Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm. A fair point. 4 is probably too high for Marverni's troops considering the competition. "Adequate" = 3 is probably more appropriate, since their elites (Ambibate nobles) are not deficient but not unusual outstanding for elites.

Of course, that means Agartha has to go down to 2.

-Max

[Zeldor]

There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.

Marverni probalby scales 1-2 in troops That's as challenging as expanding with just LA Bogarus armies.

[Twan]

Some more :

LA Atlantis 4 3 3 4 3 (cheap sacreds and/or Dagon pretender + amphibiousity allow fast expansion in all directions, but nation become weaker in mid-late game due to weak mages and lack of diversity out of capitol, nation remain capable in endgame as capitol ones are tough and have correct death levels + access to interesting water-death summons)
LA Mictlan 4 3 4 1 2 (bad learning note due to the sacrifice dom ; nation is strong in early game due to its sacred and in late with summoned demon uniques and unlimited slave income ; nation is weaker in midgame as blood researchs/hunting take a moment to pay)
LA Patala 4 4 3 4 2 (elephants allow good expansion, mages are very powerful for late age, and magical economy is excellent, with easy forge of both hammers and clams - nation looks harder to play in MP due to the vulnerability of nagarishis against magic duel)
LA Arco 2 3 3 4 2 (heavy elephants slow your expansion compared to ME ones, they remain as useless in mid-late game due to poor MR and aren't really harder to kill or better as you will have a 2 or 3 time smaller number of them -except if you sacrify a lot of points in production, but so you'll have bad other scales-, correct other troops and very diverse magic allow a rather good mid-late game, but the nation is far to be dominating -the loss of one astral level on the best mages is an heavy price for more nature and a weak access to death ; also 8hp and low def sybyls are easily killed by a simple earthquake ; I prefer by far ME for Arco)
LA Ulm 2 2? 4? 1 ? (started several games with this nation which seem to have a rather good potential with its vampires and spawned wolfs, mix of heavy and stealthy troops, sacred and anti-sacred units etc... but I find it very hard to play, handicaped in research, and too much relying on its pretender)
LA Caelum 4 3 3 3 3 (a medium nation, with good mammoth based expansion, but the lose of astral access is a big price for more death, and the nation is more capitol dependant than in other eras)
LA Chelm 3 3 2 4 2 (longbowmen as less usefull in LA due to more heavy indies, rather good troops and diversified magic give the nation a good midgame potential, but mages are not really powerful especially for late game)

[MaxWilson]

By the way, a quick test shows 23 F9W9 Helhirdlings get consistently pwned by the equivalent gold-cost of indy slingers. Marverni's slingers are slightly more expensive but still work better than the warriors, so if you get in a war with Helheim go for the cheap troops.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Zeldor said:
There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.

I tend to agree, but to a certain extent that's Jim's problem. I'm a "2" on experience at best and he's welcome to disregard my ratings.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Zeldor said:
There is really a reason why only experienced people's opinions should make the real ranking. Even if there aren't so many opinions.

Marverni probalby scales 1-2 in troops That's as challenging as expanding with just LA Bogarus armies.

My roommate actually devoted several days of spare time to playing around with Bogarus (he loves all things Russian). He got a pretty efficient system going for expansion after a few tries. In a sense, I would say some of these nations who are considered weaker, it's less a nation strength issue, and more of an "ease of learning" issue. Unfortunately, a low ease of learning is usually a direct effect of a particular nation having less viable strategy options, whereas one big reason a nation would rate highly there is not just because they are strong, but because they have the tools that you can do reasonably well plugging in YOUR strat, rather than having to learn exactly how that nation plays, in order to prosper.

And also bearing in mind that's why the ease of learning is referenced to SP (learning speed for beginners) while the "ease of use" is referenced to MP, where different factors come more into play. Taking that dual bless Helherdings vs indie slingers comparison, maneuvering small groups of extremely powerful units is much EASIER to do, than to effectively mount an army of hundreds of slingers. And while you are massing up the worst troops in the game, Helheim is taking territories to skew the balance of power. If you take territories with the slings, you will likely have significant attrition while he only randomly loses a troop here and there.

Perhaps it would be best if SP and MP had their own strength ratings in addition to the ease of learning and ease of use. But it would all get rather complicated, and it's hard enough to get people to submit ratings. And besides, you long term vets who are hanging around here didn't peer pressure your old friends to submit ratings, so I had to solicit less informed players (like myself, I WILL post soon, it might wait til after my Luck tests though), and whose fault is that?

[MaxWilson]

Actually I find that slingers and such are pretty decent for expansion. Marverni's slingers have shields, which means they win missile duels. You'll still need ground troops (slingers are kind of like arty spells in that they have trouble finishing off the last few survivors) but missile troops are not bad at all for expansion. I haven't done this with Marverni slingers recently, but when I first tried LA Agartha I consistently had problems expanding until I forgot about my blessed blindfighters and did expansion with crossbowmen and cave drakes. Marverni slingers are ten times easier to mass than LA Agarthan crossbowmen. So anyway, I don't think massing up slingers is banking on the "worst unit in the game." Slingers are much better than Wind Riders, for instance. (Also note that if he "randomly loses a troop here and there", probably because someone doesn't get blessed or gets out of formation, it probably costs as much as "significant attrition" for me. 1 Helhirding = 9 slingers.)

Do note that missile troops scale better than melee troops. 5 F9W9 Helherdings would probably cream their gold-cost equivalent in slingers. That does tend to steepen the learning curve because you have to learn when you have "enough". One thing to do to get a feel for "enough" is to leave an PD 1 border territory so that when he attacks it, you can simulate a battle against his forces by Shift+U placing your own army's equivalent units directly on the battlefield. That's how I do most of my testing. It's not perfect but it's a lot less tedious than playing out test games.

One more note: Helheim is clearly stronger in the early game than Marverni. They have better troops, more strategic options (because of stealth), better intel (because of flying stealth troops), etc. I just don't think Helheim's troops deserves a 5 to Marverni's 1 or 2. Cost matters.

-Max

Edit: fixed math.

[thejeff]

The 5 F9W9 Helhirding beating their gold cost equivalent is the problem.

You're going to need 1 big slinger army to win and he's going to have 4-5 small stealthy Helhird forces that can slaughter everything but that big army.

[MaxWilson]

But if you catch one of his little stealthy forces by guessing where one of the 4-5 is going to go, you can annihilate it with your big army. That's 610 gold right there, assuming he's using a cheap commander.

Again, Helheim is clearly stronger, but Marverni's troops aren't bad. My original reason for mentioning the slingers was mainly just that I wanted to point out that going for elite troops like Ambibates vs. Helheim is a losing game.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

My point about the logistical difficulty with the massed slingers is just that, logistics. While every turn your enemy is probably putting out a death squad of 5 Helherdings with a blesser, a single turn worth of slingers in one province isn't going to do much, and is going to require a lot more leadership. If he has 20 sacreds in one force, the amount of slingers needed becomes very cumbersome to wield in the early game. Also if he were to go for W9/E9, you might find that the slings just don't accomplish much. And in the case of Marverni, if you are trying to combat melee troops, those shields may be more of a liability, by increasing cost, or reducing training rate.