Well CBM1.9 is nice, but why no buff for Fomoria??

[Sajuuk]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Best to put this stuff in the CBM thread really, it's a bit confusing to have the discussion split here as well.

Tir na n'Og, Eriu and Vanheim were genuinely really weak under CB1.84. Did you try to play them? Vanheim in particular. TNN were powerful because of the Awe on Ris, but didn't have many other choices.

The gradual-death-on-land idea for R'lyeh is very interesting. R'lyeh's situation is an odd one. Purely aquatic giboleths are interesting in theory but don't make for good gameplay in practice. Once R'lyeh conquers the seas it has no choice but to abandon all its key national troops (giboleths and relatives) and rely almost entirely on indies and summons to conquer the land. Any giboleths etc left over from the wars for the sea become just upkeep-consuming dead weight. The trouble is that it's not just difficult to get them up onto land, but actually impossible.

They are not actually fish anyway. They are just monsters which spawned in the deeps.

I would have liked to go with a theme of the Mind Lords and Aboleths having such power that they were able to bring a bubble of water up with them onto the land by telekinesis. The trouble is that that doesn't actually solve the problem of the troops, and it's not credible that polypal spawn have enough psionic power to carry water with them. So instead the theme has to be just that they are straightforwardly amphibious.

But as I say the gradual-death-on-land idea is interesting. I might look into using something like that. The concern is that it would just generate infuriating micromanagement, trying to constantly cycle all the giboleths back into the sea every few turns. An alternative might be for all the giboleth things to be weaker on land, or have Exhaustion or something.

Well, if using a standard W9F9 blessing,EA vanheim can still definitely rush 1 or 2 nations, at the cost of late games of cause, but those unlucky enough to be rushed have no late game at all. So why not increase the cost of sacred troops AND decrease the cost of normal troops? Give those unlucky a chance

Purely aquatic giboleths versus purely aquatic knight of the deeps, thats not really different when already dominated the oceans, except ea oceania have a higher chance to face such condition...... Anyway, its just weird to make a totally underwater nation amphibious, so some restriction, Exhaustion or gradual-death-on-land would be nice

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Sajuuk

Well, if using a standard W9F9 blessing,EA vanheim can still definitely rush 1 or 2 nations, at the cost of late games of cause, but those unlucky enough to be rushed have no late game at all. So why not increase the cost of sacred troops AND decrease the cost of normal troops? Give those unlucky a chance

F9W9 is not a standard Van bless. It used to be but since the nerf to glamour I've seen it used exactly once. I'm not saying you couldn't stage an early rush with EA Van but it's not worth that bless. CBM makes anti-rush counters available earlier and you're still only dealing with 15 HP units. You'd be better off with a light (thug focused) bless and just try to add more units to your rush attempt. And, you could just as easily pull off a rush with Mictlan or Niefel (both of whom have better late games) so I'm not really sure what makes Van so exceptional in this regard.

I understand a new release of CBM will prompt discussion of the changes but until some games are actually played it's mostly speculation. But it's worth pointing out that even before the they were hit so hard by recent CBM changes (which the 1.9 release addresses) glamour nations weren't exactly dominating.

I realize the HoF isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of each nation's power but if you look at the top winners in each era I think most people would agree that they are strong nations.

So, looking over the glamour nations, TNN/Eriu rank low (no surprise there). Comparing TNN CBM 1.6 vs. 1.9 I'd say they're about the same level of power, maybe a bit of a boost. Eriu is I think in a considerably better position thanks to recruit everywhere bean sidhe, but they were also the most hapless of the glamour nations and in the most need of help.

Helheim has a solid four wins. This sounds good but I'll wager most, if not all, of those wins were pre-glamour nerf, which not only nerfed glamour but made svartalfs cap only. Basically the Helheim that won those games is not the same as the Helheim we have now.

EA Van I think may also have won pre-glamour nerf and with 1.5 wins they were hardly dominating even then.

MA Van is unusual; three wins but at least two of those only came in the past year or so. Post glamour nerf I always thought they were the strongest glamour nation (I'm excepting Midgard from this as I don't really consider them a glamour nation - it's more like Fomoria, with some cap only glamour units as an option) and was surprised when they qualified for the first Cripple Fight game a few years (participants were nations from all eras that didn't yet have a win).

Again, the HoF isn't perfectly representative of each nation's power but I will say those stats largely match my experience both playing and observing them. I just haven't seen any sign that glamour nations are dominating the game. If that changes and Van starts winning all the time I'll be the first to advocate nerfing them, as I really don't like OP things. But it seems to me there should be some evidence of this before people talk about nerfing them before games have even been played with the current CBM release. And as an aside, Jotun ranks high in wins in every era and can be just brutal to face late game so why isn't the conversation about nerfing them?

Moving on to Fomoria, I'm in the camp that thinks they are a solid nation. I don't think anyone would say they are Niefel level but I also don't think we want that to be the standard to balance nations against, or to say that there's a separate (higher) level of power that giant nations should balance against. It's also interesting that they rank third in wins in the EA. I think the HoF can be inaccurate in that strong nations may not have many wins because they so frequently get dogpiled but it doesn't seem likely to me that weak nations are somehow just stumbling on to a series of wins. So I think Fomoria is ok, but I will say if llama decides to make some changes that Samhain's list is very good - reasonable, targeted changes that actually stay within the theme (though I wouldn't make Unmarked Champions cap only - it's a nice unit that would never get recruited if it were cap only).

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Valerius

F9W9 is not a standard Van bless. It used to be but since the nerf to glamour I've seen it used exactly once. I'm not saying you couldn't stage an early rush with EA Van but it's not worth that bless. CBM makes anti-rush counters available earlier and you're still only dealing with 15 HP units. You'd be better off with a light (thug focused) bless and just try to add more units to your rush attempt. And, you could just as easily pull off a rush with Mictlan or Niefel (both of whom have better late games) so I'm not really sure what makes Van so exceptional in this regard.

Also, that once would be me, and i did it for the lulz

Of course, i also scored a win as Fomoria using a scales + Nemedian Warriors strategy. Clearly Fomoria doesn't have to rely on blessing its giants. (Nemedian warriors are awesome, screw this 'no money' 'big bless' giants nonsense).