Dud nations

SelfishGene · #1 April 21st, 2007, 11:43 PM

No dud love for MA Mictlan?

I'm neither very fond of LA Ctis either.

EA Oceania and EA Ryleh make up for their weak amphib capacity by being much stronger underwater than EA Atlantis, and they should dominate the waves.

I would hesitate to call LA Arco a dud, but they do lose quite a lot of power and gain only a little variety in their troops. I like them in SP but i wonder if they're not rather weak in Multi.

As i've said before, Marverni is a very very weak nation as well that has all but one unit (the Druid) that you must base your whole strategy around. Their basic troops are worse than indie Barbarians. Good luck surviving without an Awake pretender.

I actually think EA Arco might be rather weak in all honestly, although i can see players doing well with them. If you play them thematically (3 magic/3 sloth), and make best use of philosophers, your still sort of stuck "rolling" for good randoms on your Mystics. Depending upon what randoms you get your game could be very strong or very weak.

HoneyBadger · #2 April 21st, 2007, 11:50 PM

I wouldn't by any means call EA Oceania weak. They have the single *best* sacred troop in the whole game, and Triton Kings with 4 water right off the bat.

Run well, they should be the Helheim of the ocean.

If they were amphibious, they'd be the best nation in the game, in my opinion.

R'lyeh Aboleths is easily the weakest of the bunch.

EA Atlantis could really use more national summons-especially weird, squishy/flappy ones, to go along with that whole Lovecraft jones-overall, though, I'd say they're the most balanced water nation.

DrPraetorious · #3 April 22nd, 2007, 12:32 AM

I tend to agree about ME Agartha.

I should note that ME Agartha does *not* get skull mentors. Those guys have a whopping 2.5% chance of DD, and they're capital only.

This also means that, unlike every other era of Agartha, you can't cast darkness, which is your killer ap. This isn't to say that ME Agartha doesn't have some strengths. Those statues really are quite excellent.

Ulm may be slightly underpowered (Master Smiths should probably have 100% on that random), but not hugely so.

EA Ulm gets superior troops and doesn't pay more gold for them. They're also only resource heavy if you want them to be. They max out at 2 in most paths, but they get every element, nature and death.

EA Arco is not weak - it is *difficult*. It can produce more research than any other nation, and it has a great variety of magic (every element, astral, nature) incl. the ability to form communions. Your military kinda bites but not so badly that it can't be salvaged.

EA Marverni, on the other hand, has an utterly dreadful military, and no research bonus. That's a weak nation. If they had philosophers they'd be fine, but they don't - which means they're stuck with magic that-will-eventually-be-great but you-won't-survive-to-use-it. I've never seen Marverni survive the initial rush of wars. Possibly this is just because experienced players avoid playing it.

The other nations that could use some help are ME T'ien Ch'i and Bandar Log. ME T'ien Ch'i isn't terrible, but it gets none of the cool stuff available to the other eras of T'ien Ch'i. Bandar Log has the same problem as Marverni, although at least you get elephants.

Shinuyama is also kinda weak. You can do darkvision+darkness, which is cool, but all of your stuff is just overpriced.

Xietor · #4 April 22nd, 2007, 01:07 AM

My issue with ME Ulm is more thematic. They are not the best race or even in the top 5, of sword and steel. that is their theme, but put one of ulms infantry up against one from arcos and they suck. Ulm's infantry should be the best, best armor, best morale, best overall, and it is not close.

Even Pangaea's infantry, not counting the recuperation, is much better. While not quite as much prot(16 is still good),
it has more hp and much much higher defense, mr, and more hps as well.

So my beef is that every race should fear Ulm's infantry, but in reality whose does? Very few.

Sombre · #5 April 22nd, 2007, 01:30 AM

I don't really agree that the theme of Ulm ME is supposed to be ultra elite soldiers. They're an armour nation and they have some scary knights but nothing in the infantry descriptions makes me think anything other than standard feudal man-at-arms infantry. You compare them with Sparta, but I just don't see anything like that in the descriptions.

HoneyBadger · #6 April 22nd, 2007, 01:48 AM

Well, I don't have a problem with them not being Spartans, but I'd like to ask the question-provided they're not, then what *are* they? They started out Cimmerians, ended up Carpathians, what's in the middle? What qualities make them a distinct nation, rather than just a placeholder?

Sombre · #7 April 22nd, 2007, 01:58 AM

Super-heavy armour nation of smiths. Based on germanic european culture.

Not all the nations in Dom3 have to exactly match up with a mythology or historical period.

Edi · #8 April 22nd, 2007, 02:26 AM

For an indepth analysis of EA Ulm units, see this thread.

I do not consider EA Ulm weak. It has some problem with its magics, namely low levels but good versatility. It has good units as long as you only use the female units and archers and possibly the iron and steel warriors.

Marverni could conceivably be a good nation to play, but it requires production scales to be able to pump out the good units. Ambibate Noble Warrior is one of the best EA infantry units. If you also have a F9 bless, the boar warriors provide with quite the shock potential early on.

I must say that I have not played very many nations at all, though I have a fair idea of strengths and weaknesses due to my familiarity with the units from making the DB.

I will also note that if some nation does not suit a particular player's play style, chances are that the player will suck with even a strong nation compared to something that does suit him.

Evilhomer · #9 April 22nd, 2007, 06:30 AM

yes EA r'lyeh and EA oceania can kill atlantis, but that doesn't mean that it makes up for their complete lack of good amphibious units. Basically as someone said before you are forced to stick with indies and some summons when you go ashore, and thats not viable in a MP game. No nation are wrecked, and even the water nations can win a mp game. However they are good contestants for the weakest nation in EA, unless the water section of an mp game is huge.