Nations that seem strong/weak

[Archonsod]

PDF said:
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...

The first time I played Abyssia I managed to get to turn 20 without losing a mage to old age (one or two limps and someone suffering a battlewound) with no growth scale.
Perhaps the problem is more in the way the afflictions are applied rather than any particular nation. It seems a little too random - I've had old units contract a disease a turn or two after recruitment, while others quite happily exceed their old age score by a couple of decades with nothing worse than a limp.

And don't tell me "yeah, just cast GoH and make boots", Aby isn't supposed to cast GoH, and boots don't cure disease !

Well, it's your choice whether to work around a nation's disadvantage or not. Abyssia is one of the few nations whose only real disadvantage is rather trivial to bypass. I much prefer that than (for example) something like LA Ermor, where your restricted to playing the nation to a specific strategy because of it's flaws.

[Graeme Dice]

Archonsod said:
Well, it's your choice whether to work around a nation's disadvantage or not. Abyssia is one of the few nations whose only real disadvantage is rather trivial to bypass.

A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.

[NickW]

Graeme Dice said:
A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.

If you are buying mages in that much bulk you can afford to lose a few. Think of it as the expense for balancing out the free design point from a death-3 scale.

[Graeme Dice]

NickW said:
If you are buying mages in that much bulk you can afford to lose a few. Think of it as the expense for balancing out the free design point from a death-3 scale.

Why should there be any kind of balancing factor? Abysia was certainly not anywhere close to overpowered in Dom2, being a fire nation, so why was it necessary to nerf them, (And Marignon), so terribly in Dom3?

[Nerfix]

It's also a blood nation though. Blood is Good. But I do think that old age hit abysia too hard.

[NickW]

Graeme Dice said:

Why should there be any kind of balancing factor? Abysia was certainly not anywhere close to overpowered in Dom2, being a fire nation, so why was it necessary to nerf them, (And Marignon), so terribly in Dom3?

I think it was a nerf targetted at anyone who thinks Death scale is free points, which was a lot of Dom2 players.

Now any nation that has recruitable old mages, and there are plenty, has to think long and hard if they really need those points from death scale bad enough to live with the side effects.

[Archonsod]

Graeme Dice said:
A 10 blood slave cost for every single mage you recruit is not trivial. It's a massive cost that will become 30 or 40 slaves per turn at a minimum.

Infinitely cheaper than those nations who are stuck with something they can't do anything about - miasma, death dominions, loss of power on land and so forth.

[Arameyan]

Archonsod said:
Infinitely cheaper than those nations who are stuck with something they can't do anything about - miasma, death dominions, loss of power on land and so forth.

What's so bad with miasma? they cant recruit sages or indeps but have many mages and summons immune to disease.

[Archonsod]

I wasn't saying miasma was bad. The point is you can't easily work around the detrimental effects.

[HoneyBadger]

I like Abyssia, in Early Age. Sacred troops are very nice, and province defense is quite tough. Salamanders destroy indeps. Fire resistance is easy to counter, admittedly, so it's good to wean your Abyssians off of fire and into blood magic by mid-game. I like to use a jailed enchantress or cyclops with totally trashed scales and 9 death and either 9 fire, astral, or earth. I try to get a good stable of flying demon assasin commanders and then equip them very well. The assasins can be equipped with two blood thorns or a hellsword and shroud of sacredness, which will make them very survivable flying behind the lines. A ring of regeneration is nice if you can afford the nature magic, and an elixer of life is a good insurance policy, especially in late game. With Abyssia, you want to hit the independents hard, and get as many as possible working for you, since Abyssia is pretty much a 1 trick fire pony until you can get the higher up blood summons. The lack of archers for Abyssia is really minimal if you get a good ratio of salamanders and demonic commanders. I don't think the demon soldiers are worth investing in though, except as a good screen for your flying commanders. Even then, they're a waste, in my opinion, atleast after the first few years. All told, Abyssia isn't that great in multi-player if you play it straight, nation against nation, but you have an excellent capacity for getting around that by knocking out independents and holding onto them. Much better, in my opinion, than Niefelheim, with less weaknesses.