top of the HoF which ought to represent them accordingly but there are equally powerful nation near the bottom as well.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

While I don't think the HoF is relevant, personally I find Fomoria on the high end of the power scale and have done very well with them in mp. If you ignore the abysmal junk in their roster they still have some very good choices. All your cap only guys are very good (though I prefer the unmarked to the Fomorian giants most of the time). Probably not gonna recruit too many troops out of your secondary castles, but in a pinch mixed size 4 Fomorian warriors and size 2 Firbolgs are quite resilient. What they lack on the offense is more than made up by the real reason you want secondary castles - unmarked champions and druids. Pass out some frost brands and bows of war/thunder to the champions and boosters for your druids and your ouch layout rises considerably while your troops take forever to chop through.

Having 3-4 booster boosted druids summoning Morrigans is more than enough to give you a very considerable force. Every time you mass up 10 recruit a Nemedian champion (use the money you save on kings to put up more castles for unmarked champions), stick some winged boots on him and you've got an awe inspiring raiding force with the stealth + flying to easily combine with other raiding parties for bigger fights. If you've got the gems to kit the champion as an anti-sc they're virtually impossible to stop raiding without an enormous effort and 30 Morrigans showing up to help with the big fight is a serious tide turner. In my mp game my slowly massed morrigans were one of my more terrifying assets as they just really didn't die so I massed up quite a few over a couple game years.

Add in great recruitable SCs with cloud trapeze, thunderstrike, strong D, the best battlefield enchantment in the game, strong amphibians with sailing and virtually everything blessable - a very scary nation in the right hands.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

Baalz, do you think there are nations that need buffs (tier 3 in common terminology). After reading your guides it seems that you could play using independent only troops.

Re: Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??
 

What about a 600-pound gorilla-style diplomacy? 'Hello, I'm a 600-pound gorilla, and I wanna be your friend while I kick the hell out of your neighbours'. :)
These who play just for the sake of it will probably agree, I am sure.


Well, which nations from the HOF top do you consider weak?