Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[quantum_mechani]

Twan said:

Strange to give a better note for Arco's midgame than early or late. Especially a 5.

Arco is clearly weaker between the moment when elephants become obsolete (because ennemies use MR spells, thugs etc) and when the level 8-9 extremely powerful astral spells are researched (and diversification to death or other thugs summons achieved).

I think it all hinges on where you call midgame. The elephants give them early stregth, but they really hit the peak of their power when they get mind hunt/soul slay/evocations. Normally, this power continues into the late game, but they have a fairly serious weakness there of fragile mages.

[Twan]

Hum yes I translated early game by expansion/rush (with say level 3 max magic researched). Midgame by when you have several schools at levels 4-6. Late when you have several levels 7-9. Also I value more mass astral spells than midgame ones, even if the two are powerful, my Arco's peak would be just in the beginning of late stage, when first level 8-9 battle magic (will of the fates, master enslave) is reached.

But my interpretation is probably not the best as I feel like a note is missing for after.

The end game (when you and all your opponents have most schools at level 9 and access to numerous tartarians able to cast spells like rain of stones) is very different than the beginning of late game, as human mages lose most of their offensive power. On the other hand calling "midgame" all the game between level 4-5 magic and the moment all magic is researched, would make hard to differenciate nations.

[JimMorrison]

Well the way I looked at it is this (and maybe I should clarify in the first post) - early game is mostly indies, unless it is a nation that can do viable fast rushes in the first year, then you score accordingly. Mid game, you've researched first few key schools, cons 4 for blood nations, maybe fire arrows, mistform for SCs, whatever, the point being you've only accessed the first 2-3 pivotal spells for your strat, and you may be going into a real war at this point. Late game is not end game for sure, but would be the point where people are getting to level 9 in 1-2 schools (depending on strat and magic scale), and are starting to deploy late game summons, and introduce powerful rituals and whatnot, though such things are not saturated, nor commonplace.

[JimMorrison]

I really appreciate the posts so far, but I'm going to keep this thread up top for a few more days at least. If you see the potential of this resource, poke your friends, they can post as few or as many ratings as they like, as long as they feed the beast.

[JimMorrison]

Rate some nations, you lazy sots!

I'm content to lift the restrictions on # of ratings. Just give me some. It's hardly a compiled average if most nations are only rated by 1-2 people..... Doing this will save you time and effort explaining to new players which nations to try in order to learn the game faster. Also, it will entertain you, I PROMISE. <3

[sansanjuan]

JM,
I've enjoyed reading the posts but don't have enough nations under my belt for useful rating context. Interesting thread though.
-SSJ

[MaxWilson]

Okay, in that case, with the understanding that the late-game numbers are quite fuzzy:

EA Agartha 2 4 3 3 ? (Have to learn national summons to play well.)
EA Ulm 4 3 3 4 ? (Piles and piles of excellent troops, have to learn to forge earth boots.)
EA Helheim 5 4 3 3 ? (Easy to learn bless strats for the early game, harder to learn to use thugs and air magic. Poor research.)
EA Niefelheim 5 4 4 4 ? (Easy to learn bless strats and skinshifters.)
EA C'tis 4 4 5 4 ? (Excellent troops, pretty to learn some options for death mages. Have to learn to diversify in late game.)
EA Yomi 4 2 4 2 ? (Oni Kings are easy, have to learn to use everything else.)
EA Marverni 3 4 4 2 ? (Not everyone sees the potential at first. Read Baalz's guide for pointers.)
EA Ermor 4 4 4 4 ? (Excellent troops + battlemages, like C'tis but with better diversity.)
EA Lanka 5 5 5 4 ? (Early game bless is simple, blood magic more complicated later on.)

MA Ashdod 5 5 5 4 ? (Excellent battlemages, good troops and PD.)

LA Agartha 4 5 4 3 ? (Have to learn effective expansion strategies, and how to use national summons. Poor mapmove except for summons.)

The average is high because I've mostly played with nations that seem strong and/or interesting to me, and I didn't feel qualified to rate those that I haven't played with. Even the nations that are rated low could be quite powerful in the endgame if you have a good gem/gold economy or branch out to other magic paths via your pretender/certain indies.

-Max

Edit: Revised Helheim's rating downward. Revised EA Ermor early-game rating downward. Revised Ulm slightly upward.