Choosing a Country: Adventures of a N00b

[Yrkoon]

I have tried several nations (bless and not bless) in different eras. Dual bless is always powerful but to really benefit from it you need to be able to recruit lots of sacreds, so non-capital only sacreds are best (EA Agartha, EA and MA Mictlan, EA and MA Bandar and so on). Capital only troops that cost not too much resources are OK, because you can produce then in decent numbers. Capital only troops that cost a lot of resources are not good : you end up with bad scales for the whole nation, and can only recruit a handful of sacreds from one single province.

I am currently in a game with MA Bandar Log and I have to say they are one of the best nations I played in SP because they have so many possibilities. They are a bless nation without strong recruitable priests which makes it a challenge at first, then with enough research they can summon troops.

And then the fun begins... Sooooo many different national summons: astral, nature, water, blood. Many of them are sacred commanders, strong mage priests able to bless the sacred troops. Others summons are shape changing seducers (and mage priests too). Some demon assassins in national blood summons, as well as national demons troops. And you can summon national amphibian troops too. All these summons diversify the magic of the nation, from initially astral and nature (a very little bit of earth and water), to very strong air, water, earth and blood. Even strong fire and death when you hit conjuration 8 and gain access to the Rudras (brutal 4 armed SCs, very powerful mage priest, sacred, flying, immunities to some elements ... and looking sooooo cool)

The sheer variety of the summons makes it really a great nation to play. You don't get bored with the nation at all even in a long game (which is something I have experienced with other nations; they suffer from the "more of the same thing" syndrome in long games). With Bandar Log, I just can't wait to see what next they can do. I still haven't seen all their national blood summons and from what I have seen so far, it's going to be good.

EA Mictlan is also very nice. The were-jaguars are awesome, and dirt cheap. And Mictlan has lots of blood summons. Bandar logs has fewer blood summons, but more summons overall - and they are distinctly different, so the nation has more "flavour".

[Yrkoon]

Regarding the bad scales, it is a necessary evil to get a stronger bless. As is taking an imprisoned pretender. But you can't have it all ...

Mind you, many bless nations can take some bad scales without problem (sloth, heat/cold, misfortune if combined with order ...). I never take death because I see myself as a benevolent god. But death does make sense sometimes (EA Agartha for ex.)

[Tyrant]

I would suggest picking either early or mid era and concentrating on that. Late era is less frequently played and Ashen Empire and Dreamlands make it a bit weird.

[capnq]

I like variety. I never play the same Age and nation in two consecutive solo games. (I also tend to start new games before finishing earlier ones.)

For Ages, I just cycle through them. Once I've picked an Age, I decide what magic path(s) I want to specialize in, then pick a nation to fit that. Since getting the full version, I've started games as EA Marverni (nature), MA T'ien Ch'i (air), and LA Agartha (earth), and have plans for EA fire (probably Abysia) and MA water (almost certainly R'lyeh).

I want to finish at least one single-player game before I attempt multiplayer.

[LDiCesare]

I tend to cycle through nations at random. I dislike water nations so rarely play them, but the result is I'm not really good with any nation and tend to get trashed in mp games for lack of knowledge of any particular nation.
I like AE Agartha (nice summons) and T'ien Ch'i (nice summons and sacreds), all ages C'tis (as sauromancers = skeleton spam are hard to get wrong), and LE Arcoscephale (armored elephants!). I think of trying to get good with one or two nations in each era only in order to be able to play them in mp without looking clueless or realising after a few turns that I miss astral and death or did something silly like not using the drain immunity of LE Man or ME Ulm.

[Stryke11]

Bit off topic but for the first responder the phrase "x makes me a sad panda" is from the South Park episode, "Sexual Harrassment Panda" which basically was about some of the complexities of the sexual harrassment issue and had a side story of random mascots (hence a panda, which has nothing to do with SH).

PS. I love late age, so I just wanted to throw that in since the consensus seems to be that it sucks. I love the vamps with Ulm, the Mictlantlantis, spooky Marignon, Man meets Heavy Steel & Crossbows, cult Pythium, and now Bogarus. Yeah, jotun, vanheim, tien chi, and a few others are almost exactly the same as other eras with like one different unit (my main criticism of the 'heims in general) but overall I'd say late age is my favorite.