[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
The point being that if a few stronger nations exist within the game then the newbie players have more of a sense of security and confidence for starting a multiplayer game. "It's much harder learning how to ride a bike by starting up a steep hill."

No, what actually happens here in the real world is the newbies pick Ulm, thinking that it's a powerful nation (while nothing could be further from the truth), because they are new and don't understand the game, while the better players will pick the powerful nations and play them to win.

Also SP gamers need very powerful nations whether they are new to the game or experts looking for a powerful enemy.

Then they can mod those nations in. The default game should be balanced as well as is possible.

As mentioned earlier the stronger nations provide the newbie gamers more confidence when playing a multiplayer game. And there's no balance problem since there's LOTS of nations for every era.

This is a particularly silly thing to say. "Balance doesn't matter because there's lots of nations to pick." Now, please tell me how you plan to ensure that people only pick the nations that are balanced with each other? Are we supposed to limit the game so that there are even fewer viable choices compared to Dom2?

Stronger nations don't provide new players with more confidence for several reasons. The first being that truly new players aren't going to do particularly well against experienced players no matter what nation they pick. The second is second is that new players don't know what the strong nations are. They will pick nations like MA Ulm or T'ien Ch'i and then wonder why they are defeated in the first 10 turns.

Also your desire to weaken the stronger nations is from a multiplayer only view.

Yes, that's because the game is first and foremost a multiplayer game.

The game is very successful in its current format and I doubt we'll being seeing a change for the few wanting the "weaken the stronger nations" view.

I suppose that you've polled the Dominions community to determine what they want? Or is this another one of your crusades against Ghost Riders or about the AI building castles where you post identical arguments enough times that you cause people to leave the forum when they get fed up with you?

The rude behavior in your posts will eventually cause you to receive warnings from the moderators.

And, unfortunately, despite the fact that you are one of the rudest people on the entire forum, you'll never get warned, no matter how many experienced players you drive off, because you cover your insults with a fake veneer of civility.

And the fact that a few nations are very powerful out of fifty nations is not an issue.

Of course it's an issue. The issue is that those nations are too powerful.

You can easily choose to not play those nations or mod those nations since the average multiplayer game is only 8 nations.

Whatever happened to your refusal to use mods, and refusal to suggest that other people use mods NtJedi? I also love how your great solution to the problem is to ban nations from multiplayer, instead of fixing the actual problem. That's a cery fanboy attitude.

There's no reason the entire community should accept the fate of no more very powerful nations just to satisfy your multiplayer gaming needs.

In other words, you want to continue to be allowed to cheat against the AI by playing the overpowered nations, instead of having to feel like you're cheating by modding the game to make it easier for you.

I also suggest that you not pretend to know what the community wants, since you've clearly not done any research on the subject.