Newbie has Questions.

Thanks alot, your answers helped me alot.
Tuidjy, how is it that Iron Faith Ulm has no chance in regular games, also their units are not very different from regular ulm.
You also said that Iron Faith Ulm is one of two that has no chances, what is the other?

[The Panther]

My opinion for the other hopeless theme would be T'ien Ch'i Barbarian Kings.

[Cainehill]

And all the themes for Abysia.

[Tuidjy]

First, let me say that all personal opinions should be taken with a grain of
salt. Even good players can totally disagree on balance matters. About the
only thing you can rely on is that if a player says that the race he plays sucks
he is either a moron, a liar or both.

> Tuidjy, how is it that Iron Faith Ulm has no chance in regular games, also
> their units are not very different from regular ulm.

The problem is not so much with the units... it's with the mages. Templars
may be better than the knights that base Ulm has, but unless you have an amazing
blessing, they become irrelevant at the same time as their counterparts.

The mages have a random, keep the forge bonus and cost only half as much to
maintain, but lose the second level in Earth magic, and the drain immunity.
On top of that Iron Faith has an enforced drain scale. Research is abismal,
all the forged items are very low level, and your gem income is earth only.
You cannot afford to take a rainbow mage, because you will be stomped in the
early game by a combat pretender. You cannot afford to expand like crazy,
because you will piss off other players, and get mobbed in middle game.
Unless you are extremely lucky with independants, you will be very limited in
your magic, and will be irrelevant in late game.

The one thing that can make Iron Faith thrive in a multiplayer game is diplomacy,
and trade alliances. Now, anyone who wants to play a war game so he can be a
small fish and play nice with the big guys, is welcome to the theme. It is just
not my idea of fun.

> You also said that Iron Faith Ulm is one of two that has no chances, what is
> the other?

T'ien Ch'i: Barbarian Kings. It's even worse than Iron Faith Ulm, in my opinion.
Limited build-everywhere mages, crippled capitol mages, indifferent units, and
enforced turmoil.

By the way, for a good discussion of relative nation powers, search for the
"Dominions 2 Power Rankings" thread.

I now have a question about Arcane Nexus, cause i casted it thinking it gave me gems when people cast spells, so i casted, then next turn i get Arcane nexus has absorbed 95 astral gems, so im like OOOO ya! I can cast another wish!!! But those gems did not show up in my lab or my pretender, so what does Astral Nexus do?

[Yvelina]

I think that you have to divide the number of gems reported by about four. I had Astral Vortex active for a while in 'Live and Learn', and it was reporting about 400 gems per turn, but I was getting about a hundred.

What's awesome about this spell is that you can wish for gems, use the gems to forge items, and then astral vortex gathers pearls from both the wish and the construction materials... as well as from the dispell attempts :-)

But be careful. Astral Vortex is very much like a red flag to most competitive players. In the above mentioned Live and Learn, all remaining players united against me after I had AV and FoA up for about ten turns. :-(

[Graeme Dice]

Yvelina said:
I think that you have to divide the number of gems reported by about four. I had Astral Vortex active for a while in 'Live and Learn', and it was reporting about 400 gems per turn, but I was getting about a hundred.

It tells you the astral equivalent of the non-astral, non-blood gems that were used in the world that turn, then gives you half of that.

What's awesome about this spell is that you can wish for gems, use the gems to forge items, and then astral vortex gathers pearls from both the wish and the construction materials... as well as from the dispell attempts

Astral spells and blood spells are not absorbed by the nexus.

[Yvelina]

Graeme Dice said:

It tells you the astral equivalent of the non-astral, non-blood gems that were used in the world that turn, then gives you half of that.

I just tested it. 885 pearls in the vault, 29 income. Host, 178 absorbed, 959 pearls in vault.

178 / (959 - 885 - 29) = 3.9555

It divides by 4.

[edit] By the way, astrals spells are, indeed, not absorbed. So I guess wishing for gems is only moderately awesome :-)