Ashdod is worthless now

[triqui]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

Actually Squirrel, I have done some test and I found out that if you are taking a bless only for the Niefel giants, you are much better of with a Son of Fenrir with W4N6 and dom9.

That's my point. You can, if you want, be creative. Sure, there are "better" blesses than others. It's hard to argue that E9 or W9 are better than A9, for example. But even if some blesses are "optimal", they should not be "the only one that is possible". There's a difference between Jaguars benefiting more from F9 than S9, and not being able to use any other bless but F9.

Encumbrance 7 in a unit with 75g44r per attack (and no damaging aura), pretty much *force* them to earth blesses. With Encumbrance 5 it'll be the best possible bless anyway, but it would not force people to take it no matter of what. Someone could try to be creative as you did with your W4N6 bless. With encumbrance 7, that's simply not an option.


Now that I think, what other units have encumbrance 7, besides Annakites and centaur Cataphracts?

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

Actually Squirrel, I have done some test and I found out that if you are taking a bless only for the Niefel giants, you are much better of with a Son of Fenrir with W4N6 and dom9.

Why? I compared him to the Master druid with a E9N4 bless and the wolf got *4* more scales and *3* points of extra dominion. The giants wont be quite as strong with this bless but you'll have much more of them and you are much more likely to fight your battles in cold dominion.

Contradiction much? (Note emphasis added)

It may be stronger for the nation (though I highly doubt it), but its not stronger for Niefl Giants. As you admit yourself. There's a difference between a bless that's optimal for a sacred and a pretender build that's optimal for the nation.

More generally, why would you even take a Son of Fenrir, its a bad chassis that does nothing for you? A green dragon would get you the N bless and be able to expand (not that Nieflheim needs it - well, they probably do as you apparently don't plan on using Niefl Jarls).

I think you'd find that E9 doubles the expected lifetime (or more) of Niefl Giants, and you don't double your income by avoiding it, plus it makes your Niefl Jarls into SCs from turn 1. The viable alternatives to E9N4 from a nation (not Niefl Giant) perspective are E4N4-based rainbows, which use skinshifters or just Jarls to expand, and the rainbow to diversify and site search.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by triqui

I've played in MP against W9 Niefelheim,

I have to admit this build really confuses me. Even with a W9 bless Niefel giants aren't going to be dishing out many attacks but if you really wanted to double your attacks your mages can easily cast quickness on them (and of course all your Jarls can cast personal quickness). So all you get out of this is +4 defense - but as giants they are going to be completely outnumbered so that defense bonus isn't going to help them like it would a smaller unit. The only advantage I can see is if they're facing other giants but even there I'd prefer to take the earth bless as it will prevent them from getting fatigued while your cold aura and possibly your own chaff tire out your opponents (assuming they don't have their own E bless). I honestly can't think of a situation where a W9 bless would be better for Niefel than an E9 bless (even aside from the fact that strong E is a much better addition to your magic diversity than strong W).

Originally Posted by triqui

and against (or, actually, along side) F4W4N4E4 Unmarked fomorians.

This I can see working. The nice thing about rainbow blesses is that you can usually get them just by spending a little more here and there when designing your pretender. TNN's Tuatha warriors work nicely with them as do MA Jotun's woodsmen (F4E4N4 works well though even just N4E4 will get the job done).

Originally Posted by triqui

Those aren't the best blesses for those chasses, but the best blesses for those chasses in a metagame that involve Multiplayer Competitive fights in 10-15 provinces per player in matchs of 8 players that happen in Llamaserver among people who ussually fight using the conventional approach (ie: the "optimal build for chasses").

Well, CBM is going to have to choose something to balance against. What do you think it should be? Personally my guess is that most Dominions players play SP but there balance isn't an issue and it can actually be more interesting to have things imbalanced.

I'm not much of a minmaxer myself and there's nothing wrong with taking a build for the fun of it, but I wouldn't expect CBM to balance itself against my non-optimal builds - otherwise a true minmaxer will be able to abuse the heck out of things.

As far as different game types go, I've played several duels and obviously there you have a different focus as all you need is to defeat one opponent. IMO the main difference large and medium size games (aside from hellish micromanagement ) is that having your best units be cap only is more of a drawback and good scales matter more than ever.

[triqui]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Well, CBM is going to have to choose something to balance against. What do you think it should be? Personally my guess is that most Dominions players play SP but there balance isn't an issue and it can actually be more interesting to have things imbalanced.

I think it's fine balancing out against MP with 8 players per match in medium sized maps. It's a fair middleground.

However, I disagree with some of the CBM balancing decisions.