Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN

[Lord_Bob]

Lanka has maintenance free demons and undead as PD. Led around by their bloodhunting priests. Attempts to raid them with "200 gold force" stops when you hit the blood hunters and they kill you instantly.

[thejeff]

Again, nonsense. Your scouts tell you where the bloodhunters are, if you don't just guess by raiding the farms and other high income provinces where no one blood hunts.

Then you send real forces after the bloodhunters. Raiding weak provinces is fine, but trashing your enemies blood income is a real prize.

[VedalkenBear]

To be short, blunt, and to the point:

You have no basis at all for extrapolating from the given data an unequivocal statement on _anything_. Having just had a test where I was required to calculate confidence intervals for several questions, I can tell you that you have no idea how unsupported your claim is.

Your statement is not supported by the evidence. If you made a statement like, "The Ape nations have not won YET because people haven't figured out a way to compensate for their PD being unable to stop raiders," you might get a bit more agreement.

You are making an obviously flawed argument from the subject line on. I would suggest a basic course in statistics before you try to make this or similar claims.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
Attempts to raid them with "200 gold force" stops when you hit the blood hunters and they kill you instantly.

Let's try again, and then I think I'll just stop responding to this: PD can prevent loss of your provinces by random, unforeseen attacks. What you fail to notice, maybe by playing too much against the AI where there is no possibility to engage in diplomacy, is that an unforeseen attack on a province means a declaration of war. You opponent will then react to that attack and kill you.

I wouldn't think that somebody randomly attacks another just because it'd be a steal because the PD is bad. You can't "shop around" for the easiest provinces to conquer because they're not that well defended. "Oops, sorry, but your defense in there was just so low, I *had* to take that province." No, attacking another player and engaging in war is a rational decision based on a number of things, but if somebody decides to wage war against you, he certainly won't be stopped because your PD is a little stronger or weaker.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
The totally useless PD of these nations is why none of them have ever registered a single win in multi-player.

Is this some sort of running gag which I'm missing out on? My irony sensors are a bit perturbed at the moment.

If you honestly think that the PD strength makes that much of a difference then I would think that you are a MP newbie. By your reasoning, the Jotun giants would have to automatically win every game (zOMG GIANT PD!). If you'd actually engage in MP games you'd find out that players don't rely on PD that much, the more sophisticated players usually don't get any more than 1 PD. Because PD cannot be scripted, because PD becomes useless as soon as the nations get their magics/SCs in gear, and because the money you put into heavy PD is generally of better use elsewhere (buying more mages, for example). Caelum's PD impales themselves on the enemies' weapons as soon as they have the chance, BTW.

There is a difference in PD, this is done deliberately, and it can lead to different playstyles, that's the whole idea.

I have to admit that when I looked at the apes for the first time I was a little underwhelmed, too, but if you'd even bother to play with them you'd find out that they are awesome. Their national summons are really nice. Patala actually has some of the most awesome mages, especially for LA. As for the nations not winning any MP games that you know of, I wiped the floor with my opponents as Patala in a recent MP game of mine. Ask them if they felt like the apes were lacking and should be made stronger, if you want.

[Lord_Bob]

Repeating the revelant comparison with other races "weak" PD:
PD serves one purpose, and one purpose alone. It stops you from having to chase mageless, indie, mini-armies all around your empire. That is the only purpose for which it exists. The giants and Man's PD is QUITE CAPABLE of defeating a 200 gold raiding force at 20.

This is what is going to happen to the "awesome" 17 Indie Archer/1 Indie Commander raiding force against the "lousy" Giant PD. The Giants 2 commanders and 10 Giant Militia are going to take arrow fire and then reach the archers. They are then going to swing. At which point many, many archers will die. The Indie Archers with a morale of 7(-1 Dominion Penalty) are then probably going to route. At that point the giants will run them down and kill every one of them. The Commander will probably get away.

The Giant PD really sucks.

Oh yeah, EA Caleum is going to be PAWNED! By them 17 Indie Archers. They got some fliers, and you see, them fliers going to "stupidly charge" them archers and route them before the archers fire one shot. Them EA Caleum PD is OWNED by them Archers. COMPLETE PAWNAGE!

There is bad, and then there is hidiously ridiclious.

I can't even believe people are talking about Man PD. I have used 65 Man PD, backed by research mages and some longbowman and castle guards to repel 2 waves of 400 man armies backed by multiple mages from EA Ermor in the multiplayer game where I took over a messed up MA Man on some turn. MA Man PD is hidiously more powerfull than Ape PD. It is just plain mighty after 20.

[HJFudge]

Is this still being talked about?

So they have horribly bad PD. Dont buy any. Surely you do not believe that PD is the only useful way to stop from having to chase mageless, indie, mini-armies.

Yeah you might have to micromanage a bit more each turn and yeah a raiding force who gets in can be annoying, but its not like 1 raiding force is really gonna turn a game around if your busy smushing all the opponents stand up armies.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh, and another thing. That PD is the same PD that protects the capital and prevents rushing. I know that it is "only" 400/500 gold in troops for most nations. But in the starting turns, that is the equivelent of a whole turn worth of income.
With obvious resource restrictions, more than a turn. So it is possible to rush Bandar Capital one turn earlier than other nations, which is bad. Excluding imbalanced bless rushes/ect.
NOTE:
Lightly armoured PD that can still do damage is just the ticket versus elephant rushes... another thing that Patala doesn't have.