Most narrow nations

[B0rsuk]

I know I risk being redundant, I hope you can see my point. It is debatable which nations are strong and which are weak. But I think it can be safely said which are the most narrow in choices they offer. And which allow widest choice of strategies.
I'm also trying to kill some time while waiting for my copy to arrive. As usual, I have problems choosing the right nation for my playing style, which is... I don't know. I'd hope this thread would help me decide. I don't like *too* narrow nations, but moderately limited one could be good start, because it isn't so overwhelming at first. Especially magic. I like to experiment a lot.
In some ways, nations too narrow/specialised can be considered worse, but that is not always the case.

I'll start. MA Ulm is probably one of most narrow nations, if it's anything like in Dom2. Heavily armored and armed infantry, some heavy knights, poor priests, mages specialised in earth, forging an (??)fire in lesser extent, if I remember correctly. No light infantry or even bows available mean MA Ulm is stuck with its heaviness unless it makes use of independents.

[Gandalf Parker]

Some people have trouble seeing the narrowness of the nations, and the same for wide-coverage of a nation.
What can be helpful is to try and think about how many strategies there are.
armored
horde
defensive
research
stealth
fly
summoning
forging
castling
dominion
harsh dominion
victory point

Hmmm I think there are others but thats an interesting list for now.

[st.patrik]

I confess I like nations with somewhat 'narrow' magic. Sometimes the array of choices makes it too hard to decide on one effective strategy, and instead try to do a whole lot of things poorly.

Also, even the more narrow nations have broadened some in D3 compared to D2, for example MA Ulm's Smiths now have a 10% chance of getting FAES, in addition to the 1F2E they had before. But it's probably still the 'narrowest' nation.

[Endoperez]

MA Ulm has stayed mostly the same. Slow heavy infantry, armored Arbalests, etc. Their Master Smiths have a 10% random now. FAES gives them access to Fire 2, or Phoenix Power and Augury; or Air/Earth combo items (which are pretty nice IMO) and few Lightning spells, perhaps Storm Bows; E3, 4 with Earth Boots, 5 with Earth Power, which is enough for all Earth combat spells... Astral gives them access to Gifts from the Sky, of course, also quite nice.

Not much less narrow, but MA Ulm COULD have a surprise up their sleeve now.

[KissBlade]

Try Sauromatia, they can literally do every type of strategy. Pan as well.

[dirtywick]

MA Abysia is pretty narrow IMO. Basically all you have is slow, heavy infantry for nationals. They only have 4 paths to choose from, Blood, Astral, Fire, and a small chance at Earth, so conjuration won't yield much for summons to supplement your infantry so you have to use Blood summons. Plus they're basically pigeonholed into taking Order, Prod, and Growth scales so you're pretender is going to be at least dormant.

They're strong, but they don't have a lot of playstyle options until much later in the game when, basically, everyone has those options at that time anyway.

LA Ermor is (unsurprisingly) very narrow. Probably the most narrow in terms of pretender design even: you have to take several death magic points (anything below 4 is pretty suicidal) and an awake pretender, as a sleeping pretender *will* get you killed. fast. A strong dominion is also, while not absolutely necessary, still very important.
Also, for late age your national troops (read autosummons) plain suck. And getting priests with high magic to cast those whole-battlefield undead buffs is quite expensive, better summons are more economical. A bless will also be wasted on Ermor as you'll only get decent amounts of decent blessable troops quite late. (and good priests are still expensive)
Also, they lack several hundred coolness points because they're restricted to lame zombies and skeletons instead of the awesomeness of ghostly roman legions.

Tien Chi MA are very diverse. And you'll have to utilize that, as you get comparatively wek mages that have lots of different paths to make up for it. You also get a nice mix of national troops and summons.
Also unsurprising, since MA Tien Chi is basic Tien Chi from D2. Though a bit better imo.

[KissBlade]

Tien Chi MA is very diverse?! They're practically pidgeon holed into a consort spam strategy backed by imperial xbows!

[Endoperez]

They have access to many paths. They might not be able to use them well, but they have access to many paths. In a game where every player could expect, say, 15 turns before contact with another player, Tien Chi's diverse magic could pay off. It won't pay off in a blitz, perhaps even in most games... but they still have access to many paths.

[KissBlade]

They don't really have that much access to that many more paths than other nations. Only five if I recall, which there are quite a few number of nations can boast in terms of magic versatility of equal if not greater level.