Ashdod is worthless now
 

Their troops have 7 fatigue in the new cbm. The enemy can just throw tons of junk troops at you and fatigue you out and slaughter you.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Ashdod is too good. all they do is research evo and kill all the crap i keep sending at them

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Holy ****, E10N4 bless =/= win anymore because Ashdod actually has reasonable encumbrance for how much armor it has! Stop the presses!

W.A.I.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

anyone not on my ignore list want to answer?

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

No, not really. The proficient people who you like ignoring because you refuse to improve and make us suspect you are a robot when we consider your tactics already said what we were thinking.

But hey, don't worry! You can always just mass their super longbowmen people and other archers for a rain of death! They're surprisingly fun!

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Say what you want, but when Ulm can just march through Ashdod like they aren't even there, you know cbm has gotten way out of control.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Care to explain more what happened? Was Ashdod using their sacreds vs. guardians, or was it more Iron Blizzard spam or something else?

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Uh, Black Guardians always marched through Anakim like they weren't there. Outnumbered sacreds against Black Guardians? lulz.

Oh wait, you aren't going to see this. Oh well.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Ashdod has been hit pretty hard by nerfs, and not necessarily always in ways I would have preferred. But they haven't been nerfed into worthlessness. You just have to evolve your tactics around the new changes. You can still make them fatigue neutral with just a girdle of might, and that wasn't a bad idea before anyway. So you just need a bit of construction research and the willingness to spend some gems. Honestly the fact that niefelheim still has just 4 encumbrance is ridiculous though, jarls were much sillier IMO. Anyway, you're not going to be able to use ashdod the same way anymore, but think of that as a challenge to improve your playing ability. From what I've heard you have certain habits for playing the same way every time, with a brute force approach. But there is a lot of subtlety in the game to learn, and if you try to stretch out a bit more, you may find a way to work around the issues you have with Ashdod's sacreds. With the support from the zamzummites and some of their other things, plus gearing your sacreds to at least some modest degree, you should get a much better performance out of them.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

It looks like the difference is the Anakite armor encumbrance was increased from 2 in CBM 1.84 to 3 in CBM 1.92. Doing a quick check it seems like prot 12-14 armors are generally 2 encumbrance, prot 20+ are 3 encumbrance and prot 16-17 can go either way. For example, Aby's troops have a prot 17, enc 2 plate hauberk but Pan's centaur cataphracts have prot 17, enc 3 centaur barding.

Of course for commanders you can get around this by swapping out their armor and/or adding reinvig gear but the troops are stuck with it. Given its OP history Ashdod doesn't get much sympathy and I'm assuming this was a deliberate nerf so that even with an assumed E10 bless they could be tired out more rapidly than when they had a total encumbrance of 6 under 1.84 (though to be fair Hinnom's [commander-only AFAIK] prot 17 Dawn Armor still has an encumbrance of 2).

I can even live with the jarls, it's those damn skratti sending everyone to hell that gets me. :p

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I was wiped out on turn 15. You can't make a girdle of might that early. Their sacreds are ridiculously expensive, 150 gold 88 resources, and commanders are 500 gold 83 resources. So you can only make 1 or 2 troops a turn.

And the troops aren't even that good. They have 13atk, 16def, 18prot. The only thing that saved them was being able to make them fatigue neutral.

Now after about 10 rounds, they fatigue out and become worthless.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

There's more on their roster than just sacreds though. Bshanites and Gileadites aren't awful, and can help prevent your other giants from being swarmed. Plus you have access to 7 gold slingers which can help a lot in weeding out chaff. Ahiman Anakites are a lot less appealing now though, you should probably buy the sheshai now instead if you want the sacred soldiers. Or to ignore them altogether.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

You have your other better cheaper sacreds, which only have 5 encumbrance. You know, for anyone reading this who might actually believe ghoul since he isn't going to read this.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Yeah, I was going to mention the Sheshai Anakites since they also have half the resource cost. Usually gold will be the limiting factor here but resources could sometimes come into play.

The only thing is, with 14 prot they will likely take some damage and go berserk even with an E9 bless so you may end up with a similar fatigue situation as with the nonberserking Ahiman Anakites. But if you can reach Alt. 3 for BE you could delay them going berserk.

But I think rdonj is right in that you have to look at other options in your lineup or even indie units like archers. In this case I think ghoul was facing a 3 vs 1 so he may not have had the gold to switch up his troop composition much anymore but generally speaking you have to tailor your approach to the opponent and can't rely on one unit to handle all situations (if a unit can do that it's almost a sure sign that it's OP).

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

The main problem of Ashdod is that all giants are owerwhelmed easily now, and the human slave troops are worse than chaff. There is no researcher that is marginally affordable, either. The Rephaite sage should cost ~160gp instead of 200, the 140gp units with Augury are better

Giving all the size-4 Ashdod units a gore attack would solve that problem. It's even thematic.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Those are Berserkers, and also fatigue while they are berserking.

I don't think Ashdod is "worthless". They aren't the worse nation in the roster, not by a long shot. However, the OP is right in one thing: that 2 extra encumbrance is hurting them, badly.

They are incredibly outnumbered in any fight. With fatigue, they have a tough time fighting almost any chaff. For a unit that is worth 100+ gold and 40-80 resources, they aren't that good.

Not only that, but even more important, in my opinion. With encumbrance 7, they are FORCED to have a high earth bless. There's no option, no other chance, no way to play them in a original way. 7 encumbrance per round means they'll autodeafeat themselves by fatigue, unless they have E9+ bless.

That, imho, is horrible. There should not be any "mandatory" bless for a nation.

Just my 0,02

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Lets be clear on a few things:
(1) Fatigue neutral giant sacreds from turn 1 are too good. There's abundant evidence of this before CBM started fixing the problem. Ashdod was so ridiculously overpowered before CBM decided to reign it in that the changes had to make it 'hurt' relative to before. That just brought it down from 'so much better than other nations it wasn't funny' to 'reasonably balanced'.
(2) Building up 2 encumbrance every round is not the end of the world. Its better than most units, especially with the kind of armor Anakim pack.
(3) Berserk is an advantage - it means you don't run away.
(4) No one is forcing you to take a bless at all or use the sacreds troops
(5) You're going to take an E+N bless anyway if you're going to use the sacreds, they're giants. They were never played with other blesses before the encumbrance changes. Acting offended that the only logical bless is E+N is ridiculous. So yes, its assumed if you're going to invest in Ashdod's sacreds you have an E9-10 bless, probably E10. Because that's what everyone was playing them with.

And none of this changes the fact that he got clobbered by *MA Ulm* while trying to use a pure sacred army of size 5 giants. Anyone with half a brain would realize that size 2 guardians are going to clobber size 5 sacreds. Even vanilla MA Ulm would trash vanilla Ashdod. Its the single worst matchup in the game for them. Take one of the only MA sacreds that can get outnumbered 3:1 locally, realize that you're going to be outnumbered more than 3:1 overall from a gold standpoint (ie, Ulm can afford losses without losing tactical numerical superiority), and then add in a unit which specifically hoses sacreds. Only a fool would think they can win that combat.

It may well have been the only 1 on 1 early game matchup MA Ulm would expect to win in vanilla.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I might agree with Ashdod beeing to powerful. It doesnt change my stance that they got really really hurt now.

The rest of the units do not cost 150g and 88 resources, so they actually have a chance to kill their oponents in less than two hundred years. An army of 300g 176r worth sacreds from Ashdod do *four* attacks per turn.


but still invalidates the point I was quoting, which was saying their other sacred unit was encumbrance neutral. It is not, becouse Berserker makes you to fatigue.

Nop, they give you two options: that one, or losing incredibly fast.
Good luck trying to beat anything but indies with 150g88r troops that get 7 encumbrance per turn.


There are guides in the web about playing Hinnom with high scales, I'm sure I'd try it with Ashdod as well... if it would be viable. It's not, with 7 encumbrance per turn.

However, you are just agreeing with my. They are now a "play like this, period" nation after CBM. I thought CBM was a mod to make more options viable, not the other way around.


I haven't mentioned Ulm in my post, so this is useless rant. I just mentioned that the CBM "balance" approach might be wrong.

I'll elaborate:

Encumbrance neutral Ashdod giants are too powerful.
150g88r units with 7 encumbrance are too weak.

CBM 1,92 balanced the first issue, but did nothing about the second. Now Ashdod have sacreds that are not worth they cost, by a *far* margin. If they aren't encumbrance neutral, they aren't worth 150g88r.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I think the point is that while yes, specifically Ahiman Anakites are less powerful, Sheshai Anakites are the same fatigue-wise and most of their non-sacred options are both cheaper and have less encumbrance. So it might behoove you to experiment with their actual troops.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Triqui, I'd be happy to duel you, and I'll play Ashdod without an E9+ bless. We'll see how weak Ashdod really is. Hop on IRC to arrange it.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

If you're not taking a bless, there is absolutely no reason to recruit the sacred giant troops. Instead you rely on the non-sacreds in your roster. If there's no bless, it encourages you to build more early mages and you'll be able to hit higher levels of construction faster. It's hard to make them fatigue neutral without at least some level of earth bless though. And ashdod's sacreds/sacred commanders are very probably overpriced now, which could be fixed in a later version. I think they'd work better at 6 encumbrance as well, but this is really the first version of Ashdod that's not insane from turn 1.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Squirrelloid, while I don't know anything about Ashdod, I think you're wrong about vanilla Ulm. In early game it's rather strong and can deal with most opposition. The problems begin with transition to mid-midgame if you don't diversify with pretender/indies by that time.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

See, that's your second fallacious (and eepeen) post in a row.


Let's suppose (as hypothesis )you manage to win me with Ashdod. Would that show that Ashdod is fine? Not really, just show that you are (in hypothesis) a better player than me (or at the very least, that you think you are). That would proof absolutelly nothing. I'm sure Baalz could beat me with any nation, even if I use pre 1.92 Ashdod. That shows absolutelly nothing about Ashdod (or any other nation) balance.

Just like your post proofs nothing, but that people in internet argument fall to e-peen show-offs when they have no other point to argue, or the points they made before have been refuted in a way they cannot answer back.(IE: the stupid remark about Berserk unbreakable morale, which had nothing to do with what I was replying to: the fatigue)

Do you want to prove something about Ashdod balance? Fine, let's take a look in the next couple of months to every middle age game there is, that is played under CBM 1,92. Let's see if they win they fair share of victories. I doubt it.

@rdonj
Fair enough, I change my stance from "ashdod is horribly overpriced" to "ashdod sacreds and sacred commanders are horribly overpriced". Which is kind of similar though, as the nation strength is their sacreds and sacred commanders. It's like if you remove Vans from helheim, or Jarls and sacreds from Niefelheim, and you say "hey, but they still can use everything else"

For example: you say that, without sacreds, they'll be compelled to buy extra mages for extra research. Sure. Except those are 200g non-sacred (for unkeep) mages with research 6. It's not like they are Bogarus or something, you know.

I'm not sure if they need to go down to encumbrance 6, or whatever. What I'm sure, though, is that 7 encumbrance for 150g and 88r is NOT a good deal. For that price, they suck. They suck hard. Sure, you can use the other troops in the roster. Bassically, the ones that don't suck. This doesn't change the fact they suck. Hard.

To repeat myself:
Yes, Ashdod with encumbrance neutral where way too powerful. Even if they were very expensive, they were very powerful. They needed a nerf. However, they nerfed them hard, but kept their insane cost. Most of the nations have *commanders* that are cheaper than Annakites. If you want to keep them with encumbrance 7, then they need a (serious) reduction in cost.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

EA Agartha was virtually unplayable for years until CBM finally got around to buffing it. It still managed to win at least one game. And Ashdod is in better shape than EA Agartha ever was.

What's frustrating is you don't seem to actually want to play Ashdod to see if it still works. (I'd be willign to bet E10N4 still works, too, but it was never the sacred *troops* that really mattered). Which is why i offered to blitz. You specifically said:

Ok, so prove to me its lose incredibly fast if you don't use the sacreds. My offer was not an epeen argument, you literally said 'anyone who doesn't use the sacreds is going to lose'. Prove it. Put your money where your mouth is.

If instead you'd rather attack me then prove your claim, you're conceeding that you were wrong before. I wouldn't have even offered a blitz if you hadn't argued that doing anything but using sacreds was an autoloss.

Otherwise, there are other options, and thus Ashdod is probably fine. If a single one of their sacred options is not optimal in all situations, that's only a good thing. If its optimal in none, well, it'll get tweaked eventually. CBM balancing is an iterative process. But its clear to me at least this is solely a unit issue, not a nation balance issue.

---------------

You seem convinced that enc 7 is too much without being willing to play them. Considering net enc 2 is better than enc 5 for most troops, including Ashdod's nonsacreds (which work just fine!), this implies you don't actually understand the issues.

And berserk is an advantage. Those troops are fatigue neutral *until* they berserk, and then they don't run away once they do berserk. Horrors, they build up a little fatigue every round they attack *after* they berzerk. Its still less than the other sacred overall, because they have enough protection (18 with E9+) that putting some damage through that in the early game is hard.

The fact that you automatically dismiss them because they *eventually* become not-fatigue-neutral sort of demonstrates that you won't be happy until you have fatigue neutral broken giant troops. Since we know that's a bad idea, of course we're skeptical of your position.

----------------

And the real point you seem to be missing is that Ashdod was never about armies of *troops*. It was about armies of thugs and SCs. Being non-neutral on fatigue is only going to really matter in large battles, at which point you'll be thanking your enemies for killing off your cash-guzzling sacreds so you can recruit more SCs.

The only impact of non-neutral fatigue via bless is that Ashdod needs to do some research before it tries to crush someone now, as opposed to just rushing people. This is a good thing

Zazzumite: excellent thug/light SC, self-blessing, frequently with good buffing paths (Summon Earth Power, ironskin/stoneskin/invulnerability, soul drain, potentially personal luck/body ethereal, etc...)

Adon: Excellent SC, self blessing, good buffing path. (E2 ones are the best, but S2 isn't much worse and F2 is ok eventually). 3 misc slots. Typical E9-10 bless with bracers of protection doubles up the +4 protection bonus from the bless, and the third misc slot lets you pack a pendant and AMA in addition to the bracer.

Base enc 7 can be cut with lower fatigue armor or shield (or both), and mitigated away with boots, summon earth power, and of course bless.

Even without a big E bless you can still drop them to fatigue neutral pretty easily.

And no, Adons are not overpriced. They're a recruitable SC chassis - how bad the armor is or isn't is irrelevant, you're just going to slap something better on them anyway.

When every commander you recruit all game except Talmai Elders is a viable SC, its time to start wondering why you bother with recruitable troops after turn ~12 at all.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Just tested non-bless start.
Used dormant sphinx e6s4 dom7 03/P3/H3/G3/M1.
No problems with expansion - starting army is abysia class.
archers + amorites for second army are good too,
Recruited Zamzumites each turn (starting from turn1). Had adon with lantern shield, luck pendant , earth braces and black steel plate on turn 8. He rocks:).

Don't see what problems ashdod have.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I did the same as Scaramuccia and tested an expansion with both the non-sacred troops and E10n6 sacreds. I also found things worked fine with the non-sacred troops. Both types of sacreds did fine as well, even with fatigue accumulating. Fatigue as a possible counter to them seems reasonable.

I also agree with Squirrelloid that beyond initial expansion, it's the sacred commanders that matter, not the troops. And there you can swap out the encumbrance 3 armor and give them reinvig items if needed.

Actually, looking at the troops my main thought is that they are among the better GoR candidates in the game. Probably not worth it since you've got Zamzummite's but 6 gems is a reasonable cost to pay for that type of thug.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

My issue would be that the principal behind CBM was, I thought, to reduce the number of "useless" units each nation has and encourage diversity. This change does the latter (because Ashdod becomes more of a mage-variety emphasis and de-emphasizes the cap-only sacreds), but at the expense of the former (the sacred troops are much more niche-utility, where their use was already limited by their extreme cost and limited massability). Sure, people are more likely to consider strategies other than high Earth bless now, but I'm not sure that the high Earth bless is even a good investment any longer.

For Adons, you can just replace their armor with something lower encumbrance (even Black Plate Cuirass is better), but Anakites (both types) are likely to see very little use. Was an Ahiman Anakite bless rush really a constant problem with Ashdod? Why not just push them up to a higher cost?

I don't understand why, facing Ulm, one wouldn't load up on the cheaper giants. Amorites and Edomites should be able to do a number on the base troops of Ulm and survive most of the early things the smiths can do. So "Ashdod is worthless" sounds a lot like "monkey PD is crippling" to me, but I'm not sure the change made here was well considered.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

The problem with this assertion (although it is a goodthought) is that without the nerf, the sacreds, and the high E bless was so good that it made all other strategies severely sub-optimal. So CBM has at the very least kept the number of options the same. I think it has increased because personally i think at least E6 is still huge for ashdod just for the SC's.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Indeed, there were a number of nations even crappy vanilla Ulm (after the Black Guard adding patch) could rush, and CBM Ulm can rush a lot of people successfully, provided they are close enough.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

had I realized the sacreds were worthless now, I would have just used regular troops.. They should have just deleted the sacreds, so people don't mistakenly use them like I did.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

you didnt test them before the game started?

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

"Oh god, why didn't CBM remove flagellants! I made a bless for them and lost the game!"

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

remove all nations except mictlan so no one accidentally picks a bad one

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

flagellants are a lot more useful than ashdod's sacreds now

so you fail

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

with cbm, there aren't supposed to be any bad nations. So you fail also.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I would like to thank everybody who has posted in this thread. I have been kept entertained all weekend.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Actually is you the one that do not understand the issues. First, having encumbrance 7 is not really a problem. Having encumbrance 7 in a unit that cost 150g 88r, and thus is going to be horribly outnumbered in any situation, is.
Ashdod giants often are incredibly low number armies. To beat chaff (specially, but not only, undead chaff), they need a TON of turns.

There are other high encumbrance units in the game. Centaur Cataphracts have encumbrance 7 as well. However, for the price you have 1 single Annakite that 2 two attacks, Centaurs do *eight* attacks. So the amount of rounds both armies are going to be fighting is not even close. In a combat where Centaurs get say, 30 fatigue, the Annakite get one hundred and twenty.

I don't know what else can I do. I'll reiterate:

The problem is not having encumbrance 7. The problem is the combination of encumbrance 7, with being absolutelly unable to kill opposing armie in less than a gazzillion fighting rounds, becouse of the incredibly high cost per attack ratio. They cost 150g88r.


It's an adventage. It's an adventage absolutelly unrelated to what we were discussing, though. You made a remark about "they have encumbrance 5". I quoted you and said that they were berserkers. I suppossed that you understood that I was talking about the fatigue. Obviously you didn't. My fault, I guess.


see, yet another fallacy (strawman's). I understand it's much easier for you to argue a point that I *did not* say, than the ones I actually said, but it's not really very usefull.

I already said that the nerf was needed. The problem is that CBM forgot to change the cost of the giants proportionally to the nerf. Pre-nerf, they were an incredibly expensive (as in: twice everything else) unit with an incredibly power. Now they are just incredibly expensive.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Its not 7 effective encumbrance. What you don't get is no one played them without an E10 bless anyway, so their effective encumbrance is *2*. No one is going to use that unit without a big earth bless. You want to talk about strawmen, why are you talking about using a sacred who is obviously going to have an earth bless without factoring in the earth bless. Ignoring the earth bless is why you don't understand why these troops are just fine as is.

Regarding Berserk: they're still fatigue neutral until they berserk. Berserking isn't some automatic reaction to being in combat, it requires they take damage. Through protection 18 after E10 bless. And even after they berserk they're going to build up fatigue rather slowly. So yes, I'm well aware of the fatigue, my point is the benefits of berserking vastly outweigh, and it will probably be multiple rounds of combat before they even start berserking in the first place, and until they do they are in fact fatigue neutral.

Way to ignore that commanders are where Ashdod's game has always been, btw, which invalidates your entire side of the argument. The only reason Ashdod uses recruitable troops is expansion - a task for which its units, all its units, are still perfectly good.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

REally? My game is bugged then, becouse it says 7

So you agree with my previous statement, they have 2 ways to play, E10, or losing. Don't you? Becouse you said it otherwise a couple of posts ago. It's hard to follow your "reasoning" with that much flip-flop.
So, please, let be clear:
Is Ashdod a "you must play as this, always, with no other option, period" nation?
If so... is this effect stressed with CBM 1,92?
If so... wasn't the entire point of CBM to make more *options* viable, instead of reinforcing the "good ones", or strippping away things?

That's like saying the jaguar warriors have effectively 6 attacks becouse everybody would play them with W9. No, they don't. I've seen people being creative and not using W9F9 jaguars, you know. Not everybody plays like you (fortunately), that's the fun part of this game.
Having a unit that "requires" a bless not to be good, but to be viable, is a ultimate flaw. Encumbrace 7 in a unit that have an attack/gold ratio of seventy five gold and 44 resources per attack pretty much make any non E9 bless completelly unviable. Yes, we agree on this. No, we don't agree this is "working as intended"

I think you don't know what a strawmen fallacy is...
Becouse I thought the beauty of this game was being able to play very differently each game. I don't see any excitement in playing Ashdod twice in a row if I'm "forced" to play some specific bless. That said... they have encumbrance 7. Period. If you want to live in a bubble where they have encumbrance 2, fine, then they cost 150 gold, 88 resources, and 6 full scales. Wow. That's pricey.

Which is moot point, becouse it's not what I was talking about. You should try to read what I'm saying and answer to that. Poor strawman is too busy.

Would you had read what I've already said (or would you comprehend it, if you already read), you would had noticed that I've said several times already that is not that Ashdod is worthless, or overpriced, but that *Annakites* are.

I'll quote myself. I'll bold the relevant parts, to make reading comprehension easier:

The problem is not having encumbrance 7. The problem is the combination of encumbrance 7, with being absolutelly unable to kill opposing armie in less than a gazzillion fighting rounds, becouse of the incredibly high cost per attack ratio. They cost 150g88r.

I already said that the nerf was needed. The problem is that CBM forgot to change the cost of the giants proportionally to the nerf. Pre-nerf, they were an incredibly expensive (as in: twice everything else) unit with an incredibly power. Now they are just incredibly expensive.

I don't think Ashdod is "worthless". They aren't the worse nation in the roster, not by a long shot. However, the OP is right in one thing: that 2 extra encumbrance is hurting them, badly

Encumbrance neutral Ashdod giants are too powerful.
150g88r units with 7 encumbrance are too weak.

Hope the bolding helps with the attention deficit.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Okay, time out.

You overstate the case considerably; That none of the top players in Lamaserver MP games would play a nation like Ashdod in MP without an E10 blessing, or E9 at the very least, because every single one of them plays from the same rulebook where thugging is concerned and compete in an environment where not going mighty men is a sign of insanity - does not in any way, shape, or form imply that nobody playing Ashdod with CBM would play them without a big earth blessing.

Some people might play them in SP games, some in MP games that don't operate by the usual Lamaserver dynamics and player culture, and there are bound to be some who play Ashdod with only a medium size earth blessing or perhaps none at all - and it might be neither stupid nor suboptimal in the games they play, be they SP or MP.

- As an example, in the circle of friends in which I play MP, while the common CBM guides are useful to anybody needing to learn a new nation and we direct new players to read the guides on this forum, they often make assumptions about playstyles that just aren't valid, and the players are a bunch of devious backstabbing bastards with a real-world approach to diplomacy and typically 1-2 decades of experience playing really long-term board and computer games, a niché in which Dominions fits perfectly, so one thing with the other, people often try out unusual nation setups (by Lamaserver standards) and more often than one would expect they succeed over "no-brainer" choices from this forum.

That's not because they are objectively better than the setups and strategies typically discussed in this forum and played by in the Lamaserver games - if such setups were used in a Lamaserver game where the majority of players were Lamaserver veterans, they would probably lose - I'm just pointing out that a cutthroat competitive MP environment does exist where they make sense.

All this to say: For the love of god, don't take what is "the only sensible way to play a nation competitively on Lamaserver" as being the same as "the only way anybody sane would play a nation" and don't denigrate those who quite correctly point out that the changes made to balance one playstyle (that happens to be the favourite Lamaserver style for the nation in question) significantly hurts another playstyle. :)

Now, for the whining of the OP, feel free to heap scorn, but for triqui pointing out the details of his issue... Surely he doesn't deserve that.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Ok, the reason I'm frustrated with Triqui is he seems to be offering a false dilemma. This quote sums it up pretty clearly:

No no no no.

Its not a choice between E10 or losing. Its a choice between (*taking a bless for the sacred you have* and using the sacred) OR (*not using the sacred* and doing something different.) (Parentheses provided to be clear on what the choices are since Triqui insists on taking things out of context, like 'them' out to mean Ashdod instead of Anakim).

If you want to use Anakim, you take an ~E10N4 bless, that's just the way it is. No other bless even begins to make sense, even pre-nerf. What would you take? Seriously? Anakim have been specifically balanced around being used with an E10 bless because otherwise they are too powerful with an E10 bless.

Nothing compels you to use Anakim, however. If you don't use Anakim, you can do something totally different.

Pure scales Ashdod works just fine. You probably want to sneak N4 in anyway, but ignoring or mostly ignoring the blessing just means you use more regular troops and no sacred troops. You know, like any other nation who doesn't take a blessing?

Most nations sacreds have a limited range of blessings that make any sense on them. Very few nations have sacreds that work with a wide variety of blesses. No one takes E9 on Shadow Vestals or flagellants. No one takes W9 on Niefl Giants. These things aren't things that CBM should be trying to accomodate because the bless does not make sense for the chassis. If you complained 'E9 doesn't work on flagellants' people would laugh at you. And just how many blesses actually work on Niefl Giants? Are they also a problem because E9N4 or lesser versions thereof is the only bless that works with them?

So you've got a big badass giant sacred troop. When used with a big E bless its perfectly viable. The *nation* is still viable without a big E bless, it just *uses different units*. CBM's mission is accomplished - there's no longer a right way to play (You'd have been a fool to use anything other than sacreds with a big E bless before the nerf, so the nerf actually diversified Ashdod's plausible strategies).

So what is his issue?
Is it that Anakim are unuseable? They clearly aren't - if you take a bless that fits them.

Is it that Ashdod only has one way to play? They clearly don't, I've named two builds that I know work (E10N4 or full scales - and actually, the full range of scales + light E+N blesses also work), and I've got some really bizarre ideas for stuff you might do if you knew something about your starting position before the game began. (Summons requiring wastelands are really obnoxious).

And if you wanted to focus on summons (sacred or otherwise) you have *multiple* pretender choices which provide gems every turn, such as the Monolith, Son of the Sun (fire edition), Lord of Rebirth, and Great Enchantress - all of whom provide 1s or equivalent per turn, and all of which provide gems that you either can use nationally or you have national summons for or both.

And your sacred summons have different issues than your sacred recruitables. Se'irim want a W9-focused bless, Shedim are probably in a similar boat. Malakh don't have the encumbrance issue Anakim do so E4N4 + a few other light blesses might be superior for them. Ditanu are undead and can't use the N bless at all and the E bless of less value.

So I'm really not seeing the 'one right way to play' issue. I'm seeing a 'some units are not worth using if you don't take a blessing for them' issue - but I can think of maybe 3 nations where you'll buy the sacred regardless of what blessing you take, and those are all named Mictlan.

I will completely agree Anakim troops aren't worth using without an E10N4 bless. They aren't supposed to be. This is not the same as saying *Ashdod* isn't worth using without that bless - Ashdod has another ~7 troop options, most of which are viable.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

There is a difference between "this unit does not work well with this bless" (ie: Vestals with E9) and "this unit does not work at all with any bless except one" (ie: Annakite without E10). First case gives you plenty options (you can use Vestals with F9, or W9, or D9, or S9, or combination of those, or mild E4W4F4). The second case give you one option: E10. Well, gives you two: E10, or chosing other unit. Although I'm not sure this count as an option...

Anyway, we at least have come to the agreement that encumbrance 7 make E10 absolutelly mandatory for them. What we disagree is that, in my opinion, they aren't worth the 150g88r cost (the highest cost in the game, by a far margin, as they DOUBLE the cost of the next middle age sacred), even with E10.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

D9 and F9 are both pretty bad shadow vestal blesses - they only have one attack. W9 and S9 are really their only options.

E9N4 is really the only option for Niefl Giants. And Fomorian recruitable sacred troops like Unmarked. If you don't take that bless you don't use those troop options. (Fomoria actually has another totally different bless strategy, but it involves Morrigans, a summon, instead of recruitable sacreds).

Also virtually requiring E9+,N4: Wardens, Knights of the Chalice, Black Templars, sacred Centaurs, Sauromatian sacreds (both), Serpent Cataphracts, Blindfighters, Agarthan sacreds (excepting the stone throwers who only really want the N4), and probably more.

Flagellants are pretty useless without W9.

Similarly Battle Maidens are useless without W9.

Any bless but W9 is wasted on giboleth. Similarly whatever the kailasa ranged attack sacred is. (Because W9 is the only bless that works with ranged sacreds).

Most sacreds only work with 1-2 bless arrangements and aren't worth buying without those set ups. This is not news.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

I think I'll redirect you to Peter Ebbesen elegant post:
I've seen people using W9 Marignon Chalice kinghts, for devastating effect. I've seen people -like myself- using D9S9 Vestals(which work great), I've seen people using blesses other than E9 in sauromatian cavalry, I've even seen people using W9 on Fomoria Unmarkeds, go figure. Plus I've seen several times people buying sacreds with just average rainbow blesses (like W4F4E4B4), becouse +2 to most stats plus higher than average morale is often worth it.

There are actually several guides in this same web that offer different approachs to what you say are "mandatory" blesses. For example, S9F9 flagellants are named in some guides here, instead of your "must have W9 or they are useless" approach. I can link you a couple of other guides where people is suggesting different blesses for some of the troops you mention, if you want. Baalz Sauromatia Guide suggest, among others, a W9N4 bless and a E9W9 bless, maybe you should PM him and tell him he is completelly wrong and he should play the right way, which is your way.

Until it fell off from the favor of masses to be replaced by E9N4-8, W9F9 was actually "the" must have bless in almost any guide. It was not until Thugs and SC replaced completely troops in the most usual playstyle, that E9 replaced W9F9. So the whole "half the sacreds need E9N4" is utterly wrong. Actually, most the time, E9N4 is the bless you put to your thugs to save gems for reinvigoration items.

Even more important: there's a difference between a unit getting a high benefit from a bless (for example, Jaguars from W9, or Vestals from S9), and that bless being *mandatory* for them. Encumbrance 7 units that are outnumbered 10-1 *need* E10. That's beyond question. You have said it yourself. However, you can use Vestals, Knights, Wardens, Spiders, Jaguars with several different blesses, and they'll work. They might be more or less optimized, but they never stop to function.

I bet, however, that we can say everyone else (including those writing the guides liked in the first posts of this forum) is wrong, and you are right. So all sacreds are made to build just 1 or 2 bless strategy on them, anybody trying different approachs is idiot, fine. Let's move on on the next subject then.

And why did it fall out of favor? Because the people taking thug-based blesses were winning perhaps?

Niefl Giants do not work with any blesses beside E9+N4+. Unsurprisingly, they are also size 5 giants with good defenses and few attacks. Would you like to complain about that too? The alternative to E9+N4+ is to *not use* Niefl Giants and use Jotun Skinshifters instead.

W9 with Fomoria usually means its using Morrigans, not Unmarked. Certainly not massing unmarked well past the expansion phase.

----
Was there a different bless that worked on Anakim pre-nerf which no longer works?

What would you like to see work on them that wouldn't make them unstoppable monsters if someone did take E10N4?

ie, what is actually hurt unduly by this change? Or were you expecting CBM to dramatically change the unit so new bless possibilities were available for it?
----

No bless is a also a valid choice - you aren't required to use your sacreds or invest in a blessing.

(And on Sauromatia in particular - there may have been guides which suggested other things, but in practice E9N4 was so ubiquitous that the Gorgon pretender was nerfed specifically because of Sauromatia).

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Death Bless for ranged sacreds?

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

Increased affliction chance probably applies, but the D9 death weapon blessing doesn't iirc. I think it was vfb who tested it a couple years ago.

Not that increased afflictions for gibboleths actually makes that much of a difference in their performance.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

FWIW, these are all teh guides on Ashdod I could find. Both consider E10N6 mandatory even before the CBM nerfs.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41770
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominio...Nations/Ashdod

Was there a game you saw Ashdod use their sacreds and a different bless? I'm trying to understand what was actually hurt.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

But doesn't having enc-5 Ahiman Anakites pigeonhole Ashdod into having an E10N4/6 bless far more than enc-7 giants does?

triqui, I presume part of your fervor about this is because you are currently playing Ashdod and are in a war with MA Ermor? I would suggest that Squirrel is right and focusing on commanders would be a much better use of your resources. Slapping some better armor on a handful of Zamzummites or Adons or Talmai Elder and making sure they have 0 enc would go much further than relying on relatively unsupported sacreds.

As far as I can tell, the meat of your argument is that Ahiman Anakites are overcosted now. They still work about as well as before for expanding/acting as a second target for an Adon, so reducing the price might cause imbalances in those directions. Also, gift of reasoning them is...very nice, come to think of it. Pay 4 earth gems for a girdle of might and you more than account for the difference in encumbrance.

Re: Ashdod is worthless now
 

E9N4 have one killer advantage over F9W9 - it is usually 280 points cheaper. You could have nice scales with E9N4 and you will have bad scales with dual bless. This is one reason of E9 bless popularity, the other - it is just the best bless.