Nations that seem strong/weak

[PDF]

There's really a problem with Aby "aged" Warlocks and Anathemants, they die like flies and, given that Warlocks are capitol-only I can't even conceive how you can start a Blood economy with them.
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...OTOH with Shinuyama and Death-1 scale I had only 1 Sorc out of 8 diseased by turn 20 ! Looks like a problem with "old age" at a low value 35.
IMHO in these conditions Aby isn't playable competitively at all and even in SP it's not fun
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 !

[Nerfix]

Yeah, the problem is their low old age cap.

[calmon]

PDF said:
There's really a problem with Aby "aged" Warlocks and Anathemants, they die like flies and, given that Warlocks are capitol-only I can't even conceive how you can start a Blood economy with them.
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...OTOH with Shinuyama and Death-1 scale I had only 1 Sorc out of 8 diseased by turn 20 ! Looks like a problem with "old age" at a low value 35.
IMHO in these conditions Aby isn't playable competitively at all and even in SP it's not fun
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 !

Hmm, maybe there is a bug. I play a Arco Testgame and i've plenty of old Philosophers. Its late Fall in year 3 now and only 2 are diseased and 1 died. I think this is acceptable. Growth 3 here.

[Agrajag]

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

In my test game, with Growth-0 I had 1 mage diseased by the time I managed to forge boots for everyone. And a second mage mute.

Graeme Dice said:
I would never take a growth scale in any game unless I knew beforehand that the game was going to last for at least 100 turns. Otherwise the benefit is miniscule.
...
Order 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, drain 3 with a dominion 10, fire 8 Moloch will expand even faster, and still has good scales. Then you can be capturing three provinces per turn if there's room.

Maybe here lies the problem, you are too used to dom2's death scale, which was almost a no-brainer.
This here is dom3, a whole different beast.

[Graeme Dice]

Agrajag said:
Maybe here lies the problem, you are too used to dom2's death scale, which was almost a no-brainer.
This here is dom3, a whole different beast.

Other than the effect on old age afflictions, Dom3's death scale is identical to Dom2. A death 3 scale should be a no-brainer for Abysia, just like a heat 3 scale is, or a drain 3 scale is for Ulm. This is one of the nation's advantages to offset their use of the second weakest type of elemental magic and slightly overpriced troops.

[Agrajag]

Graeme Dice said:
Other than the effect on old age afflictions, Dom3's death scale is identical to Dom2.

But that's a serious effect, don't take it too lightly.

A death 3 scale should be a no-brainer for Abysia, just like a heat 3 scale is, or a drain 3 scale is for Ulm. This is one of the nation's advantages to offset their use of the second weakest type of elemental magic and slightly overpriced troops.

But that's more of a thematic problem than a balance problem. I don't think death should be a no-brainer for Abysia, nor do I think Drain is currently a no-brainer for Ulm (if you don't plan on using your national mages for research [which makes sense, since they aren't very good at it] it can really hurt)

[Graeme Dice]

Agrajag said:
But that's more of a thematic problem than a balance problem. I don't think death should be a no-brainer for Abysia, nor do I think Drain is currently a no-brainer for Ulm (if you don't plan on using your national mages for research [which makes sense, since they aren't very good at it] it can really hurt)

If you aren't planning to use Master Smith's for research, then what _are_ you planning to research with? And how are you going to pay for the almost required productivity 3 scale without taking drain 3? Even worse, your troops will be slaughtered by MR negates effects without the drain scale helping to protect them.

Death should certainly be an automatic choice for Abysia, or else their death scale resistance provides them with no actual benefit. Instead, they suffer worse from it than most nations thanks to their universally old fire mages. Or would you argue that Caelum should sometimes not take cold 3? If playing nations thematically isn't a powerful way to play them, then something is probably wrong with how they are balanced.

[dirtywick]

If in a future patch or mod the Blood spell Rejuvenate took away old age afflictions in addition to making them younger I'd consider the death scale a good choice. I also think, the way the death scale currently effects Abysia, that playing the death theme isn't a good idea. The effects of the death scale on Abysia specifically definately needs to be looked at and adjusted as I don't think the tradeoff is worth it.

[Agrajag]

Graeme Dice said:
If you aren't planning to use Master Smith's for research, then what _are_ you planning to research with?

The Master Smith. Right until the point I find an independant mage

[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.