Aridia- LA game for intermediate players

[Catquiet]

Originally Posted by Sil

Here's my counter point to this. There are two major issues with low magic sites, and indeed the CBM gem gen changes, particularly the lack of clams: they make Blood much more powerful since you can't counter/compete with it with big Astral spam and they make caster nations a lot tougher to play. The usefulness of any bless is also considerably increased, which is a good or bad thing depending on how long in the game you think sacred recruitables should be a major force.

I always felt that the Gem Generators warped long games. Blood, while powerful, has a constant cost. You are giving up gold from the province and research from the hunters. After a one time payment for a clam or blood stone, they are all profit with no real limit to how many you can ultimately collect. Blood income is also a lot more vulnerable than clams. You can raid, assassinate, or conquer blood hunting provinces but a clam hoarder can maintain a 50 astral income even if he is reduced to just his capital.

[Groundworm]

I tend to agree with Catquiet. In addition to his points, there's also the fact that the most recent version of CBM effectively eliminates SDRs. This admittedly is a semi-biased fix, as it affects blood nations disproportionately- Lanka and Vanheim, for instance, are hit much harder than Niefelheim.

As for certain nations needing to meet research goals, I don't advocate slow research (though I've never actually tried altered research settings), and altering site frequency doesn't effect researching at all. To address your specific point, Sil, I would argue that Patala needing Alt 3 by the end of year 1 to counter rushes is fine, but if you're waiting until the end of year 1 to expand in a not crippled manner, you're already way too late to join the party.

[Groundworm]

Also, the game is up: http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Aridia