Balanced Nations

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

I just finished the first round of this Tournament, and want to start the second, which will occur in the middle era.

So, I am bumping to see if anyone has an opinion on the relative balanceness of these nations:

Man
Machaka
Marignon
Abysia
Tien Chi
Agartha

Right now, I think Tien Chi's incredible magic diversity means they outclass the rest of the list, and Abysia's inhuman infantry with strong bless potential mean they play rather differently than the rest of the stinkers. I think Ulm would make a great replacement for one of them, but cannot decide which, or if any other's need to be fixed to get a better balance in the middle era.

This list is MA?

Agartha and Abysia are the low end of the powercurve. TBH, MA Agartha is pretty unplayable, having recently tried. Any astral nation shuts them down completely.

Abysia isn't quite as bad off, since at least they have a good early game. But their mid game will be worse than Man's. And no, MA Aby does not go for a bless, their sacreds aren't that good.

Machaka, Man, and TC are probably equally viable in CBM 1.6. I don't know about 1.7, i think TC got screwed more than the other two by the loss of hammers.

Marignon is the bless rush nation to worry about, if you're worried about differing play styles. I'm not convinced they outclass the other nations that badly though, but they're certainly the strongest on the list.

If we take Machaka, Man, TC, and Marignon as the basis of the nations, we're looking for nations with an emphasis on conventional forces (Machaka spider riders are conventional).

If it's CBM 1.7, Ulm *might* be viable enough, although i don't know how much the changes actually helped them.

I still think Arco is a good fit. Yes, they have elephants, but elephants aren't exactly hard to counter...

I'd also look at C'tis.