Broken Nations

[KissBlade]

DominionsFan said:

On small map blitzes it doesnt matter if a sacred is capital only or not.
Besides you forget yet another important thing about tienchi, they have excellent mages also, not just cheap and good sacreds. Those mages can be deadly in a blitz game even, if you research the correct path with them.

What does this have to do with "mass producing" a unit ...? In a blitz, you can produce an equal ratio of Vans vs. W5e's. If you could have an even amount which would you choose? If anything you can mass produce Vans even easier since all you need is a fort and a temple to get things rolling. I'm sure one of your neighbors can be persuaded to lend you use of their fort ...

[DominionsFan]

KissBlade said:

What does this have to do with "mass producing" a unit ...? In a blitz, you can produce an equal ratio of Vans vs. W5e's. If you could have an even amount which would you choose? If anything you can mass produce Vans even easier since all you need is a fort and a temple to get things rolling. I'm sure one of your neighbors can be persuaded to lend you use of their fort ...

It is pretty simple. Here is a situation. 5 FFA blitz. You are with Niefelheim, and 2 provinces away, there is Mitclan with an uber bless build. You think that you will survive turn 8-10? If Mictlan is rushing you are pretty much dead. The mictlan troops will totally outnumber the N giants, and will massacre them. Now you understand that what did I meant on "massing sacreds"?

[KissBlade]

DominionsFan said:


It is pretty simple. Here is a situation. 5 FFA blitz. You are with Niefelheim, and 2 provinces away, there is Mitclan with an uber bless build. You think that you will survive turn 8-10? If Mictlan is rushing you are pretty much dead. The mictlan troops will totally outnumber the N giants, and will massacre them. Now you understand that what did I meant on "massing sacreds"?

I think you may be a little too sour from losing to qm on that note ... Qm is an excellent player and you are most likely dead if you're 2 provinces away from him anyway. I wager your build was not prepared for an uber bless which is what you lost to, not the "massed sacreds". I got attacked with 122 Vans, one game. THAT'S a massed Sacred army! XD If you are playing a small blitz against Mictlan or S&A, you should be prepared with an awakened fire res Thug/SC with your build. If not, you're pretty much asking for it. And should I point out, you can just as easily "mass" woodsmen as well to equal numbers if I recall ... You shouldn't single out Mictlan and S&A as the mass sacred kings, especially not S&A which was my point of contention. They really don't mass any more effectively than any other sacred nations. In fact, I find Mictlan's and S&A nations both pretty ideally balanced. Though the jags might still need a bit of tweaking ...

PS. Niefel is also a bit countered by the f9/w9 bless since they're prone to catching on fire.

[DominionsFan]

KissBlade said:

I think you may be a little too sour from losing to qm on that note ... Qm is an excellent player and you are most likely dead if you're 2 provinces away from him anyway. I wager your build was not prepared for an uber bless which is what you lost to, not the "massed sacreds". I got attacked with 122 Vans, one game. THAT'S a massed Sacred army! XD If you are playing a small blitz against Mictlan or S&A, you should be prepared with an awakened fire res Thug/SC with your build. If not, you're pretty much asking for it. And should I point out, you can just as easily "mass" woodsmen as well to equal numbers if I recall ... You shouldn't single out Mictlan and S&A as the mass sacred kings, especially not S&A which was my point of contention. They really don't mass any more effectively than any other sacred nations. In fact, I find Mictlan's and S&A nations both pretty ideally balanced. Though the jags might still need a bit of tweaking ...

PS. Niefel is also a bit countered by the f9/w9 bless since they're prone to catching on fire.

Like I've said it was a 5 FFA not a 1v1. Mictlan's early rush is just almost impossible to beat without a specific build. You won't make a specific build against XY nation/player in an FFA game. I know that QM is an excellent player, but this has nothing to do with the fact, that Mictlan can field much more sacreds than most of other nations. Since their sacreds are good and cheap, with a proper bless they are rolling. In a couple of turns you can have a small army from those sacreds. So if you have 30 sacreds with nation X, and like 10 with nation Y, in the same time, we can talk about massing if you ask me.

Just for the record, I've also used rush tactic against many players in the blitzes with certain nations, and needless to say that they couldn't do anything. This all happens because of the imbalances of sacreds/blessings.

[KissBlade]

DominionsFan said:

Like I've said it was a 5 FFA not a 1v1. Mictlan's early rush is just almost impossible to beat without a specific build. You won't make a specific build against XY nation/player in an FFA game. I know that QM is an excellent player, but this has nothing to do with the fact, that Mictlan can field much more sacreds than most of other nations. Since their sacreds are good and cheap, with a proper bless they are rolling. In a couple of turns you can have a small army from those sacreds. So if you have 30 sacreds with nation X, and like 10 with nation Y, in the same time, we can talk about massing if you ask me.

Just for the record, I've also used rush tactic against many players in the blitzes with certain nations, and needless to say that they couldn't do anything. This all happens because of the imbalances of sacreds/blessings.

Agreed. There are imbalances in uber blesses in current blitz settings. However, I do not think Mictlan is one of the culprits in this situation. Van/Helheim holds the current imba bless medal currently IMO. Catch me in the channel sometimes if you can and I'll duel your rush tactic. The key to defeating /most/ rush tactics in blitzes is to be prepared for them. Obviously if you're running around with a human pretender and focused on a building up strat you'll get stomped against an uber bless. I remember my first encounter with an uber bless I thought it was imba as well but I stomped it pretty thoroughly after I changed my strat/build. IMO, currently the BIGGEST problem is Order gives you too much gold. Every uber bless can just take order 3 and sack every other scale without any significant disadvantage.

[DominionsFan]

KissBlade said:

Agreed. There are imbalances in uber blesses in current blitz settings. However, I do not think Mictlan is one of the culprits in this situation. Van/Helheim holds the current imba bless medal currently IMO. Catch me in the channel sometimes if you can and I'll duel your rush tactic. The key to defeating /most/ rush tactics in blitzes is to be prepared for them. Obviously if you're running around with a human pretender and focused on a building up strat you'll get stomped against an uber bless. I remember my first encounter with an uber bless I thought it was imba as well but I stomped it pretty thoroughly after I changed my strat/build. IMO, currently the BIGGEST problem is Order gives you too much gold. Every uber bless can just take order 3 and sack every other scale without any significant disadvantage.

I also agree that van/hel are the best uber bless nations in EA. The problem is that you can prepare yourself against uber bless builds in a duel of course, but it is impossible to tell that what will player XY gonna use in a team or FFA game. So if you choose to start with an "anti bless" build there, it might be a bad choice overall, hence you will skip some otherwise very effective blitz builds.

[KissBlade]

DominionsFan said:

I also agree that van/hel are the best uber bless nations in EA. The problem is that you can prepare yourself against uber bless builds in a duel of course, but it is impossible to tell that what will player XY gonna use in a team or FFA game. So if you choose to start with an "anti bless" build there, it might be a bad choice overall, hence you will skip some otherwise very effective blitz builds.

Not really, general experience from blitzes have shown me that you need to factor in some sort of counter against uber blesses whether it be a thug pretender to counter raid, expanding in the right direction while leaving a good buffer of heavy cavs in the way or rushing up to some battle magic. Very effective blitz builds are those that focuses upon early expansion and a strong early mid game development through battlemages and archer/xbow flocks and tough screens. Most strategies aren't impossible to predict, 9/10 of every blitz player who picks a bless worthy nation is going to dual bless. When I see Mictlan in a lineup, I ALWAYS try to prepare for a f9 at the very least. If I see niefelheim, I'll always try to counter regen. If I encounter a good Helheim/Vanheim player, well ... I'll spam GANG VAN! =)