Luck/Turmoil versus Nothing.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Calahan

I'm pretty sure you're wrong.
Surprised to see people arguing over this instead of just spending the two minutes it takes to test it. And yet again my pet hate of someone making a claim about a game mechanic without any test data to back it up.

Its why I said pretty sure, rather than represent it as fact. I do try to distinguish. But thanks for the test = )

[Squirrelloid]

Niefl with turmoil strikes me as a really bad idea because you really need cash early. Death is pretty sketchy too, since you want to run a blood economy later.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer Baalz's build, but Baalz's guide is all about ditching the bless for more lategame options, not about taking painful scales for a bigger bless.

[militarist]

I don't say Niefelheim is a best nation fitting for turmoil, I absolutely agree. It's really expansive nation. I wouldn't do it either. I just explained how it also could work, but I agree that example is not the best for trying turmoil builds.I defenitely didn't try to make a new Niefelheim guide.

[chrispedersen]

you dont' get a magic bonus under enemy dominion.

[chrispedersen]

If you are going for a triple major bless 9x9y9z
a rainbow pretender can work;

You save 8x8x3 points,
versus the usual standard of the oracle which is saves you (6+7+8)*8 points, but would cost you 100 points for the extra 2 paths.

However, this is only true if you only need a relatively few sacred units, for the differential in dominion score starts to factor in.

ie., the oracle starts with 3 picks advantage in the number of sacreds, worth anywherefrom 21 to 24*7 points = 168 points.


Ie., what I'm trying to say, is in most cases an oracle or fountain of blood is a better choice for a pretender so long as the pretender has the paths you want and you want to use a 9/9/9 blessing.

That doesn't however take into account the utility of a rainbow pretender for site searching. Still generally if you have a triple bless, the goal is to get as many of these sacred warriors out there as you can- site searching becomes much less important.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its easy to shoot holes in guides. But a guide doesnt have to be perfect for every game played by every person. Just a guide. As long as it avoids the pitfalls applicable to a nation its worth plugging into the hole. If it works for many people most of the time against average players, even better. IMHO

[militarist]

Chrispedersen you are right, you don't get +, you only negate your -.In positive (and, probably,neutral) magical enemy dominion you don't have your drain effect as well(I don't know what's happening in negative enemy dominion, would be good to check). So, you just have 0 bonus which is still worth it, as it means you got 120 points for free. And it is still better then taking M1, which becomes very expencive (because taking M1 for 40, add 120 you've lost not taking drain = 160 ).

Actually my rule is if I have weak dominion , I'm always looking towards possibility to take Drain3. Drain 3 gives you 120 points, which is almost the price of having awake pretender instead of something between sleeping/imprisoned. But it's pretty beneficial in early game, and if you like early rushes, it's not bad at all. I think with very strong sacreds, like lanka you can also try drain 3 with sleeping pretender, to maximize your points and start research after the stage early expansion. Or even with imprisoned, if you can survive early game with no magic- just start researching in enemy dominion by usual mages.
If you got turmoil in this situation or just limited in $ by any other reason, you just can maximize hiring sacreds, ignoring standard for many 1 mage per turn rule. Your sacreds, blessed so heavily definitely will do much more than mages with early spells.

Hint: water nations , even with dominion 10, always have access to enemy dominion.

[chrispedersen]

Mil,

I agree with you generally. I love to play "pocket dominion" its one of the fun things about mictlan, arco, and a few other nations. I did this strategy very effectively in NAV.

You get no benefit in neutral dominion either.

However, you don't need to have triple blessed lanka in order to rock with lanka.
I do consider drain with lanka, just to increase the mr vs banish.

You'd have a hard time convincing me that an awake pretender is worth more than a higher dominion score and better scales.

Essentially your power curve is number of sacreds you can pump out times the power of those sacreds. In terms of point buys, going to a Dom9 is always cheaper than going to magic path 9.

[RadicalTurnip]

I agree that Niefel is usually a huge candidate for Order over Turmoil, but I was trying a niche strategy, and it was on a medium map against 5 people (so a fairly small map), which meant that I had the game won within a few years. If anybody would have been focused on researching or figuring out how to beat my bless, they would have had an easy time with it, but everyone happened to be in-fighting, so my 2 30-giant armies steamrolled all the castles, and my 7+ thugs raiding into enemy territory bought me most of the other provinces.

I guess this got a bit off-topic, but what I was trying to say is that no pretender build is the best 100% of the time, there are niche uses for everything, even things which seem counter-productive sometimes.

[chrispedersen]

No pretender choice will be the best for all situations - but some pretender choices are optimal or near optimal, and will allow you to both maximize your positives and have a shot at winning the game.

Sub-optimal designs, conversely will lower your chances.